What factors lead users in an online platform to join together in mass collective action to influence those who run the platform? Today, I'm excited to share that my CHI paper on the reddit blackout has received a Best Paper Honorable Mention! (Read the pre-print version of my paper here) When users of online platforms complain, we're often …
Continue reading How Do Users Take Collective Action Against Online Platforms? CHI Honorable Mention
Three weeks ago, I shared dataviz and statistical models predicting participation in the Reddit Blackout in July 2015. Since then, many moderators have offered feedback and new ideas for the data analysis, alongside their own stories. Earlier today, I shared this update with redditors. UPDATE, Sept 16, 9pm ET: Redditors brilliantly spotted an important gap in …
For the last 40 years or more, online platforms have relied on people to facilitate and support our online communities. In the early 70s, they were the librarians and shopkeepers of Community Memory. In the 80s, they were the WELL's "conference hosts." In the 90s, they were AOL's "community leaders." In 2015, they are Wikipedia's "administrators," Facebook's "admins," Slashdot's "moderators," …
Last Thursday and Friday, moderators of many of Reddit's most popular discussion groups "blacked out" their subreddits, preventing access to parts of the site by Reddit subscribers and cutting off some of the company's advertising revenue for half a day. What may not have started as a protest quickly became one, with many moderators complaining …
Continue reading What Just Happened on Reddit? Understanding The Moderator Blackout
What would be a sustainable and inclusive approach to child safety online? Today at the Berkman Center, Mitali Thakor presented her research on human trafficking and moderated a discussion of how we see and respond to issues of child safety. Mitali Thakor is a PhD student at MIT's history and science of technology program, who studies …
Continue reading Imagining a Sustainable and Inclusive Approach to Child Safety Online
Today at the Berkman Center, our summer PhD Interns gave a series of short talks describing our research and asking for feedback from the Berkman community. This liveblog summarizes the talks and the Q&A (special thanks to Willow Brugh for collaborating on this post). Mary Gray, senior researcher at Microsoft Research, opened up the conversation …
What does it take to keep online communities going? With over 550,000 public subreddits, many of which are active, the communities on the site rely on ongoing effort by a large number of volunteer moderators. In my research, I'm excited to learn more from redditors how they see the work of moderation and why they do it.
Social Media Collective 