Over recent years, the stakes and complexity of online content moderation have been steadily raised, swelling from concerns about personal conflict in smaller communities to worries about effects on public life and democracy. Because of the massive growth in online expressions, automated tools based on machine learning are increasingly used to moderate speech. While ‘design-based governance’ through complex algorithmic techniques has come under intense scrutiny, critical research covering algorithmic content moderation is still rare. To add to our understanding of concrete (...) instances of machine moderation, this article examines Perspective API, a system for the automated detection of ‘toxicity’ developed and run by the Google unit Jigsaw that can be used by websites to help moderate their forums and comment sections. The article proceeds in four steps. First, we present our methodological strategy and the empirical materials we were able to draw on, including interviews, documentation, and GitHub repositories. We then summarize our findings along five axes to identify the various threads Perspective API brings together to deliver a working product. The third section discusses two conflicting organizational logics within the project, paying attention to both critique and what can be learned from the specific case at hand. We conclude by arguing that the opposition between ‘human’ and ‘machine’ in speech moderation obscures the many ways these two come together in concrete systems, and suggest that the way forward requires proactive engagement with the design of technologies as well as the institutions they are embedded in. (shrink)

Milan Kundera and Franz Kafka - How Not to Forget Everydayness Purpose of the article is to show that while in fundamental constitutional questions we are still attentive to our past, in everyday legal cases we can forget more likely. In my opinion, in case of the post-communist countries it is very dangerous to forget the Past because we have nothing other than our memories. To forget means either to be exposited the danger of return to the system as it (...) was or to transform our legal praxis into a depersonalized system.Methodology/methods In this article I want to analyze two decisions of Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic and compare them with situation described in early works of Milan Kundera. His work reflecting the past everydayness in communist Czechoslovakia can be used as a good example of the analyses of forgetting. Very similar inspirations we can find in work of Franz Kafka or even better in Milan Kundera's interpretation of Kafka's work. The scientific aim of this article is to show that although the literature represents different conception of knowledge when this knowledge is compared with legal knowledge we can gain parallels that describe the law rooted in culture and society.Conclusions of this article show that on one side we face reminding of our Past in decisions regarding politically considerable cases. On the other side we face the oblivion: In cases at constitutional level dealing with everydayness in legal praxis we can find rather shift to formal interpretation without any reference to our past. The result can be Kafkaesque legal system without any signs of living people. (shrink)

Law can be characterised as a highly specialized tool with strong social impact requiring social legitimization and acceptance. Law is also specific, abstract world. World that needs words to exist. To understand law and to share its content it is important to focus on narratives related to it. The article deals with the importance of narration in law as the consequence of discursive peculiarity of law and its dependence on the acceptance of societies. Law is culturally conditioned, and by means (...) of narrative can combine the expectations of society concerning legitimation with legal rationality. The law cannot function exclusively as an abstract and formal structure nor an administrative apparatus, with own ways of legitimization or justification. Through social acceptance law gains its real form, but at the same time it is subordinated to cultural patterns. Changes in narratives change the law and then the real world. The article shows possible ways of analysis of narratives, narrative strategies and forms that are present in law. (shrink)