CDT
Content moderation systems and their real-world impacts (especially non-English languages and Global South contexts); platform transparency mechanisms; AI governance and automated decision-making on platforms; digital rights in platform policies.
- Type
- Nonprofit Research, Advocacy & Policy Org
- Based in
- Washington, DC (US)
- Focus region
- US policy + strong international/Global South focus
Notable projects
Multi-year research on content moderation in Maghreb/Maghrebi Arabic; Global South moderation studies; platform policy analysis and recommendations; AI policy work intersecting platforms.
Leads collaborative research projects (e.g., with local partners like Digital Citizenship in Tunisia). Bridges tech policy, civil liberties, and empirical platform research. Funded some work via Internet Society Foundation.
Reports (10)
Full database- Nov 2025· Cross-platform
What Kids and Parents Want: Policy Insights for Social Media Safety Features
Research with teens and parents identifies which safety features they actually want and use, arguing policy should center user-desired controls rather than blanket restrictions.
- Jun 2025· Cross-platform
Content Moderation in the Global South: Four Low-Resource Languages
Synthesizes four case studies showing platforms overwhelmingly invest in English-language moderation, leaving low-resource-language speakers under-protected and subject to both over- and under-enforcement.
- Jun 2025· Cross-platform
Moderating Quechua Content on Social Media
Quechua-language users face significantly worse experiences (mis-moderation, reduced reach, lack of language support) than Spanish-language posters.
- May 2025· Cross-platform
Moderating Tamil Content on Social Media
Content policies are unevenly defined and enforced for Tamil speakers; automated moderation and Trust & Safety resourcing lag far behind English.
- Dec 2024· Cross-platform
Moderating Kiswahili Content on Social Media
Kiswahili moderation suffers from limited language investment, sparse local context, and weak automated-system performance, harming users across East/Central Africa.
- Nov 2024· Other
Real Time Threats: CSEA Prevention on Livestreaming Platforms
Finds real-time/ephemeral video creates distinct detection and enforcement challenges for child sexual exploitation prevention that existing moderation tooling is poorly equipped to handle.
- Oct 2024· Cross-platform
Hated More: Online Violence Targeting Women of Color Candidates in the 2024 US Election
With University of Pittsburgh: women of color candidates experienced disproportionately high volumes of online abuse, hate, and mis/disinformation compared with other candidates.
- Sept 2024· Cross-platform
Moderating Maghrebi Arabic Content on Social Media
Maghrebi Arabic is frequently mis-moderated, with both wrongful takedowns and failure to catch harmful content, driven by under-investment and ill-suited automated systems.
- Nov 2023· Cross-platform
More Tools, More Control: Young Users on Handling Unwanted Messages
Young users want more granular controls to manage unwanted messages; current platform tools are insufficient, with design recommendations for youth safety that preserve autonomy.
- May 2023· Cross-platform
Lost in Translation: Large Language Models in Non-English Content Analysis
Multilingual LLMs used for content moderation perform substantially worse in non-English (especially low-resource) languages; cautions against treating them as a fix for global moderation.