Search for: All records

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, videoconferencing platforms have become an essential part of our social, educational, and work lives. Furthermore, the United States continues to grapple with criminal justice reform, employing processes such as restorative justice to replace antiquated punitive approaches to justice with a focus on the multifaceted needs of communities. Essential to the delivery of restorative justice, restorative justice practitioners are community members trained in the process and approaches of restorative practice. Like everyone else, restorative justice practitioners have transitioned from historically in-person facilitation to online facilitation, integrating videoconferencing platforms into their justice-related work. Diverse communities within Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) have been examined in light of their digital transitions and the utilization of various digital tools, including videoconferencing platforms prompted by the pandemic. However, the distinctive perspective of restorative justice practitioners in adapting restorative approaches to an online format is unexplored. Therefore, our research examines how restorative practitioners use videoconferencing platforms for justice-related interventions. To do so, we conducted six semi-structured focus group interviews with 22 US-based restorative facilitators to learn about their experiences with online delivery of restorative justice. Our research revealed that restorative facilitators uphold restorative values in their online delivery by embracing the restorative facilitation process and fostering dialogue. Furthermore, we posit that the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) community can acquire valuable insights from restorative practitioners on nurturing and sustaining intimacy and connection online. 

People go online for information and support about sensitive topics like depression, infertility, death, or divorce. However, what happens when such topics are algorithmically recommended to them even if they are not looking for it? This article examines people's self-diagnostic behaviors based on algorithmically-recommended content, for example, wondering if they might have depression because an algorithm pushed that topic into their view. Specifically, it examines what happens when the sensitive content is not generated by users, but by companies in the form of targeted advertisements. This paper explores these questions in three parts. The first part reviews literature on self-diagnosis and targeted advertising. The second part presents a mixed-methods study of how targeted ads can enable self-diagnostic reactions. The third part reflects on the mechanisms that influence self-diagnosis and examines potential regulatory implications. 

Non-consensual intimate media (NCIM) involves sharing intimate content without the depicted person's consent, including 'revenge porn' and sexually explicit deepfakes. While NCIM has received attention in legal, psychological, and communication fields over the past decade, it is not sufficiently addressed in computing scholarship. This paper addresses this gap by linking NCIM harms to the specific technological components that facilitate them. We introduce thesociotechnical stack, a conceptual framework designed to map the technical stack to its corresponding social impacts. The sociotechnical stack allows us to analyze sociotechnical problems like NCIM, and points toward opportunities for computing research. We propose a research roadmap for computing and social computing communities to deter NCIM perpetration and support victim-survivors through building and rebuilding technologies. 

Online harassment refers to a wide range of harmful behaviors, including hate speech, insults, doxxing, and non-consensual image sharing. Social media platforms have developed complex processes to try to detect and manage content that may violate community guidelines; however, less work has examined the types of harms associated with online harassment or preferred remedies to that harassment. We conducted three online surveys with US adult Internet users measuring perceived harms and preferred remedies associated with online harassment. Study 1 found greater perceived harm associated with non-consensual photo sharing, doxxing, and reputational damage compared to other types of harassment. Study 2 found greater perceived harm with repeated harassment compared to one-time harassment, but no difference between individual and group harassment. Study 3 found variance in remedy preferences by harassment type; for example, banning users is rated highly in general, but is rated lower for non-consensual photo sharing and doxxing compared to harassing family and friends and damaging reputation. Our findings highlight that remedies should be responsive to harassment type and potential for harm. Remedies are also not necessarily correlated with harassment severity—expanding remedies may allow for more contextually appropriate and effective responses to harassment. 

This project illuminates what data youth believe online advertisers and social media companies collect about them. We situate these findings within the context of current advertising regulations and compare youth beliefs with what data social media companies report collecting based on their privacy policies. Through interviews with 21 youth ages 10-17 in the United States, we learn that participants are largely aware of how their interactions on the website or app are used to inform personalized content. However, certain types of information like geolocation or how long data is retained is less clear to them. We also learn about what school and family factors influence youth to adopt apps and websites. This work has implications for design and policy related to companies' personal data collection and targeted advertising, especially for youth. 

Online harassment is pervasive. While substantial research has examined the nature of online harassment and how to moderate it, little work has explored how social media users evaluate the profiles of online harassers. This is important for helping people who may be experiencing or observing harassment to quickly and efficiently evaluate the user doing the harassing. We conducted a lab experiment (N=45) that eye-tracked participants while they viewed profiles of users who engaged in online harassment on mock Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram profiles. We evaluated what profile elements they looked at and for how long relative to a control group, and their qualitative attitudes about harasser profiles. Results showed that participants look at harassing users' post history more quickly than non-harassing users. They are also somewhat more likely to recall harassing profiles than non-harassing profiles. However, they do not spend more time on harassing profiles. Understanding what users pay attention to and recall may offer new design opportunities for supporting people who experience or observe harassment online. 

Blind and low vision people use visual description services (VDS) to gain visual interpretation and build access in a world that privileges sight. Despite their many benefits, VDS have many harmful privacy and security implications. As a result, researchers are suggesting, exploring, and building obfuscation systems that detect and obscure private or sensitive materials. However, as obfuscation depends largely on sight to interpret outcomes, it is unknown whether Blind and low vision people would find such approaches useful. Our work aims to center the perspectives and opinions of Blind and low vision people on the potential of obfuscation to address privacy concerns in VDS. By reporting on interviews with 20 Blind and low vision people who use VDS, our findings reveal that popular research trends in obfuscation fail to capture the needs of Blind and low vision people. While obfuscation might be helpful in gaining more control, tensions around obfuscation misrecognition and confirmation are prominent. We turn to the framework of interdependence to unpack and understand obfuscation in VDS, enabling us to complicate privacy concerns, uncover the labor of Blind and low vision people, and emphasize the importance of safeguards. We provide design directions to move the trajectory of obfuscation research forward.