Organizing Safe Spaces: #MeToo Activism in Sweden

Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) https://doi.org/10.1007/s10606-021-09410-7 © The Author(s) 2021 RESEARCH ARTICLE Organizing Safe Spaces: #MeToo Activism in Sweden Karin Hansson1* , Malin Sveningsson2 & Hillevi Ganetz3 *1School of Natural Sciences, Technology and Environmental Studies, Södertörn University, SE-141 89 Huddinge , Sweden (E-mail: ); 2Gothenburg University, Gothenburg , Sweden; 3 Stockholm University, Stockholm , Sweden Accepted: 2 August 2021 Abstract. Networked online environments can effectively support political activism. In Sweden, the #metoo movement resulted in over 100,000 people participating in activities challenging sexual harassment and abuse, including collecting testimonies via social media and drafting and discussing petitions published in print news media. Participation involved many risks, such as social stigma, losing one’s job, or misogynist terrorism, which meant that participation required a high level of trust among peers. Human-computer interaction (HCI) research on trust generally focuses on technical systems or user-generated data, less focus has been given to trust among peers in vulnerable communities. This study, based on semi-structured interviews and surveys of participants and organizers of 47 petitions representing different sectors in society, found that trust was aggregated over networks of people, practices, institutions, shared values, and technical systems. Although a supportive culture based on a feeling of solidarity and shared feminist values was central for safe spaces for participation, when activism was scaled up, social interaction had to be limited due to increased risk. HCI research views trust as a process of crossing distances, increasing over time; however, our results reveal that trust decreased over time as the movement grew and public exposure increased, a trend most evident when the participants actually came from a tightly knit community. Therefore, this study points out the significance to balance the need for transparency and community with the need for anonymity and distance in the development of tools to support large-scale deliberative processes that involve conflicts and risks. Keywords: Hashtag activism, Metoo, Net activism, Trust, Social movements 1. Introduction Networked online environments can effectively serve as settings for the organization and mobilization of social movements. Previous research shows how social media for example has been used to organize and engage the public in the environmental movement (DeLuca et al. 2016; Goodwin and Jasper 2014; Pang and Law 2017), the Arab Spring (AlSayyad and Guvenc 2015; Smidi and Shahin 2017), the Occupy Movement (Kavada 2015), the Gezi protests in Turkey (Haciyakupoglu and Zhang Hansson Karin et al. 2015), activism on the West Bank (Wulf et al. 2013), and Ukraine’s Euromaidan Uprising (Bohdanova 2014). Recently, feminist activism against sexual harassment and abuse has used social media for several campaigns such as #ЯНеБоюсьСказати (Iamnotafraidtosayit), #prataomdet (talkaboutit), #fatta (getit), and #mörkertalet (theunreported), #boardtheBus, #stopstreetharassment, #IamJada, #sayhername, and the #everydaysexism (Karlsson 2019; Lokot 2018; Peuchaud 2014; Powell 2015). However, no previous campaigns have reached the global impact of the #metoo hashtag (Mendes et al. 2018). These campaigns show how online spaces can encourage targets of discrimination, harassment, and abuse to voice their experiences, to seek support from other targets, and to participate in public debates around these issues (Serisier 2018). Simultaneously, research also points at the negative and practical consequences of online activities, as digital feminist activism can be risky, exhausting, and overwhelming (Mendes et al. 2018). One distinguishing fact about the #metoo movement in Sweden was how numerous petitions were published in news media to raise awareness on the situation in different sectors. The petitions followed a traditional form: they were addressed to policy makers and those in power, and included a description of the problem where several testimonies were quoted, a request to do something, and signatures from numerous participants (Hansson et al. 2020). Large groups organized by profession or interests were mobilized through social networks and spread their agenda nationally through the largest and most influential newspapers. Starting with the actors’ petition with 705 signatures of Swedish female actors, followed by singers, lawyers, politicians and so on, a total of 77 groups were formed, which all organized petitions (Hansson 2020). These could have several thousands of signatures such as the physicians with over 10,000 signatures, and were often organized in even larger social media groups. Judging from the public interest (Zachariasson 2017), as well as the number of articles published in newspapers (Askanius and Møller Hartley 2019), the Swedish #metoo movement can be described as very successful. The movement was also able to establish a feminist agenda, focusing on structural problems rather than just individual cases (Hansson et al. 2020). As a result, a broad mobilization took place in the form of lists of demands petitioned to the government, action plans by politicians and employers, as well as many seminars and educational events organized around the country (Annebäck 2018; The Swedish #metoo coordination group 2018). Some concrete results were that the government increased funding for women’s and girls’ shelters, strengthened sex education in schools and training of professionals in important societal positions on these issues (Pehrson 2019). Also, after #metoo, the tendency to report domestic violence increased, and the Stockholm Police made a special effort to prevent domestic violence (Ibid). However, the framing of the movement as a success story obscures obstacles that evolved along the way, especially obstacles related to risks for those involved in the movement. In the Swedish #metoo movement, perceived risks of participation included issues of employment such as being unable to find work, losing a job, or facing social stigma Organizing Safe Spaces: #MeToo Activism in Sweden of being a target of sexual abuse. In addition, participants feared becoming a target of threats or continued harassment and hate crimes. Because of these risks the trust in the movement was crucial, to make participants willing to publicly share their experiences of traumas. In this paper, we therefore seek to understand the organization of the #metoo activism with a focus on trust. A shorter first version of this article was published as an exploratory paper in (Hansson et al. 2019). In comparison, this article is substantially developed and incorporates an analysis of a larger dataset involving not only organizers of the movement but also participants. 2. Trust Trust is a central concept in human-computer interaction (HCI) research. When navigating t (...truncated)