Digital technologies are not equally safe for everyone. The prevalence and severity of online abuse are on the rise, from toxic content on social media to image-based sexual abuse, as new technologies are weaponized by people who do harm. Further, this abuse disproportionately harms people already marginalized in society, creating unacceptable disparities in safety and reinforcing oppression. Working at the intersection of computer security and privacy (S&P) and human-computer interaction (HCI), I address online abuse as the next frontier of S&P challenges. In this talk, I discuss my research (1) characterizing emerging S&P threats in digital safety, with particular attention to the technical and societal factors at play, (2) evaluating the existing support for online abuse, taking an ecosystem-level perspective, and (3) developing conceptual tools that bridge S&P and HCI towards societally informed S&P research. Taking a sociotechnical approach, I conclude by outlining how security and privacy can work towards a world where all people using technology feel safe and connected.
Miranda Wei is a PhD candidate at the University of Washington, co-advised by Tadayoshi Kohno and Franziska Roesner. Her research focuses on human-centered security and privacy, including combating online abuse and supporting sociotechnical safety. She mainly publishes at USENIX Security, CHI, and SOUPS, and her work has been awarded a John Karat Usable Privacy and Security Student Research Award, a Google PhD Fellowship, and paper awards. Previously, she received a B.A. from the University of Chicago.