Social Media Conflict & Trolling (week 11)
Digital communities have facilitated a plethora of incredible activism and social movements and opportunities, including connecting with likeminded people, innovative forms of media entertainment and exciting career prospects as bloggers, YouTubers and influencers. However, like anything, there’s also a negative side to social media and digital communities, which will be explored in this week’s blog post. Social media conflict is a broad umbrella term covering trolling, cyber-bullying, cancel culture; hate speech and other forms of online harassment. For context, online abuse, harassment and cyber trolling costs Australia approximately $3.7 billion annually in terms of medical bills and loss of income (Burnside & Roy 2019).
Social media conflict can be directly linked to digital communities, because trolling and other forms of online harassment are typically “networked, coordinated and organised acts” (Marwick & Caplan 2018, p. 543). Similarly, media and communication experts, Alice E. Marwick and Robyn Caplan contend that finding an overarching and all-inclusive definition of harassment is “difficult, since it is a constellation of ever-evolving behaviours” (Marwick & Caplan 2018, p. 545). Continuing on, Marwick and Caplan contend that while popular discourse often frames online harassment as “an issue of individual people engaged in abhorrent behaviour”, in reality, cyber-bullying typically involves “systemic networked harassment behaviour [in groups] against their targets” (Marwick & Caplan 2018, p. 544). Therefore, because cyber-bullying efforts are often achieved through online groups, they are often referred to as ‘cyber-mobs’ who create a hostile environment for users and essentially turn the Internet into a battlefield.
Gaslighting is another form of online harassment that has received much media coverage in recent years. Although the terminology may be new, social studies researcher, Jessamy Gleeson, contends that it is used to describe a “relatively old set of behaviours” (Gleeson 2018). Gaslighting covers a range of inappropriate behaviours, however the central practice is “the psychological manipulation of a person in order to erode their sense of self and sanity”(Gleeson 2018). Some common strategies include denial of the gaslightee’s experience, escalation, trivialization and countering. Unfortunately, gaslighting has also been used to dismiss a number of #MeToo confessions of victims of abuse and domestic violence cases. However, on a more societal scale, gaslighting has been used to reframe a common (and toxic) set of female stereotypes, including the “crazy ex-girlfriend” and the “hysterical woman”, challenging the motivations of the accuser instead of fueling the idea that women are crazy (Gleeson 2018).
Anita Sarkeesian is a feminist media critic and showcases the serious implications of online harassment in her TEDxWomen talk. Sarkeesian outlines the severe online misogyny she has experienced first-hand within the video game community and the online harassment she has received due to her field of work. When Sarkeesian founded the ‘Feminist Frequency’, a video web-series exploring the representations of women in pop-culture narratives, she was immediately met with an overwhelmingly negative response from the male-dominated online gaming community. Sarkeesian was publicly humiliated and subjected to abhorrent hate speech, including rape and death threats, a bomb scare and a violent video game, which allowed players to punch an image of her face (Erica Webber 2017). Therefore, Anita Sarrkeensian’s experiences with online harassment epitomize the notion that women, in particular women of colour and queer women, “are more susceptible to online harassment, to the point where [some] young women may see it as a normal part of online experience” (Lenhart et al. 2016).
The legal implications and consequences of online harassment are murky waters, with divided opinions regarding the most appropriate and effective methods for curving online harassment (Milne 2020, lecture slide 15). At present, there is no single piece of legislation against bullying in Australia. However, the sex discrimination act 1984 and criminal code act 1995 are acts offering protection to Australians in the online sphere. Another way of attempting to reduce social media conflict is to go directly to the source – the social media platforms themselves – and urge them to enforce stricter moderating protocols and algorithms to eradicate inappropriate behaviour online. The urge for tighter regulation of the digital sphere is further emphasised by assistant professor of communication and journalism, Glen Fuller. Fuller contends that the reason for insisting on distinctions between individual online social situations is because “each technology and technological change requires due consideration and a measured policy response” (Fuller 2014). Anita Sarkeesian argues that social media platforms need to be the agents of change in order to eliminate online harassment. Sarkeesian believes that their current attempts to regulate cyber-hate are “like Band-Aids on a fundamentally flawed structure” (Erica Webber 2017). Continuing on, advocacy and advice are alternative options to legal remedies, which the eSafety Commissioner is responsible for in Australia. Lastly, on a lighter note, some people have turned to humour to raise awareness about online harassment, including the well-known comedians Hannah Gadsby and Amy Schumer.
Therefore, it is evident that there is an urgent need for well-researched and effective new media legislation regarding online harassment, trolling and cyber-bullying, not simply in Australia, but on a global scale. Furthermore, associate professor of media and communication, Dr Anthony McCosker, contends that the central question for ensuring cyber safety through digital citizenship is “how to account for and promote critical and creative literacies while accounting for conflict, harassment and the wellbeing interests of young people.” Therefore, this week’s topic has highlighted that whilst there are many positive and empowering aspects of digital citizenship and digital communities, there is also a darker side to the Internet and social media, which should not be dismissed, and can unfortunately have a serious, harmful and sometimes irreversible impact on members of society.
Image Source: ‘unknown’ via Pinterest
Burnside, N & Roy, T 2019, ‘Online abuse, harassment, cyber trolling costing Australians $3.7 billion’, ABC News, 28 January, viewed 28 May 2020, <https:// www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-28/online-abuse-harassment-costing-australians-3.7-billion/10754196>.
Erica Webber, J 2017, ‘Anita Sarkeesian: ‘It’s frustrating to be known as the woman who survived #Gamergate’’, The Guardian, 17 October, viewed 28 May 2020, <https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/oct/16/anita-sarkeesian-its-frustrating-to-be-known-as-the-woman-who-survived-gamergate>.
Fuller, G 2014, ‘Cyber-safety’: what are we actually talking about?’, The Conversation, 27 February, viewed 29 May 2020, <https://theconversation.com/cyber-safety-what-are-we-actually-talking-about-23505>.
Gleeson, J 2018, ‘Explainer: what does ‘gaslighting’ mean?’, The Conversation, 6 December, viewed 28 May 2020, <https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-gaslighting-mean-107888>.
Hopkins, S & Ostini, J 2015, ‘Online harassment is a form of violence’, The Conversation, 8 April, viewed 29 May 2020, <https://theconversation.com/online-harassment-is-a-form-of-violence-38846>.
Lenhart, A, Ybarra, M, Zickuhr, K & Price-Feeney, M 2016, ‘Online Harassment, Digital Abuse, and Cyberstalking in America’, Data & Society Research Institute, 21 November, viewed 30 May 2020, <https://www.datasociety.net/pubs/oh/Online_Harassment_ 2016.pdf>.
Marwick, A E. & Caplan, R 2018, 'Drinking male tears: language, the manosphere, and networked harassment', Feminist Media Studies, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 543-559.
McCosker, A 2016, ‘Managing digital citizenship: cyber safety as three layers of control’, in McCosker, A, Vivienne, S & Johns, A (eds), Negotiating Digital Citizenship, Rowman & Littlefield International, Maryland, pp. 1-15.
Milne, E 2020, ‘Lecture 11. Digital communities and trolls – understanding social media conflict’, MDA20009 Digital communities, Learning materials via Canvas, Swinburne University of Technology, 27 May, viewed 27 May 2020.
TEDx Talks 2012, Anita Sarkeesian at TEDxWomen 2012, 5 December, viewed 28 May 2020, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZAxwsg9J9Q>.
