What Do Content Moderators Do? Emotion Work and Control on a Digital Health Platform

Abstract Content moderation determines the type of data displayed on platforms. Although this type of work is conducted online without interpersonal interactions, it does not remain emotionless. This article presents findings from a longitudinal qualitative study of how content moderation is conducted on a UK‐based platform that publishes patients' stories of their health experiences. Drawing upon the literatures on emotion work in organizations and on content moderation, this paper addresses the questions: what is the nature of emotion work that is undertaken during content moderation and how does emotion work play out with control on online platforms? Although management studies have made extensive contributions to platform work, content moderation remains under‐theorized, despite its significance in determining the type of information platforms exhibit. The paper contributes theoretically and empirically to this field in three ways. First, it categorizes the work practices moderators undertake on a health platform, which encompass application of rules, quantification, objectification, verification, and care. Second, our paper shows that content moderation is constitutive of emotion work and goes on to identify various types of emotion work, including managed and unmanaged authentic emotions. Third, our paper offers a model that illustrates how emotion work constitutes a sense‐making mechanism that allows moderators to exercise discretion and undertake care work, bypassing the prescriptive regulatory environment of content moderation, and sourcing occasional autonomy.