Disproportionate Removals and Differing Content Moderation Experiences for Conservative, Transgender, and Black Social Media Users: Marginalization and Moderation Gray Areas

Social media sites use content moderation to attempt to cultivate safe spaces with accurate information for their users. However, content moderation decisions may not be applied equally for all types of users, and may lead to disproportionate censorship related to people's genders, races, or political orientations. We conducted a mixed methods study involving qualitative and quantitative analysis of survey data to understand which types of social media users have content and accounts removed more frequently than others, what types of content and accounts are removed, and how content removed may differ between groups. We found that three groups of social media users in our dataset experienced content and account removals more often than others: political conservatives, transgender people, and Black people. However, the types of content removed from each group varied substantially. Conservative participants' removed content included content that was offensive or allegedly so, misinformation, Covid-related, adult, or hate speech. Transgender participants' content was often removed as adult despite following site guidelines, critical of a dominant group (e.g., men, white people), or specifically related to transgender or queer issues. Black participants' removed content was frequently related to racial justice or racism. More broadly, conservative participants' removals often involved harmful content removed according to site guidelines to create safe spaces with accurate information, while transgender and Black participants' removals often involved content related to expressing their marginalized identities that was removed despite following site policies or fell into content moderation gray areas. We discuss potential ways forward to make content moderation more equitable for marginalized social media users, such as embracing and designing specifically for content moderation gray areas. © 2021 ACM.

Design and Implementation of Annotation System for Character Behavior & Event Based on Spring Boot

To better prevent the spread of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), scientific researchers need the data set to research and predict the trajectories of patients. It is a time-consuming task to extract the data from the web page. We design and implement an annotation system for character behavior & event for users to extract patients’ basic information, trajectory information, and relationship information from the content of the web reports related to COVID-19 patients. Based on basic functions, permission management is added to protect data security and a clear interface is designed to optimize the user experience. To the best of our knowledge, this system is the first annotation system for COVID-19 data. The experiment results prove that our system has played a significant role in promoting the annotation work. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Design and implementation of coronavirus vaccines information traceability system based on blockchain

At the moment of COVID-19's continuing popularity, vaccination has become a necessary measure to fight against the COVID-19 under the community of common destiny. In order to provide more reliable vaccines traceability information that will not be tampered with and improve the worldwide COVID-19 vaccination management system, we designed and implemented a COVID-19 vaccines information traceability system. The system has three major functions. Firstly, with the help of blockchain technology, the system provides reliable input and query of traceability information for the production and transportation of COVID-19 vaccines. Secondly, it provides the historical injection information of COVID-19 vaccines. Thirdly, it realizes the safe conversion from historical injection information to QR code. The COVID-19 vaccines information traceability system not only allows people to inquire absolutely true vaccines traceability information, but also provides a standardized management platform of the COVID-19 vaccines for citizens and governments all over the world. © 2021 IEEE.

Mental distress and its associations with behavioral outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic: a national survey of Chinese adults.

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to evaluate associations between mental distress and COVID-19-related changes in behavioral outcomes and potential modifiers (age, gender, educational attainment) of such associations. STUDY DESIGN: This was a cross-sectional study. METHODS: An online survey using anonymous network sampling was conducted in China from April to May 2020 using a 74-item questionnaire. A national sample of 10,545 adults in 31 provinces provided data on sociodemographic characteristics, COVID-19-related mental distress, and changes in behavioral outcomes. Structural equation models were used for data analyses. RESULTS: After adjusting for covariates, greater mental distress was associated with increased smoking (odds ratio [OR] = 1.42, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.20-1.68 and OR = 1.54, 95% CI: 1.31-1.82 per one standard deviation [SD] increase in mental distress) and alcohol consumption (OR = 1.67, 95% CI: 1.45-1.92 and OR = 1.47, 95% CI: 1.24-1.75 per one SD increase in mental distress) among current smokers and drinkers and with both increased and decreased physical activity (ORs ranged from 1.32 to 1.56). Underweight adults were more likely to lose body weight (≥1 kg; OR = 1.63, 95% CI: 1.30-2.04), whereas overweight adults were more likely to gain weight (OR = 1.61, 95% CI: 1.46-1.78) by the same amount. Association between mental distress and change in physical activity was stronger in adults aged ≥40 years (ORs ranged from 1.43 to 2.05) and those with high education (ORs ranged from 1.43 to 1.77). Mental distress was associated with increased smoking in males (OR = 1.60, 95% CI: 1.37-1.87) but not females (OR = 1.11, 95% CI: 0.82-1.51). CONCLUSIONS: Greater mental distress was associated with some positive and negative changes in behavioral outcomes during the pandemic. These findings inform the design of tailored public health interventions aimed to mitigate long-term negative consequences of mental distress on outcomes.

Design and Implementation of Appointment Management System for the Innovation Laboratory

The Innovation Laboratory provides a research environment for undergraduate students of Nankai University. In response to COVID-19 prevention, we design and develop the Appointment Management System, which transfers the lab management from offline to online. The system has three major functions. Firstly, the regulations learning module provides the necessary knowledge of the laboratory usages. Secondly, the appointment module implements the complete processing of laboratory applications and reviews. Thirdly, the usage statistic module realizes the functions of lab monitoring and access controlling. Therefore, the system enables a contactless lab management model, which greatly reduces the risk of infectious diseases spreading. The Appointment Management System not only improves the laboratory management scientifically, but also provides powerful security for the faculty and students' research environment during the epidemic. © 2021 IEEE.

Open design and 3D printing of face shields: The case study of a UK-China initiative

At the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, many countries lacked personal protective equipment (PPE) to protect healthcare workers. To address this problem, open design and 3D printing technologies were adopted to provide much-in-need PPEs for key workers. This paper reports an initiative by designers and engineers in the UK and China. The case study approach and content analysis method were used to study the stakeholders, the design process, and other relevant issues such as regulation. Good practice and lessons were summarised, and suggestions for using distributed 3D printing to supply PPEs were made. It concludes that 3D printing has played an important role in producing PPEs when there was a shortage of supply, and distributed manufacturing has the potential to quickly respond to local small-bench production needs. In the future, clearer specification, better match of demands and supply, and quicker evaluation against relevant regulations will provide efficiency and quality assurance for 3D printed PPE supplies. © 2020 Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos. All rights reserved.