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Start Date
23-6-2022 12:00 AM
End Date
23-6-2022 12:00 AM
Abstract
Posters of #fatacceptance to Instagram detail their individual journeys of body acceptance while others use the hashtag for political and activist purposes to fight fat discrimination and stigma. Yet other hijacking users of the hashtag push back on the very idea of fat acceptance. The discussions that occur over the use of #fatacceptance on Instagram are important sites for observing both the limitations of official content moderation on Instagram as well as an emerging form of users themselves engaging in unofficial content moderation through discursive boundary-work. Because discourses of fat acceptance challenge dominant assumptions about fatness and health in the context of the obesity epidemic, this inevitably leads to debates over research on obesity and what kinds of information is “true” or “false.” Discursive boundary-work, then, takes the form of users repeatedly centering “true” or “correct” information, referencing experts and studies, and claiming the “other” is misunderstanding information or spreading (mis)information. However, these boundary-work as content moderation practices are more about users building and reinforcing norms of use, identities, and groups as well as the digital space for fat acceptance and feminist activism. Ultimately, I argue that our understandings of both content moderation and (mis)information on Instagram, as well as other social media platforms, need to be expanded and analyzed in consideration of their interplay with users’ own perspectives or beliefs, collective identities, relationships with other users and groups, and larger sociocultural, political, activist, and feminist communities.
Don’t Use This Hashtag: Fat Acceptance Activism and Boundary-Work as Unofficial Content Moderation on Instagram
Posters of #fatacceptance to Instagram detail their individual journeys of body acceptance while others use the hashtag for political and activist purposes to fight fat discrimination and stigma. Yet other hijacking users of the hashtag push back on the very idea of fat acceptance. The discussions that occur over the use of #fatacceptance on Instagram are important sites for observing both the limitations of official content moderation on Instagram as well as an emerging form of users themselves engaging in unofficial content moderation through discursive boundary-work. Because discourses of fat acceptance challenge dominant assumptions about fatness and health in the context of the obesity epidemic, this inevitably leads to debates over research on obesity and what kinds of information is “true” or “false.” Discursive boundary-work, then, takes the form of users repeatedly centering “true” or “correct” information, referencing experts and studies, and claiming the “other” is misunderstanding information or spreading (mis)information. However, these boundary-work as content moderation practices are more about users building and reinforcing norms of use, identities, and groups as well as the digital space for fat acceptance and feminist activism. Ultimately, I argue that our understandings of both content moderation and (mis)information on Instagram, as well as other social media platforms, need to be expanded and analyzed in consideration of their interplay with users’ own perspectives or beliefs, collective identities, relationships with other users and groups, and larger sociocultural, political, activist, and feminist communities.
Bio
Associate Professor of Communication and Media at Merrimack College in North Andover, Massachusetts.
Web profile: https://www.merrimack.edu/live/profiles/586-melissa-zimdars
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mishmz