iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sociotechnical Equity & Agency Lab @ Northeastern University @nusealab.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

Blocklists: Good? Bad? It's a bit more complicated than that - SEALab PhD Candidate @evmelder.bsky.social looks at how blocklists in the fediverse serve as key community boundaries, but also put connection at risk in their current implementations: medium.com/acm-cscw/a-b...

medium.com

“A Blocklist is a Boundary”: How Community Defense Clashes with Mutual Aid on the Fediverse

We’d like to tell you a story to start. Two Fediverse instances, alice.social and bob.lgbt, once enjoyed strong local and shared cultures…

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Reposted by Sociotechnical Equity & Agency Lab @ Northeastern University

Michael Ann, sociotechnical femme @michaelann.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

Some lovely coverage of senior @nusealab.bsky.social doctoral candidate @erikavmelder.bsky.social's research with our ARC techniques, second in a series on the kind of epistemically just research approaches I'm always talking about on here! www.khoury.northeastern.edu/research-tha...

khoury.northeastern.edu

Research that hits home: Erika Melder’s community-based push for user-friendly social media - Khoury College of Computer Sciences

Social media platforms often want to be as big as possible, and in as many ways as possible. But one Khoury PhD student is finding that many communities want just the opposite, both for camaraderie an...

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Reposted by Sociotechnical Equity & Agency Lab @ Northeastern University

Michael Ann, sociotechnical femme @michaelann.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

They wrote a story about me and the rest of @nusealab.bsky.social and the work we're doing around epistemic justice in social computing! It's first in a series, and focuses mostly on my own work and the lab's approach. Good to see the continued support. www.khoury.northeastern.edu/research-tha...

khoury.northeastern.edu

Research that hits home: Michael Ann DeVito and the case for a more just research approach - Khoury College of Computer Sciences

As director of the SEALab, Khoury–CAMD professor Michael Ann DeVito is advancing a research vision based on epistemic justice, and is elevating the communities she studies in the process.

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Reposted by Sociotechnical Equity & Agency Lab @ Northeastern University

Michael Ann, sociotechnical femme @michaelann.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

NEW ARTICLE: It's not that LLMs are outright transphobic in their responses - in fact, they try to push against the basic stuff - but there's subtle anti-trans sentiment embedded throughout LLM responses that it's hard to see if you're not trans yourself. We can do better! dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

dl.acm.org

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Reposted by Sociotechnical Equity & Agency Lab @ Northeastern University

Leah Ajmani @leahajmani.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Our paper won an Honorable Mention at #chi2025! We call for CHI researchers to fundamentally shift away from our status quo of undermining the epistemic authority of marginalized users @michaelann.bsky.social @taliabhatt.itch.io @nusealab.bsky.social programs.sigchi.org/chi/2025/pro...

programs.sigchi.org

Conference Programs

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Reposted by Sociotechnical Equity & Agency Lab @ Northeastern University

Alyssa Smith @cetaceanneeded.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

Hi Bluesky! Are you a) transfeminine and b) someone who’s experienced an attack in an online community that isolated you from that community? If so, I would love to speak to you; @michaelann.bsky.social and I are working on a project to better understand these attacks.

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Sociotechnical Equity & Agency Lab @ Northeastern University @nusealab.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

For more interesting research and commentary around sociotechnical systems, agency, and tech for marginalized communities, consider following SEALab's research team members and some of our collaborators/friends of the lab: go.bsky.app/Qebmwfu

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Reposted by Sociotechnical Equity & Agency Lab @ Northeastern University

Michael Ann, sociotechnical femme @michaelann.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

I love this piece I wrote for @enkiducoin.bsky.social's blog a while back, and there's exciting news on the horizon around it. I have some very, very clever students around me who tend to take my rants and turn them into full CS research papers... thirdsexedinsurrection.substack.com/p/on-the-nee...

thirdsexedinsurrection.substack.com

On the Need for a Transfeminist Empiricism to Combat Epistemic Injustice

By Dr. Michael Ann DeVito, Northeastern University

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