Current Projects

This is a non-comprehensive list of current major research projects in our lab!

Content Moderation. We have been studying governance via community-created rules online (e.g., on Reddit), as well as informal social norms, and platform-based content moderation. A specific focus has been on challenges to moderation, as experienced by moderators (e.g., moderating real-time chat) and by users (e.g., learning/understanding rules). The most recent project is about content moderation on TikTok. [Researchers: Michael Ann DeVito, Priscilla Hopper, Rachel Auslander (Harvard University), Aaron Jiang, Skylar Middler, Charlie Kiene (University of Washington), Peipei Nie (University of Michigan), Jed Brubaker]

Safety and Learning in Fandom. We have been studying fandom communities as support spaces for marginalized groups, with a focus on technology use and social norms. Recently funded by the National Science Foundation, this work is moving towards studying computational projects in fandom as a path towards broadening participation in computing. [Lead Researcher: Brianna Dym; Additional Student Researchers: Namita Pasupuleti, Cole Rockwood; Collaborators: Bryan Semaan (Syracuse University)]

Technology for Community Empowerment. In addition to the work with empowering LGBTQ communities in fandom, we are also exploring how other marginalized groups appropriate and improve upon technology as means towards community building, information sharing, and protecting themselves. These projects include work with Black Twitter, Black Lives Matter protesters, and fat activism communities. [Researchers: Shamika Klassen, Kandrea Wade; Blakeley Payne, Joy Weinberg, Sara Kingsley (Carnegie Mellon), Kalyn McCall (Harvard), Jordan Taylor (Carnegie Mellon), Katta Spiel (Vienna University of Technology)]

Ethics Controversies. In addition to past work on understanding public reactions to data privacy and research ethics controversies, and most recently facial recognition, we are working on creating a taxonomy of tech ethics controversies via media coverage, and to catalog public reaction.

Ethics Education. We are working to understand best practices for ethics education for technologists, by analyzing current practices and piloting interventions in university courses (e.g., in intro programming classes at CU Boulder). This work is funded in part by Mozilla’s Responsible Computer Science Challenge. [Researchers: Jessie Smith, Shamika Klassen, Ella Sarder, Natalie Garrett, John Sreenan, Joshua Paup, Blakeley Payne, Julie Jarzemsky, Dylan Doyle-Burke, Lochlain Renfrow, Faisal Lalani, Rami Mouro, Nate Beard (University of Maryland)]

Research Ethics for Pervasive Public Data. As part of the NSF-funded PERVADE project, our work is focused on understanding the impact of research on the people whose data we are collecting (e.g., Twitter users) and on current researcher practices. [Researchers: Brianna Dym, Shamika Goddard, Jessica Pater (Parkview Health), Jessica Vitak (University of Maryland)]

AI Fairness and Ethics. In collaboration with Robin Burke’s That Recommender Systems Lab, we are examining perceptions of fairness in recommender systems with a focus on global fairness and multiple stakeholders. [Researchers: Jessie Smith, Nasim Sonboli, Robin Burke]

Scaling Up Qualitative Methods. Part of a National Science Foundation funded project to build a system to help scale up qualitative, inductive research to larger datasets, the focus of our work is on understanding current work practices among qualitative scholars. [Researchers: Aaron Jiang, Kandrea Wade, Jed Brubaker, Danielle Szafir]

You can also check out these links to find out more about our overarching research on technology ethics, online fandom, and technology governance, and to find out more about Dr. Fiesler’s previous research.

Recent Publications

Fiesler, C., Friske, M., Garrett, N., Muzny, F., Smith, J., and Zietz, J. Integrating Ethics into Introductory Programming Classes. Proceedings of the ACM SIGCSE Conference on Computer Science Education, 2021.

Dym, B., Pasupuleti, N., Rockwood, C. and Fiesler, C. “You don’t do your hobby as a job”: Stereotypes of Computational Labor and their Implications for CS Education. Proceedings of the ACM SIGCSE Conference on Computer Science Education, 2021.

Dym, B. and Fiesler, C. Social Norm Vulnerability and Its Consequences for Privacy and Safety in an Online Community. Proceedings of the ACM Human-Computer Interaction, CSCW, 2020.

Fiesler, C. and Dym, B. Moving Across Lands: Online Platform Migration in Fandom Communities. Proceedings of the ACM Human-Computer Interaction, CSCW, 2020.

Garrett, N., Beard, N., and Fiesler, C. More Than “If Time Allows”: The Role of Ethics in AI Education. Proceedings of the ACM AIES Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics and Society, 2020.

Dym, B. and Fiesler, C. “First Rule of Fandom”: Ethical and Privacy Considerations for Research Using Online Fandom Data. Transformative Works and Cultures, 2020.

Fiesler, C., Garrett, N., and Beard, N. What Do We Teach When We Teach Tech Ethics? A Syllabi Analysis. Proceedings of the ACM SIGCSE Conference on Computer Science Education, 2020.

Hallinan, B., Brubaker, J.R., and Fiesler, C. Unexpected Expectations: Public Reactions to the Facebook Emotional Contagion Study. New Media & Society,  2019. [OA link]

Dym, B., Brubaker, J.R., Fiesler, C., and Semaan, B. Coming Out Okay: Community Narratives for LGBTQ Identity Recovery Work.  Proceedings of the ACM Human-Computer Interaction, CSCW.  2019.

Jiang, J.A., Kiene, C., Middler, S., Brubaker, J.R., and Fiesler, C. Moderation Challenges in Voice-based Online Communities on Discord. Proceedings of the ACM Human-Computer Interaction, CSCW.  2019.

Dym, B., Brubaker, J., and Fiesler, C. “theyre all trans sharon”: Authoring Gender in Videogame Fanfiction. In “Queerness and Video Games” special issue of Game Studies 18(3), 2018.

Jiang, J.A., Fiesler, C., and Brubaker, J.R. “The Perfect One”: Understanding Communication Practices and Challenges with Animated GIFs. Proceedings of the ACM Human-Computer Interaction 2, CSCW.  2018.