Social media “ghosts”: how Facebook (Meta) Memories complicates healing for survivors of intimate partner violence

ABSTRACT

This paper contributes to feminist conversations about algorithms and design justice by examining ways Facebook’s (Meta) Memories affordance, when it draws on previously posted photographs of abusive former partners, is problematic for gender-based violence (GBV) survivors. With analyses drawn from semi-structured interviews with twelve “survivor-users” and a walkthrough of Memories’ settings to better understand what opportunities users have to control this function, this paper finds that Memories triggers survivors, makes their abuser seem inescapable and reduces survivors’ sense of agency, among other challenges to their well-being. By extending abusers’ intimidation back into survivors’ lives, Memories unintentionally supports perpetrators’ aims: to scare, isolate and punish their targets. This paper concludes that a masculinist bias within Memories’ design leads to painful consequences for survivor-users of varying identities. Ultimately, this study proposes possible means of addressing Memories’ challenges for survivor-users, including the option for users to opt in to, rather than out of, the function in the first place; alterations to Memories’ interface to enable the immediate flagging of problematic content; and continued movements towards trauma-informed design practices in the technology sector.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital media
• technology-facilitated abuse
• intimate partner violence
• Facebook
• platform governance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In Freed et al.’s study, survivors confirmed that distancing themselves from their networks felt like a continuation of the abuse (15).

2. For a similar discussion of victim-blaming “solutions,” see Woodlock et al., 375–76.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada under Grant 752-2018-1987

Notes on contributors

Nicolette Little

Nicolette Little, PhD, is a lecturer with the University of Alberta’s Media and Technology Studies program. Her research interests include feminist media interventions in gender-based violence (GBV) and mediated memory. She advises the Canadian federal government, media and policing services regarding GBV and media.