BY: DANIEL KORN
It perhaps goes without saying that the Internet has always been a weird, lawless place. This is what gives it its monumental power, but with freedom comes great responsibility. For every alienated fan boy able to finally share their love of an obscure 80s TV show, is a twitter handle uttering death threats to a woman who is subpar and making videogames. For every irreverent meme of a cat cuddling with a snake, is a teenager driven to suicide by cyberbullying.
Past events like Amanda Todd’s suicide – or more recently, the debacle that is the #GamerGate hate mob– have made it quite clear that the unchecked anonymity of the Internet could be becoming a progressively less tenable situation. Trolls, once the easily ignored punchline of the Internet, have become the ruling class, and it turns out that damaged individuals with obsessive, sociopathic tendencies and a propensity for hacking mischief put a bit of a damper on the public view of freedom of the Internet.
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If we want the Internet to grow into its ideal – a forum available to everybody regardless of location, where ideas can be exchanged freely and, most importantly, respectfully – it’s becoming incredibly obvious that changes need to be made. The Internet can still be that magically random place where anything can happen; but the ugliness, the pompousness, and the harassment keep it from reaching its true enlightenment. These things have all got to go, which of course begs the question: how do we do this without smothering expression and potentially invading our privacy?
The government of the United Kingdom has recently opted to increase the maximum sentence for online harassment charges from six months to two years following a series of rape threats against model Chloe Madeley. The original sentence has been in place for roughly a decade, but has been updated in reaction to the hatching of Twitter.
Other places are not too far behind. While the U.S. lacks a federal policy on online bullying, certain states, like Illinois, Massachusetts, and Texas have updated their laws on stalking to include online spaces; while others, like California, have had specific legislation regarding cyberstalking since 1999.
Last year, India made cyberstalking a criminal offence, punishable for up to three years and with a fine for the first offence, and up to five years for every one thereafter. Meanwhile, New Zealand is currently looking into instating the Harmful Digital Communications Bill, which would make sending or posting harmful messages punishable with three months in prison or a $2,000 fine.
Although these laws aim on the surface to prevent the potential harassment and abuse of virtual citizens, one must be weary of the potential subjectivity of the term “harmful communication”. Canada’s proposed Bill C-13, or the Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, for example, purports to be an anti-cyber bullying law, but is largely regarded as a front for giving police the ability to hack computers, mobile devices, and cars remotely. This is not the first political push to increase the online surveillance powers of the Canadian Government. Bill C-30, the Protecting Children From Internet Predators Act, was the first attempt to rapidly expand online surveillance without the need for a warrant. The bill was dropped in 2012, largely regarded as an instance of emotive manipulation of the public in order to transcend the protection of privacy rights.
There is definitely an inherent danger that lies behind the filter of a screen, where faceless communication can quickly turn into anonymous harassment. That being said, it is not justifiable to sacrifice the privacy and freedom of the masses for the sake of deviant individuals, lest the virtual world become a space, not for individuals to get to know themselves, but for governments to get to know individuals.
As our online and physical identities become more and more integrated with each other, it’s becoming more apparent, that their needs to be a method of eliminating online harassment, specifically that which results in harm in the physical world. Although, let it be known that coercion is not the answer. You cannot starve one evil by feeding another, lest you be confronted with an entirely new set of problems. The most effective course of action is to educate youth, making them understand that computers can be used as violent weapons, as they can be used as tools for virtue. Both sides of the argument must realize there are living, breathing humans behind the clicking keyboards. Education is the only middle ground.
The original article can be found here: Internet Trolls And Free Speech Advocates Beware: Internet Laws Are Changing
