What is the negative impact of the spread of harmful content on digital platforms?
Digital technologies enrich the communication between people, allows more voices from different participants to be heard, and enables public interaction and information sharing in the virtual realm. However, it also allows some negative information such as violent content; cyberbullying; pornographic content to spread in a “viral” fashion. In particular, some anonymous negative information, such as cyberbullying, has a far greater negative impact on teenagers than school bullying. According to a 2019 United Nations survey covering 31 countries, one in three young people have been exposed to cyberbullying, and one in five of those have skipped school as a result. Cyberbullying has an irreversible impact on the physical and mental health of adolescents, which not only leads to depression, anxiety, loneliness, but also leads to countless adolescent suicides (Zhou, 2021). For the youth, the identity of them is not yet formed and there is still much to be discovered. In most cases, it is protected traits that have a strong impact on identity, and therefore young people are very concerned about these protected traits, including religious and cultural identity, sexual identity, gender identity or disability. These features are also often used as tools for cyberbullying. People who have been attacked online have a visceral dislike for themselves. For example, young people who experience racist bullying online are likely to think that skin colour is a problem and will try to change the skin colour to get rid of the bullying.
In addition, online sexual violence also has a negative impact on a large number of women. “Revenge porn” is so widespread in Japan that the country decided to enact the “Revenge Porn Victimisation Prevention Act” in 2014 to curb the growing problem. But at the end of 2014, police across Japan still received 110 requests for revenge porn, with 90 percent of the victims being women and nearly 60 percent under 30 (Bates, 2017). Online sexual violence is more often from strangers on the Internet, and this kind of behaviour will develop from online to offline in extreme cases. Due to the rapid development of the Internet and the slow popularisation of privacy protection awareness, strangers have a great chance to accurately judge our location through the information we publish on the Internet, so as to commit invasion in the real world. Many people believe that online sexual violence does not “really touch you” and is not a big deal, but in fact, a number of surveys have shown that women describe the consequences of these incidents as “extreme distress”, affecting their study and life, increasing psychological stress, and making them more sensitive and uneasy in the face of external environment (Thambo et al., 2019).
“Stop Revenge Porn” by iPredator is marked with CC0 1.0.
The next part of this blog will introduce the departments like network supervision department and government to prevent these harmful contents: cyberbullying and online sexual violence, and how to quickly control the wide spread of the network.
Cyberbullying
Parents of 12-year-old girl who committed suicide speak out about cyberbullying. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjG95wOgkk4
According to a report from CNN, a 12-year-old girl Green was found unconscious in her home and was pronounced dead at a hospital. The medical examiner said the cause of dead was hanging. During the investigation, police found that Green had been a victim of cyberbullying. One of a girl used electronic communications to humiliate Green, mainly by saying the victim had a sexual disorder and demeaning her name. Another boy claimed to have talked to and encouraged her to kill herself (Dearen, 2018).
In order to deal with cyberbullying, the United States promotes a cooperative supervision model with social co-governance as the main and government intervention as the auxiliary (Gordon, 2021). In terms of social co-governance, the education department of the United States invites online platform service providers, enterprises and social forces to participate in the routine governance of cyberbullying. Well-known websites like Facebook and Blizzard include real-name rules in their policies, requiring users to use the real identities when speaking on the discussion boards so that education authorities can track them down later (Arthur, 2010). At the same time, a specialized education supervision and consultation organization is established, which is composed of professional psychologists, representatives of parents, educational administrators, social workers and college teachers, etc., to formulate the anti-bullying policy model from school, participate in the anti-bullying prevention and control work plan, and provide training, advice and support. In terms of government intervention, the United States adopts the concept of “rule-first and systematic governance” for cyberbullying. On the one hand, the self-management and restraint of the network society should be based on the strict rule of law and clear rules. On the other hand, as the legal punishment is quite strict, it also promotes the self-discipline of network users and operators. The practice of the United States shows that the coordinated supervision mode should be adopted for the cyberbullying of students.
Online sexual violence
Cyber Hell: Exposing an Internet Horror | Official Trailer | Netflix. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpceNxQASKw&t=59s
The Nth room is sexual harassment and exploitation over the Internet, with great privacy and no government censorship. There are eight such advanced chat rooms, and according to South Korean media reports, in each room there are varying numbers of slaves who are controlled to perform via the Internet. The Nth room refers to the case of setting up multiple secret chat rooms on social media platforms, targeting threatened women (including minors) and sharing illegal videos and photos in the rooms. South Korean police said the case began in 2018 when the suspects posted images of sexual exploitation in chat rooms for members, who had more than 260,000 members, to view and collect fees. The victims were all women, including minors and infants (Jung-Youn, 2022).
There is growing controversy in the Korean society that the existing law on Punishment for online sexual violence cannot cope with the incident at Room N. Accordingly, on April 30, the National Assembly passed some amendments to the Sexual Violence Punishment Law that toughens the punishment for cyber sex crimes such as room N, and other bills related to room N. The provisions of these bills include but are not limited to those who threaten the victim shall be sentenced to imprisonment of not less than one year; those who coerce the victim shall be sentenced to imprisonment of not less than three years. Even if a video filmed by the victim is transmitted against the will of the person who filmed it, it will be punished as sexual violence. The benefits to the perpetrator, including the protection of the victim and the disclosure of the identity of the perpetrator, have been adjusted and defined. The Korean Government not only provides children with comprehensive sex education, gender equality, and healthy relationships as basic education. Discrimination against women should also be carefully regulated to avoid harassment and discrimination in online venues and real life (Asia News Monitor, 2020). This bill, hopefully, will change some of the sex crimes that occur on the Internet.
Conclusion
In summary, there is not only bullying but also discrimination against women and sexual crimes on the Internet. While the Internet brings convenience to the masses, there is also a myriad of untold secrets: the dark Web. Internet safety knowledge should be grasped by young adults, and teachers in schools play a key role. Have a correct understanding and view of cyber security issues. This blog not only studies the past cases, but also agrees with the government and the public to jointly protect the construction of network places.
Reference list
Asia News Monitor. (2020, December 02). World: South Korea Sentence for Online Sexual Violence a Start. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2465796030?parentSessionId=EJyR4bvecNVHzuXm%2BQH9FscB6gzhGpSS31n5JOQdxkY%3D&pq-origsite=primo&accountid=14757#center
Arthur, C. (2010, July 12). Blizzard retreats from forcing real names in Warcraft forums. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/jul/12/blizzard-warcraft-real-names-retreat
Bates, S. (2016). Revenge porn and mental health. Feminist Criminology, 12(1), 22–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085116654565
DEAREN, B. J. (2018, January 25). Two 12-year-olds arrested for cyberbullying before girl’s suicide. News 5 Cleveland WEWS. https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/two-12-year-olds-arrested-for-cyberbullying-before-girls-suicide
Gordon, S. (2019, March 16). Laying down the law for cyberbullying. Verywell Family. https://www.verywellfamily.com/cyberbullying-laws-4588306
Jung-Youn, L. (2022, September 2). New digital sex crime raises questions over “Anti-Nth Room law.” The Korea Herald. https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20220902000487
Thambo, S., Tshifhumulo, R., Amaechi, K. O., & Mabale, D. (2019). Resilience in women – Strategies female students employ to deal with online sexual harassment. Journal of Gender, Information and Development in Africa, 8(2), 91–117. https://doi.org/10.31920/2050-4284/2019/8n2a6
Zhou, S. (2021). Status and risk factors of Chinese teenagers’ exposure to cyberbullying. SAGE Open, 11(4), 215824402110566. https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440211056626
