During the 2023–ongoing Gaza war, Palestinian advocacy on social media has faced rapid removals, downranking, and account sanctions. In this contribution, we offer a layered analysis of how people endure and counter this repression across affective, mechanistic, and material dimensions. Using patchwork ethnography over 295 first-person testimonies and 85 NGO/press documents, we identify a recursive Contest Loop: hostile mass-report brigades and automated enforcement that spur supporter “appeal brigades,” mirroring, and migration. Findings are organized as a three-layer ecology—Invisible Scars (whiplash, shadowbanning as probabilistic throttling, self-censorship), Dueling Brigades (frictions, coordinated reports, supporter procedures), and Feed-to-Street Ripples (fundraising, evidentiary preservation, livelihoods). Conceptually, we extend platform-assemblage thinking with a Resistance Assemblage: ad-hoc technical, emotional, and legal mutual-aid infrastructures that keep visibility alive under sanction. We contribute: (1) an event-centered, experience-near account of co-produced moderation in conflict; (2) two integrative lenses (Contest Loop, Resistance Assemblage); and (3) design/policy directions, including collective-appeal dashboards, and evidentiary safeguards that separate archiving from distribution.

Abstract Over the past decade, a range of methodological approaches, user studies, and research results focused on technology for people with dementia has led to insights into the design of innovative solutions that can be embedded in the complex daily lives of people with dementia and their care-network. This paper recounts experiences and lessons learned over the course of a three-year participatory design project with and for people with dementia and their caregivers in domestic and institutional care settings. It contributes with long-term insights and reflections on the challenges confronting researchers in these sensitive care domains and discusses the need to 'know the users' and their care-networks so as to enable a deeper understanding of their unique difficulties. In particular, it examines the relationship between empathic understanding, experience-centered design, and the social appropriation of ICT, in our case exergames, in these various healthcare settings. What this might mean not only for future technology design, but also for the conduct of human-centered research is then discussed. We emphasize that designing appropriate assistive technologies for people with dementia requires sustained, empathetic engagement with both people with dementia and their caregivers, grounded in regular, trust-building interactions. Caregivers play a vital role in the appropriation and maintenance of these systems and researchers must be prepared for the emotional demands and relational commitments that such work entails. By embedding technology development within the rhythms of care and prioritizing mutual respect, researchers can create more meaningful, responsive, and sustainable support systems.

This paper presents a longitudinal case study of two volunteer-led computer clubs in Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank. Combining participatory action research, autoethnography, and follow-up interviews conducted ten years later, we examine how socio-technical infrastructures of learning were built and sustained under intertwined constraints. While the clubs were designed to support children’s engagement with technology, the most meaningful outcomes were reported by the volunteers, whose roles required navigating logistical, interpersonal, and political challenges in resource-constrained settings. Our findings position volunteers as infrastructural actors: they stitched together tools, partnerships, and routines to stabilize the clubs and create a durable social infrastructure. We identify the breadth of work and social structures implicated in volunteering and show how technology mediates these interdependencies. Recognition and care practices (such as debriefs, reflection rituals, acknowledgments) emerge as design requirements for sustaining participation, reflecting a shift from questions of access to recognition observed in feminist hackerspaces. Gendered trajectories reveal how women volunteers negotiated leadership and gained professional capital in male‑dominated contexts. Our longitudinal findings provide an empirical account of an uneven temporality of impact: durable benefits accrue to those performing infrastructural labor (volunteers), whereas short‑term beneficiaries (child participants) recall little after a decade.

Social media platforms have become a double-edged sword for human rights activism, simultaneously offering a stage and facilitating wide-reaching communication and connection, while also imposing censorship through stringent and opaque content governance. This study focuses on the over enforcement of content moderation on social media platforms, affecting activists who tried to engage online publics with issues of forced evictions and displacements in Sheikh Jarrah (SJ) and Silwan, in occupied East Jerusalem in May 2021 --- a critical juncture in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. By analyzing responses from a survey of 201 users who reported experiencing censorship, and interviews with 14 political influencers and activists, we uncover how these individuals navigate the intricate landscape of social media censorship. The findings reveal a continuum of different ways of responding to censorship, from self-censorship to proactive advocacy of policy change, that highlight the ingenuity activists can employ to bypass content restrictions. This research not only contributes to our understanding of the interaction between social media's technical affordances and activist responses but also discusses broader implications for the design and governance of digital platforms in supporting democratic discourse and human rights activism in conflict zones. This study enriches the ongoing dialogue about social media's dual role as both a facilitator and a controller of public discourse, emphasizing the need for platforms to consider the profound impacts of their technical and policy decisions on global activism.

This paper presents the results of a long-term exploratory study that examined the social and emotional impact of using a social robot with a variety of applications to promote activities for people with advanced dementia and their caregivers. Qualitative data was collected over 10-months in a secured care environment in which we explored the appropriation of a social robot by 23 participants, including 13 PwAD, their family members, and professional caregivers. Our findings indicate that the use of the social robot demonstrated the potential to improve well-being, engagement, and social interaction of PwAD, even demonstrating the ability to create new memories and experiences. We discuss requirements and challenges in integrating social robots into secured care environments to provide a nuanced understanding for future research aiming for appropriate and inclusive care outcomes and socially embedded innovations that address the social actors involved and thus contribute to practical solutions for professional care.

Social media technologies have been empowering to some human rights activists, providing a platform for exercising free speech and mobilization. However, many activists have voiced concerns and shared experiences they understand as considerable censorship on these platforms, under the guise of content governance. In an effort to increase the understanding and transparency of content moderation practices during conflicts, this study investigates the perceived reasons for censorship as understood by activists and the explanations made visible to activists by social media platforms, if any were given. Our case study to examine these platforms-activists relations is the events which occurred in May 2021 in East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, which was a significant moment in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and garnered international attention. The over enforcement of content moderation faced by Palestinians and their allies during these events on social media raised concerns about freedom of speech and the role of technology in activism. Our study deepens understanding through findings from a survey of 201 social media users who reported potentially unfair moderation decisions, and from 12 interviews with political influencers to grasp the broader implications of content moderation on activism. The findings of this study indicate a substantial disparity between the official explanations made visible to the activists by the social media platforms, and the reasons as perceived by users. This has significant implications, both socially and for social media platforms -- as CSCW and Group work environments --- on activist groups and the potentialities of democratic discourse. This study serves as an important contribution to the debate on the role of social media content moderation in human rights activism, particularly in conflict zones.

This paper focuses on tools to approach the practices inherent to the formal and informal e-waste value-chains in Ghana. Our series of field trips and interviews with e-waste collectors and scrap workers, repairers and retailers at their respective workplaces, as well as with domestic electronics users captured a situation in flux, where local authorities had implemented their decision to demolish the Agbogbloshie scrapyard site in Accra in July 2021 and relocate the workplaces within the city. In this situation, our exploratory perspective on tools and practices serves as a lense to identify possibilities of socio-technical support for repairing and upcycling and related community building.

This study explores the global phenomenon of migration at the local, neighborhood level of a mid-sized city in Germany. Focusing on a long-term interactive storytelling-initiative, it studies the emergence of Arrival Literacy as a bi-directional skill-set. It describes the development of individual, local responses to global migration consequences, among both newcomers who migrated, as well as long-term citizens who never moved. The analytic lens of Arrival Literacy brings forward the complexity and difficulties of the arrival process, where the individual is navigating the consequences of political decisions that were made at a broader level. Digital storytelling as an element is a method to 1) creatively develop a skill of expression for one's own positionality, and 2) to connect with the positionalities of others, thus supporting the process of dealing with arrival at the local community level and beyond.

Food practices have become an important context for questions around sustainability. Within HCI, sustainable HCI and human-food-interaction have developed as a response. We argue, nevertheless, that food practices as a social activity remain relatively under-examined, and further that sustainable food practices hinge on communal activity. We present the results of action-oriented research with a grassroots movement committed to sustainable food practices at a local, communal level, thereby demonstrating the role of ICT in making food resource sharing a viable practice. We suggest that the current focus on food sharing might usefully be supplemented by attention to food resource sharing, an approach that aligns with a paradigm shift from surplus to abundance. We argue for a design that aims to encourage food resource sharing at a local level but that also has wider ramifications. These “glocal” endeavors recognize the complexity of prosumption practices and foster aspirations for “deep change” in food systems.

In December 2010, a young market trader set himself on fire in protest in front of the governor’s palace in Tunisia. This event marked the beginning of mass protests, which within 6 weeks led to the resignation of the Tunisian government and to the departure of the president. Subsequently, protests against unpopular governments spread to neighbouring countries throughout northern Africa, and to additional countries in the Middle East. A number of governments were overthrown, and in Syria a civil war is still raging today. Hundreds of thousands of people in the Mena region have lost their homes and are now on the run, and most countries are now considered politically unstable. These political developments have been described under various labels, such as, the Arab Spring and the Arab Revolution . In the early days of this protest movement, these developments were framed in mainstream media as ‘Facebook’s Revolution’ or ‘Revolution 2.0’. Beneath these headings and framings is the assumption, or rather the thesis, that the rapid spread of the protests and the uprisings would not have been possible without the intensive use of social media such as Facebook and Twitter. To put it bluntly, there was (and perhaps still is), the assumption that these social media made the Arab Spring and the revolution possible in the first place.

Abstract This paper describes the appropriation processes involved in establishing a socio-technical enabling infrastructure in a valley in the High Atlas of Morocco. We focus on the challenges of co-establishing such an intervention in a rural/mountainous region that is already undergoing a process of continuous development and profound transformation. We reflect upon the changes and unforeseen appropriation by our local partners and inhabitants in the valley of a computer club primarily used as an informal learning centre for school children. We followed an ethnographic approach and combined research perspectives from both socio-informatics and anthropology. This paper sheds light on what a successful cooperation and intervention in this kind of challenging environment can look like. It does this by taking seriously competing expectations, fragile infrastructural foundations and the socio-cultural context. Despite the challenges, the intervention managed to lead to the establishment of a socio-technical enabling infrastructure that plays a particularly valuable role in local educational endeavours and that is now moving towards supporting other members of the community. The paper thus provides insights regarding what has to be considered to create a mutually beneficial cooperation with all relevant stakeholders as well as a sustainable intervention.

Abstract Issues of trust, privacy and security at the intersection of state intervention and the use of the internet both by ‘publics’ and by individuals for—from the State’s point of view- dispreferred purposes have been of great recent interest to researchers. This has been accompanied by a slowly developing concern for the way in which these issues pan out for people in non-Western cultures. Based on a study of Iranians living in urban centers, we examine the way in which culture, State institutions, technological infrastructure and practices intersect. Iran is a republic with a theocratic constitution and relatively strict regulation of private life. It has one of the highest rates of internet appropriation and social media use in the MENA region, but use is heavily mediated by state interventions, for instance the filtering of sites such as Facebook and Twitter. We show how young Iranians, due to restrictions on their private lives, learn from early age on to deal with illegal access techniques such as proxy servers and virtual private networks (VPNs). These access technologies are often used for private purposes such as contacting and meeting other genders. However, these capabilities become even more important when preparing to leave the country or to articulate their political dissatisfaction, specifically at moments of political unrest. We discuss and develop the concept of ‘counter-appropriation’ and the ‘counter-public’ to describe the practices of urban dwellers in circumventing increasingly more sophisticated intervention by the state security apparatus.

This article and the design fictions it presents are bound up with an ongoing qualitative-ethnographic study with Imazighen, the native people in remote Morocco. This group of people is marked by textual and digital illiteracy. We are in the process of developing multi-modal design fictions that can be used in workshops as a starting point for the co-development of further design fictions that envision the local population's desired digital futures. The design fictions take the form of storyboards, allowing for a non-textual engagement. The current content seeks to explore challenges, potentials, margins, and limitations for the future design of haptic and touch-sensitive technology as a means for interpersonal communication and information procurement. Design fictions provide a way of exposing the locals to possible digital futures so that they can actively engage with them and explore the bounds and confines of their literacy and the extent to which it matters.

This paper presents the outcomes of an exploratory study focused on the evaluation of an interactive music exergame for People with Dementia (PwD) and their caregivers. PwD tend to isolate themselves from the outside world, therefore carers need to develop strategies to maintain communication with them. Studies indicate that music–based activities provide an effective way to achieve social interaction with PwD. At the same time, physical activity plays a major role in dementia-related interventions because it can slow down progression and provide meaningful stimulation. Our developed interactive music game bounds these two concerns together; we evaluated the system afterwards regarding its individual and social impact and its integration into the daily routines of both PwD and their caregivers, focusing on its capacity to provide both enjoyment and relief from some of the effects of dementia. Qualitative data collected over 4 months confirmed the valuable impact of music-based interventions of PwD. Of particular note was how PwD used the game to improve or maintain their physical condition while recovering past memories and an interest in social interaction.

There has been increasing interest in designing for dementia in recent years. Empirical investigation is now needed of the long-term role of caregivers in appropriating ICTs into the complex daily life of people with dementia (PwD). We present here the outcomes of a 4-month evaluation of the individual, social and institutional impact of a videogame-based training system. The everyday behavior and interactions of 52 PwD and 25 caregivers was studied qualitatively, focusing on the role played by caregivers in integrating the system into daily routines. Our results indicate that the successful appropriation of ICT for PwD depends partly on the physical, cognitive and social benefits for PwD, but especially on the added value perceived by their social care-network. We discuss the need for design in dementia to develop more socially embedded innovations that can address the social actors involved and thus contribute to practical solutions for professional and private care.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has penetrated almost all areas of life today and has the potential to create positive change. This paper addresses the opportunities offered by ICT for improving the resilience and psychosocial well-being of refugees who have experienced mentally stressful events when forced to leave their home country and seek shelter in a different host country. We want to distinguish between perceived stress and clinically-defined trauma, for which therapeutic interventions require direct personal contact with psychological experts. However, we also want to focus on the digital possibilities that currently exist to support establishing this kind of personal connection. Many refugees need to seek psychological help, but social, economic and cultural barriers hold them back. Our qualitative study with refugees, psychologists and volunteers provides insights into how refugees deal with their mental issues and the challenges they face in everyday life. We aim to show that ICT can play a major role in terms of addressing awareness and self-empowerment as an entry point for this vulnerable group. We also discuss the potential challenges and benefits of ICT for refugees seeking to recover their mental stability.

There is currently uncertainty in the research community as to how ICT can and should be designed in such a way that it can be convincingly integrated into the everyday lives of prison inmates. In this paper, we discuss a design fiction that closes this research gap. The descriptions and results of the study are purely fictitious. Excluded is the State of the Art as well as the description of the legal situation of prisons in Germany. The analysis of the fictional study data designed here thus refers to the real world in order to derive ethical guidelines and draw practical conclusions. It is our intention to use these results as a possible basis for further research. The paper presents results of an explorative study dealing with the design, development and evaluation of an AI-based Smart Mirror System, Prison AI 2.0, in a German prison. Prison AI 2.0 was developed for daily use and voluntarily tested by eight prisoners over a period of 12 months to gain insight into their individual and social impact, with an emphasis on its ability to actively support rehabilitation. Based on qualitative data, our findings suggest that intelligent AI-based devices can actually help promote such an outcome. Our results also confirm the valuable impact of (Psychosocial) ICT on the psychological, social and individual aspects of prison life, and in particular how prisoners used the Smart Mirror system to improve and maintain their cognitive, mental and physical state and to restore social interactions with the outside world. With the presentation of these results we want to initiate discussions about the use of ICT by prisoners in closed prisons in order to identify opportunities and risks.

Digital participation has become an important issue in modern societies, typically focusing on groups prone to marginalization. From this perspective, less attention has yet been paid to imprisoned persons. Many penitentiary systems are formally characterized by the basic requirement of resocialization. Accordingly, life in prison should be largely adapted to conditions outside and to fundamental social changes, which must be considered in designing the framework for prison systems. Still, the digital opening of the prison is debated controversially, not least due to anticipated security issues. Hence, to raise awareness about challenges for digital participation of prisoners, we conducted a knowledge-sociological analysis (SKAD) of the public discourse on the use of ICT by prison inmates in Germany. We thereby seek to advance knowledge and insights from social and organizational practice arising from the use of ICT in context of total institutions and create the basis for action from a socio-informatics perspective.

For migrants and refugees, settling in a host country often proves hugely problematic. The ability to communicate marks a significant step in the process of resettlement. The current high number of migrants coming to Europe has therefore meant that the need to improve and increase the availability of language provision has become more pressing. Nevertheless, due to the complexity of financial and legal regulations and of policy restrictions, access to and information about available courses are in practice hard to find, and non-funded volunteer initiatives are scarcely visible at all. To address this problem, a newly developed language-course wizard provides orientation for refugees and migrants. Findings indicate that its visual representation is apt to span a broad range of cultural as well as educational backgrounds. Our work demonstrates the need for a detailed approach to understanding the challenges that refugees and other migrants face in practice. Failing this, services frequently do not reach those they are intended for.

This paper presents the outcomes of an exploratory field study that examined the social impact of an ICT-based suite of exergames for people with dementia and their caregivers. Qualitative data was collected over a period of 8 months, during which time we studied the daily life of 14 people with dementia and their informal and professional caregivers. We focus on the experiential aspects of the system and examine its social impact when integrated into the daily routines of both people with dementia themselves and their professional and family caregivers. Our findings indicate that relatives were able to regain leisure time, whilst people with dementia were able to recapture certain aspects of their social and daily activities that might otherwise have been lost to them. Results suggest that the system enhanced social-interaction, invigorated relationships, and improved the empowerment of people with dementia and their caregivers to face daily challenges.

Currently, over 22 million people are considered to be refugees. Many of them are looking for shelter in the surrounding countries of their home country. Technology can be a helpful tool in addressing the challenges of the so-called "refugee crisis", facilitating initial orientation, information, as well as communication and networking support. This one-day workshop aims to (1) finalize the elaborated guidelines of the previous workshop and SIG meeting and to (2) formulate a manifesto for researchers who work with the vulnerable target group of refugees.

As a result of ageing societies, the prevalence of dementia, and accordingly the need of care is increasing rapidly. Here, the use of ICT-based technologies may facilitate and promote a self-sustaining life-style for people with dementia and their caregivers. The presented poster describes early findings from the project MobiAssist and outlines the ICT-based training system. The system aims to increase the physical and cognitive capabilities of people with dementia, relief the caregivers and improve wellbeing of involved parties.

Dementia not only affects the cognitive capabilities, especially memory and orientation, but also physical capabilities, which are associated with a decrease of physical activities. Here, ICT can play a major role to improve health, quality of life and wellbeing in older adults suffering from dementia and related stakeholders, such as relatives, professional and informal caregivers. The aim of the presented system is to increase physical and cognitive capabilities of people with dementia and their caregivers to support them in daily life activities, reduce the strain of the caregivers and improve both their wellbeing.

Need for care and accordingly the prevalence of dementia is increasing rapidly. Information and communication technologies (ICT) may have the potential to support collaboration and cooperation between people with dementia and their caregivers and thus promote independency, wellbeing and quality of life of involved parties. In this context, the authors investigated the potential of an ICT-based videogame system to generate and facilitate social experiences of people with dementia and their caregivers. 26 people with dementia and their caregivers participated in a 16 month participatory design study. Results suggest that collaboration and cooperation among involved parties increased by using the system. Further, the study revealed positive and negative social experiences triggered by the videogame based system. This article will report on these results and provide implications that may support researchers to design similar systems with the potential to increase collaboration and cooperation among people with dementia and their caregivers.

This study explores the development of environmental awareness and computational literacy among children by means of upcycling making activities in Germany and Palestine. Our research supports the idea that the combination of handcraft and digital work, documentation and social interaction in the upcycling can foster the development of a maker identity in children. Findings indicate that upcycling can sensitize children for environmental issues of global relevance, foster their environmental learning and encourage them in the exploration of creative answers.

This poster describes the research around computer clubs in Palestinian refugee camps and the various lessons learned during the establishment of this intervention such the importance of the physical infrastructure (e.g. clean room, working hardware), soft technologies (e.g. knowledge transfer through workshops), social infrastructure (e.g. reliable partners in the refugee camp, partner from the university) and social capital (e.g. shared vision and values of all stakeholders). These important insights can be transferred on other interventions in similar unstable environments.

Social media usage during the recent uprisings in Arab countries has gained increasing attention in human–computer interaction research. This study adds to these insights by providing some findings on the use of information and communications technology (ICT), specifically mobile media, by opposition forces and political activists during the Syrian civil war. The presented study is based on 17 interviews with Syrian FSA fighters, activists, and refugees. A first analysis showed evidence for some very specific use patterns during wartime (compared to media usage of political activists under less anomic conditions). The study also describes a fragmented telecom infrastructure in Syria: government-controlled regions offer fairly intact infrastructures while rebel-controlled regions have been cut off from telephone and Internet. Moreover, the central and very critical role of mobile video for documenting, mobilization, and propaganda is discussed.

Come_IN computer clubs are an established approach to support inter-cultural and inter-generational learning in German neighborhoods. We explore the adaptation of the come_IN concept to the Palestinian context as a means to bridge the social and economic divide that has plagued West Bank society for a period of more than six decades. Social exclusion, political conflicts and prolonged military occupation have kept the refugee camps in a perpetual state of marginalization. In this paper we report on our work in Al Amari-- a Palestinian refugee camp adjacent to the city of Ramallah. We examine how the computer club enables the emergence of social ties among residents of the camp and university students acting as tutors. Even though the ties are small-scale and informal, they have the potential to generate new and wider opportunities for exchange that may eventually support more social integration between the camp's marginalized population and the wider Palestinian population.

Computational thinking is considered best practice for teaching computing and more broadly to solve problems and design systems, however as computing extends beyond the desktop (for instance increased integration of ubicomp technologies) so too must our educational methods. Exposure to ubicomp technologies is most accessible through the maker movement. With this in mind we argue we must move from computational thinking to computational making as an educational framework. Here we present a case study of children's making to support our vision for a broader conception of computational making.

In this paper we explore the appropriateness of e-textiles for teaching programming to mixed gender groups ages 8-12, allowing children to construct maker identities around technology. Our findings demonstrate the potential of e-textiles to promote girls' and boys' computational literacy, and the required craft and programming skills for making that can disrupt binary gender roles. We argue it allows both girls and boys to demonstrate technical mastery as well as to explore and construct a spectrum of gendered sociotechnical identities that might otherwise be obscured by conventional masculinist attitudes towards technology.

We analyze practices of political activists in a Palestinian village located in the West Bank. Activists organize weekly demonstrations against Israel's settlement policy and the separation wall. Over a period of 28 months, we conducted a field study consisting of eight days 'on the ground' observation and interviewing, and extensive monitoring of Internet communication. We describe the activists' background and their efforts to organize these demonstrations under conditions of military occupation. Over time, we observe the role both digital and material factors play in the organization of protest. Specifically, we analyze how Email and Facebook were appropriated to facilitate interaction 'on the ground'.