Robert Gorwa

PhD Student, Researcher

University of Oxford

Who am I?

I’m a doctoral student in the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, and a researcher interested in platform regulation, content moderation, and other transnational digital policy challenges.
I’m currently in Berlin, working on my dissertation as a fellow at the Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG). I’ve previously held fellowships and other research positions at the WZB Berlin Social Science Centre, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, the Oxford Internet Institute, McGill’s Max Bell School of Public Policy, and the Project on Internet and Democracy at Stanford.

What do I do?

My work brings perspectives from political science and international relations together with a range of interdisciplinary approaches to digital media research, in an effort to better understand the politics behind various recent tech policy issues. Over the course of my PhD, I have published three academic articles on platform governance and regulation: a literature review and conceptual map of the research landscape, a look at the intersection of automated decision-making and the politics of platform decisions, and a more focused exploration of the effects of ‘soft’ regulation through informal initiatives like codes of conduct.
Other than my writing on content moderation, I’m interested in the role of tech companies as increasingly important actors in global politics, and in scrutinizing efforts to research and regulate bots and other forms of social automation. I contribute to the Los Angeles Review of Books and have written about these topics for Wired UK, the Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, and other outlets.

Updates

Publications and News

New article on automated decision-making in content moderation out in Big Data & Society

Mar 4, 2020

Report on European digital media policy published by RISJ

Nov 28, 2019

Essay on informal regulation published as part of CIGI collection

Oct 29, 2019

Research Interests

A quick snapshot of major projects and topics

Platform Governance

Exploring the regulation and governance of/by platform companies.

Content Moderation

Exploring the global political impact of content decisions.

Private Cybersecurity

How do private actors shape global cybersecurity practices?

Understanding Bots

What is the political role of automated agents online?

Journal Articles

Algorithmic Content Moderation: Technical and Political Challenges in the Automation of Platform Governance

An accessible technical primer on how automated content moderation works, and a discussion of its political promises and technical pitfalls.

Robert Gorwa, Reuben Binns, Christian Katzenbach

Big Data & Society 7 (1), 2020.

Project Open Access

The Platform Governance Triangle: Conceptualising the Informal Regulation of Online Content

Grounding voluntary and non-binding governance regimes for platforms in the the traditional trasnational and corporate governance literatures.

Robert Gorwa

Internet Policy Review 8 (2), 2019.

Project Open Access

A first mapping of the interdisciplinary research agenda for platform governance, an overview of emerging governance modes, and a discussion some of the normative principles which promise to shape platform governance going forward.

Robert Gorwa

Information, Communication & Society 22 (6), 854-871, 2019.

Preprint Project Online First

Unpacking the Social Media Bot: A Typology to Guide Research and Policy

A review of the interdisciplinary literature on ‘bots’ and social automation, and a discussion of major limitations in existing research methods.

Robert Gorwa, Douglas Guilbeault

Policy & Internet, 2018.

Online First arXiv

More Publications

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Robert Gorwa, Timothy Garton Ash (2020). Democratic Transparency in the Platform Society. In Social Media and Democracy: The State of the Field, edited by Nate Persily and Josh Tucker. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Project SocArxiv

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Robert Gorwa, Madeleine de Cock Buning (2019). What Can Be Done? Digital Media Policy Options for Strengthening European Democracy. Oxford, UK: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

PDF

Carl Öhman, Robert Gorwa, Luciano Floridi (2019). Prayer-Bots and Religious Worship on Twitter: A Call for a Wider Research Agenda. Minds & Machines 29 (2), 331–338.

Project Open Access

Robert Gorwa, Max Smeets (2019). Cyber Conflict in Political Science: A Review of Methods and Literature. International Studies Association (Toronto, March 27-30).

Project SocArXiv

Timothy Garton Ash, Robert Gorwa, Danaë Metaxa (2019). Glasnost? Nine ways Facebook can make itself a better forum for free speech and democracy. Oxford, UK: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

Project Report

Robert Gorwa, Anton Peez (2018). Tech Companies as Cybersecurity Norm Entrepreneurs: A Critical Analysis of Microsoft’s Cybersecurity Tech Accord. Hague Conference on Responsible Behaviour in Cyberspace, (The Hague, November 5-7).

Project SocArXiv

Robert Gorwa (2018). Unpacking the Ecosystem of Social Media Manipulation: A Polish Case Study. In Computational Propaganda: Political Parties, Politicians, and Political Manipulation on Social Media, edited by Samuel Woolley and Philip Howard. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Project OUP Google Books

Robert Gorwa, Philip Howard (2018). Studying Politically Vulnerable Communities Online: Ethical Dilemmas, Questions, and Solutions. ICWSM Workshop on Exploring Ethical Trade-offs in Social Media Research (Stanford, June 25).

arXiv

Douglas Guilbeault, Robert Gorwa (2018). Current Challenges for Bot Policy and Foreign Interference. Washington, DC: Campaign Legal Centre.

Project Report

Robert Gorwa (2017). Computational Propaganda in Poland: False Amplifiers and the Digital Public Sphere. Oxford, UK: Oxford Internet Institute.

Project Report

Writing

Essays, Magazine Articles, & Reviews

Regulating Them Softly.” CIGI Online, October 2019. (Special collection: ‘Models for Platform Governance’)
“Big Tech Hits the Diplomatic Circuit.” Berlin Policy Journal & Internationale Politik, July/August 2019 (with Anjo Peez).
“The Last of the Unicorns.” Los Angeles Review of Books, March 2019.
“Facebook’s Decency Conundrum.” Wired (UK), November/December 2018.
“Platform Moderation and Its Discontents.” Los Angeles Review of Books, August 2018.
“Tinder Nightmares.” Wired (UK), July 2017 (with Doug Guilbeault).
“Quantum Leap: China’s Satellite and the New Arms Race.” Foreign Affairs, September 2016 (with Taylor Owen).

Opinions & Blogs

As Platforms Rely Less on Human Content Moderators, What’s at Stake? CIGI Online, March 2020.
Here is what policymakers can do for Europe’s digital media ecosystem. The Conversation, November 2019 (with Rasmus Nielsen and Madeleine de Cock Buning).
The Shifting Definition of Platform Governance. CIGI Online, October 2019.
Here’s how Mark Zuckerberg can save Facebook from itself. Wired (UK), March 2019 (with Danaë Metaxa).
Twitter has a serious ‘bot problem,’ and Wikipedia might have the solution. Quartz, October 2017.
On Facebook, foreign interference, and sharing data with researchers. Washington Post, May 2017 (with Phil Howard).
Why detecting ‘Russian bots’ isn’t quite as easy as people seem to think. NetPolitics, March 2017.
Just stop the Internet of Things, please (before its too late). OpenCanada, November 2016.
A conversation about quantum computing, R&D, and state power. World Politics Review, October 2016 (with Taylor Owen).
Talking to a colleague about the ethics of doing research in conflict zones. The Envoy, October 2015.