Social media, cyberspace, and sex crime

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maggie Wykes
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Sex Crimes ◽  
New Form ◽  
Revenge Porn ◽  
Stranger Danger ◽  
Sex Crime

This essay considers the nature of offences involving social media. These include topics such as sexting, revenge porn, grooming, cyberstalking, and sexual harassment which have all become more common ‘sex crimes’ in the age of the digital. The essay explores whether there is any relationship between cyber-sex content or contact and real sexual harm. The author asks whether this is a new form of offending; whether it is old crime that is newly transacted, fashioned, and experienced; or whether it is really crime at all. Even though the focus of much concern with social media sex is ‘stranger danger’, in most cases assailants are actually known to the victim.

scholarly journals ‘Stranger Danger’ and the Gendered/Racialised Construction of Threats in Humanitarianism

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 4-13
Author(s):  
Megan Daigle ◽  
Sarah Martin ◽  
Henri Myrttinen
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
White Male ◽  
Stranger Danger

Humanitarian, development and peacebuilding work has become increasingly dangerous in recent decades. The securitisation of aid has been critiqued, alongside the racialised and gendered dynamics of security provision for aid actors. What has received less attention is how a range of intersectional marginalisations – gender, racialisation, sexuality, nationality and disability – play out in constructions of security, danger and fear in aid deployments. Focusing on sexual harassment, abuse and violence as threats to safety and security, the article examines how in training and guidance for deployment to ‘the field’ (itself a problematically securitised notion), danger is projected onto sexualised and racialised ‘locals’, often overlooking the potentially far greater threat from colleagues. Here, we employ a review of security guidance, social media groups, interviews with aid staffers and reflections on our own experiences to explore how colonialist notions of security and ‘stranger danger’ play out in training. We argue that humanitarianism is still dominated by the romanticised figure of the white, male humanitarian worker – even if this problematic imaginary no longer reflects reality – and a space where those questioning exclusionary constructs of danger are quickly silenced and even ridiculed, even in the age of #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter.

scholarly journals ‘Ruined’ lives: Mediated white male victimhood

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-80
Author(s):  
Sarah Banet-Weiser
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
White Male ◽  
The Public ◽  
Multi Media ◽  
Patriarchal Power ◽  
Almost All ◽  
False Accusations

When the hashtag #metoo began to circulate in digital and social media, it challenged a familiar interpretation of those who are raped or sexually harassed as victims, positioning women as embodied agents. Yet, almost exactly a year after the #metoo movement shot to visible prominence, a different, though eerily similar, story began to circulate on the same multi-media platforms as #metoo: a story about white male victimhood. Powerful men in positions of privilege (almost always white) began to take up the mantle of victimhood as their own, often claiming to be victims of false accusations of sexual harassment and assault by women. Through the analysis of five public statements by highly visible, powerful men who have been accused of sexual violence, I argue that the discourse of victimhood is appropriated not by those who have historically suffered but by those in positions of patriarchal power. Almost all of the statements contain some sentiment about how the accusation (occasionally acknowledging the actual violence) ‘ruined their life’, and all of the statements analyzed here center the author, the accused white man, as the key subject in peril and the authors position themselves as truth-tellers about the incidents. These statements underscore certain shifts in the public perception of sexual violence; the very success of the #metoo movement in shifting the narrative has meant that men have had to defend themselves more explicitly in public. In order to wrestle back a hegemonic gender stability, these men take on the mantle of victimhood themselves.

Rethinking the Naming of Sex Crime Victims

1995 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 96-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay Black
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Dilemma ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Crime Victims ◽  
Sex Crimes ◽  
Traditional Approaches ◽  
Sex Crime

This commentary attempts to work through the news media's ethical dilemma of covering sex crimes so that victims' rights advocates and media personnel can find common ground. Traditional approaches to sex crimes—using craft-based, professionally oriented definitions of news—should be replaced with ethically principled orientations toward news once concerns over “rights” are augmented with concerns over “duties.”

scholarly journals Teen Girls’ Experiences Negotiating the Ubiquitous Dick Pic: Sexual Double Standards and the Normalization of Image Based Sexual Harassment

Sex Roles ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Ringrose ◽  
Kaitlyn Regehr ◽  
Sophie Whitehead
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Focus Group Interviews ◽  
Double Standards ◽  
Media Image ◽  
Image Sharing ◽  
Social Currency ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Group Interviews ◽  
Sexual Double Standards

AbstractA range of important studies have recently explored adult women’s experiences of receiving unwanted dick pics (Amundsen, 2020). However, to date there has been limited research that has explored teen girls’ experiences of receiving unwanted penis images in depth. To address this gap we draw upon our findings from a qualitative study using focus group interviews and arts based drawing methods to explore social media image sharing practices with 144 young people aged 11–18 in seven secondary schools in England. We argue that being bombarded with unwanted dick pics on social media platforms like Snapchat normalises harassing practices as signs of desirability and popularity for girls, but suggest that being sent unsolicited dick pics from boys at school is more difficult for girls to manage or report than ignoring or blocking random older senders. We also found that due to sexual double standards girls were not able to leverage dick pics for status in the same way boys can use girls’ nudes as social currency, since girls faced the possibility of being shamed for being known recipients of dick pics. Finally we explore how some girls challenge abusive elements of toxic masculinity in the drawing sessions and our conclusion argues that unwanted dick pics should always be understood as forms of image based sexual harassment.

scholarly journals Crowdsourced Countersurveillance: A Countersurveillant Assemblage?

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Andrew Wood ◽  
Chrissy Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Knowledge Discovery ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Camera Traps ◽  
Traffic Surveillance ◽  
Breath Testing ◽  
Data Flows ◽  
Police Presence ◽  
New Form ◽  
Use Of Knowledge

Speed camera ‘traps’, random breath testing (RBT) stations, and other forms of mobile traffic surveillance have long been circumvented by motorists. However, as technologies for traffic surveillance have developed, so too have technologies enabling individuals to monitor and countersurveil these measures. One of the most recent forms of these countersurveillance platforms can be found on Facebook, where dedicated regional and national RBT and ‘police presence’ pages publicly post the locations of various forms of police surveillance in real-time. In this article, we argue that Facebook RBT pages exemplify a new form of social media facilitated countersurveillance we term crowdsourced countersurveillance: the use of knowledge-discovery and management crowdsourcing to facilitate surveillance discovery, avoidance, and countersurveillance. Crowdsourced countersurveillance, we argue, represents a form of countersurveillant assemblage: an ensemble of individuals, technologies, and data flows that, more than the sum of their parts, function together to neutralize surveillance measures. Facilitated by affordances for crowdsourcing, aggregating, and crowdmapping geographical data information on surveillance actors, crowdsourced countersurveillance provides a means of generating ‘hybrid heterotopias’: mediated counter-sites that enable individuals to contest and circumvent surveilled spatial arrangements.

scholarly journals The Stranger Danger: Exploring Surveillance, Autonomy, and Privacy in Children’s Use of Social Media

2011 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 24-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Nolan ◽  
Kate Raynes-Goldie ◽  
Melanie McBride
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Technology Use ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
Internet Safety ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Online Activities ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
Parental Mentoring ◽  
Stranger Danger

In this paper, we argue that censorware is one of the bogeymen that instills fear in parents whose children have access to the Internet. It is a fear that has the potential to restrict children’s autonomy and opportunities for engagement in social media. Fear regarding children’s online activities is one of the issues surrounding children’s Internet safety that does not appear to be situated in any particular social or cultural context. Among the most popular means of monitoring children online, censorware may prove even more harmful to children’s socioemotional wellbeing and development than any other form of monitoring (Boyd & Jenkins, 2006; Cloke & Jones, 2005; Helwig, 2006; Kamii, 1991; Laufer & Wolfe, 1977; Marx & Steeves, 2010; Pettit & Laird, 2002; Rooney, 2010). Inherent in the design and use of censorware are structures that inhibit children’s online and offline social interactions, their ability to develop fully as social actors, and their experience of being empowered to make informed and critical decisions about their lives, including choices relating to privacy. As well, reliance on surveillance-based approach-es to monitoring online activities of chil-dren (aged 5-14) may actually be leading to a greater danger: a decrease in oppor-tunities for children to have experiences that help them develop autonomy and independence. Our inquiry is located within a growing body of research that addresses the social implications of restricting, surveilling and controlling young children’s online activities versus nurturing individual autonomy through parental mentoring and critically reflec-tive software and social technology use.

Social media news deserts: Digital inequalities and incidental news exposure on social media platforms

2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482110595
Author(s):  
Matthew Barnidge ◽  
Michael A Xenos
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Digital Inequality ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Online Networks ◽  
Midterm Elections ◽  
Incidental Exposure ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Civic Skills ◽  
New Form

Some people live in social media “news deserts,” while others are embedded in online networks that are rich in news content. These news deserts represent a new form of digital inequality—distinct from problems of access, resources, or civic skills—that could foreclose one of the ways social media are believed to contribute to informing citizens and engaging them in democratic processes: providing opportunities for incidental news exposure. This study investigates incidental exposure on social media platforms, drawing on an online survey administered just before the 2018 US Midterm Elections ( N = 1493). The study finds that even after controlling for key individual-level factors, characteristics of social media discussion networks play a role in explaining variation in incidental exposure. The results are discussed in light of prevailing theory about incidental exposure, public engagement, and digital inequalities.

Shameless dicks: On male privilege, dick pic scandals, and public exposure

First Monday ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanna Paasonen ◽  
Jenny Sundén
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Male Privilege ◽  
High Profile ◽  
The Past ◽  
Feminist Media Studies ◽  
Public Exposure ◽  
Revenge Porn ◽  
Social Privilege

Academic debates on shame and the involuntary networked circulation of naked pictures have largely focused on instances of hacked accounts of female celebrities, on revenge porn, and interconnected forms of slut-shaming. Meanwhile, dick pics have been predominantly examined as vehicles of sexual harassment within heterosexual contexts. Taking a somewhat different approach, this article examines leaked or otherwise involuntarily exposed dick pics of men of notable social privilege, asking what kinds of media events such leaked data assemble, how penises become sites of public interest and attention, and how these bodies may be able to escape circuits of public shaming. By focusing on high-profile incidents on an international scale during the past decade, this article moves from the leaked shots of male politicians as governance through shaming to body-shaming targeted at Harvey Weinstein, to Jeff Bezos’s refusal to be shamed through his hacked dick pic, and to an accidentally self-published shaft shot of Lars Ohly, a Swedish politician, we examine the agency afforded by social privilege to slide through shame rather than be stuck in it. By building on feminist media studies and affect inquiry, we attend to the specificities of these attempts to shame, their connections to and disconnections from slut-shaming, and the possibilities and spaces offered for laughter within this all.

Reclaiming the People: Counter-Populist Algorithmic Activism on Israeli Facebook

2022 ◽  
pp. 152747642110594
Author(s):  
Yoav Halperin
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Interface Design ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Online Ethnography ◽  
The People ◽  
New Form

This article examines a new form of resistance to right-wing populist discourse on social media which I define as counter-populist algorithmic activism. Practitioners of this type of activism exploit platforms’ automated ranking mechanisms and interface design to bolster the online visibility of counter-populist voices. By so doing, activists seek to stymie the digitally mediated spread of right-wing populist rhetoric and advance an alternative, non-exclusionary vision of “the people.” To explore this nascent form of resistance, this study draws on a year-long online ethnography of a Facebook group of Israeli activists called Strengthening the Left Online. Through an observation of the group’s activities during 2017, as well as interviews with its main administrator and other left-wing Facebook users, I elucidate the distinctive nature of the motivations, strategies, and goals that guide counter-populist algorithmic activists.

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