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Privacy, Anonymity, and Perceived Risk in Open Collaboration: A Study of Tor Users and Wikipedians
Conference proceeding   Open access

Privacy, Anonymity, and Perceived Risk in Open Collaboration: A Study of Tor Users and Wikipedians

Andrea Forte, Nazanin Andalibi, Rachel Greenstadt and Assoc Comp Machinery
CSCW'17: PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2017 ACM CONFERENCE ON COMPUTER SUPPORTED COOPERATIVE WORK AND SOCIAL COMPUTING, pp 1800-1811
01 Jan 2017
url
https://doi.org/10.1145/2998181.2998273View
Published, Version of Record (VoR)Maybe Open Access (Publisher Bronze) Open

Abstract

Computer Science Computer Science, Interdisciplinary Applications Science & Technology Social Sciences Social Sciences - Other Topics Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary Technology
This qualitative study examines privacy practices and concerns among contributors to open collaboration projects. We collected interview data from people who use the anonymity network Tor who also contribute to online projects and from Wikipedia editors who are concerned about their privacy to better understand how privacy concerns impact participation in open collaboration projects. We found that risks perceived by contributors to open collaboration projects include threats of surveillance, violence, harassment, opportunity loss, reputation loss, and fear for loved ones. We explain participants' operational and technical strategies for mitigating these risks and how these strategies affect their contributions. Finally, we discuss chilling effects associated with privacy loss, the need for open collaboration projects to go beyond attracting and educating participants to consider their privacy, and some of the social and technical approaches that could be explored to mitigate risk at a project or community level.

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Web of Science research areas
Computer Science, Interdisciplinary Applications
Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary
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