Algorithmic Bias in Digital Space: Twitter’s Complicity in Gender-Based Violence

On Twitter, when a woman is attacked for expressing a view or opinion,other people are often ‘called in’ or ‘called over’ from other virtual spaces to engage in a ‘pile- on’ (an orchestrated attempt to silence others by getting as many people as possible to criticize, question and threaten). Her voice is lost, and the effort of fighting to be heard no doubt becomes too much for some. In this chapter we examine how Twitter can be used to promote violence against women (VAW) to silence them. We do this by exploring computer-mediated communication briefly before drawing on more contemporary research to highlight the ongoing issue.