When the Covid pandemic swept through communities in early 2020, thousands of people turned to Facebook to offer help to strangers: groceries for elderly neighbours, masks for the immunocompromised, emotional support for those suddenly out of work. A new study examining one such group reveals the hidden tensions that shaped these acts of kindness and, at times, threatened to unravel them altogether. The findings were published in Information, Communication & Society.
Researchers from Laval University and the University of Ottawa spent a year immersed in a Montreal-based mutual aid community on Facebook, which they call Caremunity. The group grew to more than 15,000 members within months of its launch, becoming a hub for Canadians who needed help and those who wanted to give it. But sustaining that spirit of solidarity in a digital space proved far more complicated than the group’s founders had anticipated.
The study identifies three key tensions, which the researchers frame as interferences. The first is what they term consuming solidarity, a phenomenon where the vast majority of members read posts and liked requests without ever contributing directly. Nearly 70% of survey respondents said they had never initiated a post. Rather than dismissing this as passive disengagement, the researchers found that these silent participants played a meaningful role: even a single like boosted a post’s visibility on Facebook’s algorithm, helping requests reach people who could actually fulfil them.
The second tension involved how people asked for help. Caremunity was built on the principle of non-judgement, but in practice, members who made requests felt pressure to justify their need. Many over-explained their circumstances, emphasised their past self-sufficiency, or offered to give something in return. The researchers found that a climate of suspicion, fuelled partly by fears of exploitation, compelled genuine requesters to perform their vulnerability in order to be taken seriously. This emotional labour placed an additional burden on those already in difficult circumstances.
The third interference centred on Facebook itself. Members widely viewed the platform as a necessary evil: indispensable for reaching a large audience quickly, but fundamentally at odds with the community’s values of trust, care, and transparency. In response, volunteer moderators stepped in to create what one participant described as a sanctuary within the platform. They reviewed posts before publication, shut down antagonistic comment threads, and actively reframed hostile exchanges to keep the group focused on mutual aid.
The research draws on Michel Serres’ philosophical concept of the parasite, which holds that disruptions in communication are not simply obstacles but constitutive parts of how social order forms. Applying this lens, the authors argue that each interference, rather than breaking the community apart, ultimately helped define and reinforce its values.
The findings carry broader relevance for anyone involved in online community building, grassroots organising, or digital mental health networks. They suggest that conflict and friction within these spaces, far from being signs of failure, can be the very forces that sharpen a community’s identity and sustain its purpose over time.
Caremunity remains active today, though its membership has declined from its peak as pandemic urgency has faded.