University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Hacks, Fakes, and Hot Takes: Moderating “bad actors” on Google Maps Local Guides Platform

Noone, Rebecca; Bhandari, Aparajita

Content Files
06_Chapter_Hacks_Fakes_and_Hot_Takes.pdf

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/117213

Description

Title
Hacks, Fakes, and Hot Takes: Moderating “bad actors” on Google Maps Local Guides Platform
Author(s)
  • Noone, Rebecca
  • Bhandari, Aparajita
Issue Date
2024
Keyword(s)
  • Local Guides
  • Google Maps
  • Misinformation
  • Reviews
  • Discourse analysis
  • Content moderation
  • Location-based data
Geographic Coverage
Canada
Abstract
Reading or writing online user-reviews of places like a restaurant or a hair salon is a common information practice. Through its Local Guides Platform, Google calls on users to add reviews of places directly to Google Maps, and invites users to edit store hours and report “fake” reviews. This chapter examines the governance structures that delineate the role Local Guides’ play in regulating the Google Maps information ecosystem. Based on a critical discourse analysis of the platform, we identify how the Local Guides Platform characterizes misinformation as an exterior threat infiltrating Google Maps’ global mapping project. Framing our analysis through Kuo and Marwick’s (2021) critique of the dominant misinformation paradigm – one often based on hegemonic ideals of truth and authenticity— we argue that review and moderation practices on Local Guides further standardize constructions of misinformation as the product of a small group of outlier “bad actors'' in an otherwise convivial information ecosystem. Instead, we consider how the platform’s governance of crowdsourced moderation, paired with the Google Maps’ project of creating a single, universal map, help to homogenize narratives of space that then further normalize the limited scope of Google’s misinformation paradigm.
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Series/Report Name or Number
Cambridge Studies on Governing Knowledge Commons
Type of Resource
text
Language
en
Sponsor(s)/Grant Number(s)
  • NSF: SES
  • Divn Of Social and Economic Sciences
  • #2017495

Owning Collections

Governing Everyday Misinformation PRIMARY