"You Have to Prove the Threat is Real": Understanding the Needs of Female Journalists and Activists to Document and Report Online Harassment

Online harassment is a major societal challenge that impacts multiplecommunities. Some members of community, like female journalists and activists,bear significantly higher impacts since their profession requires easyaccessibility, transparency about their identity, and involves highlightingstories of injustice. Through a multi-phased qualitative research studyinvolving a focus group and interviews with 27 female journalists andactivists, we mapped the journey of a target who goes through harassment. Weintroduce PMCR framework, as a way to focus on needs for Prevention,Monitoring, Crisis and Recovery. We focused on Crisis and Recovery, anddesigned a tool to satisfy a target's needs related to documenting evidence ofharassment during the crisis and creating reports that could be shared withsupport networks for recovery. Finally, we discuss users' feedback to thistool, highlighting needs for targets as they face the burden and offerrecommendations to future designers and scholars on how to develop tools thatcan help targets manage their harassment.