Image credit: thechronicleherald.ca
Many of us communicate increasingly online. The rise of computer technology has caused this, and it is inevitable. In many ways, the ability to express ourselves rapidly and with impact is a huge personal benefit and a gratifying extension of our sense of power in the world. And our world has expanded, due to digital instruments such as email and podcasts and Instagram and Twitter and Facebook. We can connect like never before, and meet people virtually, whom, we may never have encountered in real life.
But we can also see that these instruments and platforms are open to abuse, on a scale not previously possible. As in every human sphere of activity, intention is significant, and it is also evident in the way people conduct themselves, especially when they think they are immune from consequence.
Years ago, I saw an experiment in human psychology being conducted in which a subject was seated in a chair attached to wires which were in the hands of a person in another room who could see the effect of what they were doing, when they pressed a button which transmitted electric shocks to the person in the chair. Glass partitions enabled the people to see each other. When the person administering the shock was allowed to wear a hood, and disguise their identity from the subject in the chair, the levels of pain and shock they administered sharply increased.
Rise in bullying
Online conduct is very like that. The rise in bullying and cyber harassment, in countries like ours, with heavy internet usage, reflects that the relative anonymity of internet activity - the fact that people observe and interact with people they do not know in real life - seems to liberate the sadism within a lot of people, whom we see participating in online chats and comments threads, desensitised, enjoying the blood rush of bullying, forgetting (or uncaring of) the impact their words may have on the subjects of discussion.
A particularly interesting example of this occurred in Colombo in late December, 2017. A person posted what he called a PSA (Public Service Announcement) on his personal FB page wall, tagged seven of his friends, and wrote a post in which he viciously defamed the character of a person he had a grievance against. He named the person, and set the post to a public setting, so anyone online could see it. He then stayed on the thread, inciting further discussion, and inviting other people to join in.
This was a rant, an expression of personal opinion, and people are of course free to form, hold and express opinion on their own pages and platforms. But, it was also malicious harassment and breach of the internet. The fact that the post was set to public, and the choices made to use digital technology to further the damage he sought to cause to the reputation of the person he attacked, opened his actions to legal scrutiny. He was summoned and charged by the Police with malicious harassment. Ten of his friends and supporters, who had chimed in to the comments thread with their opinions and reactions, were warned by legal letter that their comments on that thread constituted participation in the furtherance of a libellous act. A second offence would lead to litigation.
Abuse on record
The intention to harm was clear, and the evidence was the printed transcript of the post and comments thread. The perpetrator removed the post and comments thread 24 hours after he posted it, but the damage was done, and the evidence was filed. He has a record, incidentally, of verbal abuse against women on public platforms going back a few years. Under the cover of jokes, the professional status of Sri Lankan women has been easy to undermine and call into question. Statements that women use their bodies or their beauty to sell their business products, that their success is due to their marriages to powerful men, or the accident of their birth into famous families, and not to any personal talent or hard work on their part, find great traction in a culture where women obviously do not have the status and respect they deserve.
Group think, compliance, conformity and the natural desire to fall in with prevailing trends are easily discerned and manipulated in our tribalist society. Few people have the time or the skill to investigate people’s claims and assertions and separate fact from fraudulent misrepresentation.
Like many perpetrators of hate speech, his actions flourished in a culture of misogyny, where gross disrespect has become normalised. Eve-teasing and street harassment is physical. Online harassment and defamation occurs verbally, and often behind the scenes, comments being circulated in private or secret or closed WhatsApp discussions and FB posts which go viral, fuelled by emojis of shock and amusement which indicate that the activity spikes dopamine, generating pleasure and excitement in the minds of those participating in damage to a person they do not know or care about.
Many people in such a culture do not realise what they are seeing and participating in, when they comment or react in such online hate attacks. They are genuinely upset when they hear of people committing suicide due to ragging or bullying at school or university. They say it sickens them. But they themselves participate in chats and threads on FB and WhatsApp, passing opinion without restraint, and without apparent recognition of the similarity of behaviour between what they are condemning publicly, and joining in, privately.
Bullying
The terrible ragging incident, which resulted in the suicide of a young man, recently, would not have happened in a culture where abuse and harassment had not become normalised. It is not acceptable, and yet it happened. And apparently it cannot be prevented from ‘happening’ again. The bullying and abuse which resulted in such a tragic loss of life took some time to escalate. There were bystanders. There were people who saw it, many incidents of it, and did nothing. There were people who participated in the abuse, feeling a sense of bonding with their fellow perpetrators.
It did not just happen. It does not need to ‘happen’ again.
But we can also see that these instruments and platforms are open to abuse, on a scale not previously possible. As in every human sphere of activity, intention is significant, and it is also evident in the way people conduct themselves, especially when they think they are immune from consequence.
Years ago, I saw an experiment in human psychology being conducted in which a subject was seated in a chair attached to wires which were in the hands of a person in another room who could see the effect of what they were doing, when they pressed a button which transmitted electric shocks to the person in the chair. Glass partitions enabled the people to see each other. When the person administering the shock was allowed to wear a hood, and disguise their identity from the subject in the chair, the levels of pain and shock they administered sharply increased.
Rise in bullying
Online conduct is very like that. The rise in bullying and cyber harassment, in countries like ours, with heavy internet usage, reflects that the relative anonymity of internet activity - the fact that people observe and interact with people they do not know in real life - seems to liberate the sadism within a lot of people, whom we see participating in online chats and comments threads, desensitised, enjoying the blood rush of bullying, forgetting (or uncaring of) the impact their words may have on the subjects of discussion.
A particularly interesting example of this occurred in Colombo in late December, 2017. A person posted what he called a PSA (Public Service Announcement) on his personal FB page wall, tagged seven of his friends, and wrote a post in which he viciously defamed the character of a person he had a grievance against. He named the person, and set the post to a public setting, so anyone online could see it. He then stayed on the thread, inciting further discussion, and inviting other people to join in.
This was a rant, an expression of personal opinion, and people are of course free to form, hold and express opinion on their own pages and platforms. But, it was also malicious harassment and breach of the internet. The fact that the post was set to public, and the choices made to use digital technology to further the damage he sought to cause to the reputation of the person he attacked, opened his actions to legal scrutiny. He was summoned and charged by the Police with malicious harassment. Ten of his friends and supporters, who had chimed in to the comments thread with their opinions and reactions, were warned by legal letter that their comments on that thread constituted participation in the furtherance of a libellous act. A second offence would lead to litigation.
Abuse on record
The intention to harm was clear, and the evidence was the printed transcript of the post and comments thread. The perpetrator removed the post and comments thread 24 hours after he posted it, but the damage was done, and the evidence was filed. He has a record, incidentally, of verbal abuse against women on public platforms going back a few years. Under the cover of jokes, the professional status of Sri Lankan women has been easy to undermine and call into question.
Group think, compliance, conformity and the natural desire to fall in with prevailing trends are easily discerned and manipulated in our tribalist society. Few people have the time or the skill to investigate people’s claims and assertions and separate fact from fraudulent misrepresentation.
Like many perpetrators of hate speech, his actions flourished in a culture of misogyny, where gross disrespect has become normalised. Eve-teasing and street harassment is physical. Online harassment and defamation occurs verbally, and often behind the scenes, comments being circulated in private or secret or closed WhatsApp discussions and FB posts which go viral, fuelled by emojis of shock and amusement which indicate that the activity spikes dopamine, generating pleasure and excitement in the minds of those participating in damage to a person they do not know or care about.
Many people in such a culture do not realise what they are seeing and participating in, when they comment or react in such online hate attacks. They are genuinely upset when they hear of people committing suicide due to ragging or bullying at school or university. They say it sickens them. But they themselves participate in chats and threads on FB and WhatsApp, passing opinion without restraint, and without apparent recognition of the similarity of behaviour between what they are condemning publicly, and joining in, privately.
Bullying
The terrible ragging incident, which resulted in the suicide of a young man, recently, would not have happened in a culture where abuse and harassment had not become normalised. It is not acceptable, and yet it happened. And apparently it cannot be prevented from ‘happening’ again.
It did not just happen. It does not need to ‘happen’ again.
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