Reading Summary:
Elle Hunt, ‘What law am I breaking’ How a Facebook troll came undone, The Guardian.
This article refers to a case where Brierley Newton, a victim of horrendous cyberbullying, successfully prosecutes a 25-year-old man named Zane Alchin. Alchin was commenting horrendous and sexist comments on a Facebook post displaying a girl’s Tinder bio with a sexual lyric by Canadian rapper Drake. Some of Alchin’s comments were directed at the girl with the Tinder bio, Olivia Melville. However, various comments were made as a response to the dominating comments of Brierley Newton, who stepped up to Melville’s defense. The comments Alvin made to Brierley referenced raping her and talked about the certain roles women have in society. The process of prosecution was extremely aggravating, as one member of the local police in charge of the case did not even have a Facebook account and did not know what social media can do. Alvin’s lawyer then claimed that he has been “shamed and humiliated” and that thanks to his own actions, is now what is described as “the face of trolling”. This triggered an alt-right website to defend the comments of Zane Alchin (even though Alchin does not stand by his comments). The sexist defense triggered more cyberbullying as a result and the vicious cycle continues.
Gaia Vince, Evolution explains why we act differently online, Mosiac@Future.
This article talks about studies claiming how all humans have “trolls” living inside of us and that a majority of the cyberbullying is not only directed toward women, but minority women. This article talks about how black women and asian women get more hate speech than the average woman, especially female politicians of color. Content that expresses outrage is more likely to be shared. Studies show that that each moral or emotional word in a tweet increases the likelihood of it being retweeted by 20%. Social media is an outlet to express your feelings in a way that is not physically confrontational. Most people will not go up to you and tell you all the horrible things because they don’t want that confrontation. However, posting online is a “safe” outlet for them were they most believe their actions do not have consequences. However, there are bots that can be used to shape online behavior from racist and negative to positive. The intentions of these bots are good and can help slash the spread of online hate, research has shown. These bots could subtly mold human behavior.
Dr. Berit Brogaard, Should Hate Speech Be Free Speech?, The Superhuman Mind.
This article talks about hate speech and the varying degrees of unconstitutionality and how many courts are cracking down on the crime and the maliciousness of group hatred, although hate speech is broadly defined. Hate speech and hate crimes may be two different things. Hate speech can injure people however there could be a groups of people unaffected by it, even though serious moral dilemmas are raised. Justices are cracking down on online cases of hate speech and hate crimes, a territory that is fairly newer and increasingly a concern of the public.
Episode Analysis:
The episode “Hated in the Nation” is a Black Mirror episode that is about how a man commits mass murder via the internet by controlling bee drones that the government used to not just keep bees from dying out, but to spy on the public. The man let people participate in a chilling “Game of Consequences” where people can hashtag someone to kill and the people with the most hashtags would be killed by a bee drone going into their brain, causing the most pain and eventually death. Unknown to online justice warriors, they were the real victims. Everyone who used the hashtag were punished by death, as the perpetrator controlled all of the bees to kill everyone who used the hashtag. The episode ends with one of the officers of the case tracking down the perpetrator. There are many connections to the articles in this episode.
In the first article of the Facebook troll, Alvin was humiliated as a result of his actions. This reminds me of a scene in the episode where the next “target” of the Hitlist was being interviewed and broke down to the detective about how nasty the comments were made to her. It is apparent that the mob mentality of the group provided the real “justice”. They literally sealed her fate by killing her. Whether what she did was lawful or unlawful, it was certainly not a crime punishable by death. The second article talks about how politicians were targets of cyberbullying. The last person to be threatened in the “Game of Consequences” was the Prime Minister. This shows that public officials are constantly being ridiculed and criticized which can lead to a frenzy of hate speech. A perfect example of this now, would be America’s current President of the United States. As a result of his office run and previous history in the public eye, Donald J. Trump has become one of the most hated in America. The last article talks about the unconstitutionality of hate speech. There was a clear and present danger to the police, unknown to the public. There various misdoings and practices that the government agencies made ultimately led to the downfall of a mass killing, something mob mentality was able to orchestrate?
Discussion Questions:
- Does this scare you? Can the “Game of Consequences” be replicated on social media?
- Can social media behavior change? Are we changing now? Do you think placing bots would be an effective way to help erase hate speech and crime?
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