Society and Culture
March 12 - MTS Salon Series Talk by MacKenzie Common
2 March 2026
Join us on Thursday, March 12 from 3-4 p.m in room 2-20A of the Digital Scholarship Centre (Cameron Library) for "Inside the Fight to Hold Social Media Accountable", a MTS Salon Series talk by Dr. MacKenzie Common.
What does platform accountability look like from the inside? Drawing on the speaker’s experience at The Oversight Board, the human rights oversight body for Meta, this talk unpacks the real-world challenges of regulating social media companies and weighs the promises and pitfalls of self-regulation versus government intervention.
All are welcome, light refreshments will be served.
MacKenzie Common has a PhD in Law from the London School of Economics (LSE) where she completed her dissertation on the human rights issues of social media content moderation. She also holds a B.A. (Honours) in Political Science from the University of Guelph (Canada), an LLB (Graduate Entry) from City University and an LLM from the University of Cambridge. MacKenzie is a former Senior Policy Officer and Gender Lead at the Oversight Board, an independent human rights body that acts as an appeal forum for Meta. She is currently a sessional instructor on the Masters of Communications and Technology (MACT) program at the University of Alberta.