The Weaponisation of Digital Vigilantism

The next session at AoIR 2018 starts with Daniel Trottier’s paper on on digital vigilantism. He begins with the story of a video of an elderly woman in the Netherlands who was captured on in-store CCTV pocketing a lost wallet; that video went viral and the woman subsequently took her own life. In such cases, clearly, digital vigilantism against misbehaviour can be amplified well beyond the severity of the original offence, and can produce lasting effects on the initial culprits’ (but potentially also the accusers’) personal standing and reputation, as well as their mental and physical wellbeing. Further, because of the archival longevity of Web content, traces of such accusations may remain prominent for many years.

Such vigilantism is now prevalent online in various national contexts in the West as well as in countries such as Russia and China; in some contexts this is also being used to shame and suppress ethnic, religious, or sexual minorities, and is thereby being weaponised for ideological and propagandistic reasons. In some cases, it is highly vitriolic and aggressive, well out of proportion with the original transgression; often, however, because of the long history of online content available for just about anyone, the accusers themselves also end up being accused in turn for their own past transgressions. (This has become known as the ‘milkshake duck’ phenomenon.)

The media also play a role in this context; mainstream media often report on digital vigilante actions, and thereby further amplify them or engender a further round of activity. Generally, the process is this: discovery of an offence results in mediated denunciation and mediated policing, and this can result again in further discovery of offences. Much of this is informed by the conditions of mediated visibility that exist across the various platforms for digital vigilantism; these include the take-downs of offending material, which are however rarely likely to be complete and absolute.