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The dark side of technology: an editorial on coercive control in the digital age

Editorial | Éditorial

Published onSep 09, 2022
The dark side of technology: an editorial on coercive control in the digital age
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The Dark Side of Technology: An Editorial on Coercive Control in the Digital Age


Résumé: Si la technologie numérique jouit d’une réputation impressionnante, car elle permet une communication instantanée et un accès à l’information à une échelle inégalée, elle a inévitablement des répercussions ; elle est notamment devenue une dimension de la violence contemporaine entre partenaires intimes (IPV) connue sous le nom de contrôle coercitif numérique (DCC). Le contrôle coercitif numérique implique l’exploitation des technologies numériques quotidiennes pour intimider, isoler, faire honte, surveiller et contrôler délibérément — principalement les femmes — dans des situations de IPV, généralement sous la forme de harcèlement en ligne, d’abus sexuels basés sur l’image, de surveillance électronique et de stalking, d’usurpation d’identité et de cyberfraude. Cette manifestation de la IPV a eu un impact profond sur la vie des survivants, entachant leur vie sociale et professionnelle, ainsi que leur santé émotionnelle et physique — ce qui constitue un facteur de risque croissant d’homicide domestique. Alors que les chercheurs et les gouvernements internationaux ouvrent la voie dans ce domaine, l’Amérique du Nord a été lente à suivre, la réponse la plus importante se situant jusqu’à présent au niveau de la base et des organismes sans but lucratif. Si l’on n’y prête pas attention immédiatement, la technologie continuera de s’immiscer dans nos vies sociales et professionnelles à un rythme rapide et évolutif, devenant peut-être l’une des manifestations les plus dominantes de la IPV que le monde ait connues jusqu’à présent.

Mots-clés : Violence conjugale, violence entre partenaire intime, contrôle coercitif numérique, Abus de technologie, violence à l’égard des femmes.


Abstract: While digital technology boasts an impressive reputation, providing instantaneous communication and access to information on an unmatched scale, it inevitably has repercussions; including having become a dimension of contemporary intimate partner violence (IPV) known as Digital Coercive Control (DCC). DCC entails the exploitation of everyday digital technologies to deliberately intimidate, isolate, shame, surveil, and control - predominantly women – in situations of IPV; commonly carried out in the forms of online harassment, image-based sexual abuse, electronic monitoring and stalking, impersonation, and cyber fraud. This manifestation of IPV has had a profound impact on the lives of survivors, tainting their social and professional lives, along with their emotional and physical health – further signifying a growing risk factor for domestic homicide. While international researchers and governments are paving the way in this line of work, Canada has been slow to follow, with the greatest response thus far emerging at the non-profit level. Without immediate attention, technology will continue to intertwine with our social and professional lives at rapid and evolving rates, perhaps becoming one of the most dominant manifestations of IPV the world has witnessed yet.

Key-words: Intimate Partner Violence, Domestic Violence, Digital Coercive Control, Technology Abuse, Violence Against Women.


Implications pratiques: Cet article a pour but de fournir aux lecteurs une introduction à la question du contrôle coercitif numérique (DCC), ainsi que ses principales caractéristiques, ses impacts et l’état des réponses mondiales. Ce faisant, il visait également à mettre en lumière les implications pratiques pour les chercheurs, les gouvernements, les praticiens et les travailleurs anti-violence. La principale conclusion de cet article est que l’Amérique du Nord, et plus particulièrement le Canada, est en retard dans sa réponse à l’évolution des formes de violence entre partenaires intimes (IPV), ce qui nécessite une adaptation immédiate pour répondre de manière adéquate aux cas actuels et futurs de DCC. Il est nécessaire de mener d’autres recherches dans une perspective nord-américaine et dans des lieux géographiques plus diversifiés. Les études futures bénéficieraient également d’une plus grande participation des survivants de DCC, de l’exploration des facteurs de risque et de protection, et des disparités potentielles entre les statuts socio-économiques. En pratique, l’article montre clairement que nous devons abandonner les hypothèses étroites et les attitudes de blâme envers les victimes de la IPV. En outre, il illustre la nécessité de développer l’éducation sur la IPV, la formation des parties prenantes et l’adoption de lois qui reflètent mieux les préjudices non physiques causés par la IPV. Cependant, pour commencer à s’attaquer au DCC, il faut une collaboration beaucoup plus grande entre tous les secteurs, y compris les acteurs gouvernementaux et juridiques, les services sociaux et les universitaires.


Practical implications: This article provides readers with an introduction to Digital Coercive Control (DCC), its key characteristics, impacts, and the status of global responses. It sheds light on practical implications for researchers, governments, practitioners, and anti-violence workers alike, and suggests that Canada is behind the times in response to evolving forms of intimate partner violence (IPV), requiring immediate adaptation to adequately address current and prevent future cases of DCC. Further research is needed from North American perspectives, more diverse geographical locations, greater input from survivors, exploration of risk and protective factors, along with potential disparities across socio-economic statuses. In practice, the article makes clear that we must leave behind narrow-minded assumptions and victim blaming attitudes surrounding IPV. Moreover, it illustrates the need for expanding IPV education, stakeholder training, and the adoption of laws better reflecting the non-physical harms brought about by IPV. To begin addressing DCC however, requires far greater collaboration across all sectors, including government and legal actors, social services, and academics.


Introduction

Stakeholders who support intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors, such as academics, anti-violence workers, and other advocates, have worked tirelessly to dispel the common question, ‘why doesn’t she just leave?’. A question comprised of narrow-minded assumptions of ease, responsibility, and even fault of IPV survivors who fail to remove themselves from abusive relationships. Despite ample factors keeping women – the predominant victims of IPV (Stark, 2009a) - in these circumstances such as basic financial constraints, the question lingers as the public continues to overlook these factors and the rudimentary fact that abuse does not always end when a victim leaves a relationship. In fact, leaving a situation of IPV is considered the most dangerous time in an abusive relationship and when a perpetrator’s tactics of abuse often intensifies and evolves, as they utilize nearly everything at their disposal to maintain power and control over their partners; objectives that are recognized by many stakeholders as the underlying threads of IPV - otherwise known as coercive control (CC) (Stark, 2009a). Among abused women who seek IPV support from social services, 60 to 80% have experienced CC (Stark, 2009b); where a regime of domination is established by abusers to entrap and control women, through reoccurring patterns of micromanagement, harassment, intimidation, isolation, and the exploitation of longstanding gender norms and inequalities surrounding women’s role in the home and society at large (Dragiewicz et al., 2021; Stark, 2009a).

In the 21st century, this quest for power and control by IPV perpetrators has already evolved, as stakeholders increasingly report cases where digital technologies are weaponized to magnify and extend CC into online contexts, during a relationship and post-separation (Freed et al., 2017). While a variety of terms exist, Harris and Woodlock (2019) effectively capture this phenomenon with the term “Digital Coercive Control” (DCC); arguing it best illustrates the method facilitating this mode of IPV in that it is digital; the intent being coercive behaviour; and its impact of controlling a current or former partner (p. 533). Early research reveals that this method of IPV is as serious as physical violence, impacting nearly every part of a survivor’s life and has been found present prior to several domestic homicides (Al-Alosi, 2017; Dragiewicz, 2021). As digital technologies continue to advance and intertwine with our personal and professional lives, it is hard to imagine that DCC won’t follow suit - perhaps becoming one of the most dominant manifestations of IPV the world has witnessed yet.

The Issue

Digital technologies, including smartphones, the internet, social networking platforms, and a variety of other devices, are one of the greatest developments of the 21st century, providing instantaneous communication and access to information (United Nations, n.d.). In the context of IPV, digital technologies can be a lifeline, allowing survivors to access critical information; alert emergency services; maintain social support; and collect evidence against abusers for legal proceedings (Dragiewicz et al., 2018). Nevertheless, digital technologies inevitably have repercussions; namely, the ability to reproduce harms of IPV in novel and enhanced ways.

Harris & Woodlock (2022) echo this sentiment, indicating that technology is now “commonplace” alongside traditional methods of abuse, enabling perpetrators to engage in “emotional, psychological, financial, and sexual abuse and in-person stalking” whether “facilitated by or performed” with technology (p. 1). Common tactics employed in cases of DCC include patterns of harassment through social networking platforms (Harris & Woodlock, 2022); verbal abuse and threats via text, phone, or video messages; dissemination of private information online to encourage third-party abuse or damage reputations; and image-based-sexual abuse created or shared online (Yardley, 2020). Moreover, scholars speak to hacking of personal and professional accounts; impersonation and fraud via online identity theft or other scamming attacks (Clevenger & Navarro, 2019); electronic monitoring and stalking of activities and personal communications (Harris & Woodlock, 2022); and even smart home appliances such as TVs, stereos, security systems, and thermostats, that have been used to abuse, intimidate, and torment current and former intimate partners (Ghebreslassie, 2018).

Based on this research, it is little surprise that stakeholders report technology to have considerably changed IPV, particularly regarding its “duration, intensity, and invasiveness” (Woodlock et al., 2020, p. 377). It allows perpetrators to surpass previous geographical boundaries and the private domains of a survivor’s personal life, to persistently and often anonymously monitor, intervene, and control them. Effectively extending abusers’ “sphere of control” (Dragiewicz et al., 2018, p. 611) in their partner’s personal life, with little effort and far less risk than traditional methods of abuse.

DCC’s Impact Upon Survivors

While each situation is unique, involving varying technologies, aims of abuse, and personalised tactics, research leaves the impression that DCC has a profound impact on survivors. A common theme within the literature is the idea of abuser ‘omnipresence’; whereby technology allows abusers to switch between multiple devices or platforms, and quite literally follow a survivor to all corners of personal or professional life - while remaining inconspicuously within her pocket (Woodlock et al., 2020). As a result, several survivors report living in a state of fear, unaware of the next time, medium, or platform through which they will be targeted, and thereby feeling trapped (Yardley, 2020).

Omnipresence has contributed to survivors reporting tainted social lives, as they choose isolation from previous commitments or online groups to minimize the frequency of DCC (Douglas et al., 2019). It has led to the onset of various emotional and psychological complications for survivors, including heightened levels of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, and paranoia (Al-Alosi, 2017). DCC has also been tied to physical harm, since it does co-occur with traditional forms of IPV, including physical and sexual abuse, self-harm, and as aforementioned, domestic homicide (Al-Alosi, 2017; Harris & Woodlock, 2022). Ontario’s Domestic Violence Death Review Committee’s 2010 annual report corroborates this harrowing fact, as they reveal that information and communication technologies are increasingly used to “harass, stalk, and abuse domestic homicide victims, prior to their deaths” (Department of Justice Canada, 2012, p. 16).

Current Responses to DCC

While the United Kingdom (UK), France, and Australia appear to be leading the way in response to DCC - with the UK criminalizing CC (Gill & Aspinall, 2020); France adopting provisions to their penal code preventing geolocation tracking without consent (France, 2020); and Australia implementing legislation applicable to DCC, capturing harms like online stalking and threatening messages by intimate partners (Doran, 2021) – Canada has been slow to follow. Despite the severity of CC and by extension DCC, there remains no offence in the Canadian Criminal Code capable of sufficiently addressing the non-physical harms of these manifestations of IPV (Gill & Aspinall, 2020). In Canada, we are restricted to offences that relate to physical dimensions of IPV and a handful that apply to DCC in certain circumstances, but not without their own limitations and criticisms. As is the case with the offence of Criminal Harassment and critiques surrounding its legal definitions and discretionary judicial interpretation, that place a greater burden on victims of intimate partner stalking to prove that they tried to prevent being stalked, than on stalkers themselves to prove their innocence (Grant, 2015). It is apparent that the greatest response to DCC thus far in Canada is from non-profit organizations, such as the BC Society of Transition Houses and Battered Women Support Services operating out of British Columbia, who have taken it upon themselves to learn about digital technologies; raise awareness of DCC; provide stakeholder training; and create necessary resources for survivors and the public, such as basic advice on how to clear your online browsing history or preserve digital evidence, and what constitutes digital abuse in the first place. Despite these efforts, international studies suggest that stakeholders experience substantial challenges when faced with DCC cases; particularly, their own lack of technology proficiency, maintaining contact with survivors who evade technology, and the normalization and romanticization of DCC among survivors and the public who often fail to recognize it as IPV (Douglas et al., 2019; Harris & Woodlock, 2019).

Without immediate attention brought to this issue and recognition that abuse does not merely end after removing oneself from a situation of IPV, survivors are left to engage in extensive safety work to protect themselves, at a multitude of evolving angles. Signaling an area of IPV and criminological research, warranting far greater attention. To enhance our collective understanding of DCC, I have undertaken my own mix-method research, exploring the experiences of DCC survivors and challenges faced by stakeholders in Canada through semi-structured interviews. My research also employs a quantitative content analysis of Canadian stakeholder websites, to capture their understanding of DCC and the intricacies of technology, and the ways technology itself is utilized as a tool to educate and respond to DCC. With this research I hope to contribute to the gaps that remain in the literature regarding this manifestation of IPV; however, further research from North American perspectives, capturing the accounts of survivors and analyzing the technology used to enact these harms, is critical. Future research would also benefit from examining variations across socio-economic status, diverse geographical locations and exploring both risk and preventative factors that could avert future harms of DCC. To begin addressing DCC however, requires far greater collaboration across all sectors, including academia, social services, along with government and legal actors, who have the power to expand IPV education, stakeholder training and implement laws that effectively capture the non-physical harms brought about by DCC. Together, these measures will enhance our understanding of DCC, better assist women faced with DCC in the future, and hopefully curtail the transforming question - ‘why doesn’t she just delete him?’.

References

Al-Alosi, H. (2017). Cyber-Violence: Digital Abuse in the Context of Domestic Violence. University of New South Wales Law Journal, 40(4), 1573–1603.

Canada, Department of Justice, Family Violence Initiative (Canada), Depository Services Program (Canada), & Federal/Provincial/Territorial Working Group on Criminal Harassment (Canada). (2012). A handbook for police and crown prosecutors on criminal harassment.

Communications and Executive Services Branch, Department of Justice Canada. http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2013/jus/J2-166-2012-eng.pdf

Doran, M. (2021, June 15). “Vile bullies”: Hefty fines on the cards for people who post or share online abuse. ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-15/new-laws-esafety-online-abuse-penalties-trolling/100217376

 Douglas, H., Harris, B. A., & Dragiewicz, M. (2019). Technology-facilitated Domestic and Family Violence: Women’s Experiences. The British Journal of Criminology, 59(3), 551–570. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azy068

 Dragiewicz, M., Burgess, J., Matamoros-Fernández, A., Salter, M., Suzor, N. P., Woodlock, D., & Harris, B. (2018). Technology facilitated coercive control: Domestic violence and the competing roles of digital media platforms. Feminist Media Studies, 18(4), 609–625. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2018.1447341

 Dragiewicz, M., Woodlock, D., Salter, M., & Harris, B. (2021). “What’s Mum’s Password?”: Australian Mothers’ Perceptions of Children’s Involvement in Technology-Facilitated Coercive Control. Journal of Family Violence. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-021-00283-4

France: Parliament Adopts Law against Domestic Violence. (n.d.). [Web page]. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2020-08-07/france-parliament-adopts-law-against-domestic-violence/

Freed, D., Palmer, J., Minchala, D. E., Levy, K., Ristenpart, T., & Dell, N. (2017). Digital Technologies and Intimate Partner Violence: A Qualitative Analysis with Multiple Stakeholders. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 1(CSCW), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1145/3134681

Ghebreslassie, M. (2018, November 1). “Stalked within your own home”: Woman says abusive ex used smart home technology against her | CBC News. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/tech-abuse-domestic-abuse-technology-marketplace-1.4864443

Gill, C., & Aspinall, M. (2020). Understanding coercive control in the context of intimate partner violence in Canada: How to address the issue through the criminal justice system? 47.

Grant, I. (2015). Intimate Partner Criminal Harassment Through a Lens of Responsibilization. Osgoode Hall Law Journal 52.2, 552-600.

 Harris, B. A., & Woodlock, D. (2019). Digital Coercive Control: Insights From Two Landmark Domestic Violence Studies. The British Journal of Criminology, 59(3), 530–550. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azy052

Harris, Bridget, Dragiewicz, Molly, & Woodlock, Delanie. (2022). Submission to the House Select Committee on Social Media and Online Safety (p. 43). Parliament of Australia. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/227377/1/Sub017_Associate_Professor_Bridget_Harris_members_of_The_Independent_Collective_of_Survivors_Associate_Professor_Molly_Dragiewicz_and_Dr_Delanie_Woodlock.pdf

Stark, E. (2009a). Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life. Oxford University Press, Incorporated. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unb/detail.action?docID=4704270

 Stark, E. (2009b). Rethinking Coercive Control. Violence Against Women, 15(12), 1509–1525. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801209347452

 United Nations. (n.d.). The Impact of Digital Technologies (Issue Brief). https://www.un.org/en/un75/impact-digital-technologies

 Woodlock, D., McKenzie, M., Western, D., & Harris, B. (2020). Technology as a Weapon in Domestic Violence: Responding to Digital Coercive Control. Australian Social Work, 73(3), 368–380. https://doi.org/10.1080/0312407X.2019.1607510

Yardley, E. (2020). Technology-Facilitated Domestic Abuse in Political Economy: A New Theoretical Framework. Violence Against Women, 1077801220947172. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801220947172

 

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