Experiences of Harm, Healing, and Joy among Black Women and Femmes on Social Media

Title of the Paper

Experiences of Harm, Healing, and Joy for Black Women and Femmes on Social Media

Bibliographic Information

• Field of Study: Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Race and Gender Studies in Online Social Media
• Keywords: Online harassment, Black women, gender, racism, misogyny, restorative justice, joy, healing

Research Background and Issues

• Identified Problems or Challenges: Black women and gender minorities face various harmful behaviors and harassment on social media, including racism, sexism, stalking, insults, and the non-consensual dissemination of images, threatening their online safety and mental health. These phenomena are embedded in dominant power structures and historical social inequalities.
• Significance: Globally, racism and misogyny have intensified with the proliferation of technological platforms, while harassment targeting Black women is often masked or ignored by content moderation mechanisms, severely impeding their rights to free expression and social interaction.
• Research Motivation: The authors aim to provide a clearer depiction of the unique experiences of Black women and gender minorities and explore, through a restorative justice framework, how they transform adverse online environments, achieve healing through community support, and seek joy.

Solutions

• Methods and Solutions:
  • Employ Black feminist thought and transformative justice as analytical tools.
  • Conduct qualitative research involving 18 semi-structured focus group discussions with 49 Black women and gender minority users to examine their responses to harmful online behaviors and their practices of healing and joy.
  • Utilize restorative justice circles and interdisciplinary methods to support data collection and analysis.
• Innovations:
  • Highlight healing and joy as integral to social liberation, rather than solely focusing on harassment and harm.
  • Center the perspectives of Black women and gender minorities in HCI research, moving away from a white-centric baseline.
  • Design research methods grounded in transformative justice, emphasizing community and participatory healing.
• Implementation Steps and Techniques:
  • Participants were screened as active social media users with Black backgrounds and experiences of or exposure to harmful behaviors.
  • In focus groups, researchers adopted a facilitator role, guiding participants through in-depth questions to foster discussion and create a supportive environment.
  • Focus group data were transcribed and analyzed through open coding and thematic analysis.

Research Findings

• Specific Findings:
  • Illustrated typical scenarios of online harassment faced by Black women and minorities, including racism, hypersexualization, and internal cultural betrayal.
  • Demonstrated the negative impacts of harassment on psychological, emotional, physical, and social relationships, including anxiety, self-doubt, self-blame, and adversarial relationships with social media.
  • Highlighted how healing and joy can be achieved through online and offline mechanisms within a transformative justice framework, such as building community spaces, support networks, and disengaging from harmful online interactions.
• Advantages:
  • Compared to existing solutions, this study not only exposes harm but also provides a framework for understanding community healing, resistance, and joy, expanding HCI's engagement with social justice and racial issues.
  • The design of restorative justice circles enhances participants' voice and agency during the research process while supporting healing experiences.
• Experimental and Evaluation Results:
  • Most participants expressed appreciation for the participatory discussion platform, viewing it as a starting point for healing and emphasizing the importance of belonging and community support in the face of harassment.
• Limitations and Future Directions:
  • As the research sample is primarily U.S.-based, future studies should expand to other countries and regions to examine differences in Black women's online experiences within a global context.
  • The study calls for the design of social media platforms guided by transformative justice principles to establish a fairer online interaction environment within broader technological frameworks.