Advanced Digital Violence and Smart Abuse

The "Internet of Things" (IoT) and the Haunted House

Technological evolution has given way to a form of aggression known as "Smart Abuse", where aggressors use home automation and devices connected to the Internet of Things (IoT) to terrorize their victims from a distance.

This violence turns the refuge of the home into a technological trap.

Attackers, by maintaining control of home management applications, can turn up the heat to unbearable temperatures, flicker smart lights erratically, set off security alarms in the middle of the night, or lock and unlock smart locks without being physically present.

They may also use voice assistants or security cameras to suddenly speak to or monitor the victim, demonstrating terrifying omnipresence.

These actions have a double harmful effect: on the one hand, they cause sleep deprivation and physiological stress; on the other hand, they function as a technological Gaslighting technique.

Being events that occur indoors and without witnesses, they are often dismissed by the police or the environment as "technical glitches" or paranoia of the victim, when in fact they are deliberate acts of mental destabilization.

The smart home is thus transformed into a "haunted house" remotely controlled by the abuser, extending his dominance beyond physical separation.

Deepfakes and Fabricated Revenge Pornography

An emerging and complex challenge in digital violence is the use of Artificial Intelligence to create Deepfakes: hyper-realistic fake videos, images or audios.

In this context, the aggressor can superimpose the victim's face on porn actresses' bodies or in compromising situations that never really happened.

This modality of digital sexual violence is used as a tool of extortion and coercion ("if you leave me or report me, I send this to your boss/family") or as pure revenge to destroy the victim's social and work reputation.

The forensic and legal difficulty lies in proving the falsity of the material, which to non-expert eyes appears authentic, and in tracing authorship in an anonymous and decentralized digital environment.

The psychological impact is devastating and long-lasting: it generates in the victim a sense of permanent public violation, severe anxiety and the helplessness of knowing that, once viralized, it is almost impossible to completely erase the digital footprint of the abuse.

This type of aggression attacks the dignity and public identity of women, using