Negative activities online is becoming a norm in our contemporary society, as the use of digital platforms has increased, the likelihood of aggressive online behaviours will also increase. There are approximately, 54% of females aged 43 and above are experiencing online abuse, hacking, identity theft, etc. The following victims have reported that the problems came from pornography, dating, gaming sites, and online forums. In this essay, I will be discussing the main factor as well as negative outcomes of digital platforms which includes bullying, harassment, violent content, hate, porn, and other problematic content, in order to get a conclusion about who should be responsible for stopping the spread of cybercrime and the efficient way in overcoming the obstacles.
How does cybercrime spread?
With the shift from traditional to modern communication, people’s behaviour has also changed from passive to active when it comes to online interactions, individuals are able to share content, metadata, and personal information with limited restrictions along with the ability to go anonymous. This, makes online security more complicated as unwanted risks may appear for users, especially those who are unaware of the utilization of the internet. As society has evolved, there will be more online communication in comparison to offline, the shift can become a cultural and environmental shock for many, (Suler, 2004) has argued that people act differently with each one, this is known as the online disinhibition effect. In this case, people lack control over their behaviours during online interactions since anonymity is available for most platforms, resulting in a lower level of social control virtually, (Spears et al., 2009), whereas Face-to-face communication allows interactions to be filtered due to a different social environment as situations can easily be detected and potential risks can be measured from real experiences that people may encounter. As a result, users have been exposed to many negative consequences.
According to (McAfee, 2018), the cost of cybercrime each year is estimated to be around $600 billion USD, and approximately 67% of online users are reported to be victims. One of the most common crimes are derived from the manipulation of entering social security details into accessing financial account, this is known as mass or target fraud. Its intention of collecting data is to steal money or other financial benefits through blackmailing or hacking. A global survey collected by (Norton, 2018) has shown that 80% of fraudulent incident is from email phishing which allows individuals to click on a particular link that is received via email. One example is an agricultural company based in Omaha, Nebraska called Scoular Company.
The Scoular incident happend to one of its superior employees Keith McMurtry, as this person wired money to a bank in China in separate transactions in one of each contain $9.4 million after following manipulative instructions from the email that is said to be from the CEO Chuck Elsea. As a result, the government was involved, as the FBI tracks each financial transfer. Thus, it indicates that the government can be fully involved after the incident, which raises a big question as to whether the involvement of the government by undergoing advanced measures before problems start to arise would be an efficient solution.
Furthermore, with the increasing utilization of the internet, the spreading of cybercrime will continuously grow until serious precautions will be implemented. In this case, there are many online users that are uneducated or unaware of how to operate virtually, making them an easy target, especially for online activities that are addictive such as pornography and computer games. (Holt and Bossler, 2013; Reyns et al., 2011) has reported that it is an extremely popular activity consisting a large group of operators that offers free as well as paid content. For example, Pornhub
Pornhub has showed that there were 28.5 billion pop ups that contains malware viruses which is equivalent to 81million people each day going to porn websites (Pegg, 2018). This accounts to 13% of world web searches between 2009-2010 and 10% of internet use by data volume (Ogas and Gaddam, 2012). Hence, it convinces hackers to phish through porn websites like Pornhub in order to get potential victims. Further investigation done by (Saridakis et al., 2016), with modern communication, sharing content has become popular on pornographic websites that creates a channel of communication, as they enable users to create an account for consumers to discuss sexual abuse, harassment, and abnormal sexual fantasies. Thus, the risk of becoming a victim will significantly grow.
Furthermore, another form of cybercrime is cyberbullying, according to (Smith et al., 2013; Tokunaga, 2010), the average age of bullying peaks at 13-15 years old between boys and girls. Although, girls are more likely to be involved in cyberbullying. In this case, a boy named Kenneth Weishuhn had taken his own life as many people were making fun of his sexual orientation and created a Facebook page specifically for Kenneth which was called the anti-gay group.
What actions should we make and who is responsible?
The following incidents that have happened due to cybercrime, raise a big question on who should be responsible for this matter and what kind of actions should be made to prevent this from happening in the future.
A survey conducted by Mattioni (2012) among teachers and principals at school, their response showed that they feel responsible, empathetic, and concerned toward kids who are experiencing these negative consequences. However, only 39% of the respondents strongly agree that cyberbullying is a serious issue, whilst the rest are more focused on real-life bullying which is a different focus of study. On the other hand, (Kaluarachchi, C., Warren , M., & Jiang, F., 2020) suggest that it is the user’s responsibility when cyberbullying is present as young people should be educated about how to operate and navigate the internet by learning safety skills and netiquette, with enough knowledge, users are able to critically analyse on how will react to a certain message and ways to void those dangerous situations, given how transparent and accessible websites are. However, (Coventry et Al.,2014; Yamano, 2004) believe the internet should have a portion of responsibility as they are creating this platform for people to operate in, cybersecurity tools such as antivirus and firewalls can help block most unwanted tabs or links that contains malware through unique passwords and protected data servers. This would be highly beneficial for companies when making financial transactions or communicating with certain individuals. In addition, AI has given users options in personalizing their activities as the web introduces two new distributed and decentralized systems NIP and NCP.
In conclusion, although it may be challenging to tackle cybercrime as the rate will continuously increase, policies from the government, individual knowledge and the digital platform each have their own responsibility by having a high level of awareness of online interactions, especially with a shift in the way society communicates where everything has been digitalized.
References:
Green, V. A., Johnston, M., Mattioni, L., Prior, T., Harcourt, S., & Lynch, T. (2017). Who is responsible for addressing cyberbullying? Perspectives from teachers and senior managers. International Journal of School & Educational Psychology, 5(2), 100–114. https://doi.org/10.1080/21683603.2016.1194240
Gainsbury, S. M., Browne, M., & Rockloff, M. (2019). Identifying risky Internet use: Associating negative online experience with specific online behaviours. New Media & Society, 21(6), 1232–1252. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444818815442
Hesselman, C., Grosso, P., Holz, R., Kuipers, F. ., Hui Xue, J., Jonker, M., de Ruiter, J., Sperotto, A., van Rijswijk‑Deij, R., Moreira Moura, G. ., Pras, A., & de Laat, C. (2020). A Responsible Internet to Increase Trust in the Digital World. Journal of Network and Systems Management, 28(4), 882–922. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10922-020-09564-7
Kaluarachchi, C., Warren, M., & Jiang, F. (2020). Review: Responsible use of technology to combat Cyberbullying among adolescents. AJIS. Australasian Journal of Information Systems, 24. https://doi.org/10.3127/ajis.v24i0.2791
