chore: add uli-workshop blog (#699)

* Rename Uli workshop.jpg to Uli_workshop.jpg

* Create Uli-workshop.mdx

* Update Uli-workshop.mdx

Author: kaustubhavarma

uli-website/src/pages/blog/Uli-workshop.mdx

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+---
+name: "Building Uli: Learnings from Students and the Indian Social Media Experience"
+excerpt: " "
+author: "Kaustubha"
+project: " "
+date: 2025-02-28
+---
+import ContentPageShell from "../../components/molecules/ContentPageShell.jsx"
+
+<ContentPageShell>
+
+## Learnings from Students and the Indian Social Media Experience
+
+On the heels of the hover feature being fine-tuned and released, we reached out to the faculty who first gave us the seed idea for this feature being developed: Dr. Usha Raman, and Dr. Seema Mathur. We were able to conduct two workshops with them and their students respectively.
+
+The first workshop with Dr. Raman focused on Uli and testing out its features- we engaged in a crowdsourcing activity of slurs encountered by the group, and discussed why it was considered problematic to use those words in a daily context; we walked through the redaction and hover features on Uli as well. 
+We heard from this group that people who are using slur words are not interested in cleaning up anything- the burden or onus for contributing falls on a minority, and it is people who suffer. While the plugin was easy to use, they weren’t sure on individualistic impact, and emphasised that it is when policy adoptions are made by platforms that it would have a tangible impact. 
+They also suggested video essays as a specific format of dissemination that we could look into, since most people do not question the information presented in them, and easily accept what they state to be true due to their believable and addictive nature. The workshop with Dr. Raman made us see that we need to reframe how we discuss and navigate through the social media experience with a general audience. Pulling focus from just walking through the plugin, we decided to structure an activity around which Uli could be used as a facilitator to the discussions in the workshop. 
+
+The second workshop, we conducted with Dr Seema Mathur and the faculty and students in the Political Science department at Kalindi College. During the workshop, we organised an activity around daily experiences on social media. Presented as two stories, we asked students to point us out to aspects that stood out to them. 
+The students were quick to identify slur words, the derogatory nature of remarks and the impact on an individuals’ mental health, the way they may present themselves to the world, and the importance of individual awareness to bring about changes to the way we communicate online. 
+We also discussed the usage of both problematic words in a casual manner and casual words in a derogatory manner against specific communities; students pointed out how the word ‘Bihari’ is sometimes used as a slur against people belonging to the State, or even remarks about people from the North-East of India being ‘Chinese’ are made very casually and frequently online with little regard to the sentiments of those who are targeted. 
+The students also emphasised the need for tools-for-action: reporting tools that notify platforms of harmful content online, and easily accessible legal information for users to help them take legal action when they encounter such content. 
+Interestingly, there were also strong opinions on a recent incident involving off-colour jokes that circulated online, i.e. that they should be banned.
+
+![](/Uli_workshop.png)
+Both workshops left us with a lot of learnings: our audiences were fairly well versed in the online experience, and we did not encounter any counterpoints where anti-moderation or absolute free speech positions were taken; they were clear on where they wanted to see tech facilitated responses. 
+They also stated that a majority of change will have to take place on an individual level where people must acknowledge the negative impact of communicating in certain forms. 
+The usage of slur words as well as casual words, with the intent of demeaning individuals based on often immutable characteristics such as place of origin, sexuality, religion of birth, race or perpetuating prejudicial notions continues to detrimentally impact people. 
+Framing such issues into activities during the workshops was a step towards initiating conversations around them, and we are looking into different participatory and interactive ways we can do so with more such audiences. 
+
+</ContentPageShell>