Platformization and Gender Violence

The Ecosystem of Circulation of Women’s Intimate Images in Brazil

Abstract

This article analyzes, from an ethnographic approach to the internet, the constitution of an ecosystem for the circulation of intimate images of women without consent. Mediated by widely used networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, Discord and YouTube, this ecosystem operates through the articulation between users and platforms that organize practices of sharing, consumption and data accumulation. It is argued that such dynamics are structured in digital men’s houses, in which intimate contents are expropriated and converted into informational assets, generating forms of symbolic and material profitability. By highlighting the structural complicity between users and platforms, the article points out how these practices renew and amplify historical violences, while
also reinforcing the urgency of public policies and regulatory models capable of confronting the public and global dimension of gender-based violence against girls and women on the internet.