Moderering av grupper på Facebook : - En studie om moderatorers agerande och resonemang kring innehåll i deras Facebookgrupper

Sammanfattning: Abstract  In Sweden, moderators of Facebook groups are currently required to remove illegal content from their forums according to BBS-lagen. The law is however old and rarely used, and the impact of it’s existence is unclear. The purpose of the essay is to gain understanding on how moderators of Facebook groups think and act on illegal/inappropriate content that is published within their groups, and what impact the current legislation on the subject in Sweden has on their behavior. In order to examine this the following questions was asked:  -       How does moderators of big Facebook groups reason and act on potentially illegal/inappropriate content in their groups?  -       How do moderators of big Facebook groups reason and act on potentially illegal/inappropriate content in their groups, in relation to the law on bulletin board systems (BBS-lagen)?  The theoretical vantage points were the Public Sphere by Habermas and Panopticon by Foucault, to explain the actions of the moderators and the impact of legislation. The methods used were semi-structured qualitative interviews with moderators of Facebook groups, in combination with an analysis on relevant legal documents.  The study found that the majority of the interviewed Facebook moderators had a semi - rigorous moderation approach, where freedom of speech was important, but also second to the wellbeing of the community. The forums had to have some level of surveillance on a regular basis, often following use of the Facebook report function. They were mostly aware of the legislation but did not actively use it as a tool for moderation, they leaned on the group's internal regulations instead.    Keywords: BBS-lagen, democracy online, surveillance, Facebook moderation, illegal content