Citation

Towards Collective Safety: Transformative Methodologies

Author:
Hamid, Sarah T.; Kuo, Rachel
Year:
2022

Technological and computational means for monitoring abuse and hate online expand the state’s capacity for violence and legitimize law enforcement strategies in responding to harm. In this paper, we intervene on the way carceral solutions are offered to at-risk communities as their only viable recourse against online harm and trace the history of transposition between police practice and platform governance. The paper functions as documentation and a living archive of movement organizing between June 2020 – March 2021, particularly anti-doxxing bills in the state of Oregon and the expansion of the New York Police Department in the wake of incidents of anti-Asian violence. Building on community-based knowledge exchanges and mobilizing analytic tools from critical race and feminist inquiry, we argue for approaches to online harm and abuse that do not continue to surveil, police, and incarcerate people. We draw on transformative justice frameworks to discuss methods for creating safety without police, while also challenging the ongoing innovation of data-driven tools that reinvest in carceral systems.