Norah Abokhodair

Recent developments in generative AI enable the rapid production of lifelike images, but these tools often reproduce cultural stereotypes for underrepresented groups. We adopt a cross-regional, qualitative-dominant exploratory design to examine how text-to-image (T2I) systems portray African identities and how community members interpret these portrayals. The study combines a controlled image-generation task with semi-structured interviews with 18 participants from North and West Africa (Nigeria, Tunisia, Egypt, and Morocco). Participants generated images of everyday portraits, traditional attire during celebration, a professional context, and a speculative future depiction. Focusing on “traditional attire”, we identify three recurring interpretive tensions participants used to diagnose cultural misrepresentation: accessories (e.g., beads) functioning as shallow cultural proof, garment-semantics collapse when textiles, cuts, and named garments are missing, and temporal collapse in which living tradition is rendered as museum-era costume. We show how participants draw on garment knowledge and temporal reasoning to assess authenticity, and we argue that participants’ accounts suggest that culturally situated representation cannot be reduced to prompt-level debiasing alone.

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 SIG delves into the multifaceted dynamics of conducting ethnographic research in volatile environments marked by political unrest, conflict, economic or natural disasters. Our aim is to start nuanced discussions to critically examine the ethical, methodological, and psychological challenges of conducting research in these environments. We discuss the adaptation of ethnographic methods to prioritize safety for participants and researchers, emphasizing ethical and moral considerations in unstable environments. We will explore the impact of researchers’ presence in sensitive environments, focusing on establishing relationships, understanding, and respecting local customs, and minimizing disturbance to the community. Moreover, we address the emotional burden borne by both researchers and participants, sharing strategies for building resilience and managing secondary trauma. Using real-life case studies, this SIG aims to provide an in-depth exploration of the practical challenges and ethical dilemmas, sharing insightful lessons and valuable perspectives to ethnographers, enhancing their approach to research in such demanding contexts.

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.

Since the Arab Spring, there has been a global growing interest in the use of technology in the Arab world. In particular, social media and its impact on democratic practices. The region came to the forefront once more with the refugee crisis with many of those studies address Arabs as users of technologies designed and developed in Western countries. Our experience working/researching HCI motivates us to assert that current research on Arab HCI mostly deals with this population in a superficial way and is yet to reflect the depth and richness of the Arab culture as well as the diversity of the socio-political and economic aspects of the region. This one-day workshop aims to bring together HCI researchers/practitioners from the Arab World with those who are conducting/interested in research in this context. The goal is to start a dialog that leverages our \"insider\" understanding of HCI research in the Arab context to explore challenges and unique opportunities for future research.

This paper analyzes the barriers to information and communication technologies (ICT) use among extremely underserved minorities such as impoverished immigrants in the USA. In particular, we explore the physical and psychological barriers that prevent Hispanic day laborers in Seattle from making effective use of computers and the Internet. Based on a mixed-methods study that combined structured interviews, focus groups and observations among day laborers members of non-profit Casa Latina in Seattle, WA, we suggest a typology of barriers to ICT. We also suggest the use of a heat map for ICT training that addresses both the physical access and the emotional capacity barriers faced by underserved communities. Addressing emotional barriers as well as technical skills is critical for these extremely underserved populations to make effective use of ICT in ways that effectively meet their information and development needs.