Outing Racism
The internet has generated a basis for people around the world to communicate and interact with one another, and while some people put out their personal information and are honest about whom they are, others go anonymous and hide behind a wall. This allows them to do and say as they please without getting caught, or at least without getting ratted out easily. Anonymity has grown to be a bad thing, it went from allowing people to not give out personal information as a preference, to hiding criminals who go online to target individuals and bully them. Anything from racist slurs, to death messages and sexual posts and comments is what the internet has become. While some of these criminals may have been dealt with by police, other web users have taken it into their own hands to point out these offenders, which is some cases may be the right things to do but in others not so much. Outing racists allows these internet criminals to get the justice they deserve and give their victims some peace of mind, and it should continue because otherwise it will keep growing and we do not want to give these offenders anymore satisfaction of putting people down.
For those of us who only use specific websites and do not venture awa,y we may not come into contact with racism very much, I know that until I looked deeper I was unaware of how much discrimination really goes on out in the internet world. Most of us have probably heard of Amanda Todd and how she was bullied to the point where she committed suicide, and it is a harsh reality but she is not the only teen to have been driven to the edge to do this. Another girl by the name of Kylie Kylem was also bullied to the point where she was about to attempt suicide but some other teens saw her tweets and helped her and convinced her that she did have people out here in the world who care about her. Stories like this are heart breaking, bullying is bad enough face to face but now that bullies can hide behind a screen has amplified the area to be even bigger and easier to target individuals. And not only do they target teens but there are people out there who target other ethnicities such as the President Barrack Obama, they say he looks like a monkey and put down him and his race over twitter using that horrible “N” word. It’s amazing to think that while most of us believe that we have come so far from being two different groups of people to becoming integrated, yet there are communities out there who wish that never happened, and are putting society two steps back rather than moving forward and living in peace.
While these actions obviously need to be stopped there is only so much that actual law enforcement can do so now other internet users are taking things into their own hands, and not just by using site moderators but actually discovering who hides behind these anonymous accounts and informing the rest of the community. There is an actual Tumblr page designated to putting out the racist’s information to the rest of the world so they can get justice. This page posts pictures, and screenshots of some their racist tweets so people know who they are. With Tumblr being so popular this seems like a great method to out racist teens as their peers are more than likely to see it, and potentially do something about it. Also now one of Reddits biggest trolls, Michael Brutsch, was identified and is going to get prosecuted for his actions on Reddit. What he has done is revolting, he had pages of pictures of young girls secretly taken by users and posted for everyone to see. Users actions have appeared to be relatively successful seeing as they have gone out of their way to hack accounts and discover that users behind these horrible posts discriminating women and races, but it’s sad that in reality it will probably never entirely disappear.
While outing racists can be a good thing not everyone realizes how bad the outcome can be. While that Tumblr page has brought attention to specific prejudice bullies those are all just kids who are underage. Now they have the potential to be labeled forever by their wrongdoings and perhaps even get bullied and harassed for what they have done. This may not be the fairest thing because they have a life ahead of them and while they should get punished for what they did, they should not get penalized for the rest of their lives for it as it is a long time to be frowned upon by your peers. And releasing a minors contact information and where they live is almost a crime in itself as well, not to mention that teens brains are not fully developed so while posting these nasty comments they may not realize the consequences that can arise and how wrong their posts really are. So in a way by identifying these teens the hacker is committing an offense equally as bad, and while they may deserve it, it really is not fair, because while their racist comments disappear into the internet, their names and offenses will carry on with them forever.
While we believe we have come so far in society through integration, women’s rights and anti-bullying procedures, the internet takes us two steps back. By hiding users behind a username it has opened up a whole new world where people can do as they want and say what they believe because the chances of being caught are very small. However thanks to hackers this issue is diminishing as these offenders true identity is getting released to the world so they can get prosecuted by their peers. While this may not be fair for teens who have to live with the consequences for the rest of their life and whom may not know better, it may be the best thing to do because it will stop others from making the same mistakes and save individuals from being put down and thinking poorly of themselves to the point where they believe they should not live anymore because no one should ever feel that way. Outing racists needs to continue if there is any hope of stopping or minimizing these internet crimes.