Tarleton Gillespie

Adjunct Professor, Department of Communication, Department of Information Science

Tarleton Gillespie is currently off campus, as a Senior Principal Research at Microsoft Research, New England. He remains an affiliated professor in the Department of Communication and the Department of Information Science, with a graduate field appointment in Science & Technology Studies. He received his M.A. (1997) and his Ph.D. (2002) in Communication from the University of California at San Diego.

Research Focus

Prof. Gillespie's research focuses on the public controversies surrounding digital media and commercial providers. His earlier scholarship examined their political and cultural implications of technical approaches to copyright, and how this move reveals underlying tensions between law, technology, and culture. For more than a decade he examined the implications of online media platforms as the new distributors of cultural and political discourse, especially the significance of content moderation and the mediating role played by algorithms. Recently, he has turned to the rise of generative AI, examining the challenges these tools pose for issues of representation, public values, and the power of AI companies to structure public expression.

Education

Doctorate, University of California, San Diego, 2002
Master's Degree, University of California, San Diego, 1997
Bachelor of Arts, Amherst College, 1994

Interests

platform responsibilities

generative AI as a form of media

technological mediation of public discourse

Awards & Honors

Anchor teacher (2023) Netherlands Graduate Research School of Science, Technology, and Modern Culture
PROSE Award finalist (2019) Association of American Publishers, for Custodians of the Internet
Honorable Mention for Best Paper (2014) Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work
Residential Research Fellow (2012) European Institutes for Advanced Study (EURIAS)
SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching (2011) SUNY
Outstanding Book Award, for Wired Shut: Copyright and the Shape of Digital Culture (2009) Communication and Information Technology division of the American Sociological Association (CITASA)
Outstanding Book Award, for Wired Shut: Copyright and the Shape of Digital Culture (2009) International Communication Association (ICA)
Faculty Innovation in Teaching Award (2008) Cornell University

Contact Information

tlg28 [at] cornell.edu

Additional Links

Selected Publications

Journal Publications

Gillespie, T, Shaw, R, Gray, M.l., & Suh, J. 2025) "AI red-teaming is a sociotechnical challenge: on values, labor, and harms” Communications of the ACM https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.09751
Gillespie, T. (2024) "Generative AI and the Politics of Visibility.” Big Data & Society 11(2): 1-14. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/20539517241252131
Gibson, A., Docherty, N., & Gillespie, T. (2023) “Health and Toxicity in Content Moderation: The Discursive Work of Justification” Information, Communication, & Society https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2023.2291456
Gillespie, T. (2023) “The Fact of Content Moderation; or, let’s not solve the platforms’ problems for them.” Media & Communication (v11n2) https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/6610
Gillespie, T. (2022) “Do Not Recommend: Reduction as a form of content moderation.” Social Media & Society 8(3) https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051221117552
Blunt, D., Duguay, S., Gillespie, T., Love, S, & Smith, C. (2021) “Deplatforming Sex: A Roundtable conversation.” Porn Studies (v8n4) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23268743.2021.2005907
Baym, N., Bergmann, R., Bhargava, R., Diaz, F, Gillespie, T., Hesmondhalgh, D., Maris, E., & Persaud, C.J.. (2021) “Making Sense of Metrics in the Music Industries.” International Journal of Communication (v15) https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/17635
Gillespie, T., Aufderheide, P., Carmi, E., Matamoros-Fernández, A., Gerrard, Y., Gorwa, R., Roberts, S.T., Sinnreich, A, & West, S.M. (2020) “Expanding the Debate about Content Moderation: Scholarly research agendas for the coming policy debates.” Internet Policy Review (v9n4) https://policyreview.info/articles/analysis/expanding-debate-about-content-moderation-scholarly-research-agendas-coming-policy
Gillespie, T. (2020) “Content moderation, AI, and the question of scale.” Big Data & Society (v7n2) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053951720943234
Sobieraj, S., Masullo, G., Cohen, P., Gillespie, T., & Jackson, S. (2020) “Politicians, Social Media, and Digital Publics: Old Rights, New Terrain.” American Behavioral Scientist (v64n11) 1646-1669 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0002764220945357
Caplan, R. & Gillespie, T. (2020) “Tiered Governance and Demonetization: The Shifting Terms of Labor and Compensation in the Platform Economy.” Social Media & Society https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2056305120936636
Gillespie, T. 2018) “Platforms are not Intermediaries.” Georgetown Law and Technology Review (v2n2) https://www.georgetownlawtechreview.org/platforms-are-not-intermediaries/GLTR-07-2018/
Gillespie, T. (2017). Algorithmically Recognizable: Santorum’s Google Problem and Google’s Santorum Problem. Information, Communication & Society. 20:63-80.
Crawford, K., & Gillespie, T. (2016). What is a Flag For? Social Media Reporting Tools and the Vocabulary of Complaint. New Media & Society. 18:410-428.
Gillespie, T. (2012). Can an Algorithm Be Wrong? Limn. 2.
Gillespie, T. (2010). The Politics of ‘Platforms’. New Media & Society. 12:347-364.

Book Chapters

Gillespie, T. (2021) “Platforms.” In Information: A Historical Companion, Ann Blair, Paul Duguid, Anja Goeing, and Anthony Grafton, eds. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Gillespie, T. (2020) “Platforms Throw Content Moderation at Every Problem.” In Fake News: Mis/Disinformation in a Digital Age, Melissa Zimdars and Kembrew McLeod, eds. Cambridge: MIT Press: 329-340.
Gillespie, T. (2018) “What Platforms Should do about Misogyny and Harassment.” In Mediating Misogyny: Gender, Technology, and Harassment, Jacqueline Vickery and Tracy Everbach, eds. Palgrave Macmillan: 394-297.
Gillespie, T. (2018) “Exodus International Banned Apps, App Stores, and the Politics of Visibility” In Jeremy Morris and Sarah Murray, eds., Appified: Culture in the Age of Apps. University of Michigan Press: 51-60.
Gillespie, T. (2017). Regulation of and by platforms. p. 254-278 The SAGE Handbook of Social Media, Jean Burgess, Thomas Poell, and Alice Marwick (ed.), SAGE, London, United Kingdom .
Gillespie, T. (2016). #trendingistrending: When Algorithms Become Culture. Algorithmic Cultures: Essays on Meaning, Performance and New Technologies, Robert Seyfert and Jonathan Roberge (ed.), Routledge, London.
Gillespie, T. (2014). The Relevance of Algorithms. Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society, Tarleton Gillespie, Pablo Boczkowski, and Kirsten Foot (ed.), MIT Press.

Books

Gillespie, T. (2018). Custodians of the Internet: Platforms, Content Moderation, and the Hidden Decisions that Shape Social Media. p. 296 Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.
Gillespie, T., Boczkowski, P., & Foot, K. (2014). Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Gillespie, T. (2007). Wired Shut: Copyright and the Shape of Digital Culture. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Presentations and Activities

“Generative AI as a Media Problem,” From Platform Governance to Generative AI: Concepts, Methods, and Data for Studying Tech Governance (AoIR Flashpoint Symposium), Bremen, Germany, June 2025.
invited participant, Towards a Multidisciplinary Vision for Culturally Inclusive Generative AI, Dagstuhl workshop, Wadern, Germany, January 6-9, 2025. https://www.dagstuhl.de/25022
“Generative AI: Navigating Free Speech, Copyright, and Content Moderation in a Changing Media Landscape.” Zeltzerman Presidential Lecture Series, University of Vermont, Burlington VT, November 2024.
“Generative AI and the Politics of Visibility.” Department of Information Science, Cornell University. December 2023.
“Algorithmic Amplification,” Optimizing for What? Algorithmic Amplification and Society, Knight First Amendment Institute, April 2023, New York.
“Algorithmic Governance,” ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (ACM FAccT), June 2022 (remote), Seoul, Korea.
“Do Not Recommend: How platforms reduce the visibility of some content, and why” Dutch Digital Society (remote), November 2021
keynote discussant, First Annual Conference on Platform Governance (remote), March 2021.
“YouTube’s Algorithm” Media Objects, Cornell University (remote), October 2020.
“Platform regulation," First International Symposium, ACM Division of Computer Science and Law, New York, October 2019.
“Custodians of the Internet,” International Conference on Social Media & Society, Toronto, Canada, July 2019. https://socialmedialab.ca/2019/07/25/icymi-smsociety-2019-keynote-by-tarleton-gillespie/
"Content Moderation," International Association of Privacy Professionals, Washington DC, April 2019.
Moderation is the Commodity. The Governance and Regulation of Information Platforms. February 2018. Georgetown Law’s Institute for Technology Law & Policy , Georgetown University. Washington, D.C. United States.
At Scale and under Pressure: How Social Media Moderate, Choreograph, and Censor Public Discourse. June 2017. Canadian Communication Association.
Exceptional Platforms. Platform Society. September 2016. Oxford Internet Institute. Oxford, UK.
What We Mean by ‘Algorithm'. Disciplines, Technologies, and Algorithms. May 2015. University of Chicago. Chicago, IL.
#trendingistrending: A Look at Algorithmic Measures of Public Discourse. International Conference on Algorithmic Cultures. June 2014. Universität Konstanz. Konstanz, Germany.
Resistance to+through Platforms. Internet Research 14.0. October 2013. Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR). Denver, CO.
Censorship by Algorithm. Governing Algorithms. May 2013. New York University. New York, NY.
Toward a Sociology of Algorithms. March 2012. Complex Systems Institute (IXXI), École normale supérieure de Lyon. Lyon, France.

Tarleton in the news

6 individuals stand and pose for a photo

News

November 13, 2024

COMM Updates - 11/13/2024

Briefings, Conference Presentations, Panels & Workshops Associate Professor Brooke Duffy delivered two panel talks at the Association of Internet Researchers annual conference. In “From CareerTok to #Quietquitting: Social Media Communication...

group of individuals standing and smiling in front of Cornell University sign

News

June 14, 2024

COMM Updates - 6/14/2024

Check out our final COMM Updates for the 2023–2024 academic year—and what a year it’s been! We’ll be back in fall 2024. Awards Congratulations to our graduate student award winners! The Outstanding CALS Graduate Teaching Assistant recognizes...

Tarleton Gillespie

Contact Information

Additional Links

Selected Publications

Tarleton in the news