thank you for your interest in the sesta survey.
an academic and business research project
with this study, we seek to provide a deeper look at how adult creators – particularly marginalized groups of poc and fat creators – are impacted by over-moderation and censorship as a result of fosta/sesta.
this project contains four parts:
- to collect input from our community members to inform how the research project will develop.
pre-survey
- the primary method for collecting data, this survey will be used for both qualitative (text) and quantitative (number) analysis.
survey
- users that have had posts flagged and removed for content violations are invited to submit those images for comparison.
content collection
- a controlled experiment will be performed using comparable content provided by volunteers to investigate biases in moderation.
content curation
pre-survey
updates
submit your email to be notified of project updates.
experiment
this research project will examine violation biases by conducting a controlled experiment utilizing approximately 10-20 creators of varying sizes and colors to create comparable content to monitor potential differences in moderation. This project is partially modeled after this investigative experiment by the non-profit newsroom themarkup.org named Demoted, Deleted, and Denied: There’s More Than Just Shadowbanning on Instagram studying the censorship of Palestinians.
showing your face is not required. Photo editing software may be used to omit any potentially identifying details (tattoos, etc). requested content will include photos featuring a range of nakedness, from obscured nudity to full-coverage underwear, to be posted publicly across multiple accounts and platforms.
example prompts:
“sexy silhouette 1 & 2” – pose in front of a light source to create a shadow outline of your body. Create one photo with the outline of the nipple visible in the shadow and one without the nipple visible.
“sheer coverage” – cover your breasts with a sheer fabric that provides at least an outline view of the nipples &/or areolas. Photo should be taken from approximately arm’s length.
“hand bra 1 & 2” – with only the top half of your torso visible, cup your hands over your breasts, covering all nipple/areola area, careful not to change the shape of your breasts. then take a photo with a moderate amount of changing the shape of your breasts while remaining fully covered.