Glossary of Platform Law and Policy Terms
Courtney Radsch is an American Journalist. She holds a Ph.D. in international relations and is author of Cyberactivism and Citizen Journalism in Egypt: Digital Dissidence and Political Change. She has also worked as the advocacy director for the Committee to Protect Journalists until 2021.
Author: Courtney Radsch ‘Shadowban’ refers to a relatively common moderation practice of lowering a user’s visibility, content or ability to interact without them knowing it so that they can continue to use the platform normally, but their content is not visible to anyone else. It can refer to user-driven or platform-driven blocking, and its meaning has expanded… Continue reading Shadowban/ Shadow-ban
Author: Courtney Radsch Prioritization can refer to a form of traffic management and the way traffic flows through the internet and its connected parts; it can refer to the ranking of results in a hierarchy. In the former, some network traffic is given precedence over others. Prioritization of some types of information over others can… Continue reading Prioritization
Author: Courtney Radsch Optimization refers to the practice or process of making something as effective, visible, functional, or efficient as possible. More specifically, search engine optimization refers to the practice of designing your website or page to increase the quantity, quality, or both, of organic, unpaid search results. At the same time, optimization is a… Continue reading Optimization
Author: Courtney Radsch A hash is a function that can be used to generate a unique identifier or value that can then be converted to another value and decoded via a hash table and is used for several purposes. With respect to content moderation and platform governance, a hash is akin to a digital fingerprint that is added to… Continue reading Hash/Hash-database
Author: Courtney Radsch ‘Deplatforming’, or ‘de-platforming’, refers to the ejection of a user from a specific technology platform by closing their accounts, banning them, or blocking them from using the platform or its services. It is worth noting that deplatforming may be permanent or temporary. Temporary suspensions and impossibility to access one’s account can be considered as… Continue reading Deplatforming/De-platforming
Author: Courtney Radsch See also deplatforming/de-platforming. This term refers to the intentional removal and unintentional removal of results from search engines and/or indexing websites. A website can be deindexed using robot.txt, which can be implemented to prevent other sites from crawling pages or sites or manually delisted. Search engines can implement themselves to remove or reduce… Continue reading Deindexing