Video Vigilantes: The Digital Fight for Vengeance Against Perpetrators on TikTok

IF 4.9 1区文学 Q1 COMMUNICATION

Social Media + Society Pub Date : 2025-09-28 DOI:10.1177/20563051251382473

Sarah Witmer

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

This study examines digital vigilantism videos on TikTok and their role in highlighting systemic barriers to traditional justice. Through textual analysis of 50 TikTok “vigilante videos” and the 244,600 comments supporting them, this research explores how women employ weaponized exposure to pursue informal justice across a spectrum of experienced harms. While prevailing scholarship highlights the risks of digital vigilantism, this project provides a critical feminist perspective, emphasizing the tension between carceral and anticarceral approaches to justice. Findings reveal “vigilante videos” serve three key functions: (1) facilitating retributive action against perpetrators, (2) transforming victims’ shame into collective empowerment, and (3) creating protective networks safeguarding potential future victims. By engaging with these videos, TikTok users foster a sense of crowd-sourced justice, amplifying the voices of women who have been failed by traditional legal avenues. These digital practices reflect a broader critique of the carceral state and demonstrate how women navigate justice outside of formal systems. This research contributes to scholarship on TikTok, cultural criminology activism, and anitcarceral feminism.

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视频义务警员：在TikTok上为报复犯罪者而进行的数字战斗

本研究考察了TikTok上的数字警戒视频，以及它们在突出传统司法的系统性障碍方面的作用。通过对50个TikTok“治安维持者视频”和24.46万条支持这些视频的评论进行文本分析，这项研究探讨了女性如何利用武器曝光，在一系列经历过的伤害中寻求非正式的正义。虽然主流学术强调数字警戒主义的风险，但该项目提供了一个批判性的女权主义视角，强调了司法公正与反司法公正之间的紧张关系。调查结果显示，“义务警员视频”有三个关键功能：(1)促进对肇事者的报复行动；(2)将受害者的羞耻转化为集体赋权；(3)建立保护网络，保护潜在的未来受害者。通过参与这些视频，TikTok用户培养了一种群众正义感，放大了那些在传统法律途径中失败的女性的声音。这些数字实践反映了对专制国家更广泛的批评，并展示了女性如何在正式制度之外伸张正义。这项研究有助于TikTok、文化犯罪学激进主义和反女权主义的学术研究。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Social Media + Society COMMUNICATION-

CiteScore

9.20

自引率

3.80%

发文量

111

审稿时长

12 weeks

期刊介绍： Social Media + Society is an open access, peer-reviewed scholarly journal that focuses on the socio-cultural, political, psychological, historical, economic, legal and policy dimensions of social media in societies past, contemporary and future. We publish interdisciplinary work that draws from the social sciences, humanities and computational social sciences, reaches out to the arts and natural sciences, and we endorse mixed methods and methodologies. The journal is open to a diversity of theoretic paradigms and methodologies. The editorial vision of Social Media + Society draws inspiration from research on social media to outline a field of study poised to reflexively grow as social technologies evolve. We foster the open access of sharing of research on the social properties of media, as they manifest themselves through the uses people make of networked platforms past and present, digital and non. The journal presents a collaborative, open, and shared space, dedicated exclusively to the study of social media and their implications for societies. It facilitates state-of-the-art research on cutting-edge trends and allows scholars to focus and track trends specific to this field of study.