Sarah T. Roberts, Ph.D. is an associate professor at UCLA (Gender Studies, Information Studies, Labor Studies), specializing in Internet and social media policy, infrastructure, politics and culture, and the intersection of media, technology and society. She is the faculty director and co-founder of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2i2), co-director of the Minderoo Initiative on Technology & Power, and a research associate of the Oxford Internet Institute. Informed by feminist Science and Technology Studies perspectives, Roberts is keenly interested in the way power, geopolitics and economics play out on and via the internet, reproducing, reifying and exacerbating global inequities and social injustice.
Roberts researches information work and workers, and is a leading global authority on “commercial content moderation,” the term she coined to describe the work of those responsible for making sure media content posted to major commercial social platforms fall within legal, ethical, and the site’s own guidelines and standards. She is frequently consulted on matters of policy, worker welfare, and governance related to content moderation issues and the broader social media landscape. She can be seen and heard in many news reports, interviews, podcasts and programs. Additionally, she has experience in industry as a consultant and researcher, most recently working as a Staff Researcher for Twitter in 2022.
The first extensive ethnographic study of the commercial content moderation industry. Yale University Press, 2019.
Based on interviews with workers from Silicon Valley to the Philippines, at boutique firms and at major social media companies, Sarah T. Roberts contextualizes this hidden industry and examines the emotional toll it takes on its workers. This revealing investigation of the people “behind the screen” offers insights into not only the reality of our commercial internet but the future of globalized labor in the digital age.
Image from the NSF Future of Work initiative Thrilled to announce that, along with two colleagues, Donghee Yvette Wohn of NJIT and Libby Hemphill of UMich iSchool, we have won a $1.5 million grant to research and study decision-making and...
Portion of a figure from the Nature study depicting the transit of clusters of hate activity across and among platforms. An article from Eva Frederick in today's edition of Science gives some context and color commentary on a new study...
Pleased to have the honor of presenting at the final colloquium meeting of the academic year at UCLA's Department of Information Studies. Below is a series of links to resources and materials referenced in the talk. For Once, We Have...
'The Cleaners' makes its American television debut on November 12, 2018 UPDATE: The Cleaners is currently available for streaming for US audiences. At long last, The Cleaners makes its American wide-release début! The documentary film, first released this January at...
As of yesterday, my book eight years in the making is now available for pre-order. The book is Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadow of Social Media and will be published by Yale University Press. You may pre-order...
Saving here as much for posterity as to share it, the following announcement for a position in Michigan's School of Information for the 2018-19 has appeared. Of particular interest to me, and likely to many readers, is the fact that...
Numerous art installations, art videos, stage plays, audio plays, novels, other works of fiction and other artistic works inspired by Sarah’s academic work have been created since 2015.
