This paper considers an emerging practice whereby citizen's use of ubiquitous and domesticated technologies enable a parallel form of criminal justice. Here, weaponised visibility supersedes police intervention as an appropriate response. Digital vigilantism is a user-led violation of privacy that not only transcends online/offline distinctions but also complicates relations of visibility and control between police and the public. This paper develops a theoretically nuanced and empirically grounded understanding of digital vigilantism in order to advance a research agenda in this area of study. In addition to literature on vigilantism and citizen-led violence, this paper draws from key works in surveillance (Haggerty and Ericsson, British Journal of Sociology, 51, 605-622, 2000) as well as visibility studies (Brighenti 2007; Goldsmith, British Journal of Criminology, 50(5), 914-934, 2010) in order to situate how digital media affordances and cultures inform both the moral and organisational dimensions of digital vigilantism. Digital vigilantism is a process where citizens are collectively offended by other citizen activity, and coordinate retaliation on mobile devices and social platforms. The offending acts range from mild breaches of social protocol to terrorist acts and participation in riots. The vigilantism includes, but is not limited to a 'naming and shaming' type of visibility, where the target's home address, work details and other highly sensitive details are published on a public site ('doxing'), followed by online as well as embodied harassment. The visibility produced through digital vigilantism is unwanted (the target is typically not soliciting publicity), intense (content like text, photos and videos can circulate to millions of users within a few days) and enduring (the vigilantism campaign may be top search item linked to the target, and even become a cultural reference). Such campaigns also further a merging of digital and physical spaces through the reproduction of localised and nationalist identities (through 'us/them' distinctions) on global digital platforms as an impetus for privacy violations and breaches of fundamental rights.
Les investigations policières sur les médias sociaux sont composées de l'activité individuelle et institutionnelle. Au lieu de supplanter les institutions policières, les utilisateurs individuels augmente son champ d'application, et sont souvent impliqués dans ce processus sans même le savoir. Cela produit une visibilité qui combine le mandat et l'impunité de la police avec les optiques uniques sur la vie quotidienne des individus. Après avoir proposé un cadre théorique expliquant la pertinence sociologique des investigations policières sur les médias sociaux, je considère la réponseà l'émeuteà Vancouver en 2011 comme un exemple de la manière dont la police adaptent au volume de l'information sur des sites comme Facebook.
This article examines changing rules and regimes of visibility on social media, using Facebook as a case study. Interpersonal social media surveillance warrants a care of the virtual self. Yet this care is complicated by social media’s rapid growth, and especially Facebook’s cross-contextual information flows that publicize otherwise private information. Drawing from a series of thirty interviews, this article focuses on how users perceive and manage their own visibility and take advantage of the visibility of other users. These experiences are tied to shifting understandings of private and public information, as well as new terms like “stalking” and “creeping” that frame surveillant practices.Cet article examine l’évolution des règles et des régimes de visibilité sur les médias sociaux, en utilisant Facebook comme une étude de cas. La surveillance interpersonnelle sur les médias sociaux nécessite un soin de l’être virtuel. Pourtant, ce soin est compliqué par l’expansion rapide des médias sociaux, et en particulier la nature inter contextuel de Facebook, qui diffuse de l’information privé. Tirant d’une série de trente entrevues, cet article concentre sur la manière dont les utilisateurs perçoivent et gèrent leur proper visibilité sur Facebook ainsi que de profiter de la visibilité des autres. Ces expériences sont liées à l’évolution des conceptions de l’information publique et privée, ainsi que de termes nouveaux comme «harcèlement» et «stalking» qui caractérise la surveillance sur les médias sociaux.
Individuals rely on digital media to denounce and shame other individuals. This may serve to seek justice in response to perceived offences, while often reproducing categorical forms of discrimination. Both offence taking and its response are expressed online by gathering and distributing information about targeted individuals. By seeking their own form of social and/or criminal justice, participants may supersede institutions and formal procedures. Yet digital vigilantism includes shaming and other forms of cultural violence that are not as clearly regulated. They may feed from state or press-led initiatives to shame targets, or simply to gather information about them. Digital vigilantism remains a contested practice: Terms of appropriate use are unclear, and public discourse may vary based on the severity of the offence, the severity of response, and on participants' identities and affiliations. This paper advances a conceptually informed model of digital vigilantism, in recognition of its coordinated, moral and communicative components. Drawing upon literature on embodied vigilantism as well as concurrent forms of online coordination and harassment, it considers recent cases in a global context in order to direct subsequent analysis of how digital vigilantism is rendered meaningful.
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