Help Researchers Learn About How You Navigate Privacy and Censorship in Chinese-Language Fandom

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Participation Details

Who can participate?

Participants must be:

  1. At least 18 years old
  2. Fluent in either English or Mandarin Chinese
  3. A long-time member (at least 1 year) of a Chinese fan community

What would I do?

We hope to learn more about how you navigate being a fan among censorship in mainland China and what privacy means to you through a 60 minute interview about your experiences.

After signing up, you will be able to choose:

  • What date and time to conduct the interview
  • Whether you would prefer to conduct the interview over Zoom or Signal
  • Whether you are comfortable with having your audio recorded for our reference

Fill out this survey to participate!


Who We Are

We are a US-based research team based in Northeastern University in Boston, MA and Macalester College in St. Paul, MN. Our team has extensive background in conducting human-computer interaction and privacy research, and this study branches off from prior work Marsh, Lerner, Wang, and Bially Levy have done on privacy in fandom on Twitter (now X), Tumblr, and other English-language platforms. Some members of the research team identify as part of Chinese-language fandom themselves, and hope to highlight these experiences and perspectives through this work.

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Tianshi Li

Dr. Tianshi Li is an Assistant Professor at the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University, with interests in human-computer interaction, privacy, and software engineering. She obtained her Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon University.

An image of Dr. Abigail Marsh, who has blond-brown hair and is pictured outside with a blue collared shirt.

Abigail Marsh

Dr. Abigail Marsh is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Macalester College, where their research focuses on usable privacy. They use theory and empirical methods to study how online privacy can be inclusive of marginalized and under-researched populations, including adolescents, users of assistive technology, and queer users.

An image of Dr. Ada Lerner, who has long brown hair tied in a ponytail and is pictured outside in a green dress.

Ada Lerner

Dr. Ada Lerner is an Assistant Professor at the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University. Her work is broadly within the area of usable security and privacy, with focuses on the experiences and expertise of marginalized and vulnerable populations, privacy law, and interdisciplinary connections.

An image of Kelly Wang, who has short black hair and is pictured in a blue collared shirt in front of a tapestry of the Great Wave.

Kelly Wang

Kelly Wang is a Ph.D. student at the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University, advised by Dr. Ada Lerner. He is interested in centering marginalized communities’ experiences of privacy, particularly in relation to the formation of trusting communities or interpersonal relationships, and how we can support their community and privacy wants as HCI researchers.

Ruochen Liu

Ruochen Liu is a Master’s student at the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University, where she will graduate from next spring.

Dan Bially Levy

Dan Bially Levy is a Computer Science student at Macalester College, where he will graduate from this spring. He is interested in studying how human behaviors and interactions are influenced by internet-based applications and communities.