July 2020 Inclusion at Scale: Deploying a Community-Driven
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Inclusion at Scale: Deploying a Community-Driven Moderation Intervention on Twitch Johanna Brewer Morgan Romine T.L. Taylor MIT CMS/W AnyKey MIT CMS/W Cambridge, MA 02139, USA Burbank, CA 91605, USA Cambridge, MA 02139, USA [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT and the challenges marginalized broadcasters in particular face Harassment, especially of marginalized individuals, on net- when going live. worked gaming and social media platforms has been identi- HCI scholars have built upon this work, generating findings fied as a significant issue, yet few HCI practitioners have at- that resonate with prior studies in the field of computer- tempted to create interventions tackling toxicity online. Align- mediated communication. Researchers have observed how ing ourselves with the growing cohort of design activists, we streams can function like online "third places" where participa- present a case study of the GLHF pledge, an interactive pub- tory communities form around their shared experiences, noting lic awareness campaign promoting positivity in video game the important influence the streamer has over the emergent live streaming. We discuss the design and deployment of culture of the group [22, 36, 46]. While some investigations a community-driven moderation intervention for GLHF, in- into large-scale live stream chats draw parallels to well-worn tended to empower the inclusive communities emerging on concepts like information overload and communication break- Twitch. After offering a preliminary report on the effects we down, there is increasing evidence to indicate that the massive, have observed based on the more than 370,000 gamers who fast-moving chats that characterize the most popular streams have participated to date, the paper concludes with a reflection actually represent a new, legible form of communication called on the challenges and opportunities of using design activism "crowdspeak" [14, 21, 24]. Recent inquiries have also begun to to positively intervene in large-scale media platforms. examine the economic and cultural implications of other live Author Keywords streaming-related practices like sending gifts and donations or Live streaming; platform moderation; video games; design volunteering to moderate for a streamer [31, 52]. activism; inclusion and equity; online harassment. As is customary, the results of HCI studies exploring the expe- riences of streamers, chatters, viewers, supporters, and mod- CCS Concepts erators are typically framed in terms of implications for de- •Human-centered computing ! Empirical studies in HCI; sign. The recommendations are often insightful, but given that Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing; So- researchers have no direct control over the features and prac- cial media; tices implemented by industry media platforms, they tend to have little influence on the real world landscape of technology. INTRODUCTION Promisingly though, the HCI community has created several Live streaming – where people use networked broadcasting design interventions that were able to be evaluated within the platforms such as Twitch or YouTube to share gameplay in real live streaming ecosystem. time with an audience – has been become an important site for research regarding online communication, community moder- ation, and cultural change. Much of the foundation for inquiry Live Streaming Design Interventions into this topic comes from anthropologists, sociologists, and There have been a number of technically robust interventions media studies scholars who have traced both the rise of esports developed by HCI researchers seeking to enhance the engage- as a broadcast product, as well as the popularity of "variety ment of streamers and their audiences. Some have sought to streamers" who, as entertainment-focused users, share their advance the state of the art within the live streaming ecosystem gameplay with the public [9, 42, 47, 48]. Importantly, this by developing tools that support emergent forms of community research has explored the techniques streamers have developed gameplay, such as the Audience Participation Games designed to manage the online communities growing up around them by Seering et al. [44]. Others, like Helpstone, offer an ad- ditional layer of communication between gamer and viewer by allowing spectators to provide tips to a streamer playing Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or Hearthstone [28]. More subtly, stream add-ons like All the classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation Feels use wearable sensors and webcam data to create an en- on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. hanced overlay displaying real-time biometric data about the For all other uses, contact the owner/author(s). broadcaster [40]. DIS2020, July 06–10, 2020, Eindhoven, NL © 2020 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Preliminary studies conducted with streamers on Twitch in- ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-6974-9/20/07. dicated that interventions like these can improve communi- DOI: http://dx:doi:org/10:475/3357236:3395514 cation and perceived connection between the streamer and centrally controlled content filtering process, as a new wave their spectators. However, these design probes were typically of social platforms emerges, we are seeing a shift away from only able to be briefly tested (on the order of minutes) with a this commercial approach to moderation [45]. In the case of handful of individuals (typically in the low tens) in relatively Twitch, currently the largest live streaming platform, streamers controlled situations. Nonetheless, they demonstrate the enor- are subject to centralized oversight via the site administrators, mous potential that HCI research has to directly engage with but the behavior of viewers is by and large moderated by other the development of a new medium of communication. Other members of the community, with virtually no supervision from design concepts, while intriguing, are less successful in their Twitch employees. ability to integrate with live streaming platforms. In the case of TwitchViz, an information visualization tool for stream chats, Community-Based Movements the authors were unable to overcome the technical challenges Given the systemic failure of platforms to effectively curb of implementing a real-time responsive interface, and instead online harassment targeted at marginalized users, a patchwork conducted a feasibility study with just four participants [35]. of community-driven approaches has developed over the past Given that there are currently thousands of tools used by an decade. Women of color began collectively organizing to resist ever-growing market of millions of streamers, it is clear that their mistreatment on Xbox Live [18]. On Twitter, a variety of it is not for want of participants that research prototypes re- groups adopted the practice of creating community-generated main comparatively underdeployed on live streaming plat- blocklist tools to fight harassers targeting multiple individu- forms. While it is neither desirable, nor reasonable, for HCI als [16, 23, 26]. Organizations like Black Girl Gamers and researchers to directly compete with industry inventions, we Transmission Gaming have created cross-platform networks also submit that our community has a critical, reflective role to of support that act as distributed safe spaces for women of play in shaping the landscape of communication technologies color and trans gamers [30, 38]. Most recently, some gaming adopted by a mass audience, and therefore we ought to explore communities (e.g. Super Smash Brothers) have formed grass- methods for increasing our direct engagement with the broader roots coalitions to improve the inclusivity of their competitive public. Specifically, we see both an opportunity and an ur- events by taking steps such as creating an official code of gency to offer a critical response to the ethical questions posed conduct that is enforced by an independent panel [34, 53]. by the operational practices of live streaming platforms. Chief Though there have been comparatively fewer attempts by HCI amongst those issues are the ways in which user behavior is, researchers to deploy interventions related to online harass- or is is not, moderated by such large social media sites. ment, there are several notable examples. As a tool for friend- sourced email moderation, SquadBox offers a platform em- Platform Moderation powering individuals to create an ad hoc response group to Harassment online has been extensively studied and identified handle an influx of harassing messages. While SquadBox has as a significant issue especially for marginalized individuals been open sourced to the public, citing concerns of perpetuat- like women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ com- ing further harm, the creators limited their study of the system munity, and disabled folks [4,8, 15, 19, 48]. Generally, online to a four-day field engagement with five pairs of friends [32]. platforms tend to employ two related moderation mechanisms. This caution is prudent, yet, as expressed earlier, we believe First, they ask users to report offensive or abusive content there is an imperative to more directly engage with the public. created by other users, which moderators then review and may remove. Secondly, most platforms employ technical so- In this belief we are joined