Reporting Online Aggression: A Transnational Comparative Interface Analysis of Sina Weibo and Twitter

Abstract

Purpose: This study investigates Sina Weibo's and Twitter's reporting interfaces from the perspective of transnational, multilingual users whose experiences challenge mononational and monocultural technology designs. Using two cases of online aggression, we analyze how these interfaces marginalize transnational feminist users. The purpose of this project is to call for social justice-oriented interface design that can better support transnational users on global social media platforms. Method: Drawing from comparative rhetorical studies, critical interface analysis, and virtue ethics, we develop a social justice-oriented comparative critical framework for interface analysis. We then apply this framework to our experiences reporting aggression on Sina Weibo and Twitter through two case studies. Results: In both cases (one in the forms of direct attacks or misinformation against women and feminists, due to attacks on feminists in China and another on women's reproductive rights in the US), we find that Weibo and Twitter offer limited options for us to report online aggression toward transnational feminist users. Both platforms designed their reporting interfaces with the aim of efficiency that reduces complexities of how one might interpret the violation categories on the interfaces. But for transnational users who report such attacks in a cross-cultural context, the cultural or social values imparted from the interface may not acknowledge the complexity of their experiences. Conclusion: The scanty reporting options on both platforms show the limitations of monocultural and monolingual design of such interfaces as well as the nation-based policies of these platforms.