If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen

Digital violence, continued exclusion practices and hate speech are still present online. Sexism, racism, anti-Semitism, ableism, trans- and homophobia figure prominently in hate speech. Moreover, membership in more than one group which is targeted online increases the danger of becoming a victim of digital violence. As Amnesty International confirmed in 2018, “women of colour, religious or ethnic minority women, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or intersex (LBTI) women, women with disabilities, or non-binary individuals who do not conform to traditional gender norms of male and female, will often experience abuse that targets them in unique or compounded way”. This is dangerous. If socially discriminated groups experience additional violence in the digital sphere and therefore withdraw from participation, this negatively affects the rationality of socio-political discourse processes mediated by technology. Discrimination in digital spaces is not limited to forms of digital violence. Rather, the internet acts as a mirror of society in many ways, shaping all forms of discrimination as diverse as society itself.