The Gray Area: Characterizing Moderator Disagreement on Reddit

Shayan Alipour, Shruti Phadke, Seyed Shahabeddin Mousavi, Amirhossein Afsharrad, Morteza Zihayat, Mattia Samory
January 2026

Abstract

This paper characterizes moderator disagreement on Reddit, examining the gray areas where content moderation decisions vary and identifying factors that contribute to inconsistent moderation outcomes.

Type
Conference paper
Publication
International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media

This work analyzes patterns of disagreement among Reddit moderators to understand content moderation challenges.

Content Moderation Social Media Reddit Human-Computer Interaction Fairness
Shayan Alipour
Shayan Alipour
Postdoc

Shayan Alipour is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Human-Centered Machine Intelligence Lab, working on research projects in machine learning and data science.

Morteza Zihayat
Morteza Zihayat
Principal Investigator

Dr. Morteza Zihayat is a Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Human-Centered AI and Associate Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science. He also holds appointments as Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo (Management Sciences) and IBM Faculty Fellow at IBM Centre for Advanced Studies. He is the Director of the Human-Centered Machine Intelligence Lab.