Moderating Tamil Content on Social Media

Tamil is a language with a long history. Spoken by over 80 million people worldwide, or over 1% of the world’s population, early inscriptions in the language date back to the 5th Century B.C.E (Murugan & Visalakshi , 2024). The language is spoken widely in India (predominantly in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry), in Sri Lanka, and across diaspora communities in Malaysia, Thailand, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, and beyond. Despite the widespread use of the language, there remains limited understanding of how major social media platforms moderate content in Tamil. This report examines the online experiences of Tamil users and explores the challenges of applying consistent content moderation processes for this language. This report is part of a series that examines content moderation within low-resource and indigenous languages in the Global South. **Corresponding Author: research at cdt dot org. **