Whispers Turned Weapons: The Role of Digital Gossip in Gendered Disinformation | Point of View

<aside> 📡 Researcher Anushka Jain was invited to attend a workshop on on Gendered Disinformation hosted by the Association for Progressive Communications, Software Freedom Law Centre, and Point of View in April, 2024.

</aside>

Setting the stage

While various actors have always spread false content, “digital technologies enable a higher volume of information to spread faster and with greater reach”. This blogpost has been conceptualised based on thinking precipitated at a workshop on Gendered Disinformation hosted by the Association for Progressive Communications, Software Freedom Law Centre, and Point of View, which I attended in April 2024. Participants at the workshop discussed issues related to information disorders, online gendered disinformation and the role of disinformation in elections and against women politicians. Case studies on gendered disinformation were used to problematise these issues. Some participants shared insights into the implementation of online tools they had built to counter gendered disinformation and hate speech. Key learnings from this workshop will be discussed in this blogpost.

Is there a need to focus on the intent to harm?

In 2016, politicians and the media popularised the term “fake news” globally. Since then, its meaning and implications have evolved tumultuously. Initially used to denote false information, today, anything a person, especially a politician, disagrees with may be branded as "fake news." Vagueness of this nature necessitates that any conversation around such issues begins with clearly defining the contours of the problem. A significant point of discussion during the workshop was whether there is a need to create a framework of harms which would centre any discussion around gendered disinformation. This framework would focus on real-world harms experienced by individuals rather than terminology that may not completely convey how these issues may play out, especially in the Majority World. Participants at the workshop were also wary of getting lost in seeking definitional clarity. It was indicated that instead of trying to define disinformation based on accuracy, the intent to harm should be at the centre of any definitional framing. However, how will this framing respond when harm occurs in the absence of intent?

Prevalence of gendered disinformation as “digital gossip”

Gendered disinformation includes “false, misleading, or harmful content that exploits gender inequalities or invokes gender stereotypes and norms, including to target specific individuals or groups”. Digital technology has allowed malicious actors to increase their reach and impact significantly. Targeted women/girls may face negative consequences like harassment, trolling or even threats of physical harm. They may self-censor, remove themselves from the digital sphere, or lose access to it entirely, precluding them from active public and political participation. Often, gendered disinformation is targeted at politically active women to undermine or silence them. Here, the nature of the attack is likely to be steeped in sexism, focussing on the targeted woman’s character, which makes it tougher to fight against with fact-checking.

The term “digital gossip” came up in discussion during the workshop after some participants shared instances wherein offline gossip had spread online resulting in severe consequences. Gossip may be defined as the sharing of personal information in an evaluative way about an absent third party. Gossip deals with behaviour that may be viewed as a societal or habitual discrepancy which elicits a moral response. Thus, gossip does not deal with strictly factual information, but opinion-based information which may be used to judge the moral character of an individual.

While the gossip may be initiated by an actor with malicious intentions (disinformation), its further spread may be attributed, in part, to actors who do not have malicious intentions, but only a passive interest (misinformation). In his book ‘The Future of Reputation’, Daniel Solove warns that, “As social reputation-shaping practices such as gossip and shaming migrate to the Internet, they are being transformed in significant ways. Information that was once scattered, forgettable, and localised is becoming permanent and searchable.” Digital gossip may spread faster than gossip in the real world. Its reach may be magnified through social media. Further, while offline gossip may translate to text-based or audio-based digital gossip, digital gossip may also include audio-visual communication such as out-of-context and/or manipulated images or videos in the form of chat screenshots, memes, and digitally manufactured non-consensual intimate imagery.

Anecdotal accounts shared by participants in the workshop indicate that in rural India the prevalence of gendered digital gossip is a significant source of gendered misinformation. Gendered digital gossip primarily targets the character of the woman who is the subject of the gossip and results in harm to her reputation. Reputation damage is rooted in the “suspicion of a woman’s presumed complicity and looseness in leaking sexual content about themselves, even when the release was non-consensual (due to presumed sexual and premarital relations, considered taboo for most women)” in rural India. In their study on gender and digital abuse in South Asia, Sambasivan et. al (2019) identify personal content leakage as the most incapacitating class of abuse in South Asia. According to the participants of their study, even information that would be considered mildly- or non-sensitive in the Global North, like a woman’s name or a fully clothed photo, when revealed in the wrong context, may lead to severe negative consequences in South Asian countries. This insight also highlights the need to move away from a Global North framing of harm.

Fact-checking is not a silver bullet solution

Fact-checking is not a viable solution for gendered digital gossip. Firstly, it is difficult to fact-check in hyper-local and rural contexts. Secondly, since the nature of the information is more opinion-based rather than fact-based, fact-checking may not be an appropriate solution. How do we then begin to counter such gendered digital gossip?

The need to move away from fact-checking was also highlighted during the workshop by participants. They indicated that we need to adopt alternative methods to counter disinformation which includes strengthening and empowering local journalism networks, improving media literacy, and pre-bunking.

Summing up

Novel issues like gendered digital gossip, especially how they play out in jurisdictions like India, need more thought and research. It is important that intersectional perspectives are included to develop these understandings of the issue, in order to accurately comprehend their impact in jurisdictions like India and the Majority World. Further, it would be beneficial for future researchers to focus on solutions which move beyond fact-checking, in order to adequately respond to these unique concerns.

References