iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

This is super useful! I may take a look at some of these even as a fourth-year professor!

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

I had a conversation literally yesterday about how valuable it would be to have a dataset just like this one. The applications for training AI are vast, and I'm kind of shocked it only sold for $10 million.

110

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

"Human-Computer Interaction" was kind of never really the catchiest term in the first place. I'm not convinced that "alignment" is a coherent term, but at least it sounds cool.

120

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Looking for anything written recently about the future of CS education/CS degrees in a way that's ideally relatively devoid of hype. Pointers appreciated!

010

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

"The online disinhibition effect" by John Suler is a 2004 paper that does not by any means prove that there is such a thing as an online disinhibition effect, but has probably been cited a thousand times in HCI papers to say just that.

030

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

Looks very interesting from a quick read of the first few pages, bookmarked to finish. Not an entirely new concept, but worth reminding the field (and those outside the field) where we really are.

021

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

Ah I see, that's interesting. I probably can't contribute anything useful from a legal perspective, but the hard part from my perspective is that I can't think of a standard that couldn't be gamed through a relatively small platform redesign.

000

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

This matters for, e.g., research ethics; in my work, I've stopped using data from small communities on Twitch because even though everything is technically public, those communities have a greater expectation of privacy.

110

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

I can't speak to the legal perspective, but functionally I think "public" is a spectrum rather than a binary. In a subreddit with a couple dozen active users, their expectation is that most of their conversations will be seen by very few other people.

100

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

I don't see a way to draw a clear line there, on either Reddit or Facebook.

110

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

Slightly off topic, but Reddit is actually kind of an interesting case. For small subreddits, it makes some sense to consider it a mutually communicating group, but for, e.g., /r/funny with tens of millions of subscribers and content algorithmically distributed to many more through the feed?

120

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

Personally, I'm not ready to say that LLMs shouldn't ever be used in any part of qualitative research, but I am confident in saying that it isn't really qualitative research anymore if there isn't a human doing the reflexive analysis. It's a different thing, which may have different value.

000

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

(Obviously there have been lots of papers published over the last couple of years proposing/testing systems to do this in various ways.)

110

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

I generally find the linked short essay reasonable. Full disclosure, as someone who's done a good amount of qualitative research, we've also done some investigating in my lab over whether there's value in integrating LLMs somewhere in the qualitative research process.

100

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

If we try to replace that human reflexive process with an LLM-driven analysis, this outcome is different. We could debate the value of ~increasing the expertise of the LLM in that area~ (to whatever extent that is actually possible) but clearly a human's expertise is not increasing in the same way.

100

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

We don't talk about this enough, I think, but when I see published qualitative work I think of the contribution not only as what is stated within the paper or the talk but also the fact that the world now has one more expert in that broader area. This is a public good.

110

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

By immersing yourself in the data and reflecting on it (through a variably structured process), your expertise grows, and you are (ideally) able to build connections and ideas that go beyond specifically what is in the data.

100

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... What I think a lot of people who haven't done qualitative research may not understand is that the intended outcome of qualitative research is not only the analysis produced but also the growth of the researcher performing that analysis.

papers.ssrn.com

<span>We reject the use of generative artificial intelligence for reflexive qualitative research</span>

We write as 416 experienced qualitative researchers from 38 countries, to reject the use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) applications for Big Q Qu

120

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

These five papers are starting points for the work we’re doing, and our next round of work is already well underway. I’m excited to be able to share our successes so far, but equally excited for what’s still to come!

010

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Even when platforms do not provide tools that support restorative processes, creative users will build them themselves. This paper shows how user-created appeals systems are constructed, what goals the users have, and what these processes can accomplish.

110

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

This work, also led by Juhoon Lee @juhoonlee.bsky.social with support from Bich Ngoc (Rubi) Doan and Jonghyun Jee, maps the complex and impressive systems that users have built in order to incorporate custom appeals processes into their Discord servers.

110

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

A final paper in this line of work — also to be presented at CSCW 2025 — offers some hope in this regard, looking at user-created and managed appeals systems in Discord Communities. joseph.seering.org/papers/Lee_e...

joseph.seering.org

100

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

It is deeply concerning that the spaces where today’s young people are developing social skills have been designed without any clear place for apologies. We need young people to be learning conflict resolution skills that are more nuanced than just "ban or block and move on".

100

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

A number of Discord moderators gave feedback on the bot and some tested it in their servers, but a major takeaway was how alien apologies seem to have become to the process of online safety.

100

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Bich Ngoc (Rubi) Doan built “ApoloBot”, a Discord bot designed to facilitate apologies as part of the restorative processes in Discord servers. This system supports moderators throughout the process of initiating and monitoring apology-giving.

100

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

On this note, a third paper to be presented at CHI 2025 tackles this issue more broadly from a design perspective, noting how modern social platforms rarely provide features to support one of the most fundamental human communication processes: apologies. joseph.seering.org/papers/Doan_...

joseph.seering.org

100

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Together, these two papers argue that online child safety cannot be understood solely as the process of preventing harm to children, but rather must be seen as the process of developing better opportunities for young users to learn and grow online.

100

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Teens we interviewed were learning organization, management, and conflict resolution skills that they might otherwise have few opportunities to practice, and they took deep, genuine pride in the communities they had helped to build.

100

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

This may at first seem concerning -- and the paper outlines some of the potential risks -- but it should also be understood as an incredible growth opportunity for young people if they are sufficiently well supported.

100

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Though we usually think of moderation as a role for adults, a striking number of Discord servers (and likely other online social spaces) are moderated in part by teens. We found servers with many thousands of users that had 14 and 15-year-olds on the volunteer moderation teams.

100

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Another fantastic paper focused on the safety experiences of young users, led by Jina Yoon and collaborating with @axz.bsky.social, will be presented at CSCW 2025. joseph.seering.org/papers/Yoon_...

joseph.seering.org

131

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

The way Roblox has energized young users to learn how to create -- via scripting, 3d modeling, etc -- is fantastic, but this paper shows the challenges that arise when young users flock to spaces that have traditionally been much more adult-friendly: online developer communities.

100

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Roblox is, in my opinion, the most under-studied social space in all of HCI. It is massively popular among young users, but almost totally ignored by adults. Roblox works on a model similar to YouTube for games, where assets and experiences are created by users.

110

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Another paper, by Yubin Choi and Jeanne Choi, to be presented at CHI 2025, explores quite a different context, though still within the game space: online developer communities for Roblox. joseph.seering.org/papers/Choi_...

joseph.seering.org

100

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Wonderful also to collaborate with Juho Kim and Jeong-woo Jang, as well as some of their students!

100

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

I love this paper for its granular attention to the details and features that support communication in League of Legends. Riot Games has put a lot of effort into creating a plethora of ways to communicate, but the real problems here may exist at a more structural level.

100

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

In an in-depth, in-the-moment exploration of League of Legends team communication, this paper shows how the conditions of play have created an environment where the very act of communication leads to distrust.

100

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

One of our first papers, led by Juhoon Lee @juhoonlee.bsky.social to be presented at CHI 2025, visits a classic context for online safety: online MOBA games. This paper challenges the narrative that conflict can be prevented by facilitating smoother communication. joseph.seering.org/papers/Lee_e...

joseph.seering.org

100

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

We've covered a range of topics within a broad vision for online safety -- not only focused on detection and enforcement, but on understanding the conditions necessary for safety and the diversity of possible approaches to improving safety.

100

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Hello Bluesky! I've been quiet for a while on the social media front -- it's been a very busy two years with an international move and setting up a new lab at KAIST, but I wanted to take a moment to highlight some of my students' fantastic new work in the domain of online safety.

170

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

The 2025 Jang Young Sil Fellow Program is open for applications for 1 year postdoc positions at KAIST. Deadline is 3/13 at 4PM (KST). If you are interested in applying, please reach out and I can provide more details.

010

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

I had an interesting conversation a couple of years ago about whether ~AI-generated content creators should be handled the same as human content creators from a T&S perspective. At the time, it was an academic conversation, but it seems to be increasingly relevant now.

000

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

Generally speaking, if community moderators want a feature enough to build it themselves, it's often worth considering for wider deployment. Many of the most powerful user-facing moderation tools on platforms started as third party concepts built by users themselves to meet their specific needs.

020

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

This is a great feature idea, and FWIW very similar features are used in community moderation where moderators can leave notes about particular users to remind themselves and other mods. Mostly this is done via third party tools, but some first party too. No reason it wouldn't work on bsky.

030

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

There are probably a zillion faculty teaching intro UX/HCI classes who would love to have you for a guest lecture, if that sounds like a good warm-up.

130

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

Yes, likely destructive, but also somewhat unsurprising. Given the extreme popularity of platforms like c.ai, it's expected that Facebook would try to capitalize on that trend. (Nevermind the legitimate concerns about the impact of c.ai on young users)

c.ai

character.ai | Personalized AI for every moment of your day

Chat with millions of AI Characters anytime, anywhere. Super-intelligent chat bots that hear you, understand you, and remember you. Free to use with no ads.

160

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

I wonder whether there was any serious discussion about not implementing this. It may seem like a no-brainer, but there's a serious discussion to be had about value added vs increased safety costs.

070

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

If there were a good way to consistently/efficiently take off-service conduct into account, far more platforms would do it, but it's really hard to build a good process for that. As a comparison case, Twitch has a pretty interesting off-service conduct policy: safety.twitch.tv/s/article/Co...

safety.twitch.tv

Twitch Safety Center

040

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

Side note, I was trying not to get too much into the details of that specific case, but off-service conduct policies are really interesting. I think people don't often realize how much policies are shaped by the technical capacity to enforce them.

120

Joseph Seering @josephseering.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

Oh, and I should probably clarify, my personal vote is 100% for banning Singal. I don't care if I never see or interact with his content. I don't want him on a site I'm on.

0201