Digital Commons Network^™

Uses Unaddressed: How Social Technologies Tacitly Allow Gender-Based Violence, Brooke Marston

Comm-entary

Growing technological capabilities have enhanced and intensified the potential for surveillance in many areas of life. Particularly, the placement of advanced technology in the hands of everyday people has produced ample opportunities for interpersonal monitoring. This growing capacity to surveil others we know without sophisticated techniques has concerning implications for acts of gender-based violence and intimate partner violence, which often hinge on surveillance, isolation, and control. Often, technology is used to the advantage of abusers in achieving such ends, and the wealth of personal information that is often available online leaves users vulnerable to acts of gender-based violence such as …