WEEK 10
Digital Citizenship & Social Media Conflict: Real-World Applications
Posted on March 17, 2025
Hey Tumblr fam! Today I'm exploring how theories of digital citizenship and social media conflict play out in our everyday online experiences. Let's look at real examples that showcase these concepts in action! ✨🌐
#BlackLivesMatter: Digital Citizenship in Practice
The #BlackLivesMatter movement exemplifies Mossberger et al.'s (2008) concept of digital citizenship as participation that benefits society. When George Floyd was murdered in 2020, social media became a crucial platform for organizing protests, sharing educational resources, and documenting police actions. Twitter users employed strategic hashtags to coordinate efforts, Instagram accounts compiled bail fund information, and TikTok creators explained complex concepts of systemic racism in accessible ways.
This wasn't just "slacktivism" - the online actions translated to offline impact. Research by Jackson et al. (2020) found that digital organizing directly contributed to record-breaking protest participation across all 50 US states and internationally (https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2020.1777360).
r/wallstreetbets and GameStop: Multi-Level Governance in Action
The 2021 GameStop stock situation perfectly illustrates how social media governance operates at both micro and macro levels. Within the r/wallstreetbets subreddit, moderators (everyday users with no formal authority) suddenly found themselves managing an explosive growth in membership and coordinating a financial movement that challenged Wall Street.
At the macro level, this online community's actions triggered responses from multiple governance stakeholders. Robinhood (commercial interest) restricted trading, congressional hearings were held (state actors), and the SEC launched investigations (regulatory bodies). The case demonstrates how online communities can disrupt traditional power structures, forcing governance adaptations across systems (Chohan, 2021, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3774019).
Gamergate: The Playbook for Networked Harassment
What began as targeted harassment of game developer Zoë Quinn in 2014 evolved into what Marwick & Caplan (2018) identify as a perfect example of networked harassment. The coordinated attacks against women in gaming weren't just random trolling—they were organized across platforms including 4chan, Reddit, and Twitter.
Techniques refined during Gamergate continue to be used in online harassment campaigns today:
Doxing: Anita Sarkeesian had her address published, forcing her to leave her home
Brigading: Coordinated mass reporting of targets' accounts to get them suspended
Sea-lioning: Bad-faith "just asking questions" tactics used to exhaust targets
These methods were later deployed against journalists, politicians, and activists from marginalized groups, showing how online harassment techniques evolve and spread (Massanari, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444815608807).
Noelle Martin's Fight: Legal Remedies in Practice
Australian activist Noelle Martin discovered at age 18 that her social media photos had been stolen, digitally edited onto pornographic images, and shared on multiple websites without her consent. When she sought help, she found Australia lacked sufficient laws addressing this form of abuse.
Martin turned her traumatic experience into advocacy, campaigning for legislative change. Her efforts contributed to the criminalization of image-based sexual abuse in Western Australia in 2019 and informed Australia's Online Safety Act 2021, which now requires platforms to remove such content within 24 hours of notification.
Her case demonstrates how individual advocacy can drive legal reform, creating new protections for digital citizens (McGlynn & Rackley, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1093/ojls/gqw033).
Clementine Ford's Screenshot Strategy: Humor as Resistance
When Australian feminist writer Clementine Ford received messages calling her a "fat ugly slut" and worse, she employed what Vitis & Gilmour (2016) identify as humor-based resistance. Rather than silently blocking harassers, Ford began publishing screenshots of abusive messages alongside the sender's name and profile photo.
In one notable case, a man who sent Ford an abusive message lost his job after she shared the screenshot and tagged his employer. Her approach turned traditional power dynamics upside down—using visibility as a weapon against harassers who typically rely on anonymity and platform inaction.
This strategy of "naming and shaming" transformed individual harassment into a public conversation about online abuse, particularly against women (Vitis & Gilmour, 2016, https://doi.org/10.1177/1741659016652340).
Instagram's Anti-Bullying Features: Platform Pressure Success Story
After years of criticism regarding rampant harassment on their platform, Instagram introduced several anti-bullying features that demonstrate how user advocacy can drive corporate social responsibility:
Restricted accounts: Users can limit interactions with specific accounts without blocking them
Warning prompts: AI detects potentially offensive comments and asks users "Are you sure you want to post this?"
Hidden words: Automatic filtering of potentially offensive DM requests
According to Instagram's internal research, the warning prompt resulted in 40% of users editing or deleting their comment when prompted. This example shows how persistent user pressure can lead platforms to implement meaningful changes to governance structures, though critics rightfully note these changes came only after years of documented harm (Jhaver et al., 2018, https://doi.org/10.1145/3274433).
What Has Your Experience Been?
Digital citizenship isn't abstract theory—it's lived every day as we navigate online spaces. Have you witnessed these dynamics in your own communities? Have you used any of these resistance strategies? Share your experiences below! 💭👇
References
Chohan, U. W. (2021). Counter-hegemonic finance: The Gamestop short squeeze. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3774019
Jackson, S. J., Bailey, M., & Welles, B. F. (2020). #HashtagActivism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice. MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2020.1777360
Jhaver, S., Ghoshal, S., Bruckman, A., & Gilbert, E. (2018). Online harassment and content moderation: The case of blocklists. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 25(2), 1-33. https://doi.org/10.1145/3274433
Marwick, A. E., & Caplan, R. (2018). Drinking male tears: Language, the manosphere, and networked harassment. Feminist Media Studies, 18(4), 543-559. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2018.1450568
Massanari, A. (2017). #Gamergate and The Fappening: How Reddit's algorithm, governance, and culture support toxic technocultures. New Media & Society, 19(3), 329-346. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444815608807
McGlynn, C., & Rackley, E. (2017). Image-based sexual abuse. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 37(3), 534-561. https://doi.org/10.1093/ojls/gqw033
Mossberger, K., Tolbert, C. J., & McNeal, R. S. (2008). Digital citizenship: The internet, society, and participation. MIT Press.
Vitis, L., & Gilmour, F. (2016). Dick pics on blast: A woman's resistance to online sexual harassment using humour, art and Instagram. Crime, Media, Culture, 13(3), 335-355. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741659016652340














