Prelims

Half Title Page

Platform Governance and Social Justice

Endorsements

In an age where digital platforms wield unprecedented influence over our lives, Platform Governance and Social Justice presents a compelling case of critical inquiry and theoretical innovation. In this groundbreaking work, Paloma Viejo Otero delves deep into the intricate web of power dynamics and ideological frameworks that underpin platform governance and moderation systems.

At its core, the strength of this book lies in its original theoretical approach, which skilfully unpacks the genealogy of platform governance. By tracing the historical roots and ideological underpinnings of these systems, Viejo Otero offers readers a profound understanding of how platforms have come to control and steer online discourse and user behaviour.

Platform Governance and Social Justice prises open and questions the power structures and systems of control that platforms have designed and implemented. Through meticulous analysis and incisive critique, the book exposes the often-hidden mechanisms through which platforms shape our digital experiences and influence societal norms.

What sets this book apart is its comprehensive examination of the digital platform ecosystem, considering both mainstream and ‘Alt Tech’ platforms. In essence, Platform Governance and Social Justice offers a timely and indispensable contribution to the field. With its rigorous scholarship, nuanced insights, and thought-provoking analysis, it constitutes an original contribution to ongoing debates and will inspire further research in the realms of platform governance and critical digital media studies. Viejo Otero has crafted an important work that not only sheds light on the present state of digital platforms but also offers a roadmap for envisioning more equitable forms of digital governance. The book will be indispensable for both advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as for researchers in platform governance.

—Professor Dr Eugenia Siapera, Information and Communication Studies, University College Dublin, Ireland

We have been waiting for this book for years. The debate on the role and responsibility of platform for hate speech has been waging widely and wildly. This book finally lays the foundations to hold this debate in informed ways. What are our concepts of hate speech, and how do they relate to freedom, security and justice? And how have platforms been able to shape and shift our understanding of these concepts? Viejo Otero unfolds this trajectory with vivid language and a sharp eye for the complexities and power structures involved in this debate. This book, with its typology of approaches of hate speech regulation, will be the key reference for research on hate speech and platform governance in the coming years.

—Professor Dr Christian Katzenbach, ZeMKI, University of Bremen, Germany

Series Title Page

Digital Activism and Society: Politics, Economy and Culture in Network Communication

The Digital Activism and Society: Politics, Economy and Culture in Network Communication series focuses on the political use of digital everyday-networked media by corporations, governments, international organisations (Digital Politics), as well as civil society actors, NGOs, activists, social movements and dissidents (Digital Activism) attempting to recruit, organise and fund their operations, through information communication technologies.

The series publishes books on theories and empirical case studies of digital politics and activism in the specific context of communication networks. Topics covered by the series include but are not limited to:

• the different theoretical and analytical approaches of political communication in digital networks;

• studies of sociopolitical media movements and activism (and ‘hacktivism’);

• transformations of older topics such as inequality, gender, class, power, identity and group belonging;

• strengths and vulnerabilities of social networks.

Title Page

Platform Governance and Social Justice

Governing Hate Speech on Social Media

by

Paloma Viejo Otero

ZeMKI, Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research, University of Bremen, Germany

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Emerald Publishing, Floor 5, Northspring, 21-23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL

First edition 2025

Copyright © 2025 Paloma Viejo Otero.

Chapter 6 © 2025 Paloma Viejo Otero and Erika Irusta.

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

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Contact: www.copyright.com

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters' suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-83797-105-3 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-83797-104-6 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-83797-106-0 (Epub)

Dedication

Dedicado a mi madre Margarita Otero Palacios

a mi amor François Kervarec,

a mi hermana Olga Viejo Otero

y a mis abuelos David Otero Canto y Covadonga Palacios Diaz.

About the Author

Paloma Viejo Otero is a Researcher specialising in platform governance and social justice. She received an award from Young Universities for the Future of Europe (YUFE Alliance) to collaborate with Professor Dr Christian Katzenbach's lab at the Centre for Media, Communication, and Information Research (ZeMKI), University of Bremen. At ZeMKI, Paloma is investigating socio-techno-political imaginaries in relation to hate speech, platform governance and social justice.

Paloma's academic background is in communications and social sciences. She earned her PhD in 2022 with a thesis titled ‘Governing Hate: Facebook and Hate Speech’, under the supervision of Prof Dr Eugenia Siapera at Dublin City University, School of Communication. Her PhD research examined the principles and values of Facebook's hate speech governing apparatus. Prior to her PhD, Paloma completed her undergraduate degree at Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, an MA in Cultural Studies and Arts Management from the Instituto de Investigación Ortega y Gasset in Madrid and an MPhil in Race, Ethnicity and Conflict from Trinity College Dublin.

In academia, Paloma has worked as a Research Assistant at the DCU Anti-Bullying Centre and as an external collaborator for Universidad Oberta de Catalunya. As a Lecturer, she has taught Cultural Studies at Dublin City University and Platform Governance at University College Dublin. At the University of Bremen, she has taught Transcultural Communications module and has created and facilitated modules such as Hate Speech in Social Media Platforms and Media Practice, including a module called Blueprint: Designing Platforms from a Social Justice Perspective. She also has significant experience in the public and non-profit sectors, including roles with the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Sudan and Guatemala, UNESCO, Migrants Rights Centre Dublin and the Peter McVerry Trust in Dublin.

Paloma is the author or co-author of two guides on understanding or combatting hate speech, Guide to Understand Hate Speech (2020) and We can!: Taking Action against Hate Speech through Counter and Alternative Narratives (2017) as well as several articles, including ‘Governing Hate: Facebook and Digital Racism’ (2021), co-authored with Prof Dr Eugenia Siapera.

This is Paloma's first book, representing eight years of research.

Acknowledgements

Firstly, I would like to thank Prof Dr Eugenia Siapera, who has accompanied me and helped this book to mature since 2015. Thank you for teaching me how collaborative academia should be. My most sincere thanks to the editor of this book Prof Dr Athina Karatzogianni for all her insights. Thanks to Prof Dr Christian Katzenbach, whose support and trust in me helped me to secure the YUFE Fellowship at the ZeMKI, University of Bremen, which enabled me to work on this book. I particularly appreciate your support and respect for your lab's individual intellectual freedom, as well as your leadership model, which is rare. Thanks to the ZeMKI, and in particular to Prof Dr Andreas Hepp, for his direction of the institute which hosts originality and academic freedom. Thanks to Prof Dr Gavan Titley, who inspired thoughts for this book and, of course, for your friendship (Church). Thanks to Prof Dr Andrew Finlay for teaching me to think things through thoroughly. And thank you, Prof Dr Ronit Lentin, for being a catalyst in my long-desired academic career. I want to thank all my colleagues at the ZeMKI, with special thanks to Anke Offerhaus and Janina Fadil-Kerstein.

Special thanks to Dr Mattias Ekman, Dr Elizabeth Farries, Prof Dr Roderick Flynn, Prof Dr Debbie Ging, Dr Robert Gorwa, Dr Miira Hill, Dr Tanya Lokot, Dr Ariadna Matamoros-Fernandez, Dr Tijana Milosevic, Prof Dr Kaarina Nikunen, Dr James O'Higgins Norman, Dr Leticia Ortega, Dr Matti Pohjonen, Dr Rebecca Scharlach and Dr Marielle Wijermars.