Harassment is a persistent problem in contemporary online environments, with women disproportionately experiencing its most severe forms. While critical scholars posit that online gender harassment may be linked to men's anxieties about fulfilling normative masculine gender roles, this relationship has not been examined by empirical research. We survey 264 young men between the ages of 18-24 about their masculinity anxieties and their perceptions of harassment directed at a woman on Twitter. We find that men who perceive themselves as less masculine than average men report higher endorsement of harassment. Further, we find that the relationship between masculinity anxieties and harassment endorsement is mediated by men's adherence to masculine norms and toxic disinhibition. We interpret these results through the lens of social media's specific affordances, and we discuss their implications for technology designers and other practitioners who wish to better detect, prevent, and remediate online harassment by accounting for the role of gender.

We interviewed VR users (n=25) about their experiences with harassment, abuse, and discomfort in social YR. We find that users' definitions of `online harassment' are subjective and highly personal, making it difficult to govern social spaces at the platform or application level. We also find that embodiment and presence make harassment feel more intense. Finally, we find that shared norms for appropriate behavior in social VR are still emergent, and that users distinguish between newcomers who unknowingly violate expectations for appropriateness and those users who aim to cause intentional harm.

In immersive virtual reality (VR) environments, experiences of harassment can be exacerbated by features such as synchronous voice chat, heightened feelings of presence and embodiment, and avatar movements that can feel like violations of personal space (such as simulated touching or grabbing). Simultaneously, efforts to govern these developing spaces are made more complex by the distributed landscape of virtual reality applications and the dynamic nature of local community norms. To better understand this nascent social and psychological environment, we interviewed VR users (n=25) about their experiences with harassment, abuse, and discomfort in social VR. We find that users' definitions of what constitutes online harassment are subjective and highly personal, which poses significant challenges for the enforcement of platform- or application-level policies. We also find that embodiment and presence in VR spaces make harassment feel more intense, while ephemerality and non-standardized application controls make it difficult to escape or report unwanted behavior. Finally, we find that shared norms for appropriate behavior in social VR are still emergent, and that users distinguish between newcomers who unknowingly violate expectations for appropriate behavior and those users who aim to cause intentional harm. We draw from social norms theory to help explain why norm formation is particularly challenging in virtual reality environments, and we discuss the implications of our findings for the top-down governance of online communities by platforms. We conclude by recommending alternative strategies for community governance.

Online harassment is a pervasive and pernicious problem. Techniques like natural language processing and machine learning are promising approaches for identifying abusive language, but they fail to address structural power imbalances perpetuated by automated labeling and classification. Similarly, platform policies and reporting tools are designed for a seemingly homogenous user base and do not account for individual experiences and systems of social oppression. This paper describes the design and evaluation of HeartMob, a platform built by and for people who are disproportionately affected by the most severe forms of online harassment. We conducted interviews with 18 HeartMob users, both targets and supporters, about their harassment experiences and their use of the site. We examine systems of classification enacted by technical systems, platform policies, and users to demonstrate how 1) labeling serves to validate (or invalidate) harassment experiences; 2) labeling motivates bystanders to provide support; and 3) labeling content as harassment is critical for surfacing community norms around appropriate user behavior. We discuss these results through the lens of Bowker and Star's classification theories and describe implications for labeling and classifying online abuse. Finally, informed by intersectional feminist theory, we argue that fully addressing online harassment requires the ongoing integration of vulnerable users' needs into the design and moderation of online platforms.

Increasing numbers of American parents identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT). Shifting social movements are beginning to achieve greater recognition for LGBT parents and more rights for their families; however, LGBT parents still experience stigma and judgment in a variety of social contexts. We interviewed 28 LGBT parents to investigate how they navigate their online environments in light of these societal shifts. We find that 1) LGBT parents use social media sites to detect disapproval and identify allies within their social networks; 2) LGBT parents become what we call incidental advocates, when everyday social media posts are perceived as advocacy work even when not intended as such; and 3) for LGBT parents, privacy is a complex and collective responsibility, shared with children, partners, and families. We consider the complexities of LGBT parents' online disclosures in the context of shifting social movements and discuss the importance of supporting individual and collective privacy boundaries in these contexts.

Extensive scholarship has investigated technology use among families. Existing work has focused primarily on parents' reactions to and restrictions of their children's technology use; here, we explore the underlying tensions surrounding technology use in the home. We draw on historical perspectives of adolescence and family life to better understand technology's impact on present-day parents and teens. Through an interview study with 18 parent-child pairs (19 parents; 23 children, ages 10-17), we find a number of technology tensions, including 1) parents' underestimation of children's technology use; 2) children's perception that parents only tell them which behaviors to avoid; 3) both parents' and children's poor adherence to household technology rules; and 4) parents' and children's desire for mutual attention. We argue that the use of personal devices introduces distinctive challenges into modern family life, due to the limited visibility (or practical obscurity) of personal device use, expectations of constant connectivity, and overly-romanticized notions of family time. We consider the historical evolution of both teenage and family life, and conclude that consistent and realistic expectations around work, attention, and adolescence may help families better manage household technology use.

Parents, educators, and policymakers have expressed concern about the future implications of young people's sharing practices on social media sites. However, little is known about how young people themselves feel about their online behaviors being preserved and resurfaced later in adulthood. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 28 college-going, primarily female, young adults about their use of social media and their transition from adolescence into young adulthood. We find that participants recognize archival value in their own Facebook histories, despite sometimes perceiving these histories to be embarrassing. They experience tensions between meeting their current self-presentational goals and maintaining the authenticity of historical content. To reconcile these tensions, they engage in retrospective impression management practices, such as curating past content. They also engage in 'backstalking' behaviors, in which they view and engage with other users' Facebook histories' openly with close ties and discreetly with weak ties. We consider this ludic engagement through the lens of emerging adulthood and discuss the theoretical implications of our findings, especially in light of emerging applications which intentionally resurface digital traces.