Trigger warning: the development and popularization of new forms of censorship in social media
and microblogging platforms
Sara Nummenpää
Pro Gradu Thesis
English Philology
Faculty of Humanities
University of Oulu
Spring 2017
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Censorship on Social Media: The Rise of Trigger Warnings on Tumblr, Study Guides, Projects, Research of Communication
This Pro Gradu thesis explores the development and popularization of trigger warnings as a form of self-imposed censorship on Tumblr. the shift in content production and distribution on social media, focusing on the usage of trigger warnings on Tumblr due to its format and site culture. The study also considers the intersection of linguistics and psychology in these developments and the impact of censorship on freedom of expression. an overview of the data, including the mechanics of Tumblr posts and censorship, and examines the role of gatekeeping and content warnings in mainstream media.
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Trigger warning: the development and popularization of new forms of censorship in social media and microblogging platforms
Sara Nummenpää Pro Gradu Thesis English Philology Faculty of Humanities University of Oulu Spring 2017
Table of Contents
Appendix A. 100 most common words in the marked arachnophobia tags.
Appendix B. Normalized frequency of 100 most common words in the marked arachnophobia tags.
Appendix C. Normalized frequency of 100 most common words in the Corpus of Contemporary American English.
1 Introduction
Within the past few years there has been a noticeable shift in the nature of content production and distribution on social media websites. With the spread of mental health awareness, as well as the development of browser plug-ins which enable the blacklisting of keywords, the use of content warnings on personal blog posts has become increasingly frequent. Moreover, increased social awareness among the general public has brought to light a number of questions concerning the numerous facets of political correctness, freedom of expression, and personal image management that are involved in active social networking. These elements have converged in a widespread practice of innovative content classification and censorship in certain social spheres, which is produced on a self-reflective basis. In other words, this particular brand of censorship is self- imposed, and the social culture of these online social spheres has developed to accommodate and perpetuate its practice. The intent of this paper is to examine the development and popularization of these new forms of censorship as they are used on microblogging platforms.
Particular attention will be paid to the usage of trigger warnings on Tumblr.com due in part to the format, which enables the classification and censorship of content through a system of metatags, as well as to the site culture, which has helped popularize both censorship and self-censorship in social media. The nature of this censorship will be described as it appears within the framework of the website, and the relationship between the agents of censorship and the content beings censored will be scrutinized. The concept of censorship in these spheres will be defined and grounded in a contemporary context, and the nature of this practice will be analyzed in the dynamic environment in which it presents itself. The cross-sections of linguistics and psychology which lie at the heart of these developments will be considered, with a particular focus on the executive functions of language taking on an active role in cooperative censorship in social media. This study will focus on describing the form which these metatags take and their relationship to the text with which they are associated, as well as the popularization of their usage and how it has evolved.
2 Theoretical background
This section will begin with a closer look at computer-mediated communication and how it functions on the Internet. This will be followed by an overview of the practice of censorship in the context of both private and public communication and social interaction. The role of gatekeeping as well as the usage of content warnings in mainstream media will then be further examined, so as to establish a point of comparison when making the shift to cooperative censorship in more personal forms of communication. It must be noted that since the forms of censorship that this study will examine are a relatively recent phenomenon, there is very little written on the topic itself. This study must therefore rely on research relevant to more traditional forms censorship in order to establish a baseline from which to begin analysis.
The psychological implications of censorship will also be examined in order to present a more comprehensive understanding of the more practical functions of censorship in a social context. However, this will remain somewhat limited, so as to avoid the risk of unwarranted extrapolation in a field not directly related to this study. Finally, this section will look at what forms of self- censorship are present in various social media networks and the roles this censorship plays in the dynamic social exchanges taking place on microblogging platforms.
2.1 Computer-mediated communication
In order to better understand the phenomena at hand, its function must first be considered in the context of its form and mode. As it takes place solely through the Internet, naturally it falls under the classification of computer-mediated communication. Computer-mediated communication, hereafter referred to as CMC, is, by its most basic definition, communication which takes place between humans via the instrumentality of computers (Herring, 1996, p. 1). However, its exact parameters still remain somewhat enigmatic; a number of researchers have attempted to more
accurately describe CMC, and have produced a number of similar definitions of varying degrees of precision. December (1997) has described it as the following:
Computer Mediated Communication is a process of human communication via computers, involving people, situated in particular contexts, engaging in processes to shape media for a variety of purposes.
December presents a carefully considered, but vague definition, expanding upon Herring’s interpretation to situate CMC within the context of its roles and its function in society with a focus on the actuation of its purpose. In other words, CMC involves human communication though a variety of cooperative processes to engage with different forms of media in order to create meaning. Conversely, Santoro (1995; as cited in Thurlow, 2004) has attempted to more clearly describe the different modes of CMC within the context of human communication:
At its broadest, CMC can encompass virtually all computer uses including such diverse applications as statistical analysis programs, remote-sensing systems, and financial modelling programs, all fit within the concept of human communication (p. 15).
While December focuses on the what , Santoro’s more concrete applications engage with the how. Though these different formats do not immediately seem to involve more typical forms of human communication, they speak to the enigmatic nature of what communication is and how it is performed. However, for the sake of this study focus will mainly be placed on text-based CMC on the Internet. This can take two forms: synchronous CMC, where the message is received immediately, and asynchronous CMC, where it is received at a later point in time. This study will be looking at the latter.
To further understand the nature of CMC, its history and development must be addressed. Essentially, CMC began when the first electronic digital computer was built, or at the very least in the early 1960s, when the first prototype emails were exchanged. However, the field has experienced an exponential expansion only within the last twenty years, as computers made the shift from being highly technical, expensive machines to highly accessible and personal communicative tools (Thurlow et al., 2004, p. 14). Nowadays, text-based CMC is engaged in daily
through a variety of different modes, including email, newsgroups, forums, and chat; and in a variety of different social contexts, including but not limited to professional, political, recreational, and commercial (Herring, 2002, pp. 109–110). This multifaceted nature of CMC on the Internet has only diversified as new developments in computer technology have taken place. The history of these developments will be further discussed in Sections 2.2.2 and 2.2.3, but the very nature of Internet communication and information spread has ensured that these changes have resulted in a lasting impact on the foundations of what is considered to be modern day CMC research.
Indeed, in the Annual Review of Information Science and Technology , Herring (2002) states that “the Internet increasingly defines CMC by providing the context within which many, if not most, CMC applications operate” (p. 110). Nowadays, the Internet has become inextricable from the majority of the CMC taking place, as its role has become central to the large scale functioning and usage of computers as communicational tools. The special affordances that this relationship allows have led to a unique dynamic between computer and communicator, one which remains fluid and ever evolving as computer science develops new ways of interacting through the Internet.
The following sections will look at some of the features of CMC on the Internet, its implications and effects, as well as some of the supporting theories which help define the field of study. Section 2.2.1 will discuss the different modes of CMC, followed by Section 2.2.2 and 2.2.3 which discuss the history and development of CMC on the Internet in two different phases: the World Wide Web and Web 2.0. Section 2.2.4 introduces the question of the role of technological determination in the development and practice of CMC, and Section 2.2.5 considers the issue of freedom of expression in the context of CMC. This is followed by an overview of its influence on community formation and large scale discussions in Section 2.2.6.
2.2.1 Modes of CMC
According to Herring (2002), “perhaps the most important cumulative finding of Internet research over the past fifteen years is that computer-mediated communication varies according to the technologies on which it is based, and according to its contexts of use” (p. 111). The factors which demonstrate this variance range from temporal constraints (i.e. synchronous vs asynchronous communication), to communicative channels, and other features of the messaging platform through which the communication is taking place. However, these characteristics are not the sole determining factor in the classification of CMC. It must be taken into account that differences in user demographics (e.g., gender, age, race, education, etc.) can result in vastly different communication styles, even within the same system (Burkhalter, 1999, p. 63). Additionally, situational variables such as the purpose of communication, participant structures, and the topic of communication greatly influence online communication.
Ultimately, the combination of a variety of different factors dictates the resultant communication style, and in conjunction with the characteristics of the computer environment, the convergence of these elements allows the CMC to be situated within a recognizable mode. A mode is essentially a genre of CMC which combines messaging protocols with the social and cultural practices that have evolved around their use (Murray, 1988). In other words, the mode is determined by both the features and constraints of a messaging platform in coordination with the ways in which they are utilized. Due to the very nature of online communication, the emergence of the different modes of CMC is inherently tied to history of the Internet. From the ARPANET, the predecessor of the modern day Internet, to the Usenet and the World Wide Web, CMC has developed alongside the technology, utilizing its different features and capabilities to expand the reaches of human communication. A brief overview of this shared history can be seen in Figure 2.1.
main application of the Internet, second only to email in popularity (Herring, 2002, p. 126; Pastore, 2000).
In essence the Web is a meta-mode of CMC: it subsumes and integrates all other modes of CMC (Soukup, 2000; as cited in Herring, 2002, p. 126). The Web serves as a link to chat interfaces, discussion lists, and email applications in addition to other Web pages, as well as to different communication media like text, graphics, audio, and video (ibid.). In this sense, the characteristics associated with Web communication are broad and multifaceted in nature, which poses the question: to what extent is this communication interpersonal? With the intrusion of capitalism the Web had become a place to make commercial transactions, and Web pages used for other purposes were also less conducive to interpersonal interaction than other modes, like email. Indeed, as Wakeford (2000) has pointed out, Web-based communication is less interactive than other modes such as chat; Web pages often communicate meaning through various nontextual means, such as graphics, page layout, and web design, to which a user cannot respond in kind. Ultimately, it was these limitations that formed the foundation for the development and expansion of the Web as a communicative network, as exemplified by Web 2.0.
2.2.3 Web 2.
The late 1990s saw a stark shift towards more dynamic websites, geared specifically towards frequent communication. These websites were designed so that their content could be updated frequently and allowed users to interact with the content by more immediate means, through chat boxes, comment sections, and the like (Virtanen et al., 2013, p. 12). These trends laid the foundations for what came to be called Web 2.0. Though highly debated, the term Web 2.0 is typically understood to refer to a set of popular web-based platforms “characterized by social interaction and user-generated content” (ibid.). As Web 2.0 set out to solve the limitations of the World Wide Web, Web sites adapted to the rising pressure and desire for easier communication and became far more conducive of interpersonal interaction. This gave way to the rise of blogging
sites, social media networks, and editable catalogues of information (i.e. Wikipedia and its progeny).
Figure 2.2. Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0 phenomena (adapted by Virtanen et al., 2013, p. 13; from O’Reilly, 2005).
Figure 2.2 above highlights the evolution of different Web phenomena from the shift from Web 1.0, or the World Wide Web, to Web 2.0. Personal websites were overtaken by personal blogs, Britannica online was overshadowed by the cooperative encyclopedia site Wikipedia; overall there was a general shift from content existing as singular, independent points to cooperatively produced, shareable content ( i.e. Stickiness vs. Syndication). This shift in the very nature of the Internet warranted a new classification: Web 2.0.
The term itself was first introduced in 2004, when it was far more aspirational than descriptive, and its meaning has fluctuated with the developments in Web usage and design (Virtanen et al., 2013, p. 13) Accordingly, today Web 2.0 refers to “the changing trends in, and new uses of, web technology and web design, especially involving participatory information sharing; user-generated content; an ethic of collaboration; and use of the web as a social platform” (Virtanen et al., 2013, p. 12). This concept has come to encompass a large portion of modern Web sites and applications, and as they have become accessible from not only desktop computers and laptops, but also smart phones and tablets, the presence and relevance of Web 2.0 in daily life has increased accordingly. The use of the Web as a social platform is particularly visible as social media has become a large staple of popular culture, as people engage in CMC through social media sites such as Facebook,
2.2.4 Technological determination
The nature of these discourse phenomena in the context of CMC on the Internet is multifaceted, and their origin can be problematic to trace. The factors which influenced their formation can be difficult to define; with this in mind, Herring (1996) has posed the following question:
To what extent does the computer medium alter human interaction, and to what extent do people simply map their existing patterns of behavior onto communication in the new medium? (p. 4).
Indeed, it is difficult to determine in which direction influence flows when human and computer interact so intimately, and it is with this same question that the issue of technological determination is concerned. According to Virtanen et al. (2013), “new expressive needs and forms arise from and adapt to specific conditions of the new medium” (p. 9). However, the question still remains: to what extent do these expressive forms arise from the conditions of the medium, and to what extent do existing conditions adapt to them?
Making the distinction between these two classifications is incredibly difficult due to the nature of CMC; they appear and spread without leaving specific clues as to where they originated and how. Regarding this question, Virtanen et al. (2013) stated the following:
Such new functions result from the specific “faceting” structure (Herring, 2007) – the affordances and the communicative situation – of the medium, together with an enhanced metapragmatic awareness arising from the textual nature of most CMC (Herring, 1999) (p. 9).
In other words, they believe that these new expressive forms arise from the combined influence of the nature of the medium and the awareness, on the users’ part, of the effects and conditions of the language itself, thereby giving rise to forms fit to fill the needs of users of CMC on a particular platform. However, this diverges somewhat from the theory of technological determinism, as these effects are ultimately more variable than categorical, manifesting in different ways according to different languages and cultures (ibid.). The human element interacting with the
computer is essential to understanding the creation of these forms, and although patterns of usage do develop, the ways they are implemented vary according to the linguistic background and culture of the user.
2.2.5 Freedom of expression
Also related to the cultural background of the CMC user is the issue of freedom of expression, or free speech. Cultural perceptions vary, but most Western societies hold this concept in high regard and therefore it is inevitable that the question of free speech would appear in relation to these developments in CMC. Barlow (1996) has discussed how this concept has been relevant since the inception of the Internet: “[the creators of the Internet] believed that the Internet structurally encouraged free speech, by ‘routing around censorship’”. It is debatable to what extent this was accomplished in practice, but the nature of the Internet today as a platform for CMC has retained much of these characteristics which inhibit censorship on an international scale. Of course, national governments have the ability to censor and prevent access to certain Internet sites, but these limitations are narrow reaching and fairly easy to circumvent in most cases. On a smaller scale, individual Web sites can and do censor content, but as of yet there is no single governing authority that can censor the Internet as a whole, meaning that anyone with access to a computer can potentially create their own sites without worry of censorship. Indeed, the Internet has been touted as a platform of equality, as individuals and groups who might not otherwise have a chance to speak freely can utilize the Internet as a public forum in order to make themselves heard (Herring, 2002, p. 141). This is a rather optimistic standpoint, as access to the Internet can be limited by economic status and government interference, but nevertheless, such instances are relatively rare.
On the other hand, the unconstrained speech on the Internet has presented its own challenges, such as the low signal-to-noise ratio (i.e., more low quality communication than high quality communication) and the abundance of unregulated anti-social CMC behaviors (e.g., spamming,
polarization, anti-social behavior, anonymity, and the desire to maintain a status quo within an online CMC community has led to a particularly innovative form of censorship, which will be the main focus of this study.
2.3 Censorship
To begin with, the nature of censorship must be examined, for it has become ever more multifaceted with the diversification of consumable media. Censorship as it stands is “the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security,” as defined by the Oxford English dictionary. In modern society, the concept of censorship typically carries a somewhat negative connotation, as it is typically associated in the public mind as a tool implicit in systematic oppression and power politics. Arsan (2013) indeed describes censorship in the traditional sense as “a mechanism executed by the ruling class to consciously and willingly prevent the public from attaining certain information” (p. 447). Governments can utilize various regulations to prevent the free movement and spread of information, which then become internalized by media personnel, resulting in a policy of self-censorship without systematic enforcement (ibid.). It is possible to follow the various policies of censorship enforced by various governments throughout history, as they all fall into four distinct categories as defined by Phillips & Harslof (1997): ‘manifest-defensive’, ‘manifest- offensive’, ‘latent-defensive’, and ‘latent-offensive’. These terms are further defined by Arsan:
In ‘manifest-defensive’ censorship, media content is cut, banned, deleted, or censored for the lofty interests of the state. […] In ‘manifest-offensive’ censorship, the attempts of the ruling class or government to reproduce and spread a false reality through public relations strategies and spin doctoring are very common. There exists a conscious and willing attempt to strictly control and reproduce what is presented to the public in this form of censorship. What is denoted by ‘latent-defensive’ censorship is the seizure and complete control of media channels that meet the informational needs of a society. The term ‘latent-offensive’ describes the silencing of the values and beliefs of people by the cultural hegemony of dominant groups. (p. 448)
These four systems of censorship often exist in tandem, working together to regulate the distribution of ideas within a social sphere. It is a multilayered phenomenon which has multiple
side effects, perhaps most noticeably the culturally ingrained sense of self-censorship resulting from socio-political pressure.
However, this is only one side of the coin; the nature of censorship is far more complex than such a singular reading might suggest. It is present in all forms of consumable media as well as in personal interaction and conduct, and has uses ranging from diplomacy and tact to simply functioning as a tool to avoid problematic situations in a domestic sphere. This present duality stems from a shift in the meaning of censorship. In the traditional sense, censorship implies that a certain power structure is acting within a social sphere. Yet, as the nature of journalism and media becomes increasingly more accessible both in terms of consumption and production, the nature of censorship also naturally shifts. The formal power structures have less influence and censorship becomes more self-directed, motivated by individual beliefs rather than widespread political agendas. However, this is not to say that these socio-political power structures have lost all influence; rather, their influence is increasingly seen through instances of self-censorship (Arsan, p. 458).
On the other hand, while censorship is moving towards a more personal sphere, it remains a highly politicized subject as its implementation poses great risks in terms of the freedom of expression. As Filak et al. (2009) state, “the ability to express one's self in an unfettered manner is at the core of the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution and is often viewed as a ‘natural right,’ thus not endowed by government but rather inherent to the human condition” (p. 368). This being said, in most democratic countries, there are protections in place to prevent the misuse of censorship in a political sense. Though their effectiveness is debatable, they are nevertheless present, and act as politically acknowledged guardians of the freedoms of speech and the press, particularly in American society, where these rights are considered central to the country’s sense of cultural identity.
However, it must be noted that self-censorship tends to fall outside these legal guidelines as it typically presents in the form of self-directed omission, which is particularly difficult to identify or