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Dr Carolina Are

Research Fellow

Department: Psychology

Dr. Carolina Are is an Innovation Fellow researching on the intersection between online abuse and censorship. Her research on social media moderation, platform governance and algorithm bias has been published in Porn Studies, First Monday, Journalism and Feminist Media Studies, in which she authored the first academic study on the shadowbanning of pole dancing. Dr Are's work has been featured in the BBC, MIT Technology Review, Business Insider, Vice, Wired and Mashable, as well as in a series of bestselling books. She is also a blogger and creator herself, as well as a writer, pole dance instructor and award-winning activist.

Dr Carolina Are's first ongoing project at the CDC investigates Instagram and TikTok’s approach to malicious flagging against ‘grey area’ content, or content that toes the line of compliance with social media’s community guidelines. In absence of social media platforms’ communications or transparency about their moderation processes, her two-year study aims to infer Instagram and TikTok’s approach to moderating grey area content by focusing on user experience.

Carolina Are

  • Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
  • Flagging as a silencing tool, Are, C. 12 Feb 2024, In: New Media and Society
  • An autoethnography of automated powerlessness: lacking platform affordances in Instagram and TikTok account deletions, Are, C. 1 May 2023, In: Media, Culture and Society
  • The assemblages of flagging and de-platforming against marginalised content creators, Are, C. 24 Nov 2023, In: Convergence
  • The emotional and financial impact of de-platforming on creators at the margins, Are, C., Briggs, P. 2023, In: Social Media and Society
  • The Shadowban Cycle: an autoethnography of pole dancing, nudity and censorship on Instagram, Are, C. 17 Nov 2022, In: Feminist Media Studies
  • Sex in the shadows of celebrity, Are, C., Paasonen, S. 2 Oct 2021, In: Porn Studies
  • A “Chosen” Hope with a “Gingerbread” Outcome: Democratization of (Media) Power in Buffy The Vampire Slayer as a Metaphor of Online Abuse on High-Profile Criminal Cases, Are, C. 1 May 2020, In: Slayage - The Journal of Whedon Studies
  • A corpo-civic space: A notion To address social media’s corporate/civic hybridity, Are, C. 1 Jun 2020, In: First Monday
  • Fire WERK With Me, Are, C. 2020, Rupaul's Drag Race and Philosophy , Chicago, Illinois, US, Open Court Publishing
  • How Instagram’s algorithm is censoring women and vulnerable users but helping online abusers, Are, C. 3 Jul 2020, In: Feminist Media Studies

  • Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
  • Invited talk: The UNSEEN 2022
  • Invited talk: Autoethnographies of 'automated powerlessness' in Instagram and TikTok account deletions 2022
  • Invited talk: Autoethnographies of 'automated powerlessness' in Instagram and TikTok account deletions 2022
  • Invited talk: Autoethnographies of 'automated powerlessness' in Instagram and TikTok account deletions 2022
  • Invited talk: MozFest 2021 2021
  • Invited talk: Algorithms For Her 2020
  • Invited talk: When online abuse and conspiracy theories collide 2019
  • Invited talk: The Politics and Ethics of Social Media Trolling Research: Challenges and New Frameworks 2018

  • Criminology PhD February 01 2021
  • Criminology MA (Hons) July 15 2017
  • Journalism BA July 17 2014
  • Certificate in Academic Practice


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