Stephanie Geise | Searcharxiv

arXiv2026

Take the Power Back: Screen-Based Personal Moderation Against Hate Speech on Instagram

Hate speech remains a pressing challenge on social media, where platform moderation often fails to protect targeted users. Personal moderation tools that let users decide how content is filtered can address some of these shortcomings. However, it remains an open question on which screens (e.g., the comments, the reels tab, or the home feed) users want personal moderation and which features they value most. To address these gaps, we conducted a three-wave Delphi study with 40 activists who experienced hate speech. We combined quantitative ratings and rankings with open questions about required features. Participants prioritized personal moderation for conversational and algorithmically curated screens. They valued features allowing for reversibility and oversight across screens, while input-based, content-type specific, and highly automated features are more screen specific. We discuss the importance of personal moderation and offer user-centered design recommendations for personal moderation on Instagram.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2025

Social Media for Activists: Reimagining Safety, Content Presentation, and Workflows

Social media is central to activists, who use it internally for coordination and externally to reach supporters and the public. To date, the HCI community has not explored activists' perspectives on future social media platforms. In interviews with 14 activists from an environmental and a queer-feminist movement in Germany, we identify activists' needs and feature requests for future social media platforms. The key finding is that on- and offline safety is their main need. Based on this, we make concrete proposals to improve safety measures. Increased control over content presentation and tools to streamline activist workflows are also central to activists. We make concrete design and research recommendations on how social media platforms and the HCI community can contribute to improved safety and content presentation, and how activists themselves can reduce their workload.

cs.HC↗