The Role of Platforms in Mediating Digital Domestic Violence

• In Event: Violence, Aggression, and Hate Online

Abstract

This paper describes Digital Domestic Violence as a site of online misogyny, foregrounding the role of social media and internet companies in mediating, coordinating, and regulating it; and proposing an agenda for future research. We define DDV as violence and abuse by current or former intimate partners, mediated by digital media and communication technologies. It includes harassment on social media, GPS tracking, clandestine recording, SMS threats, monitoring email, and publishing sexualised content without consent. Digital media technologies are increasingly entangled with sex, relationships and intimacy, as partner-seeking and interpersonal communication are coordinated via mobile media, dating sites and hookup apps. Social media complicate this because of their networked publicness and social convergence: couples navigate their relationships in the same quasi-public spaces that facilitate friendship, support, and professional interaction. In this paper, we supplement the growing literature on online sexism and organised misogyny, with attention to the specific dynamics of domestic violence. We focus on the gendered implications of software design and platform terms of service, providing examples of their role in supporting, or undermining, communicative cultures of respect and non-violence, and outline their responsibilities to provide regulatory and governance mechanisms to address the specific practices of Digital Domestic Violence.

Authors

• Molly Dragiewicz, Queensland University of Technology

• Jean Burgess, Queensland University of Technology

• Ariadna Matamoros-Fernández, Queensland University of Technology

• Michael Salter, Western Sydney University

• Nic Suzor, Queensland University of Technology

• Delanie Woodlock, Independent scholar

• Bridget Harris, Queensland University of Technology