Final Essay
Final Blog Post:
Within society today there are crimes being committed through online communities and social networking sites. These crimes are not always followed with consequences and some of the main reasons that these people are unable to come to justice are because they have the ability to hide behind a username or a computer screen. Such crimes as racism, bullying, sexism and sexual related crimes are most often passed over when closely connected to online usage and display. Is this right or justified to have people get off easy? The question comes to the table of whether outsiders should take a vigilante role an out these people and take justice into their own hands. This topic is highly controversial because people are looking for justice in the face of crimes and misdoings but they fear allowing others to take things into their hands will not end well.
There is an extent to how much citizens not involved in the law should take matters into their own hands. If citizens are taking every matter into their own hands ultimately will defeat the purpose of having a criminal justice system and this causes anarchy. Yes, the involvement of outsiders is sometimes beneficial but there are both benefits and negatives to when people intervene with the law and take matters into their own hands. The problem that is faced with when vigilante citizens get involved is that often their opinions are displayed and their own personal judgment is given there seems to be a lack of evidence looked into before they act. Which is where the importance of having a good criminal justice system in place is of a highest need. For this topic of “outing” other people who are committing crimes the extent that these vigilantes take is of key importance. They should not be able to take complete action the amount they should get involved an act is to inform the appropriate authorities and raise attention to the matter that they feel is unjust. By doing this it will spark other attention and make the fact that the matter was brought up to the police more important and something could be done, especially considering the pressure from the public.
An example that provides this is in the cases of the Rhetaeh Parson’s rape case and the rape case in Steubenville. In both of these cases the authorities were not holding everyone involved to the same degree. This was due to the fact that they didn’t have a push for actions to be taken. Fortunately, the Internet activist group anonymous provided the push required. This group at first released a long line of proof that the accused were guilty and that they needed to brought to justice. They did this by releasing pictures, tweets, and videos explaining what the accused had done. Enabling the information to become brought to the attention of the law and the public. This amount of involvement from a citizen is definitely justified because they are giving facts and providing information on the case.
Unfortunately this group tried to take things to another side and slander the people involved releasing all their personal information and social security information. This is not acceptable. Yes, it was helpful of them to bring the matter to everyone’s eyes and allows for it to be taken more seriously but releasing that information of the guilty/accused parties just causes more problems. Two wrongs don’t make a right, an eye for an eye leaves the world blind, both quotes stating that one evil does not outweigh another evil. People who release all the information about someone that has been accused of committed a crime has proved to be counter productive and makes them no better than the person accused. In some cases this may even result in the guilty party becoming sympathized for an in some cases may result in them becoming a new victim.
This leads into the next point of the amount of involvement that citizens should take while doing vigilant acts. There are cases where people just have fun with being bullied and they turn that bullying and harassment into jokes and comedy. This is the case for a favorite blogger of mine she is a gamer girl, its important to know that when you play video games and are a girl that harassment from males via online chat and messages is almost a guarantee. This blogger suffers from a lot of sexism and harassment from the online community, and she has chosen to display what is being said to her with a comic relief and some funny comments along with them. This is a good way to deal with her form of bullying she doesn’t seem to take any of it to heart and she is not offended so her just showing the messages and the gamertags of the people is justified. But the advancement of someone tracking these harassers down and finding all their personal information is unnecessary, which according to Robyn Starkey is something that has occurred on sites such as 4Chan.
So overall, involvement of vigilantism when dealing with matters such as bullying, harassment and crimes in general is okay to a certain degree it is important for things like this to be brought to public and made aware to everyone. But on the flip side others should not make the matter into the other extreme of having peoples lives ruined and the potential of becoming the victim. After all as Christian Bale says "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." Which means you can leave it at the awareness and push to have something done and be a hero or go to far and become the villain in you own cause.
