The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh is home to numerous Indigenous ethnic communities, and their languages, rituals, and values are distinct from those of the mainstream population. These differences, coupled with the past eight decades of turbulent political history, have contributed to the decline of communal harmony among different stakeholders in this region, which has been further aggravated by the advent of social media. In this work, we study the unique challenges faced by Indigenous young community members in Bangladesh when using the social media. Through a qualitative approach involving interviews and focus group discussion sessions, we investigate the online experiences encountered by this population along with their protection and coping mechanisms. Our findings provide a nuanced portrayal of both the internal and external challenges faced by these users. We further connect our findings to the broader issues in HCI and offer a few design recommendations.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3713268
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