Internet mob justice is out of control
vox.com
vox.com
"The sage of Toronto [Marshall McLuhan] had formerly spent several decades marveling at the numerous freedoms created by the ‘global village’ instantly and effortlessly accessible to all. Villages, unlike towns, have always been ruled by conformism, isolation, petty surveillance, boredom and repetitive malicious gossip about the same families. Which is a precise enough description of the global spectacle’s present vulgarity." - Guy Debord, Comments on The Society of the Spectacle, 1988
I'm not very familiar with Debord or The Society of the Spectacle but the analogy always struck me as well suited to the darker, more banal side of the modern Internet.
> His dental practice is closed at the moment, and his harassers are gleeful that they are denying him an income. But this also inflicts harm on people who did not kill Cecil the lion. Palmer's family presumably relies on his income. So do his employees, whose livelihoods are now threatened as well. When a Reddit user pointed this out, over 1,500 users voted in support of the response that "His employees are better off working elsewhere." The mob, naturally, has shown no intention of helping to find new jobs for the innocent dental employees it is seeking to put out of work.
Presumably, the same, or almost the same, outcome (of his dental practice being closed, not the other harrassment) would occur if he were, say, imprisoned for his actions after a lawful trial, but no-one would claim that it was the court's responsibility to "find new jobs for the innocent dental employees it is [putting] out of work."
EDIT: I know downvote-complaining is out of place, but silent downvotes in response to serious argument is a pain. I certainly could be wrong, but I intended my contribution to be a constructive part of the discussion; please explain to me what's wrong or why you disagree!
The US had something like 5400 lynching between 1880 and 1980. It seems that a culture steeped in that behavior would help the internet like the winds help a roof fire.
Mob justice is very definitely a response to feelings that the conventional justice system is either too slow, too narrowly drawn, or too favouritist to address actual problems. And it sort of works; I wonder how many hunting trips have been cancelled after this event? (Hard to know since they were secret and illegal in the first place.)
I think that the 'sort of' here is important. Mob justice is, presumably, very good at curtailing activities of which the mob disapproves; but, not only is there no guarantee that the mob disapproves only of 'bad' activities—as the Gamergate situation mentioned by the article proves—but, perhaps even worse, there is no guarantee that what the mob approves today it will also approve tomorrow, nor that what one mob approves another will not attack.
From what I understand of the climate at the time, the justice system was seen as wrong in turning against recognizing different classes of people.
I meant neither to defend nor to condemn mob justice (except perhaps implicitly, by approving of the general thrust of the article), only to object to the specific grounds on which the paragraph I quoted criticised mob justice as opposed to traditional forms of justice.
I remember learning that ancient Athens had the same problem, with demagogues stirring up emotions to talk the assembly into doing all sort of stupid shit.
The more available group over-emotionality is, the more effort is required to suppress it in favor of reasoned responses.
I wonder how large a part of the mob could not care less about the cause as long as they get some (flimsy) justification for harassing.
This goes back to the difference between an internet mob and a court. The internet mob acts on moral outrage. It is inconsistent for them to be outraged about the death of a lion and not outraged about innocents losing income.
The court acts on legal principles. Legally, if the dentist is to be punished, that's where it ends.
This is inacceptable.
In fact, he had already been missing a month when he was accused. And his body was found shortly after.
A single Reddit or 4chan post can assemble thousands of vigilantes.
It has not been a movement of targeting women in technology, only people who seek to upset it for speaking fees and nervous group applause.
Sounds like a bit of doublethink, if you ask me.
#GamerGate is actually just a hashtag, the context for the hashtag was(and for the most part continues to be) that some (gaming-related) rags, for example Kotaku, are deeply unethical and don't seem to care until it hurts their bottom line.
This is why for example, in response to the support drummed up in association with the #GamerGate hashtag, the Society of Professional Journalists is actually hosting an debate series on it (the event is called AirPlay, and will happen mid-August).
Because some of the people involved in the breaches of ethics surrounding media sites like Gawker-run Kotaku were "feminists", and as a result of the association of feminism as an ideology with women as a people: some people can't help but see #GamerGate as an affront to women because "feminists" are involved in the controversy, and on the other side.
Worse still, the typical #GamerGate poster is so consistently well-behaved that opposing commentators have relied on false-flag campaigns, one famously by a Gawker Media employee.
All the while, there's that tingling sensation of your brain realizing that it really is just a hashtag, and not an ideology.
> #GamerGate is actually just a hashtag
Well, if Gamergate is merely a hashtag, and so didn't do anything—then opponents of Gamergate aren't an online harassment campaign either, since they're merely the lack of a hashtag!
So if it fails while having had good intentions, there's nothing more to be done?
I think that that is not what the article is saying at all; rather it is saying that your dissatisfaction (not you personally!) with the course of justice does not excuse your taking justice into your own hands.
And when it fails consistently in some manner, the better answer is generally to figure out how to get it fixed rather than just ignore it in favor of mob action.
I don't think the internet mob is "out of control". I think it is working as intended. The media has always fabricated stories as distractions or as character assassinations against certain people. The internet mob is the next evolution of that. Cecil the lion is the latest mass distraction.
Merely coordinated action, which could also be spontaneous in some cases (we need X, we get together and build X), or constrained to the desired goal in others (we need an army, we devote some of our resources to that goal alone).
>Or if companies are doing something bad. Or if companies are treating people poorly. Or if companies are selling dangerous products.
In the real world, they mostly do those things in cohorts with governments.
Besides "companies" are a legal entity, their existence pressuposes a government (and a whole capitalist/market based ecosystem).