CyberActivist: Tool for Raising Awareness on Privacy and Security of Social Media Use for Activists

Abstract

Bosnia-Herzegovina (BH) and its entity Republika Srpska (RS) are among the most fragile democratic environments in Europe. In the first phase of our long-term participatory design case study, we engaged the some of the main activists in BH/RS, providing a structured picture of their practices in recent years, concrete needs and the various constraints under which they act. Our research highlighted importance and utilization of the social media for the activism in the region, but also problems such as limited budgets and know-how of the activists, intensive outsourcing practices, and a lack of awareness regarding data privacy and cyber security. Due to the perspective of BH/RS, the rising number of threats and impact incidents, and activist experiences from other unstable regions, we propose a more structured approach to privacy and security within activist circles and non-profit organizations. As the initial step in the second phase of our study, we offered a prototype of the free web application “CyberActivist” to BH/RS activists for user tests. Based on their qualitative feedback we defined the functional and non-functional requirements on further improvement of this privacy and security awareness tool. In the next phase, we will technically address their direct feedback, as well as design recommendations from relevant research and user experience literature. We also plan to propose design method improvements, design corresponding privacy and security trainings and to further internationalize the tool.