Over 70% of Australians have experienced at least one incident of online abuse from offensive comments to targeted hate speech – primarily on social media. This threat particularly impacts vulnerable communities – including gender-diverse people, people with disabilities, and culturally diverse Australians - for whom these platforms are vital lifelines to connect with community, explore their identity, and access support services. While these groups face more risks online, they have little say in developing safety features, resulting in measures that neither prevent abuse nor enable safe participation.
This DECRA project will undertake the first systematic effort to design improved social media safety mechanisms tailored to the needs of vulnerable users. It will do three key things.
First, it will analyse vulnerable users’ lived experiences of online abuse to develop a conceptual framework explaining how personal and contextual factors shape abuse and why existing safety features often fail.
Second, it will use a co-design approach, working with affected users and design and policy experts to create community-based safety features that enable both preventive and reactive responses, engaging not only those experiencing abuse but also bystanders and aggressors.
Third, it will develop and apply an evaluation framework to test these features in realistic settings, ensuring they are effective while safeguarding participants’ well-being.
The project offers social benefits by empowering communities to shape their online safety before they abandon platforms or face policies restricting access. Economically, these measures can reduce the $3.7 billion Australians spend on mental health care and lost income due to online abuse, while supporting the government’s $2.0 billion digital safety investment. Commercially, platforms will gain ready-to-implement safety solutions developed with their users.
