Peer-reviewed article
Building trust in a suspicious network: findings from a one-year digital ethnography of five online sperm donation platforms.
Lauren Smith, Aleks Krotoski, David Carless, Lucy Eldred, Lucy Frith et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This peer-reviewed study examines online sperm donation platforms through a year-long digital ethnography. It analyses how users build trust and assess safety when connecting with donors and recipients. The research found that mistrust was common, with users engaging in surveillance and scrutiny, and that platform design features sometimes backfired. The work does not evaluate an intervention for children's well-being.
Key points
- Mistrust was pervasive across five online sperm donation platforms
- Users engaged in ongoing surveillance and scrutiny to assess safety
- Norms about 'safe' donors and recipients influenced how people presented themselves
- Experienced donors were often seen as having authority to define what was 'normal'
- Platform design features like gamification sometimes contributed to harm rather than preventing it
Limitations
This study focuses on adult users' experiences and platform dynamics rather than outcomes for donor-conceived children. It provides no data on how children are affected by these platforms or practices.
Abstract
Online sperm donation (OSD) connects prospective parents ('recipients') with donors via digital platforms. While prior research has focused on motivations and experiences, little attention has been given to the norms, identities, and relational dynamics shaping interactions on OSD platforms. Drawing on a year-long digital ethnography of five OSD platforms, this paper reports on a thematic analysis of multi-modal data that show that mistrust was pervasive. Users engaged in ongoing surveillance and scrutiny to 'stay safe' and protect others and future donor-conceived children. Norms about who was 'safe' or a 'good' donor or recipient influenced self-presentation and selection. Experienced donors were often constructed as knowledgeable, legitimising their authority to define what was 'normal'. Platform architectures, including user-driven safety features and gamification, shaped interactions, sometimes paradoxically contributing to harm rather than preventing it. These findings are situated within broader literature on digital sharing economies and connection platforms.