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Twitter User Research

shepni edited this page Dec 19, 2019 · 5 revisions

We are focusing on black female-identifying politicians. We need to find out who these women are, their needs and their wants in a tool that will empower them online.

Objectives:

The gaps I think we have:

• Basic idea of how these people interact with Twitter
• In what ways are online spaces operating different from physical spaces? How is their experience with being a public figure different online and offline?
• What are the implications of online violence on the way they conduct themselves online? 
• How has their attitude changed about their social media presence after being attacked? How do they navigate this terrain? How often do they censor their content to avoid harassment online? Do you feel like it strongly impacts the content?
• How do we go about conceptualizing and negotiating the lines between censorship and consent (between creating safe spaces and making bubbles) ?
• Where does the abuse come from; direct messages, by observing other conversations or by direct abuse on statuses?
• What is most important for these people in terms of our idea?
• Why is this a relevant and urgent project? What are the implications of manifesting this project? 

Hypotheses

Female-identifying people do not carry on using Twitter like they did after being harassed on the platform.

Survey/interview Questions

About Opt Out

At Opt Out, we’re aiming to put a stop to the silencing nature of online misogyny. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has changed our lives online on social media platforms. We have the right to be forgotten, to see what is being collected about us and to opt out if we wish. The current abuse that the female-identifying community suffer is not avoidable. We see Opt Out as an extension of the GDPR that also protects the human rights of these people online, allowing them to join in respectful online debate once more.

We’re building tech tools to help all female identifying people with something to say, get back to the online spaces they’ve been chased out from. Opt Out’s founding idea is a browser extension that filters online misogyny from an individual's social media feed, automatically alerting the moderators of the platform to the detected abuse. We are consent not censorship focused. We’re designing our browser extension to have a local instance of the model that you can supply feedback to. By giving the individual control over what they do and don’t see whilst upholding their safety, we hope to show female-identifying people that their voices can be heard online without the traumatizing consequences. But what is misogyny and how do we define it?

Here you will find our definitions of the different faces of online misogyny

First, why misogyny? Why not gender based violence, why not sexism?

Misogyny is different from sexism. Someone can be misogynistic but not sexist, they can like women quite a lot in person but be very happy to support systematic discrimination against them or to use gender stereotypes against them. There is an act, an individual attempts to re-establish the patriarchal power structure through various means, threats of violence, belittling, derailing. There’s a tendency to define misogyny as this deep hatred in the heart, harbored by men towards girls and women but for us it’s not. Misogyny is better understood as the law enforcement of the patriarchy.

It’s also important to explain why we have chosen misogyny and not online gender based violence, to tackle first. This is because we are dealing with a very specific problem online form of harassment, the rhetoric used or such things like mob attacks. We are not aiming to remove everything such as revenge porn, not yet anyway.

Do you

1. Do you use Twitter for professional purposes?
2. Do you use Twitter personally?
3. Do you have a separate account for each case?
4. Do you use Twitter on your phone or laptop?
5. In what length of “session” do you use Twitter? < 5mins, 5-10 mins, 10mins < 
6. Do you are you vocal or not vocal on Twitter? Both professionally and personally?
7. Have you been harassed on this platform?
8. How would you describe its form (sexual, misogynistic,  mobbing, doxxing, direct threat)?
9. What was done about it?
10. Did you feel like there were protective mechanisms set in place for your protection and safety? 
11. Did this change how you interact with the social media platform after the incident? Please explain why?
12. In what ways is your presence different on Twitter now? Both professionally and personally?

(After showing alpha & website)

Product Opportunity

1. What do you think of the product?
2. In what ways do you imagine/feel like it would change your cyber experience? In terms of both limitations and freedoms.
3. Can you see yourself using it?
4. What are things that make you nervous about the product?/ what possible tensions do you imagine to occur?
5. Do you think you would trust this product? please state why

Product Reaction

1. What’s most appealing
2. What’s the hardest part of this product?
3. Was there anything missing?
4. What could be done to improve it?