SaTC: CORE: Small: Investigating and Mitigating Harmful Design in User-Generated Virtual World through Design Moderation

用户生成的虚拟世界是提供身临其境体验的三维空间，由数千万用户（包括相当数量的儿童）设计和填充。许多孩子花大量时间在这些网络空间里创造、社交、学习和玩耍。尽管在线虚拟世界为孩子们创造内容和相互交流提供了新的途径，但它们也产生了有害的设计。有害的设计可以通过操纵、阴险的方式影响毫无戒心的儿童用户，例如诱导他们进行暴力角色扮演，让他们接触辱骂性的内容，并诱使他们过度消费。之前的研究研究了如何检测和调节有害的用户生成内容，如仇恨言论和骚扰，这些内容通常以静态形式存在，如文本、图像和视频。然而，人们对用户生成虚拟世界中的有害设计关注甚少。该项目旨在通过采用混合方法、以人为本的设计方法来应对这一挑战。其目标是为有害设计提供全面的经验和概念见解，促进对这一挑战的更广泛的社会和学术意识，并探索缓解这一挑战的策略。为了实现这些目标，该项目正在识别和描述用户生成的虚拟世界中的有害设计，并探索可以减轻有害设计的适度策略。该项目采用定性和定量相结合的方法来记录和分析有害设计的实例，以及儿童用户如何体验和感知有害设计。该项目还利用合作性调查与儿童和设计专家合作，制定设计指南，促进安全设计，减少有害设计。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

User-generated virtual worlds are three-dimensional spaces that offer an immersive experience and are designed and populated by tens of millions of users, including a significant number of children. Many children spend considerable time in these online spaces to create, socialize, learn, and play. Although online virtual worlds represent new ways for children to create content and interact with each other, they also have given rise to harmful design. Harmful design can affect unsuspecting child users in manipulative, insidious ways, such as inducing them to perform violent role-plays, exposing them to abusive content, and tricking them into excessive spending. Previous research has studied how to detect and moderate harmful user-generated content, such as hate speech and harassment, which typically exist in static forms such as text, image, and video. However, limited attention has been paid to harmful design in user-generated virtual worlds. This project aims to tackle this challenge by employing a mixed-methods, human-centered design approach. The objectives are to provide comprehensive empirical and conceptual insights into harmful design, foster broader societal and academic awareness of this challenge, and explore strategies to mitigate this challenge and alike.To achieve these goals, the project is identifying and characterizing harmful design in user-generated virtual worlds and exploring moderation strategies that can mitigate harmful design. The project uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to document and analyze instances of harmful design, as well as how child users experience and perceive harmful design. The project also uses cooperative inquiry to work with children and design experts to develop design guidelines that can promote safety design and mitigate harmful design.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.