A small change of pace. Rather than talking about topics at Stevens, I will broaden my scope for this editorial.
Let’s talk about the internet.
I have long been a proponent of online transparency. I don’t like hiding behind the guise of anonymity, and I begrudgingly take responsibility for my actions online. I am well aware that this is not the norm. Most people out there enjoy their privacy. But when people are allowed to have their real life identities masked, very dirty things can happen.
Take for instance the mass posting of private nude photographs of celebrities on websites such as 4Chan, reddit, and Tumblr that happened on August 31.
Now, I can already imagine some of the rage that people are feeling: “Those terrible people”. And yeah, if you went onto any of these sites and saw some of the things these people posted (namely 4Chan) you’d know exactly what I mean. The people on the internet can be downright terrifying.
I read as one “normal” civilian asked 4Chan if they had anything to say about the hackings. The responses were immediate, happening literally minutes after his post, and so tastelessly worded that I sure as heck am not putting them in this newspaper. When he tried to defend himself after that attack, people ruthlessly struck him down, demeaning him, telling him to kill himself, and even threatening to kill him. And again, this was just your average Joe reporter asking a question to the internet.
I am, in no way, trying to bash the internet. I have seen the good it can produce. But I’ve seen the ugly too. Thankfully, my exposure is limited.
A common thing I see on sites like these is fairly understandable. These people like speed and rapid responses. In minutes, a simple post on reddit can explode to numbers in the thousands. Because of this, the individuals posting either have really fast brains (unlikely) or don’t really think about what they are posting. Because they are shielded by the internet’s mist of anonymity, they can be whatever they want, regardless of whatever moral upbringing they may have had in the real world. They can let loose on happy, creative little topics to mask their terrible anger.
Perhaps you are wondering, what do they have to be angry about? Plenty. Hopefully anyone smart enough to look outside can realize that we are living in a terribly unsustainable world, driven by entertainment and other pointless things, rushing onwards towards profit with no thought to the repercussions, which are ultimately going to plague the younger generations. And guess what: as time goes on, the “younger generation” describes the “internet community” more and more.
So they let loose their inner turmoil, their hopelessness, their anger, and their frustration at literally anything that represents the problem. Ironically, that includes themselves, spending so much time on a pointless website and doing nothing about the problems they complain about. This naturally only spawns more violence and turmoil.
But, suppose that the internet was not as anonymous. That these depraved people had to see their own names, have their own record on the line every time they cussed someone out over the internet. I guarantee that the number of cyberbullies (in the capacity of things such as reddit, 4Chan, Tumblr, etc.) would decrease. No one would want to have to take the blame for the things that people currently do online.
However, this will never work and here is why: police. As soon as someone commits some kind of heinous act, posting a nude photo without someone’s permission for instance, who is responsible for acting out justice? America’s NSA? Ha! They wish! No. As soon as a government starts making reasonable arrests, the power will shift and people will live under the threat of arrest for more menial things. Just like real life.
The two good things about the anonymity is that, for one, it allows for a reality apart from our own, in which people are free to act however (mostly) they choose. I’d also wager that it is really good for public justice, where the people are their own police. The “internet community” knows what is acceptable in certain areas of the internet, and people will rise up to quell wrongdoers when they arise. Of course, this is only an ideal scenario. There are no heroes on /b/.
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