Research
My research offers theoretical, methodological, design, and policy contributions to platform governance research. I develop (1) an empirically grounded understanding of the nuances and spread of social harms that manifest online, such as race- and caste-based discrimination, online harassment, and the rise of hate groups. To address these harms, platforms implement a range of sanctions and interventions. My work contributes (2) a rich description of the structural and functional aspects of these governance measures. Platform solutions to online harms are often opaque and leave affected users unsatisfied. Therefore, I develop (3) evidence-backed solutions for platforms to incorporate fairness and transparency in their communications with end users. Finally, recognizing that one-size-fits-all governance solutions cannot serve the disparate needs of millions of users, I establish (4) best practices for designing systems that empower end-users to personalize platform governance. Together, these four lines of inquiry advance a unifying research agenda: reframing platform governance as a sociotechnical design space that must be theoretically informed, empirically grounded, procedurally accountable, communicatively transparent, and responsive to cultural shifts.
Please see my Google Scholar page for my latest papers, including those currently under review. I am the head of the Social Computing Lab at Rutgers University. Our ongoing projects are on the lab page. Please find below my published papers.
Peer reviewed articles ↩︎
-
Alyvia Walters and Shagun Jhaver (2026), “Should the Powerful Be Moderated? Examining Social Media Users’ Perspectives on Moderating Politicians’ Inappropriate Speech,” Accepted in Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact., CSCW.
Platforms' capitalistic functions / and free speech concerns / influence user attitudes -
Yunhee Shim and Shagun Jhaver (2026), “Incorporating Procedural Fairness in Flag Submissions on Social Media Platforms,” Accepted in ACM Transactions on Social Computing.
A large-scale experiment / to inform design / of flagging components. -
Shagun Jhaver (2025), “Examining How Search Engine Users Understand the Production of Autocomplete Suggestions,” New Media & Society. DOI:
10.1177/14614448251406282Users' information dependencies / serve the capital accumulation cycle / of search platforms -
Best Paper Award Nayana Kirasur and Shagun Jhaver (2025), “Understanding the Prevalence of Caste: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Caste-based Marginalization on X,” Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact., CSCW. DOI:
10.1145/3757518Upper-caste collectives / use rhetorical and organizing strategies / to promote caste online. -
Yunhee Shim and Shagun Jhaver (2026), “Understanding the Governance Challenges of Public Libraries Subscribing to Digital Content Distributors,” The Library Quarterly
Distibutor services / fundamentally shift / librarians' curatorial focus. -
Alyvia Walters, Tawfiq Ammari, and Shagun Jhaver (2025), “Moral Disengagement and Content Moderation Attitudes: Examining How Apathy to Online Harms May Disguise Racially Conservative Beliefs,” New Media & Society. DOI:
10.1177/14614448251385923Racially conservative attitudes / relate to distaste for / content moderation -
Shagun Jhaver (2025), “Personal Moderation Configurations on Facebook: Exploring the Roles of Fear of Missing Out, Social Media Addiction, Norms, and Platform Trust,” First Monday. DOI:
10.5210/fm.v30i9.14272Psychosocial orientations / and normative environments / condition tool adoption. -
Eunbin Ha*, Haein Kong*, and Shagun Jhaver (2025), “Examining Racial Stereotypes in YouTube Autocomplete Suggestions,” (* equal contribution) New Media & Society. DOI:
10.1177/14614448251346503YouTube Search Autocompletes / Display Harmful Strereotypes / and Hegemonic Counter-struggles -
Shagun Jhaver (2025), “Bans vs. Warning Labels: Examining Bystanders’ Support for Community-wide Moderation Interventions,” ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. (TOCHI) 32, 2, Article 18 (April 2025), 30 pages. DOI:
10.1145/3715116Third-person Effects / and free speech support / shape moderation attitudes. -
Manoel Horta Ribeiro, Shagun Jhaver, Jordi Cluet I Martinell, Marie Reignier-Tayar, and Robert West (2025), “Deplatforming Norm-Violating Influencers on Social Media Reduces Overall Online Attention Toward Them,” Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 9, 2, Article CSCW062 (May 2025), 25 pages. DOI:
10.1145/3710960Sanctioning influencers / reduces online attention / across the web. -
Alyvia Walters, Tawfiq Ammari, Kiran Garimella, and Shagun Jhaver (2024), “Online Knowledge Production in Polarized Political Memes: The Case of Critical Race Theory,” New Media & Society. DOI:
10.1177/14614448241252591Pro- and anti-CRT memes / Deploy Similar Rhetorical Tactics / to Make Bifurcating Arguments -
Shagun Jhaver, Himanshu Rathi, and Koustuv Saha (2024), “Bystanders of Online Moderation: Examining the Effects of Witnessing Post-Removal Explanations,” In Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ‘24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 191, 1–9. DOI:
10.1145/3613904.3642204Witnessing Removal Explanations / Influences Observers' / Future Activity -
Shagun Jhaver and Amy X. Zhang (2023), “Do Users Want Platform Moderation or Individual Control? Examining the Role of Third-Person Effects and Free Speech Support in Shaping Moderation Preferences,” New Media & Society. DOI:
10.1177/14614448231217993Users Prefer / Personalizing Moderation / Despite Supporting Free Speech -
Shagun Jhaver, Seth Frey, and Amy X. Zhang (2023), “Decentralizing Platform Power: A Design Space of Multi-level Governance in Online Social Platforms,” Social Media + Society, 9(4). DOI:
10.1177/20563051231207857Variations in / middle Levels of Governance / and cross-level dimensions -
Sijia Xiao, Shagun Jhaver, and Niloufar Salehi (2023), “Addressing Interpersonal Harm in Online Gaming Communities: The Opportunities and Challenges for a Restorative Justice Approach,” ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. (TOCHI) 30, 6, Article 83 (September 2023), 36 pages., DOI:
10.1145/3603625Postmodern perspectives / Going beyond punitive models / Addressing online harassment. -
Shagun Jhaver, Alice Qian Zhang, Quan Ze Chan, Nikhila Natarajan, Ruotong Wang, and Amy X. Zhang (2023), “Personalizing Content Moderation on Social Media: User Perspectives on Moderation Choices, Interface Design, and Labor,” Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 7, CSCW2, Article 289 (October 2023), 33 pages, DOI:
10.1145/3610080Personal moderation tools / Transparency and controllability / Labor challenges -
Shagun Jhaver, Quan Ze Chen, Detlef Knauss, and Amy Zhang (2022), “Designing Word Filter Tools for Creator-led Comment Moderation,” In Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ‘22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 205, 1–21. DOI:
10.1145/3491102.3517505Author new filters / Organize filters / Visualize caught comments. -
Editor's Pick for Notable Paper Shagun Jhaver*, Eshwar Chandrasekharan*, Amy Bruckman, and Eric Gilbert (2022), “Quarantined! Examining the Effects of a Community-Wide Moderation Intervention on Reddit,” (* co-primary) ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. (TOCHI) 29, 4, Article 29 (August 2022), 26 pages, DOI:
10.1145/3490499Design friction— / Quarantining communities / reduces new user influx. -
Best Paper Honorable Mention Award Shagun Jhaver, Christian Boylston, Diyi Yang, and Amy Bruckman, “Evaluating the Effectiveness of Deplatforming as a Moderation Strategy on Twitter,” Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 5, CSCW2, Article 381 (October 2021), 30 pages, DOI:
10.1145/3479525Deplatforming disrupts / ideas and support for / offensive influencers. -
Best Paper Honorable Mention Award Manoel Horta Ribeiro, Shagun Jhaver, Savvas Zannettou, Jeremy Blackburn, Gianluca Stringhini, Emiliano De Cristofaro, and Robert West, “Do Platform Migrations Compromise Content Moderation? Evidence from r/The_Donald and r/Incels,” Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 5, CSCW2, Article 316 (October 2021), 24 pages, DOI:
10.1145/3476057Moderation reduces activity / but at the expense of / radicalizing migrated users. -
Best Paper Award Shagun Jhaver, Amy Bruckman, and Eric Gilbert, “Does Transparency in Moderation Really Matter?: User Behavior After Content Removal Explanations on Reddit,” Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 3, CSCW, Article 150 (November 2019), 27 pages. DOI:
10.1145/3359252Transparency / Removal explanations / improve user behaviors. -
Best Paper Honorable Mention Award Shagun Jhaver, Darren Scott Appling, Eric Gilbert, and Amy Bruckman, ““Did You Suspect the Post Would be Removed?”: Understanding User Reactions to Content Removals on Reddit,” Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 3, CSCW, Article 192 (November 2019), 33 pages. DOI:
10.1145/3359294Moderation fairness / Educational approach / Community guidelines. -
Shagun Jhaver, Iris Birman, Eric Gilbert, and Amy Bruckman (2019), “Human-Machine Collaboration for Content Regulation: The Case of Reddit Automoderator,” ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. (TOCHI) 26, 5, Article 31 (September 2019), 35 pages. DOI:
10.1145/3338243Sociotechnical process / Automod role / Control versus effort tradeoff. -
Maya Holikatti, Shagun Jhaver, and Neha Kumar, “Learning to Airbnb by Engaging in Online Communities of Practice” Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 3, CSCW, Article 228 (November 2019), 19 pages. DOI:
10.1145/3359330How hosts learn / Novice-to-expert / LPP. -
Shagun Jhaver, Justin Cranshaw, and Scott Counts, “Measuring Professional Skill Development in U.S. Cities Using Internet Search Queries,” Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 13 (01):267-77.
Online skill development / increases disparities / across 400 US cities. -
Featured in Editor's Spotlight Shagun Jhaver, Sucheta Ghoshal, Eric Gilbert, and Amy Bruckman (2018), “Online Harassment and Content Moderation: The Case of Blocklists,” ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. (TOCHI) 25, 2, Article 12 (March 2018), 33 pages. DOI:
10.1145/3185593Harassment tactics / Who is vulnerable? / Algorithmic solutions. -
Shagun Jhaver, Yoni Karpfen, and Judd Antin (2018), “Algorithmic Anxiety and Coping Strategies of Airbnb Hosts,” In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ‘18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper 421, 1–12. DOI:
10.1145/3173574.3173995Double negotiation / Anxiety and uncertainty / Coping strategies. -
Shagun Jhaver, Larry Chan, and Amy Bruckman (2018), “The view from the other side: The border between controversial speech and harassment on Kotaku in Action,” First Monday, DOI:
10.5210/fm.v23i2.8232Theorizing controversial speech / GamerGate / Understanding harassment. -
Eshwar Chandrasekharan, Mattia Samory, Shagun Jhaver, Hunter Charvat, Amy Bruckman, Cliff Lampe, Jacob Eisenstein, and Eric Gilbert, “The Internet’s Hidden Rules: An Empirical Study of Reddit Norm Violations at Micro, Meso, and Macro Scales,” Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 2, CSCW, Article 32 (November 2018), 25 pages. DOI:
10.1145/3274301What Reddit values / Normative guidelines / Automated moderation -
Best Paper Award Munmun De Choudhury, Shagun Jhaver, Benjamin Sugar, and Ingmar Weber, “Social Media Participation in an Activist Movement for Racial Equality,” In Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM 2016) (Acceptance rate: 17%).
Black Lives Matter / Twitter predicts protests / Social movements. -
Shagun Jhaver, Latifur Khan, and Bhavani Thuraisingham (2014), “Calculating Edit Distance for Large Sets of String Pairs using MapReduce,” In Proceedings of the ASE International Conference on Big Data.
Levenshtein distance / Dynamic programming / MapReduce.
Technical reports ↩︎
-
Shagun Jhaver and Amy Zhang (2021), “Tools Against Harassment: Empowering Content Creators,” ADL Center for Technology and Society.
Building tools / to protect against / online abuse. -
Shagun Jhaver, Pranil Vora and Amy Bruckman (2017) “Designing for Civil Conversations: Lessons Learned from ChangeMyView,” GVU Technical Report.
-
Shagun Jhaver*, Larry Chan*, and Sandeep Soni* (2017) “PostScholar: Surfacing Social Signals in Google Scholar Search,” (* co-primary). In Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing Companion (CSCW ‘16 Companion). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 17–20. DOI:
10.1145/2818052.2874314
Workshop papers and panels ↩︎
-
Shagun Jhaver (Organizer), Kiran Garimella, Munmun De Choudhury, Christo Wilson, Aditya Vashistha, and Tanushree Mitra (2023), “Getting Data for CSCW Research,” *In Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW ’23 Companion), * October 14–18, 2023, Minneapolis, MN, USA. ACM, New York, NY, USA. DOI:
10.1145/3584931.3608440 -
Charles Kiene, Shagun Jhaver, Eshwar Chandrasekharan, Bryan Dosono, Brianna Dym, Sarah Gilbert, Aaron Jiang, Kat Lo, Joseph Seering, Kenny Shores, and Donghee Yvette Wohn (2019), “Volunteer Work: Mapping the Future of Moderation Research,” In Conference Companion Publication of the 2019 on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW ‘19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 492–497. DOI:
10.1145/3311957.3359443 -
Shagun Jhaver (2019) “Leveraging Focus Theory of Normative Conduct to Shape User Behavior,” Managing and Designing for Norms in Online Communities Workshop. In Proceedings of the 13th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM 2019)
-
Shagun Jhaver (2018) “Designing ‘Understanding Mechanisms’ to Fight Online Harassment,” In Proceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2018)
Theses ↩︎
-
Shagun Jhaver, (2020) “Identifying Opportunities to Improve Content Moderation,” PhD Thesis, Georgia Institute of Technology.
-
Shagun Jhaver, (2014) “Large Scale Data Mining with Applications in Social Computing,” Masters Thesis, The University of Texas at Dallas.