Design Evolution of a Tool for Privacy and Security Protection for Activists Online: Cyberactivist

This work forms a part of a series of “on the ground” studies dealing with (post-)conflict situations, focusing on the iterative, participatory design of a tool, Cyberactivist, for protection for activists and the empirical research that led to it. Work on the development of privacy and security tools has not always recognized the fragile nature of the political processes in emerging democracies, frequent naivety about threat, nor the “occasioned” responses of activists because activism can be a “one time” endeavor, prompted by specific events. Researching political activism in Republika Srpska, we identified issues relating to the use of ICT and social media, leading to the redesign of our prototype which now raises awareness of privacy and security and supports activists by challenging ignorance, lowering exposure, and enabling remediation. We addressed “usable security” challenges to ensure simplicity of the tool and engaged with HCI researchers focused on international activism to assess the global applicability of the technical design.