#digitalconflict

With social media growing more and more everyday these days, it unfortunately has come along with the issue of online conflict. This topic of conflict finds itself relating to all thing’s digital citizenship, activism, regulation, platforms, community and inclusion. Due to the conflict taking place through social media, it just goes to show digital citizenship is very much about power and leads to certain users feeling to right to harass someone online.

Due to the extreme nature of some online conflict, it can fall under the category of harassment; a term that includes being called offensive names, being embarrassed, threatened, sexually harassed online and many other serious actions. While some users’ goals of embarrassment and anger out of this is for pure amusement, it can also find itself to be driven by more stern motives such as politics. This harassment and conflict also doesn’t tend to be a one-time event, and unfortunately can be repetitive through networks and organized.

While not all harassing behaviour is confined to anti-feminists, a lot of the time techniques such as doxing (uploading personal information online), image-based abuse such as spreading intimate photos without the owner’s permission, social shaming and intimidation tend to be refined by men’s rights activists (Marwick & Caplan 2018, pg. 544).

Depending on the individual or social group being targeted, online conflict can occur in different ways. Many “studies consistently show that women are more likely to be targets of gendered-based online harassment than men” (Haslop, O’Rourke & Southern 2021, pg. 1420). One of the major impacts of online harassment is the feeling of be ‘silenced’ by the digital community. It can negatively impact the victim’s motivation to further engage with and use digital spaces (Haslop, O’Rourke & Southern 2021, pg. 1421). Studies have proven that young women who experience or even witness online harassment are more likely to self-censor their future online posts to reduce the chances of any further harassment online (Haslop, O’Rourke & Southern 2021, pg. 1421).

Marwick, A E. & Caplan, R 2018, ‘Drinking male tears: language, the manosphere, and networked harassment’, Feminist Media Studies, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 544