This book examines Zoombombing, the racist harassment and hate speech on Zoom.
While most accounts refer to Zoombombing as simply a new style or practice of online trolling and harassment in the wake of increased videoconferencing since the outbreak of COVID-19, this volume examines it as a specifically racialized and gendered phenomenon that targets Black people and communities with racialized and gendered harassment. Racist Zoombombing brings together histories of online racism and algorithmic warfare with in-depth interviews by Black users on their experiences. The book explains how Zoombombing is a form of racial violence, interrogates our ideas about online space and community, and challenges our notions of on and off line distinction between racial harassment of Black people and communities.
A vital resource for media, culture, and communication students and scholars that are interested in race, gender, digital media, and digital culture.
Introduction 1
1 New Platform, Same Racists: How Social Media and Gaming Route Racist Hatred to Zoom 15
2 Zoom Is Memetic Warfare: Zoombombing and the Far Right 29
3 Affective Violations: Black People’s Experiences with Zoombombing 41
4 Conclusion 53
Biography
Lisa Nakamura is Gwendolyn Calvert Baker Collegiate Professor of American Culture at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she is the inaugural Director of the Digital Studies Institute. She is the author/editor of four books on race, gender and digital media: Race in Cyberspace (2000), Cybertypes: Race, Gender, and Ethnicity on the Internet (2002), Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet (2007) and Race After the Internet (2011). She has also published essays and book chapters on racial passing and videogames, online toxicity, and the politics of digital infrastructure.
Hanah Stiverson is a PhD candidate in the department of American Culture at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her research focuses on the growing overlap between the far-right and the mainstream in the United States.
Kyle Lindsey is a PhD student in American Culture at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His research focuses on how people of color navigate interpretation, criticism, and responsibility on digital platforms.
