YanMay 28
sohyeon hwang

📢 research call 📢

please boost! we're running a series of small group design workshops for community governance on fedi. if you are a user, admin, mod, dev, organizer - or have thought quite a bit about governance on fedi - and a legal adult in your locale, join us!

each workshop, scheduled based on peoples' availability, is:
🌐 2 hrs on Zoom
👥 w/ 6-10 people
💲 comes w/ $60 USD per person

details: https://dsmw.cs.princeton.edu/
sign up: https://princetonsurvey.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_e3SdG4y6wocMPie
questions: frictance@princeton.edu

Decentralized Social Media Workshop

Decentralized Social Media Workshop
Apr 22 at 8:57pmWeb
Show threadsohyeon hwangApr 22
a few more details in case anyone is curious - the study is formally called "Surfacing and Addressing Governance Frictions on Decentralized Social Media" and is being run by a team of myself, phd students (@YuhanLiu @thaty @sophierollins), and faculty across Princeton (Prof. Andrés Monroy-Hernández @andresmh ), Northwestern (Prof. Aaron Shaw @aaronshaw under IRB STU00223736), and Georgia Tech (Prof. Richmond Wong @richmondywong )!
Show threadsohyeon hwangApr 22
the idea of governance frictions comes from a paper i worked on last year (my first fedi study!) with @priyakalot @ynotez - it was accepted to CSCW 2025 and we have the pre-print out on arxiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.02150
Trust and Friction: Negotiating How Information Flows Through Decentralized Social Media

Decentralized social media protocols enable users in independent, user-hosted servers (i.e., instances) to interact with each other while they self-govern. This community-based model of social media governance opens up new opportunities for tailored decision-making about information flows -- i.e., what user data is shared to whom and when -- and in turn, for protecting user privacy. To better understand how community governance shapes privacy expectations on decentralized social media, we conducted a semi-structured interview with 23 users of the Fediverse, a decentralized social media network. Our findings illustrate important factors that shape a community's understandings of information flows, such as rules and proactive efforts from admins who are perceived as trustworthy. We also highlight ''governance frictions'' between communities that raise new privacy risks due to incompatibilities in values, security practices, and software. Our findings highlight the unique challenges of decentralized social media, suggest design opportunities to address frictions, and outline the role of participatory decision-making to realize the full potential of decentralization.

arXiv.org
Show threadErin KissaneApr 29
@s0hw CCing @bonfire @darius @jdp23 @kfitz @UlrikeHahn — this could be a great thing to get out to your networks! I loved Sohyeon's last paper and this is an amazing research team.
Show threadUlrike HahnApr 29
@kissane @s0hw @bonfire @darius @jdp23 @kfitz it had already caught my eye!
Show threadMayelApr 30
@s0hw FYI it seems Zelle is US-only? at least can't find the app in the UK android store
Show threadsohyeon hwangApr 30
@mayel yes, unfortunately - the university has specific rules about how we can offer compensation, but I'm looking into the possibility of other options (e.g., Amazon Incentives) and how that would work for folks not based in the US. I can keep you posted on if that works out!
Show threadMayelApr 30
@s0hw cool, well I'm personally happy to participate without compensation, but just wanted to point out that you may end up with a US centric study otherwise
Show threadsohyeon hwangApr 30
@mayel thanks, that is very kind of you! yeah, it's honestly an eternal struggle 😩 and each university i work at has different stipulations to learn :')
Show threadMayelMay 13
@s0hw FYI I found your email in spam, so you may want to ping participants on a secondary channel if possible
Show threadsohyeon hwangMay 15
@mayel ooh thank you for the heads up :0 ill follow up with folks
Show threadJaneishlyMay 1
@s0hw @lorry sounds like your kind of thing
Show threadLorryMay 1
@Janeishly @s0hw I'd just babble about #IRC #politics and that bores even me these days :D
Show threadIn #Flancia we'll meetMay 2
@s0hw @Matt_Noyes @edumerco @dphiffer @ansate @hollie @sam FYI ^
Show threadEduardo Mercovich (él)May 2
@flancian @s0hw @Matt_Noyes @dphiffer @ansate @hollie @sam thanks a lot!
Just signed up. :)
Show threadTariqMay 30

@s0hw

Before I consider this can you make clear whether fediverse admins shutting down anti-genocide voices is an issue you want to discuss and explore how we address?

I'd rather not waste my time if the issue is going to be given mere lip service.

Show threadsohyeon hwangJun 3
@rzeta0 hello! sorry for my late response, i've been pretty offline the past few days. yes, i'd certainly be interested in creating room for that discussion. i've been running workshops as a facilitator/moderator: folks bring issues that they want to focus on + i let those drive the convos. we're going to do a 2nd push to try to organize more sessions in early july. please feel free to reach out to me via email about this and we can discuss more on planning a session for this.