Friend or Foe? Navigating and Re-configuring"Snipers' Alley"

2025-03-21

AI Summary

This study reveals how “trusted actors” (e.g., governments, corporations, family, and peers) in digital societies—driven by efficiency imperatives—collaboratively construct high-risk digital channels termed “sniper alleys,” inadvertently exacerbating inequality and digital deception, thereby constraining service accessibility and amplifying systemic uncertainty. Method: Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Northern England, the research employs grounded theory and participant narrative mapping to conduct a qualitative investigation. Contribution/Results: It introduces the novel theoretical framework of the “sniper alley,” systematically identifying four distinct sources of digitally mediated deception. Moving beyond conventional risk-mitigation paradigms, the study proposes an opportunity-oriented digital safety model and develops actionable strategies for digital channel reconfiguration—advancing inclusive, equitable, and universally accessible digital safety practices.

Technology Category

• Application Domains: Misinformation & Fake News
• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Safety, Robustness & Trustworthiness
• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Representing, Reasoning, and Using Provenance, Trust

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Human-perceived consequences of algorithmic deployment on the web
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Trust and reliance of crowd workers and data experts on GenAI
• Security and Privacy: Data transparency and provenance

Abstract

In a 'digital by default' society, essential services must be accessed online. This opens users to digital deception not only from criminal fraudsters but from a range of actors in a marketised digital economy. Using grounded empirical research from northern England, we show how supposedly 'trusted' actors, such as governments,(re)produce the insecurities and harms that they seek to prevent. Enhanced by a weakening of social institutions amid a drive for efficiency and scale, this has built a constricted, unpredictable digital channel. We conceptualise this as a"snipers' alley". Four key snipers articulated by participants' lived experiences are examined: 1) Governments; 2) Business; 3) Criminal Fraudsters; and 4) Friends and Family to explore how snipers are differentially experienced and transfigure through this constricted digital channel. We discuss strategies to re-configure the alley, and how crafting and adopting opportunity models can enable more equitable forms of security for all.

Problem

• Examining digital deception by trusted actors like governments and businesses
• Analyzing harms in a constricted, unpredictable digital service channel
• Exploring strategies to reconfigure digital security for equitable protection

Innovation

• Grounded empirical research in northern England
• Conceptualized digital deception as snipers alley
• Crafted opportunity models for equitable security