Digital Intimacies and Digital Rights: Towards Restorative and Transformative Process
Digital Rights: Managing harm, or silencing debate and dissent?
When it comes to public conflict around deeply personal, private and intimate issues, issues of identity and/or personal vulnerability, how can we create laws that don't silence speech, even when people have things to say that we don't agree with or like? How can we protect and uphold digital rights where harm has occurred?
In the wake of #MeToo, a host of defamation suits were threatened and enacted on those who had spoken out online, even where there had been no direct accusation of a named person (Albert and Baladi, 2021)
Globally, these cases often replicated the very epistemic injustices of courts and institutions that had led to the use of user-generated mass media in the first place, harming victim-survivors in their capacity as knowers and givers of knowledge (Harradine, 2022; Damstrom 2020).
Beyond obvious legal issues with naming perpetrators, across multiple communities the movement led to heavy handed content moderation around the whole area of harassment of violence - shutdowns, content removal and outright banning of those speaking about sexual violence out loud, in new ways deemed "not right", "aggressive" or "inappropriate". Some of this was obvious - content removed, "problematic" posters sent packing - but it was often less so.
Tarleton Gillespie, Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research New England wonders about the lack of transparency in social media governance, particularly "reductionist" efforts to handle "difficulty" online which might involve recommending content less in algorithms, or not at all, without a right to appeal. He wonders who is responsible for these decisions? What motivates them? Might an opaque process around punishing "perpetrators" of harm, in itself, constitute a harm - a power with potential to flatten complexity and silence uncomfortable truths?
Gillespie points out that all too often platforms and content moderators seem to pay little attention to the human consequences of simple solutions to complex problems. The ability to cut off someone's account for infringement of rules that have been poorly or secretly defined can have devastating effects on the lives of people who may rely on these platforms for their work and social contacts - but it's easy to do. It's more resource and time intensive to mediate human complexity and messiness, and so "cancelling" or "banning" someone can easily seem the most "cost effective" means of managing online harm. But is this really true? How does this risk building effective, thriving, flourishing communities?
#MeToo gave a voice to survivors, but social media campaigns shaming perpetrators could also cause harm. While #MeToo highlighted a need for a less sensationalist and more transparent approach to arbitrating on the complexities of intimate harm, both on and offline, especially for marginalised groups it often did so in sensationalist ways that flattened the humanity of all involved (George, 2018). Punitive approaches focus on punishing "offenders" - both those accused and accusing - without addressing the needs of both parties involved or their larger digital communities. Could there be a more effective way forward?
Amy Hasinoff, Associate Professor at the University of Denver, Colorado, thinks so. She points out that a lot of research shows that punishment of negative and harmful behaviours online doesn't work to lessen harm, and it doesn't create change within communities with respect to problematic behaviours. Most importantly, it doesn't help anyone who has experienced harm. She favours the use of transformative justice approaches to addressing abuse.
Transformative justice is a way of trying to address harm without causing more harm. It involves reflecting on how communities can respond to harm and to centre on survivor needs in a healthy way, creating space for rage and agency while maintaining that hard line of saying "the harm ends here". It asks questions of communities like who has been harmed, how has that impacted them and what do they need now? Critically the primary focus is on shifting dynamics that allow harm to happen while bearing the needs of the larger community in mind. This recognises that when two people have a conflict in a group, the whole community is impacted and the whole community is responsible. How do you honour the needs of those harmed while still meeting the needs of the larger whole? How can the messy, complex realities of human harm be contained, while aiming at transformation at an end to harm?
A key focus here is recognising that in the context of addressing harm in online communities, or in offline communities when harm is taken online, such as in social media campaigns aimed at publicly shaming perpetrators, this also means that everyone involved in online conflict needs to consider their own role when conflict arises and reckon seriously with the probable consequences of acting in particular ways, particularly where this gives rise to further harms either offline (physical violence) or on (doxxing).
Trans Activist Kai Cheng Thom, largely a proponent of
restorative and de-escalatory community based approaches to conflict, suggests that reckoning with hurt and looking at the process ofhow escalating conflict impacts relationships and impacts access to due process
can be helpful (Cheng Thom, 2020):
Transformative justice is therefore envisaged as an alternative to veangeful forms of public shaming - in this context, actions taken should aim towards restoration of relationships where possible, and transformation of the conditions of a community that allowed the harm to happen in the first place, by looking seriously at the "staircase of accountability" (Chrysalis Collective, 2011) and engaging all parties in taking steps to becoming a healthy member of a particular community
(Chrysalis Collective, 2011).
Albert and Baladi, 2021. "Me Too, Defamation and Digital Rights". Online. https://digitalfreedomfund.org/metoo-defamation-and-digital-rights/ Accessed December 16th 2023.
Hasinoff, A. A., Gibson, A. D., and Salehi, N. (Jul 27, 2020) The promise of restorative justice in addressing online harm, Brookings TechStream.
Damström, L., 2020. # MeToo, Men’s Sexual Violence against Women and the Chilling Effect of Defamation Lawsuits: A Feminist Critique of the Swedish Criminal Justice System. Master Thesis-International Human Rights Law Programme.
Hicks, P. and Daher, M. 2021. Press briefing: Online content moderation and internet shutdowns. Online. July 14th 2021. https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Press/Press_briefing_140721.pdf. Accessed December 16th, 2023.
George, K. (2018) #MeToo and human rights language in the social media era.https://rightnow.org.au/opinion/metoo-human-rights-language-social-media-era/. Online. October 2018. Accessed December 16th 2023.
Griner, A., 2018. The better way to support rape victims: Put their needs first. The Guardian, 13.
Schulman, S., 2016. Conflict is not abuse: Overstating harm, community responsibility, and the duty of repair. Arsenal Pulp Press.
Cheng Thom, K. 2020. Facebook post. https://www.facebook.com/227066974091435/posts/when-we-respond-to-conflict-the-surge-of-survival-responses-such-as-fight-flight/2000767296721385/. Acessed December 16th, 2023.
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