Enabling Sensitive Conversations with Consent Boundaries: Moa, a Platform for Discussing PhD Advising Relationships

arXiv (Cornell University) · 2026-04-20

When an individual is harmed by someone in power, such as a workplace manager, it can help to identify allies--people who would offer sympathy, advice, or supportive action. However, ally discovery is fraught because the very people who might be most relevant--e.g., someone who reports to the same manager--might not be sympathetic and could potentially exacerbate the harm. We examine this problem in the specific context of PhD students navigating advising challenges and present a social media platform called "Moa" that brings together a number of features that we believe facilitate ally discovery. Moa's most novel element is an audience selection process that uses what we call consent boundaries, which allow users to flexibly define each post or comment's audience based on factors such as common social identity or lived experience, all while preserving anonymity--neither senders nor recipients learn each other's identities, even as the post reaches the right audience. A 3-week field study with 47 real-world users showed that the features in combination facilitated sensitive conversations about advising, with 22.6% of users using consent boundaries. We discuss both our overall "recipe" for systems for ally discovery and the benefits of a consent-centered approach to design.

Evolving Intention in Digital Activities and Its Relationship to Productivity and Immersion

Proceedings of the ... Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences/Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences · 2026-01-01

User intention plays a key role in digital activity, but it is less studied than other aspects of technology use such as productivity. We report on a mixed-methods study with university students in two countries (United States and South Korea) in which two distinct forms of intention emerged: the degree of (1) "starting intention" involved in beginning an activity, and the subsequent (2) "continuing intention" to continue the activity. Predictably, an activity's continuing intention often matches its starting intention, and in work activities, higher overall intention correlates with productivity. However, unexpected findings also surfaced: for example, intention's relationship with productivity varies by activity type; breaks started with low intention can be immersive; and work activities started with low intention are sometimes considered productive. These and other findings add to our understanding of digital productivity and recreation, and suggest new designs for technologies to support digital well-being.

Digital Infrastructural Resistance: Working Around Severe Telecommunication Disruptions in Gaza

2026-04-13 · 1 citations

Enabling Sensitive Conversations with Consent Boundaries: Moa, a Platform for Discussing PhD Advising Relationships

arXiv (Cornell University) · 2026-04-20

When an individual is harmed by someone in power, such as a workplace manager, it can help to identify allies--people who would offer sympathy, advice, or supportive action. However, ally discovery is fraught because the very people who might be most relevant--e.g., someone who reports to the same manager--might not be sympathetic and could potentially exacerbate the harm. We examine this problem in the specific context of PhD students navigating advising challenges and present a social media platform called "Moa" that brings together a number of features that we believe facilitate ally discovery. Moa's most novel element is an audience selection process that uses what we call consent boundaries, which allow users to flexibly define each post or comment's audience based on factors such as common social identity or lived experience, all while preserving anonymity--neither senders nor recipients learn each other's identities, even as the post reaches the right audience. A 3-week field study with 47 real-world users showed that the features in combination facilitated sensitive conversations about advising, with 22.6% of users using consent boundaries. We discuss both our overall "recipe" for systems for ally discovery and the benefits of a consent-centered approach to design.

Designing Digital Tools to Support Online Job Search for Returning Citizens

2025-07-18 · 2 citations

Finding employment is extremely challenging for returning citizens – formerly incarcerated individuals – as they face additional barriers due to their criminal records, gaps in employment, and limited experience with digital technology. Using design studio workshops and focus groups, we explored how returning citizens in the United States experience digital job search and how digital platforms and job search tools could be improved. We find that returning citizens are uncertain about when and how to disclose their felony status, and develop unique tactics in response. When faced with concerns about employment discrimination, especially racism, returning citizens maintained a practical outlook. And, participants expressed specific features they sought in technology platforms for job search: clear, simple job descriptions; auto-fill for commonly occurring input fields; and options for human assistance. Throughout, we pay special attention to Black/African American returning citizens, who have historically been discriminated by the criminal justice system in the United States.

Silencing the Voiceless: Social Media Content Moderation for At Risk Marginalized Populations in High-Stakes Violence and Human Rights Contexts in Nigeria

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · 2025-10-16 · 2 citations

When ethnic minorities in the Global South use social media to document human rights abuses against them by majority groups or state actors, platforms often remove this content, thus suppressing these groups' ability to raise awareness about their oppression. To understand ethnic minorities in the Global South's experiences with content moderation, we conducted interviews with ethnic minority Nigerian journalists, activists, politicians, and lawyers, and digital ethnographic observation of social media posts about human rights violations. We found that participants use social media as immediate and urgent archival tools to document violence and human rights abuses against them and their communities, which would not be possible with traditional media due to systemic state exclusion. Further, we identify cultural complexities and context gaps that are frequently ignored by social media companies, who impose Global North norms and values when moderating diverse populations in the Global South. When ethnic minorities post about violence and human rights concerns, they often experience over-moderation, while harmful content that targets them with violence is often under-moderated. We argue for a specialized ''social justice archive moderation'' as a way to account for the documentary and archival functions that social media serves for marginalized populations in conflict zones. We argue that this approach helps to support ethnically, linguistically, culturally, and politically vulnerable populations when moderating Global South populations in high-stakes violence and human rights contexts.

Exploring #Diasporawars on Black Twitter

Social Media + Society · 2025-07-01 · 1 citations

Black Twitter, now operating on X (formerly Twitter), is a crucial online platform that shapes cultural production, political activism, and educational exchange within the global Black community. This study broadens the scope to examine the global influence of Black Twitter, with a focus on the hashtag #diasporawars. This hashtag serves as a lens through which we can observe the tensions and interactions across the global Black community. Black Twitter’s significance extends beyond the United States, deeply embedded in the historical and cultural contexts of Blackness, which inform global conversations on identity. By employing both quantitative and qualitative research methods to analyze #diasporawars, this study aims to shed light on the complexities of global Blackness and how social media platforms contribute to shaping these identities and connections. Our findings reveal that #diasporawars reflects broader dynamics within the global Black community, highlighting how platforms like X both facilitate positive engagement and exacerbate conflicts. This research underscores the multifaceted nature of Black digital spaces, illustrating how they serve as arenas for collaboration and contention, influenced by diverse experiences and perspectives within the global Black diaspora.

Evolving Intention in Digital Activities and Its Relationship to Productivity and Immersion

ScholarSpace (University of Hawaii at Manoa) · 2025-12-23

User intention plays a key role in digital activity, but it is less studied than other aspects of technology use such as productivity. We report on a mixed-methods study with university students in two countries (United States and South Korea) in which two distinct forms of intention emerged: the degree of (1) "starting intention" involved in beginning an activity, and the subsequent (2) "continuing intention" to continue the activity. Predictably, an activity's continuing intention often matches its starting intention, and in work activities, higher overall intention correlates with productivity. However, unexpected findings also surfaced: for example, intention's relationship with productivity varies by activity type; breaks started with low intention can be immersive; and work activities started with low intention are sometimes considered productive. These and other findings add to our understanding of digital productivity and recreation, and suggest new designs for technologies to support digital well-being.

The Development of a New Measure of Collective Digital Literacy

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · 2025-05-02 · 2 citations

This article theorizes and proposes a novel construct, community digital capacity , to measure collective digital capacity at a community level. Community digital capacity is the extent to which the culture, infrastructure, and digital competence of family and community enable and support digital practices. We address a critical gap in individual digital literacy assessments and address limitations with existing theories that do not show digital inequities in the context of underlying systemic and structural challenges posed by one's social position. Building on insights from Computer Supportive Cooperative Work and Social Computing and Human-Computer Interaction for Development communities, we recognize that digital training initiatives must shift toward critical cultural and social practices that encourage full participation in community affairs. Accordingly, we created 28 items covering three domains---individual, social, and infrastructure. We conducted cognitive interviews with a public housing community to refine the items and capture the construct fully. We assessed their factor structure in two Southeastern Michigan cohorts. After dropping eight items based on contribution to Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR), the public housing residents exhibit a two-factor structure (SRMR=0.09) consisting of nearly independent factors for the individual and social domains, with all items loading positively on their respective domain. We contribute an initial measure for researchers and practitioners to assess community members' access to shared digital resources and support, offering a tool to assess broader social and structural factors contributing to the digital divide.

Understanding How to Design a Social Computing System That Helps PhD Students Collectively Navigate Mistreatment or Abuse in Advising Relationships

2024-05-02 · 3 citations

People in power causing harm to those with less power is a long-standing problem across organizations. Academia is no exception. When advisors mistreat or abuse PhD students, how could a digital platform help affected PhD students connect with each other for collectively exploring solutions? To understand if there is a need for such a system, and how to design it, we conducted interviews with 10 PhD students. Our findings showed participants were overall positive about the high-level concept of a system for connecting PhD students to address problematic advising. Participants emphasized various social and technical features needed for comfortably using such a system. Simultaneously, participants had different preferences on how they would use it, based on their risk levels. We conclude by reflecting on the importance of centering users’ consent in nuanced ways when actually building the system.