Using Social Translucency to tackle the issue of online trolling

WebSG meetup
Using social translucency to tackle
the issue of trolling online

Can design help motivate prosocial
behavior?
The spreading of disorder
- Keizer, K. E. (2010)

Design of our current
“conversation spaces”

Babble (Erickson et. al, 1999)

Social proxies (Erickson et. al, 1999)
1 2 3
1. The first instance shows a 'hot' conversation
2. The second, a dormant one
3. The third a mixture of activity, idleness, with three
people in other conversations.

Principles of social translucency
• Awareness
• Visibility
• Accountability

”It has totally changed my driving in that for the first time I’m
completely cognizant of how the car works.”
- Lee Peterson, former Jeep driver
Design to surface information

“… they’ve proven to be consistently effective at
getting drivers to slow down—reducing speeds, on
average, by about 10 percent, an effect that lasts
for several miles down the road. Indeed, traffic
engineers and safety experts consider them to be
more effective at changing driving habits than a
cop with a radar gun. Despite their redundancy,
despite their lack of repercussions, the signs have
accomplished what seemed impossible: They get us
to let up on the gas.”
- Thomans Goetz, 2011 “Harnessing the power of feedback loops” Wired Mag

4 stages of a feedback loop:
1. Evidence
• A behavior must be
measured, captured,
and stored.
2. Relevance
• The information must be
relayed to the individual,
in a context that makes
it emotionally resonant
3. Consequence
• The information must
illuminate one or more
actions to take.
4. Action
• There must be a clear
moment when the
individual can
recalibrate a behavior,
make a choice, and act.

The true power of feedback loops is not to
control people but to give them control. It’s
like the difference between a speed trap
and a speed feedback sign—one is a game
of gotcha, the other is a gentle reminder of
the rules of the road. The ideal feedback
loop gives us an emotional connection to a
rational goal.
Feedback loops

Social Translucency mechanisms in online spaces?
Showing identity and relations of users (public pages for users)
Providing systematic feedback mechanisms on content X
Showing number of views or downloads
Publishing a summary of the activities of users
Capturing and visualizing activities
Providing a list of needed contributions X
Defining specific, well-formulated goals X
Tracking and depicting most active users
Providing contribution barometer for users/groups
Offering Mechanisms to contact users
Providing feedback mechanisms such as discussion forums
Providing possibility of adding certain users as “friends”
Connection to social networks X
Providing the possibility to create sub-communities
Forstering of group/community identity
Privileging users based on their reputation
Making the value of contributions transparent

Social norms
Norms refer to a pattern, and expected
behaviors (in contrast to those established by
law) when operating or working with a
system.

People learn the norms of a community in three ways:
1. observing other people and the consequences of
their behavior;
1. seeing instructive generalizations or codes of
conduct;
1. behaving and directly receiving feedback.
Regulating online behavior (Kiesler et. al, 2010)

Wikidashboard (Chi et. al, 2008)
Architecture and design of social computing systems makes
“socially transparent” (Chi et al., 2008) the participation of the
users on the website.

Using Social Translucency to tackle the issue of online trolling

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