RAPID: Documenting and understanding large-scale migrations between social media platforms

尽管社交网站使用了许多功能来阻止用户在平台之间移动，但在规则、设计和激励措施突然发生变化后，用户仍然会迁移到新的平台。自2022年10月以来，像Mastodon这样的另类社交网站已经吸引了数十万新用户。Mastodon是一种开源的、去中心化的微博服务。这种迁移的规模和速度提供了一个独特的机会来了解在社交网络之间迁移的动机，识别突然发生的平台迁移的挑战，并保存迁移中的重要信息。调查、访谈和存档内容将提供时间敏感的数据，为与平台突然迁移相关的报道、研究和设计提供信息，并开发用于分析分散的社交媒体的研究方法。了解平台迁移的驱动因素以及在新平台上重新创建社区所面临的挑战，对于确保在线“公共广场”能够保持弹性和包容性的连接、审议和组织空间非常重要。该项目将使用定量和定性方法来描述支撑2022年迁移的社会技术机制。第一个数据收集工作将调查用户，以了解他们迁移、交叉发布或保留的动机和挑战。第二项数据收集工作将采访版主和软件开发人员等利益相关者，以了解他们在管理面临快速迁移的社交平台方面的价值观、优先事项和挑战。第三项数据收集工作将存档内容的数字痕迹，记录入职、社交和冲突，说明与移民相关的紧张和挑战。该项目开发的资源和结果将通过定期的博客文章、公共档案和同行评议的手稿共享。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Although social networking sites employ many features to discourage users from moving between platforms, users still migrate to new platforms following sudden changes to rules, designs, and incentives. Since October 2022, alternative social networking sites like Mastodon, an open-source, decentralized micro-blogging service, have received hundreds of thousands of new users. The scale and speed of this migration provide a unique opportunity to understand the motivations to migrate between social networks, to identify the challenges of sudden platform migrations, and to preserve important information from the migration. Surveys, interviews, and archived content will provide time-sensitive data to inform reporting, research, and design related to sudden platform migrations and develop research methods for analyzing decentralized social media. Understanding the drivers of platform migrations and the challenges of re-creating communities on a new platform are important for ensuring that online “public squares” can remain resilient and inclusive spaces for connection, deliberation, and organizing.This project will use quantitative and qualitative methods to characterize the socio-technical mechanisms underpinning the 2022 migration. The first data collection effort will survey users to understand their motivations and challenges with migrating, cross-posting, or remaining. The second data collection effort will interview stakeholders like moderators and software developers to understand their values, priorities, and challenges for governing social platforms facing rapid migrations. The third data collection effort will archive digital traces of content documenting onboarding, socialization, and conflicts illustrating the tensions and challenges associated with the migration. The resources and findings developed by this project will be shared via regular blog posts, a public archive, and peer-reviewed manuscripts.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.