In this paper, we explore how sociotechnical systems support and impede the identity performances and identity expression of communities that have experienced a long history of colonialism, where colonization is the practice through which a foreign power reshapes the social structures and systems of other societies. We conducted a trace ethnography among members of a specific digital platform—Bengali Quora (BnQuora). BnQuora is part of the question and answer (Q&A) platform Quora, where people with this particular ethnolinguistic identity come together to engage in conversations about their identities; identities which were shaped through a long history of colonization in the Global South. In drawing on a conceptual framework that brings together identity performativity, governance, content moderation, and surveillance, we find that the sociotechnical mechanisms of governance that mediate people's performances on the BnQuora platform give rise to a kind of platform identity—certain identities are privileged while others are pushed to the margins based on linguistic practices, nationalities, and religious affiliations. We illustrate this through the themes of moderators as prison guards, collective surveillance as enforcing a majority identity, algorithmic coloniality, and staging as self-imprisonment. Finally, we discuss the ways in which governance shapes a platform's identity and can create, strengthen, and reinforce coloniality.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3479860
"Developers are more than ``nerds behind computers all day'', they lead a normal life, and not all take the traditional path to learn programming. However, the public still sees software development as a profession for ``math wizards''. To learn more about this special type of knowledge worker from their first-person perspective, we conducted three studies to learn how developers describe a day in their life through vlogs on YouTube and how these vlogs were received by the broader community. We first interviewed 16 developers who vlogged to identify their motivations for creating this content and their intention behind what they chose to portray. Second, we analyzed 130 vlogs (video blogs) to understand the range of the content conveyed through videos. Third, we analyzed 1176 comments from the 130 vlogs to understand the impact the vlogs have on the audience. We found that developers were motivated to promote and build a diverse community, by sharing different aspects of life that define their identity, and by creating awareness about learning and career opportunities in computing. They used vlogs to share a variety of how software developers work and live---showcasing often unseen experiences, including intimate moments from their personal life. From our comment analysis, we found that the vlogs were valuable to the audience to find information and seek advice. Commenters sought opportunities to connect with others over shared triumphs and trials they faced that were also shown in the vlogs. As a central theme, we found that developers use vlogs to challenge the misconceptions and stereotypes around their identity, work-life, and well-being. These social stigmas are obstacles to an inclusive and accepting community and can deter people from choosing software development as a career. We also discuss the implications of using vlogs to support developers, researchers, and beyond."
https://doi.org/10.1145/3479530
In online question and answer (Q&A) communities people ask questions and share answers at all levels of topic sensitivity. Identity options within these communities range from anonymity to real name. The amount of engagement on Q&A sites and the quality of that engagement on Q&A sites may differ depending on the identity options available. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between the amount, the quality of engagement, and different types of identity by analyzing three Q&A sites with different identity policies. We find that highly sensitive questions are more likely to be asked anonymously. Furthermore, allowing anonymity does not affect answer quality and only has a weak, negative indirect effect on engagement. On the other hand, anonymity leads to more trolling. We suggest that online communities provide a way for users to ask highly sensitive questions anonymously paired with moderation mechanisms that can help reduce trolling.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3449215
People often strive to present themselves authentically on social media, but this may not be possible for everyone. To understand how people view online authenticity, how it relates to social media sharing behaviors, and whether it is achievable, we interviewed 28 social media users who had recently experienced major life transitions. We found that to many participants, online authenticity required presenting a consistent, positive, and "true" self across online and offline contexts. Though most stated that they considered online authenticity achievable, their social media self-disclosure behaviors around life transitions revealed what we call the online authenticity paradox: people strive to achieve online authenticity, yet because doing so requires sharing negative experiences on social media, online authenticity is often unreachable, or is possible only at great personal cost - especially for those with marginalized identities and difficult life experiences.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3479567
Authenticity, generally regarded as coherence between one’s inner self and outward behavior, is associated with myriad social values (e.g., integrity) and beneficial outcomes, such as psychological well-being. Scholarship suggests, however, that behaving authentically online is complicated by self-presentation norms that make it difficult to present a complex self as well as encourage sharing positive emotions and facets of self and discourage sharing difficult emotions. In this paper, we position authenticity as a self-presentation norm and identify the sociomaterial factors that contribute to the learning, enactment, and enforcement of authenticity on the short-video sharing platform TikTok. We draw on interviews with 15 U.S. TikTok users to argue that normative authenticity and understanding of TikTok as a “fun” platform are mutually constitutive in supporting a “just be you” attitude on TikTok that in turn normalizes expressions of both positive and difficult emotions and experiences. We consider the social context of TikTok and use an affordance lens to identify anonymity, of oneself and one’s audience; association between content and the “For You” landing page; and video modality of TikTok as factors informing authenticity as a self-presentation norm. We argue that these factors similarly contribute to TikTok’s viability as a space for social support exchange, and address the utility of the comments section as a site for both supportive communication and norm judgment and enforcement. We conclude by considering the limitations of authenticity as social norm and present implications for designing online spaces for social support and connection.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3479574
In 2015, Facebook launched Legacy Contact to allow account holders to choose someone to manage their postmortem, memorialized profile. This study evaluates the Legacy Contact setup process, and asks how users form and communicate expectations about what an active post-mortem manager’s responsibilities would be. We conducted 30 semi-structured interviews with adult Facebook account holders in the US who either configured their own settings or were chosen for future delegation by someone else. We found that account holders chose the Facebook Friend they felt closest to, and that selection was often reciprocated. Both accountholders and legacy contacts felt confident that they had communicated (or could communicate) well about the legacy contact’s responsibilities, but their expectations did not align with the actual functionality of the Legacy Contact system. We argue that the misalignment of user expectations and system functionality indicates a significant opportunity to improve the setup process. Our findings indicate that post-mortem management systems require a setup process that is fundamentally different from the quick-clickthrough standards of everyday interaction design. The ramifications of a postmortem manager’s expectations not being met during a time of grief, points to the urgent need for a setup process that prompts thoughtfulness and deliberation, and forms accurate expectations for account holders and future postmortem managers alike.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3449248
Twitter users signal social identity in their profile descriptions, or bios, in a number of important but complex ways that are not well-captured by existing characterizations of how identity is expressed in language. Better ways of defining and measuring these expressions may therefore be useful both in understanding how social identity is expressed in text, and how the self is presented on Twitter. To this end, the present work makes three contributions. First, using qualitative methods, we \hl{identify and} define the concept of a personal identifier, which is more representative of the ways in which identity is signaled in Twitter bios. Second, we propose a method to extract all personal identifiers expressed in a given bio. Finally, we present a series of validation analyses that explore the strengths and limitations of our proposed method. Our work opens up exciting new opportunities at the intersection between the social psychological study of social identity and the study of how we compose the self through markers of identity on Twitter and in social media more generally.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3479502