Curbing violence through exclusion? Towards a new conceptualization of democratic exclusion in the context of digital public venues

Through their inclusive design, such as their low entry barriers, online platforms afford a wide range of possibilities whereby actors can exercise violence against intersectionally marginalized politicians, feminist activists and individual women alike, which risk to hinder their participation in politics on equal terms. Previous research within feminist political theory on how to increase the participation of marginalized groups in public deliberation has however primarily focused on how public venues can be become more inclusive; for example by becoming more accommodating to a wider range of discussion norms, or through developing alternative, more inclusive, deliberative arenas (see e.g. Fraser 1990; Hayward 2004; Young 2000). In contrast, this contribution argues that current developments warrant that we as feminist scholars also need to turn our focus towards how democratic exclusion can increase equal participation of intersectionally marginalized groups in online public deliberation. The purpose of this contribution is therefore to offer a systematic theorization of the concept of democratic exclusion in the context of digital public venues. I will in particular draw on two strands of literature within democratic theory which have contributed greatly to the normative theorization of democratic exclusion, but have done so in relation to other types of political settings: the works within feminist political theory on exclusion of dominant groups within parliaments (e.g. Dovi 2009; Murray 2014) and the literature on hate speech regulation and democratic self-defence against (primarily) antidemocratic parties (e.g. Müller 2016; Invernizzi Accetti and Zuckerman 2017; Malkopoulou and Kirshner 2019). First, I will analyse if and how these previous contributions can be applied to the specific context of digital public venues, where special conditions of access and visibility apply. I will then assess to what extent the platforms’ existing governing strategies and policies concerning the exclusion of problematic content or accounts are compatible with the relevant exclusion principles formulated in these works. For example, are principles that justify exclusion such as Dovi’s (2009) “oppression principle” applicable in an online context? Are limitations on the right to free speech justifiable when harm is induced, and if so what type of harm and to whom? To what extent are decisions to exclude always arbitrary? Should such decisions – and the governance of online platforms in general – be in the hands of politicians, judges, experts or citizen groups? Building on this analysis, in its final parts the study will move on to carve out more specific suggestions for how exclusion on digital venues should be governed, and what principles should guide this governance.