The Explosion of Technology-Facilitated Abuse and Advocates’ Race to Fight Back

In the digital age, the internet has been increasingly weaponized as a tool of violence and control by intimate partner abusers. Our unregulated online frontier seems to give near-limitless access for abusers to not just go after survivors, but even engage with other offenders to share tactics and material for abuse.

This open-source age of technology-facilitated abuse poses unique and daunting challenges for survivors. If we expect to meet this moment with the legal and advocacy work it demands, we have to embrace some harsh realities head-on while rapidly mastering new, complex strategies to protect our most vulnerable.

What is Technology-Facilitated Abuse?

Technology-facilitated abuse, also known as technology-enabled abuse, is a form of violence where abusers use digital channels to harass, intimidate, manipulate, or humiliate an individual. Increasingly, abusers are turning to new technologies to facilitate other forms of abuse and violence: generating AI deepfakes, hacking smart home devices, or using unregulated platforms to organize and distribute illegal material without repercussion.

DVP has handled cases where individual clients had no histories of abuse with a partner, only to find their intimate images shared or distributed online. In other instances, abusers can coerce or force survivors into creating intimate material or even financially extort them using compromising images as leverage. 

Expanding Access to Technology-Facilitated Abuse

Today, laws that regulate digital spaces are constantly playing catch-up. Access to tools and platforms that can facilitate technology-facilitated abuse is within a few clicks, and abusers can connect with their “peers” faster than ever.

A few specific cases exemplify how information-sharing and laissez-faire digital governance have allowed abuse to spread rampant online. In the now-infamous story of Gisèle Pelicot, a French woman discovered that her husband of 50 years had been drugging her, inviting strangers online to come to their home and rape her, and then recording the footage. This serial criminality was facilitated by a website called Coco, which connected the husband to countless other abusers and made such a disgusting story a reality.

More recently, a CNN exposé discovered what users referred to as a “rape academy” — a massive online platform where abusers across the world could share information, guidance, and intimate videos of them raping their sleeping partners. Those conversations extended into a mass group chat via the messaging app Telegram entitled “Zzz”. Though Telegram eventually took down that chat, these widely available and accessible platforms facilitated unspeakable amounts of abuse at an unprecedented scale.

Combating Technology-Facilitated Abuse

The two examples above may seem like the extreme cases, but they’re really just the highest-profile examples of abusers who’ve been caught. Digital proliferation of abuse is getting worse, as both legislation and enforcement are slow to respond to the needs of survivors. Just a few months ago, the Coco website that helped facilitate the horrific crimes against Pelicot and many others reappeared online, frustrating French authorities.

Widespread access to these tools makes abuse far more accessible and prolific, while governments slow-walk their response. In the meantime, attorneys and advocates must do their best to fight for survivors within a woefully insufficient legal and social infrastructure of support. 

This demands a direct response in local communities, training folks on the dangers of various apps and platforms, and spelling out the security risks involved with smart home technologies. We need to advise survivors on their rights related to taking down abusive material, their ability to secure compensation, and how they can protect their families and friends from similar behaviors.

The world does not slow down to give us time to catch up. Technology-facilitated abuse works at breakneck speed and threatens survivors across the world. Until those in power take the necessary steps to hold these platforms responsible, it’s up to us to provide the rapid response needed to keep our communities safe.

Learn more about how you can support survivors and their children to live free of violence and abuse.

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