The Internet is a double-edged sword
“Social Media Tools” by jrhode is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 
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After the Industrial Revolution, science and technology entered a stage of rapid development. The pioneers of all trades are like gardeners who plant roses in a garden calle
d the world. Now the roses have come into bloom. However, in addition to the accompanying aroma, thorns also affect people’s hearts. Sir Tim Berners-Lee first came up with the idea for a hypertext system in June 1980, when he was still at CERN. In 1989, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, then 34, created the World Wide Web from this idea. Since then, the era of big data has entered people’s minds at a very fast speed. With mobile phones, computers and other electronic devices as carriers, people can accomplish almost anything. Communicate, learn, play, work, and so on. The Internet has been completely integrated into people’s life. Among them, communication is particularly developed. A variety of social platforms and ways have added a lot of interest to people’s lives.Every day, people use Facebook to share their experiences, connect with friends and family, and build communities. It’s a service for more than two billion people to freely express themselves across countries and cultures and in dozens of languages.(Facebook, 2021)However, the appearance of the rose is always accompanied by thorns. More and more events are reminding us that the dark side of the Internet is not far away. Violence, pornography, discrimination and other negative content filled the virtual world. Not only is it easier to evade the law, it is easier to carry out misdeeds with a simple keystroke. Sadly, we still don’t know who is responsible. In my opinion, such a situation did not happen overnight, nor should any individual or organization bear the consequences. Therefore, users, platforms and governments should take the main responsibility.
Purpose of each
UNTRACEABLE Trailer by Sony Picture Entertainment.All rights reserved. Retrieved from:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIqnESZW0qc
In 2008, a horror film called Untraceable was released worldwide. At the beginning of the film, an agent from the FBI discovers a website. She found the content of the site extremely cruel. In the live footage, a cat was tortured while being shackled to a sticky mouse board. What’s more, the higher the heat in the studio, the worse the cat’s suffering. Over time, the abused protagonists on the live stream changed from animals to living people. No matter how hard the police investigated, they could not stop the number of victims from increasing. Until one day, when the police find out something important, she also finds herself a target.(Hoblit, 2008)As an old film released 14 years ago, the questions left by it and the thinking triggered by it still cannot be solved today. Is everyone watching the show a killer? Should they all be sentenced? In real life, such instances are not uncommon. I think everyone who watches the movie should be held responsible, as well as every user who spreads violence, pornography and other negative content on the Internet in reality should be held responsible for the current situation. But if you want to actually find these people and find them and put them on trial, it’s very unrealistic. Because the Internet is their biggest asset. “Bullying through electronic media is indirect, without physical interaction, the victim does not have opportunities to defend and is available at every moment, while chances of identifying and punishing perpetrators are minimal”(Martina, 2020). So to this day, catching criminals on the Internet is a very difficult task. And then there are some people who aren’t breaking any laws, but their behavior on the Internet is disgusting. They are called keyboard warrior. This word is often used to describe someone who is small and lowly in real life. “The term “keyboard warrior” is used to characterize someone who sends out brutal attacks on the internet but doesn’t do much in real life. It usually refers to someone who is “all bark but no bite,” who trolls, harasses, or is outspoken online, but is weak and unassertive.”(Sommer, 2020)Whether it’s people who commit crimes through the Internet, or keyboard warriors, they are disgusting and are mainly responsible for the negative information on the Internet.
“Keyboard Warrior” by joncandy is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 .
Actual holder of power
Behind the rapid development of the Internet, the help of entrepren
eurs is indispensable. Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, Pony Ma, founder of Tencent, Jack Ma, founder of Alipay, and others have all made great contributions to the Internet industry. But over time, negative messages have emerged on many Internet platforms. Over time, these platforms have become the best breeding grounds for violence, pornography and more. Although the managers behind them have tried to stop the spread of such information, they have had little success. In the midst of all this, there are many events that have a huge impact. Such as “Celebgate”.
The Fappening: Celebrity Nude Photo Leak by SBS The Feed.All rights reserved. Retrieved from:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ2pS5uuIak
The massive leak of private celebrity photos on August 31, 2014, has had a huge impact around the world. Over the course of a long time, the photos became available on a number of social media platforms, including twitter, Instagram and 4chan, causing much distress to the people involved. “Different platforms responded with different stances towards removing the leaked content. Most of the requests for removal cited the Digital Millennium Copyright Act rather than privacy rights, as it is some of the toughest legislature available for forced content removal. Following suit, sites had to adopt the language of property rather than privacy in justifying their policies. Reddit, which quickly became a principle hub for hosting the stolen images, shut down the dominant forum (or subreddit) centralizing them about a week after their initial upload.”(Rebecca, 2015)Although the platform is taking corresponding measures to prevent the incident from continuing to ferment. But these photos are as pervasive as bacteria. Therefore, I believe that in the process of spreading all kinds of negative content, the lack of supervision on the platform is also one of the important reasons, and the corresponding platform should be responsible for this.
“jennifer_lawrence” by tuaulamac is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 .
Governance
The last group that should be responsible for the proliferation of negative content on the Internet should be national governments. As the highest authority of each country, the government has the responsibility and obligation to manage the Internet on which its people live, and more importantly, to protect people’s safety. In 2020, The “Nth Room” case that shocked the world was revealed. Countless lives have been lost. The brutality of the method, the number of people involved, is staggering. “Meanwhile in Korea, there is a push for stronger punishments so that those who knowingly watch illegal content would be labelled as sex offenders and punished accordingly. The ruling Democratic Party submitted three revision bills last month, officially declaring war on digital sex crimes in the country where the exploitation of women has been depressingly all too common.”(SOUZA, 2020)The consequences in South Korea are profound. Following a nationwide push, the South Korean government amended the constitution. This also proves that countries are responsible for the security of their people and the normal operation of the Internet.
How?
Even if we know who is to blame for the state of the Internet, as long as we can’t find a solution, the so-called responsibility is meaningless. In The “Nth Room” case, the South Korean government amended the Constitution to protect people’s safety. This is a good way. Although there are criminals who flout the law, it is still the most effective way to stop illegal acts. Besides, I think it is a good way to encourage people to supervise each other. All Internet users have the power to monitor the Internet as a whole, and can be rewarded if they find wrongdoing and blow the whistle. The combination of coercion and inducement can greatly reduce the spread of negative content on the Internet.
Conclusion
In the whole Internet platform, individual users, platforms and governments are all part of it. They are supposed to monitor and manage their own and others’ behavior to ensure the normal operation of the Internet. If unexpected events occur, legal restrictions and the power of the people should be used to help purify the Internet and give people a healthy social platform.
Reference
Facebook. (2021, September 12). Facebook Community Standards | Transparency Center. Transparency.fb.com. https://transparency.fb.com/en-gb/policies/community-standards/
Hoblit, G. (Director). (2008, January 25). Untraceable. Lakeshore Entertainment Group.
Krešić Ćorić, M., & Kaštelan, A. (2020). Bullying through the Internet – Cyberbullying. Psychiatria Danubina, 32, 269–272.
Fallon, R. (n.d.). Celebgate: Two Methodological Approaches to the 2014 Celebrity Photo Hacks. Internet Science, 49–60.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18609-2_4
Sommer, L. (2020, May 15). What Is A Keyboard Warrior? StayHipp. https://stayhipp.com/glossary/what-is-a-keyboard-warrior/
SOUZA, N. D. (2020, April 20). The Nth Room case and modern slavery in the digital space. Www.lowyinstitute.org. https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/nth-room-case-and-modern-slavery-digital-space
Sony Pictures Entertainment. (2007). UNTRACEABLE Trailer. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIqnESZW0qc
SBS The Feed. (2014, September 2). The Fappening: Celebrity Nude Photo Leak. Www.youtube.com. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ2pS5uuIak