Sensemaking, Support, Safety, Retribution, Transformation: Understanding Adolescents' Needs for Addressing Online Harm

Title of the Paper

Sensemaking, Support, Safety, Retribution, Transformation: A Restorative Justice Approach to Understanding Adolescents’ Needs for Addressing Online Harm

Paper Information

• Subject Area: Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Restorative Justice, addressing issues and solutions for adolescent online harm in social media.
• Keywords: Online harassment, content moderation, internet governance, social media, victim rights

Research Background and Problem

• Identified Issues or Challenges: Online harm among adolescents on social media is widespread. Current content moderation mechanisms focus on rule violations and punitive measures, but they fail to address victims' needs and restorative solutions.
• Significance: Traditional centralized moderation models on platforms inadequately address the real experiences and diverse needs of victims, particularly adolescents who may face significant psychological impacts. These issues urgently require understanding and resolution from a restorative justice perspective.
• Research Motivation and Related Work: The authors aim to explore a restorative justice model by listening to victims' needs. This model not only focuses on victims but also emphasizes collaboration with the community and perpetrators to repair harm. Related research in the HCI field has explored victims' perspectives and designed interventions based on restorative principles.

Solution

• Method or Solution: The authors conducted interviews and design activities to study adolescents' needs for addressing online harm. Using a framework based on restorative justice principles, they captured these needs and related processes.
• Innovations:
  • Identified five core needs: sensemaking, support and validation, safety, retribution, and transformation.
  • Emphasized multi-stakeholder collaboration, including online platforms, perpetrators, community members, schools, and families.
  • Used timeline activities to analyze the stages and priorities of these needs.
• Implementation Steps:
  1. Task Design: Based on four need frameworks in restorative justice (informational needs, truth-telling, empowerment, and restitution), the authors developed a four-stage reflective task using Q&A and visualization tools (online whiteboards).
  2. Participant Recruitment: Conducted interviews with 28 adolescents who had experienced online harm.
  3. Action and Data Analysis: Categorized needs and analyzed their temporal preferences and decision-making processes.

Research Findings

• Specific Findings:
  • Adolescents primarily have five major needs: understanding the motives behind harmful behavior, receiving emotional support and validation, ensuring personal safety, punishing perpetrators, and transforming the online environment.
  • Proposed specific measures to address these needs, such as improving platforms' automated detection and content moderation processes, expanding community education resources, and encouraging perpetrators to reflect and collaborate with victims and the community.
• Advantages Compared to Existing Solutions:
  • Enriched platform-centric content moderation methods by emphasizing the value of restorative justice.
  • Introduced a temporal perspective, clarifying the prioritization of needs.
  • Promoted cross-platform and online-offline collaborative mechanisms.
• Experimental or Evaluation Results:
  • Respondents prioritized immediate needs for safety and emotional support.
  • Transformation needs (e.g., raising public awareness or preventive mechanisms) were seen as longer-term tasks requiring societal collaboration.
• Limitations and Future Directions:
  • The data sample focused on Asian American adolescents from a university on the U.S. West Coast, lacking broader representativeness.
  • Scalable online restorative justice practices have not yet been achieved, requiring further exploration of design and application on existing platforms.
  • Future research could delve into the needs of adolescents across different age groups and cultural backgrounds, as well as how platforms can effectively integrate short-term and long-term goals.

Compared to traditional punitive mechanisms, this paper focuses more on the complex relational network involving victims, community members, and platforms, emphasizing restorative and collaborative justice practices. It provides important insights for improving the social responsibility and design of online platforms.