Challenges for Research on Groups in Cyberspace

Throughout my career, advances in technology and global communications have enabled larger and more dispersed groups worldwide, new services and products that make groups more efficient, effective, and cohesive. As well, we see new threats and harms to group members and others: online harassment and hate speech, invasions of privacy, financial crimes, cyberbullying, AI-created false information, and threats to vulnerable group members. More than half of young women and girls survey state they have been harassed online and a quarter reported feeling unsafe (https://planusa-org-staging.s3.amazonaws.com/public/uploads/2021/04/Freedom_Online_2020_State_Of_The_Worlds_Girls_PIUSA.pdf). Health misinformation spread by online groups, such as that HIV does not cause AIDS, may have killed thousands in Africa. Misinformation promulgated by anti-vaccine groups has encouraged millions in the U.S. to forgo life-saving vaccines. Cyberspace today spills over into the physical world and all forms of telecommunication, furthering fraudulent services and goods, polarization of the electorate and distrust in elections, threats to journalism, misleading science, and real-world violence. High quality research and investigative journalism has made some gains in understanding and mitigating the tsunami of accidental and intentional harms online, but opposing lies and threats with truth can feel like a losing arms race. Understanding what causes these harms enabled by technology and tech-company business models, will rest in fundamental principles of group member psychology, group dynamics, and intergroup conflict. Ongoing and future group research could help us understand the benefits of new technology and counter negative group behaviors in the online world.