Formation of Climate Community for People of Colour on Digital Platforms: The Importance of Anonymity, Safety and Representation

Digital climate actions are an important aspect in centring voices in climate activism and therefore, it is important to study how digital channels support or hinder the actions of climate activists. Specifically, due to identity-related factors, people of colour (POC) could feel marginalised and othered, making it difficult to fit in in climate communities but online anonymity might help relieve these concerns. However, little research informs us what digital platforms POC actually use for building and engaging in climate communities including social media platforms (e.g., Facebook and Instagram), instant messaging channels (e.g., WhatsApp and Telegram), microblogging (e.g., Twitter), online newsletters and petitions and how these platforms and their anonymity features support or do not support their participation. Therefore, the current mixed-methods survey study was conducted to investigate what POC's choices of digital platforms are and how anonymity features support their participation in digital climate actions including their sense of safety and belonging. The results from 264 participants of five racial backgrounds i.e., White, Black, South Asian, Central, East and South East (CESE) Asians and mixed race, showed that there were different patterns in digital platform usage where most participants of colour had more distributed platform choices than White participants who were more likely to engage on identified sites such as Facebook and petitions. We also found that POC are more likely to engage on encrypted communication channels such as Telegram and WhatsApp and some anonymous actions than White participants. Results understanding the effects of anonymity reinforced that anonymity is important for POC's engagement because of safety reasons, however, being able to identify other POC is also important to their engagement as they might feel safer, giving them more courage to engage unanonymously. POC's need for anonymity, therefore, presented a contradictory but interesting paradox. Our study contributes to highlighting the importance of pluralistic and inclusive frameworks including trauma-informed computing and intersectionality in technological design which emphasises aspects of individual safety, community and digital platform trust and community support, collaboration and intersectional needs.