Digital Vigilantism
Description
The Board of the Philosophy and Engineering Department has the pleasure of inviting you to the lecture by Daniel Trottier, PhD on 12 September next on the topic:
Digital Vigilantism as Weaponisation of Visibility
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.
This lecture will be delivered in English.
About the speaker:
The current research of Daniel Trottier considers the use of digital media for the purposes of scrutiny, denunciation and shaming. Daniel is the PI of a five-year NWO-funded project on this topic, entitled "Digital Vigilantism: Mapping the terrain and assessing societal impacts". He is also participating in a joint NSF/NWO project on mobile privacy, andâ¯has previously participated in two European Commission projects on security, privacy and digital media. Daniel has authored several articles in peer-reviewed journals on this and other topics, as well as Social Media as Surveillance with Ashgate in 2012, Identity Problems in the Facebook Era with Routledge in 2013, and Social Media, Politics and the State (co-edited with Christian Fuchs) with Routledge in 2014.
Daniel previously held appointments as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Social and Digital Media at the Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI), University of Westminster, as well as Postdoctoral Fellowships in the Department of Informatics and Media at Uppsala University Sweden, and the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta, Canada.
Daniel completed a PhD in Sociology at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada. His doctoral research focused on the impact of digital media on interpersonal and institutional surveillance practices. Daniel obtained a BA in Psychology and Sociology at McGill University, and an MA in Sociology at Concordia University, both in Montreal, Canada
Speaker(s)
Daniel Trottier
Associate Professor at the Department of Media and Communication of Erasmus University Rotterdam
Location
Vredenburg 19, 3511 BB Utrecht
Organiser
Philosophy & Technology
Name and contact details for information
Johan Hengst
Link for additional information