A serious problem affecting our
society today is the issue of cyber bullying and the general lack of
civility people display when they participate in online discussion.
Many people out there seem to lose their sense of ethics and morality
when they sit behind a keyboard and computer screen and are not in a
face to face interaction with another person. These people, also
known as “trollers” or “spammers”, seem harmless and many
people feel as if cyber bullying isnt a serious form of hate speech
however these people would be wrong. Many people have written
articles and done studies that show that trollers and spammers have
the power to turn the tide of
public opinion on important social, political and scientific topics.
Cyber bullies have much more power over others then many people would
normally think they would and often times they suppress the
intelligence
and creativity of the victim. Andrew Stafford said that these people
who lack online civility “have
the potential to drive some of our brightest voices out of the public
life altogether”. In the articles we read there were some different
approaches to solving the issue of online incivility and in this
essay I will discuss some of the solutions I have read about as well
as analyze their relative strengths and weaknesses.
The
first solution, and most widely supported in the articles I have
read, is to eliminate anonymity on the internet. The idea behind this
solution is that people who are anonymous on the internet have no
fear of consequences or effective retaliation. They remain hidden
behind the cloak of anonymity and are able to say whatever they feel
like saying because the victims of these people only know their
aggressors by their handles (or usernames). Many philosophers
including Plato believe that If human beings were able to be
invisible or able to do things anonymously, then we would all do
horrendous acts. In one of Platos' parables called the ring of gyges,
he wrote about a shepherd who found an invisibility ring deep in the
earth which, when worn, turns the wearer invisible. The man put the
ring on and over time began performing acts of incivility and at the
culmination of the parable, the man rapes the queen, murders the king
and takes the king as his wife. Plato believed that any man would
have acted the same as the man from his parable if he were able to
not be held accountbale for his actions. Different journalists such
as Julie Zhuo and Tim Adams believe that the anonymity is the problem
that is causing incivility on the internet and want to abolish online
anonymity. Tim Adams also talked about “deindividuation” which is
the state people are in when anonymous. In this state of
deindividuation, people fear no consequences and have no problem
saying many things that they would never say if they were face to
face with other people.
Another
solution I have read about states that we need programmers to create
better software and algorithms to help us filter out the comments and
posts that are attacks. Many women are threatened online with rape
and other physical acts of violenceand these software programs would
help to eliminate personal attacks such as these. It would be hard
for algorithms like these to be put in place due to the free speech
right that we are provided in the first ammendment, however if these
apps or websites put this into their terms and agreements then people
would have no choice but to follow the rules or be kicked off the
app. This seems like a very promising solution because although it
may be hard to calibrate the algorithms and there may be bugs in the
beginning that need to be worked out, it would stop a big part of
the incivility happening online if the threats and derogatory
comments or posts were able to be recognized and terminated before
they ever reached their target.
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