{"id":35323,"date":"2025-11-12T20:00:05","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T12:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/?p=35323"},"modified":"2025-11-10T16:11:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T08:11:16","slug":"when-everything-goes-online-its-never-really-gone-understanding-technology-facilitated-sexual-violence-in-singapore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/2025\/11\/12\/when-everything-goes-online-its-never-really-gone-understanding-technology-facilitated-sexual-violence-in-singapore\/","title":{"rendered":"When Everything Goes Online, It\u2019s Never Really Gone: Understanding Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence in Singapore"},"content":{"rendered":"

What does sexual violence look like in the digital age? As social life increasingly unfolds through screens, a new continuum of harm has emerged\u2014one where technology not only mediates intimacy but also magnifies violation. In \u2018When Everything Goes Online, It\u2019s Never Really Gone: Understanding Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence (TFSV) in Singapore\u2019, (Journal of Gender Studies<\/em>, 2025) Assistant Professor Michelle H. S. Ho (NUS Communications and New Media) and an interdisciplinary team of researchers examine how digital technologies have enabled new forms of sexual violence in Singapore. This study forms part of the Campus Sexual Misconduct in a Digital Age (CASMIDA) project, which investigates how digital technologies shape experiences of sexual harm and safety across university settings in Singapore. Using mixed methods\u2014an online survey of 3,000 students and elicitation interviews with 20 participants\u2014the study reveals how digital sexual harassment, image-based sexual abuse, and voyeurism have become widespread forms of TFSV.<\/p>\n

While most students recognised TFSV as sexual violence, many also viewed it as expected or inevitable, reflecting how gender norms, shame, and victim blaming shape online behaviour in Singapore\u2019s campus culture. By analysing both digital artefacts such as screenshots, blurred or manipulated images, and chat logs, and lived experiences shared through elicitation interviews\u2014for instance, Sienna\u2019s* reflection on how her intimate images could \u201ccirculate forever\u201d online, or Finn\u2019s* account of being sexually objectified on dating apps\u2014the team demonstrates how online harms persist beyond the original act, circulating endlessly in what one participant called a \u201cnever really gone\u201d internet. Their findings fill a major gap in research on sexual violence in Asian contexts, where such issues remain underexamined.<\/p>\n

Methodologically, the project is distinctive in its\u00a0digital data collection and elicitation interview design, which invited participants to share screenshots, images, and other digital traces of their encounters with online sexual harms. This innovative method allowed the research team to analyse not only what victim-survivors say but how they visualise and make sense of harm in the digital sphere. The team\u2019s feminist and reflexive approach, shaped by sexual assault first-responder training and ethical protocols, foregrounded participants\u2019 safety, consent, and agency throughout the research process.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, this interdisciplinary project calls for greater public awareness, institutional support, and digital safety education to confront the new realities of gender-based violence in the online age, where, as the study reminds us, when everything goes online, it\u2019s never really gone.<\/p>\n

Read the article\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In addition, for a policy lens on these issues, watch Asst Prof Ho discuss deepfake harms and victim-support frameworks with Minister Josephine Teo in the first episode of this new series, drawing on insights from the CASMIDA project. The conversation also introduces the proposed Online Safety (Relief and Accountability) Bill and the forthcoming Online Safety Commission. View the full discussion\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

*Pseudonym used to mask the respondent\u2019s identity.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Photo: iStock\/torwai<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What does sexual violence look like in the digital age? As social life increasingly unfolds through screens, a new continuum of harm has emerged\u2014one where technology not only mediates intimacy but also magnifies violation. In \u2018When Everything Goes Online, It\u2019s Never Really Gone: Understanding Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence (TFSV) in Singapore\u2019, (Journal of Gender Studies, 2025) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":348,"featured_media":35388,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4539,4606,4609,4604],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communications-and-new-media","category-research","category-singapore-research-nexus","category-visible"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/348"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35323"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35423,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35323\/revisions\/35423"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}