Digitallighting

A contemporary form of gaslighting conducted through digital platforms—social media, messaging apps, forums—where one or more participants systematically discredit, confuse, and undermine another’s perception of reality. Digitallighting uses techniques like selective screenshotting, public mockery, coordinated downvoting, and the creation of alternate “evidence” to make the target doubt their own memory, judgment, or sanity. Unlike classical gaslighting (typically intimate and private), digitallighting is often public, involving multiple actors, and can escalate rapidly across platforms.

Example: “They edited her comments out of context, posted them to a hate group, then mocked her for ‘paranoia’ when she tried to correct the record—digitallighting, rewriting reality through coordinated digital abuse.”

by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal March 25, 2026

Digital Trivializing

A digitallighting tactic where a target’s legitimate concerns, traumas, or experiences are minimized, mocked, or dismissed as overreactions. Abusers flood the target’s mentions with sarcastic comments (“oh no, so tragic”), post memes that ridicule the target’s distress, or claim that the target is “playing the victim.” The goal is to make the target feel that their pain is absurd, that they have no right to be upset, and that any response will only make them look foolish. Digital trivializing normalizes abuse by painting it as harmless fun.

Example: “When she spoke about the harassment she’d faced, the replies were filled with ‘first world problems’ and laughing emojis—digital trivializing, turning suffering into a punchline.”

by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal March 25, 2026

Digitalsplaining

A form of Digitallighting that mimics the structure of mansplaining but operates in digital spaces: a person (often with more perceived status, platform, or algorithmic reach) explains the target’s own experiences, ideas, or feelings back to them, usually incorrectly, while dismissing the target’s actual words. Digitalsplaining is used to assert dominance, reframe narratives, and gaslight the target into questioning their own expertise or reality. It often involves long threads where the splainer “corrects” the target with obvious or irrelevant information, framing the target as ignorant.

Example: “She posted about her own fieldwork experience; a random user with no background explained to her what she ‘really’ observed. Digitalsplaining: using the platform to overwrite someone’s lived reality.”

by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal March 25, 2026

Digital Liberalism

The ideological framework that presents digital platforms as instruments of freedom, democracy, and empowerment, while obscuring their extractive and controlling functions. Digital liberalism celebrates the early internet as a liberation technology, treats connectivity as inherently progressive, and frames surveillance as a privacy trade‑off that users freely choose. It resists regulation in the name of innovation and defends algorithmic amplification as neutral. Digital liberalism is the ideology that makes platform capitalism feel like participation rather than exploitation.

Digital Liberalism Example: "He believed that more connectivity meant more freedom—digital liberalism, ignoring that connectivity was now a surveillance grid owned by three corporations."

by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal March 26, 2026

Digital Neoliberalism

The extension of neoliberal principles into digital space: treating data as property, users as markets, public goods as products, and regulation as interference. Digital neoliberalism champions platform privatization of public functions, frames access as a market transaction, and treats the elimination of consumer protection as “innovation.” It is responsible for the transformation of libraries into content subscription services, public discourse into engagement metrics, and social services into algorithmic triage. Digital neoliberalism insists there is no alternative because “the market has already decided.”

Digital Neoliberalism Example: "The public school replaced its library with tablets loaded with corporate‑sponsored learning apps—digital neoliberalism, privatizing education while calling it modernization."

by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal March 26, 2026

Digital Capitalism

The economic system where capital accumulation depends on data extraction, algorithmic control, and platform monopolies. Digital capitalism differs from industrial capitalism in that the primary commodity is not physical goods but information about users, and the primary site of exploitation is not the factory floor but the data center and the gig platform. Its defining features are surveillance as a business model, algorithmic labor management, and monopoly concentration that makes earlier trusts seem modest. Digital capitalism presents itself as post‑capitalist while intensifying every contradiction of capitalism.

Digital Capitalism Example: "He didn't pay for the service—he was the product, his attention sold to advertisers, his data sold to insurers. Digital capitalism: you are not the customer; you are the raw material."

by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal March 26, 2026

Digital Slavery

A term for the condition of being bound to digital platforms for essential services—work, communication, commerce, social life—under terms entirely controlled by platform owners. Digital slavery is not physical bondage but functional: you cannot opt out without losing access to the infrastructure of modern life. Your ability to work depends on a rating you cannot contest; your social life depends on a platform that can delete your account; your access to news depends on an algorithm you cannot see. Freedom is reduced to choosing which master to serve.

Digital Slavery Example: "She wanted to leave the platform, but her professional network, her banking, and her housing all required it—digital slavery, choice without exit."

by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal March 26, 2026