CrowdSolve: Managing Tensions in an Expert-Led Crowdsourced Investigation

Video

DOI

Investigators in fields such as journalism and law enforcement have long sought the public’s help with investigations. New technologies have also allowed amateur sleuths to lead their own crowdsourced investigations (CIs), that have traditionally only been the purview of expert investigators. These CIs have been faced with mixed results. Through an ethnographic study at a four-day long co-located event with over 250 attendees, we examine the human infrastructure responsible for enabling the success of an expert-led CI. We find that the experts enabled attendees to generate useful leads; the attendees formed a community around the event; and the victims’ families felt supported. However, the co-located setting, legal structures, and emergent social norms impacted collaborative work practice. We also surface three important tensions for CIs to consider and provide design recommendations to manage these tensions.