Recurring Themes in Tech-Facilitated Sexual Violence Over Time

Abstract

Abstract From a rape in an early text-based online environment known as LamdaMOO to image-based sexual abuse and sexual harassment on social media platforms to sexual violence in the so-called ‘virtual reality’ of the ‘metaverse’ and numerous spaces in between, reported incidents of sexualized and gender-based violence have existed in our digitally networked world for a long time. While the technologies involved have evolved and advanced, the underlying systemic and structural drivers of technology-facilitated sexual violence remain the same and share much in common with the long history of sexualized and gender-based violence in our physical world. This chapter explores some of these common themes over time, including challenges as to what constitutes ‘violence’, the alleged ‘un’ reality of sexual violence in ‘cyber’ spaces, the lack of support and frameworks for addressing the harms of tech-facilitated violence, and the role that technology corporations play in its perpetration.