Search for: All records

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 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. 

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. 

Social media platforms aspire to create online experiences where users can participate safely and equitably. However, women around the world experience widespread online harassment, including insults, stalking, aggression, threats, and non-consensual sharing of sexual photos. This article describes women's perceptions of harm associated with online harassment and preferred platform responses to that harm. We conducted a survey in 14 geographic regions around the world (N = 3,993), focusing on regions whose perspectives have been insufficiently elevated in social media governance decisions (e.g. Mongolia, Cameroon). Results show that, on average, women perceive greater harm associated with online harassment than men, especially for non-consensual image sharing. Women also prefer most platform responses compared to men, especially removing content and banning users; however, women are less favorable towards payment as a response. Addressing global gender-based violence online requires understanding how women experience online harms and how they wish for it to be addressed. This is especially important given that the people who build and govern technology are not typically those who are most likely to experience online harms. 

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. 

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.