Algorithmic Censorship of Online Visual Contents: Ethical, Political, and Economic Rationales [Ethische, politische oder ökonomische Gründe für, gegen oder bei der algorithmenbasierten Zensur bildlicher Inhalte in der Onine-Kommunikation]

Ortland, Eberhard

Abstract

Censorship is neither good nor bad, as it can be used for both bad (suppressing certain opinions) and good purposes (e.g. protecting children from images detrimental to the child’s personal development). The central question is always who should decide according to which criteria under which circumstances which images may and which may not be shown? In view of both the increasing number of circulated images due to the increase of cameras, digital communication technologies generally, and conflicts regarding circulation and accessibility of certain images, this task is increasingly assigned to more or less automatic censorship algorithms. Concerning the moderation of visual contents, algorithms need supervision by accountable human moderators so long as they cannot cope with the pragmatics of “pictorial speech acts”, among other challenges.