Human-Machine Collaboration for Content Regulation: The Case of Reddit Automoderator

What one may say on the internet is increasingly controlled by a mix of automated programs, and decisions made by paid and volunteer human moderators. On the popular social media site Reddit, moderators heavily rely on a configurable, automated program called ‘Automoderator’ (or ‘Automod’). How do moderators use Automod? What advantages and challenges does the use of Automod present? We participated as Reddit moderators for over a year, and conducted interviews with 16 moderators to understand the use of Automod in the context of the sociotechnical system of Reddit. Our findings suggest a need for audit tools to help tune the performance of automated mechanisms, a repository for sharing tools, and improving the division of labor between human and machine decision making. We offer insights that are relevant to multiple stakeholders — creators of platforms, designers of automated regulation systems, scholars of platform governance, and content moderators.