Abusive Partner Perspectives on Technology Abuse: Implications for Community-based Violence Prevention

Inaccurate assumptions about people who abuse technology known as 'tech abuse' can inhibit effective socio-technical interventions for at-risk populations, including survivors of intimate partner violence. Our study aims to rectify this oversight through a synthesis of seven research projects on how 152 abusive partners (APs) discuss and understand their malicious use of technology in face-to-face interactions. AP accounts about tech abuse are rich sources of insight into tech abuse, but demonstrate a heterogeneity of awareness of, choice to use, and ability to desist from participating in tech abuse. To ensure immediate practical benefits for practitioner communities, we also engaged 20 facilitators of abusive partner intervention programs (APIPs) in focused group discussions to identify potential solutions for addressing tech abuse in their programming. Findings reveal that facilitators grapple with a complex set of challenges, stemming from the concern about teaching APs new abusive techniques in-session, and lacking professional tools to investigate, evaluate, and resolve tech abuse attacks. Our work concludes with valuable insights into addressing tech abuse in the APIP ecosystem, and offer targeted lessons for the CSCW community and stakeholders in violence prevention.