publications

@article{Obi2025-hz,

title = {Tracing the history and evolution of dark patterns on Twitter from 2010-2021},

author = {Ike Obi and Colin M Gray and Shruthi Sai Chivukula and Ja-Nae Duane and Janna Johns and Matthew Will and Ziqing Li and Thomas Carlock},

url = {https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3716306},

doi = {10.1145/3716306},

issn = {2469-7818,2469-7826},

year  = {2025},

date = {2025-02-04},

urldate = {2025-02-04},

journal = {ACM Transactions on Social Computing},

volume = {8},

issue = {3-4},

pages = {Article No. 8},

publisher = {ACMPUB27New York, NY},

abstract = {Designers’ use of deceptive and manipulative design practices 

 have become increasingly ubiquitous, impacting users’ ability to 

 make choices that respect their agency and autonomy. These 

 practices have been popularly defined through the term “dark 

 patterns” which has gained attention from designers, privacy 

 scholars, and more recently, legal scholars and regulators. The 

 increased interest in the concept of dark patterns across a range 

 of practitioners and users motivated us to study the evolution of 

 the concept and highlight the future trajectory of conversations 

 around dark patterns and similar activist movements that utilize 

 social computing platforms. In this paper, we examine the history 

 and evolution of the Twitter discourse around #darkpatterns from 

 its inception in June 2010 until April 2021, using a combination 

 of quantitative and qualitative methods to describe how this 

 discourse has changed over time. We frame these conversations 

 through a new concept of socio-technical activism, whereby 

 participants unite in order to identify and fight back against 

 problematic technology and design practices. We discuss the 

 potential future trajectories of this discourse and opportunities 

 for further social computing scholarship at the intersection of 

 design, policy, and online activism.},

keywords = {Dark Patterns, Legal and Policy Perspectives, Regulation, Social Media, UX Knowledge},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Obi2025-rs,

title = {Social media users engaging with matters of ethical concern "by other means"},

author = {Ike Obi and Colin M Gray and Shruthi Sai Chivukula and Ja-Nae Duane and Janna Johns and Matthew Will},

url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3757658},

doi = {10.1145/3757658},

issn = {2573-0142},

year  = {2025},

date = {2025-01-01},

urldate = {2025-01-01},

journal = {Proceedings of the ACM on human-computer interaction},

volume = {9},

number = {7},

pages = {Article CSCW477},

publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},

abstract = {As deceptive design practices proliferate on technology platforms and increasingly threaten user agency

and well-being, concerned online communities are using social media platforms to discuss and challenge

these unethical practices. In this paper, we conducted a case study analysis of two subreddits, r/privacy and

r/assholedesign, to investigate the kinds of ethical concerns expressed within both subreddits, the strategies

employed to express those concerns, the goals participants hoped to achieve through participation, and the

community infrastructure these communities created to support their collective action against technology

manipulation. Our findings show that posts on these subreddits employ different strategies to discuss ethical and

value-related issues, revealing instances where community members engage in ethics “by other means”—raising

attention to problematic practices, identifying workarounds, and encouraging activism. The findings also

showed that members of both communities transformed individual frustrations with technology manipulation

into collective ethical action, involving value contestation and interaction criticism of problematic technology

artifacts mediated by the socio-technical community infrastructure they designed to support these objectives.

We conclude by highlighting opportunities for CSCW scholars to further encourage user engagement with

technology ethics concepts by considering the role of community infrastructure and the different rhetoric of

ethics that express different combinations of values and desired outcomes.},

keywords = {Asshole Design, Ethics and Values, Legal and Policy Perspectives, Social Media},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Gray2021-xj,

title = {"That's dastardly ingenious": Ethical Argumentation Strategies on Reddit},

author = {Colin M Gray and Shruthi Sai Chivukula},

url = {https://colingray.me/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/2021_GrayChivukula_CSCW_EthicalArgumentation.pdf},

doi = {10.1145/3449144},

year  = {2021},

date = {2021-04-01},

journal = {Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction},

volume = {5},

number = {CSCW1},

abstract = {Scholars have previously described how online communities engage 

 in particular discourses and forms of argumentation. In parallel, 

 HCI and STS researchers have described discourses surrounding 

 ethics and values and their role in shaping design processes and 

 outcomes. However, little work has addressed the intersection of 

 ethical concern and the discourses of non-expert users. In this 

 paper, we describe the argumentation strategies used by Redditors 

 on the subreddit `r/assholedesign' as they discuss ethically 

 problematic design artifacts. We used content and sequence 

 analysis methods to identify the building blocks of ethical 

 argumentation in this online community, including ethical 

 positioning when raising issues of concern, identification of 

 potential remedies to the original design artifact or issues of 

 concern, and means of extending or negating these elements. 

 Through this analysis, we reveal the breadth of ethical 

 argumentation strategies used ``in-the-wild'' by non-experts, 

 resulting in an increased awareness of the capacity of community 

 members to engage in ``everyday ethics'' regardless of specific 

 ethics training. We describe future opportunities to connect 

 these ethical argumentation strategies with design practices, 

 education, and methods.},

keywords = {Ethics and Values, Reddit, Social Media},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}