(PERSONAL PROJECT ESSAY) iPhones, laptops, tablets, facebook, instagram, twitter… who doesn’t have one nowadays. The internet and social media apps have grown at such a large scale and at such a quick pace that it is so hard to keep track. With having social media apps such as instagram, twitter, facebook, etc, comes its positives and negatives aspects to it. What I will be examining in my paper is social media in connection to cyberbullying and the psychological analysis behind it and its impact on society.

Cyberbullying is where people use electronic communication to essentially bully a person online and this includes sending threats and aggressive, insulting language towards the receiving end. According to the article by Darrin, the side effects of the receiving end of hateful messages is that people tend to have an increase in emotional stress, lowered self esteem, isolation and withdraw, and indulging in harmful habits such as excessive drinking or smoking. Using harsh words towards other people on the internet is so easy nowadays. Due to the physical detachment of viewing others, the screens allow them to feel disconnected from people, thus not seeing the impact that their words online have on the receiving end. An example of this is people commenting on celebrities pages because at times, people forget that celebrities are people as well and not just figures or icons.

In the screening from class, we watched an episode from black mirror called ” Hated in the Nation.” This episode is a fantastic example of society’s mindset when it comes to how they treat people online in connection to hateful messages. As a quick overview, In the episode it starts off with a journalist who released an article and is receiving tons of backlash for it. She is receiving hate mail, hate messages, death threats and a trend was evolving to where they would post online “death to”and the recipients name on the end. With that trend, it was designed for the people to vote and decipher who the top three hated people were that week and then whoever has the most votes for them would die. There was also an ADI bee that crept into the persons brain, the one who was number one on the death poll, and the bee would press on the pain center of the brain and cause them to kill themselves in order to be free of the pain. The hacker who controlled these bees, deviated from targeting the people who were on the death poll and instead targeted people who participated and posted the thread #deathto_. In the episode, the hacker wanted to give people a lesson, a moral lesson, that their actions have consequences.

With online and being a part of a trend, whether it is hateful or not, people experience deindividuation. Deindividuation is where people see themselves in groups and not as an individual and therefore they act in a antinormative behavior. “ Regardless of who is in a crowd, the individual’s conscious personality fades, and the group’s unconscious personality prevails.  The crowd, in his position, constitutes a single collective being that is guided by a mental unity and a collective soul that makes individuals feel, think and act differently than they would independently. With the help of suggestion and contagion mechanisms, feelings and ideas can quickly become actions. The individual may display automated behavior, increasing the likelihood of violent occurrences (Le Bon 1895,1995)“. This is the main concept behind cyberbullying in connection to the psychological backgrounds and how violence occurs. With technology, as mentioned before, it acts as a blocking barrier from you and the other person and therefore, because you cannot see the other person, you do not see the impact of your actions or words. 

With cyberbullying and hateful speech online, not only does it impact the person psychologically but also physically. There is a study shown that hate speech online and using harsh words, correlates to an increase in violence. According to the article by Laub, there was a correlation found in Germany between anti-refugee facebook posts by the far right alternative for Germany party and the attacks on refugees. The scholars, Karsten Muller and Carlo Schwartz,  observed that upticks in attacks such as arson and assault, followed the spikes in hate mongering posts. There is a link to the articles below if you want to see more information about it or any other incidences that occurred that is related to cyberbullying and the connection to violent attacks. It is very interesting to me why posting hateful and threatening posts is in connection to violence or even to the recipients themselves. What I am referring to here is suicide. Referring back to the episode in black mirror, people were dying because society targeted them. My interpretation of the bee pressing on their pain center was that people who were targeted and were being bullied online, it takes a toll on their mental health and essentially over time, they feel as thought there is no way out other than to commit suicide. There is a correlation between the increase in social media users and an increase on suicide rates according to the article by PMC. The hateful messages follow you into your home and there is no break from it. It follows you everywhere and the internet is forever so some people feel like their life is over. 

People who take part in cyberbullying think of it more as funny and not real life when in fact it is. As mentioned before, people experience deindividuation which is how people experience deindividuation, which is when social norms are withdrawn because identities are concealed, and they also experience disinhibition because they cannot see the consequences of their actions, so therefore they so not see it as real so that is what occurs when people spread hate online and especially towards other people. I also touched on how the consequences of cyberbullying and the spread of hateful messages online correlates to physically harm and violence, whether it is self harm or harm to others. Social media plays a big part in the increase of these antics.

References 

Laub, Zachary. Hate Speech on Social Media: Global Comparisons. 7 June 2019, http://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/hate-speech-social-media-global-comparisons. 

authors, All, et al. “Deindividuation: From Le Bon to the Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Effects.” Taylor & Francis, 5 Apr. 2017, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311908.2017.1308104. 

Luxton, David D, et al. “Social Media and Suicide: a Public Health Perspective.” American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, May 2012, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3477910/.

This week we focused on the reality, authenticity, and “making sense of it all”. We read the articles, “addicted to distraction,” and “the kids are not alright,” and the movie “The Social Dilemma.” The Social Dilemma is portrayed in a documentary form but also movie sense and it kind of goes back and forth. It talks about the social dilemma with social media such as facebook, instagram, twitter, visco, tik tok, and all other platforms. It also touches base on what we have talked about this entire semester such as fake news, being disconnected from the world but connected at the same time, addiction, hacking, and body dysmorphia due to social media and comparing yourself constantly. All these things are portrayed in this movie. People who worked at these social media companies speak out on here and say that these companies have lost their way by making these sites more addicting. Their business model is to keep you on your phone longer and on their social platforms. How much time can you give these apps is what they’re trying to get. They have all the information about us that we could ever imagine. It makes better predictions of what we are going to do next and things of that nature. It is like a game ” whoever has the best model, essentially wins.” They created a world where online connection is primary. This whole thing is manipulation after manipulation and it is all to keep you online for a longer period of time. They also tap into psychology of human nature, for example the feature of tagging people on post… honestly it is quite genius.

They figured out that they can control the mindset and behavior of society without letting the users know… that to me it is quite scary that we are essentially being manipulated and we are completely unaware. I know I have because I fall for these ads and tagging and just getting on my apps for no reason. It is an addiction and manipulative technology that uses psychology against us. I found this very eye opening and again a little nervous. In the article, “the kids are not alright,” it talks about how these children are growing up In a world of technology unlike any other generation. They are essentially the ginny pigs with social media and this new technology. The generations of the baby boomers, Gen x, Gen y (millennials), Gen z which is me, have all experienced different lives throughout the generations. Some got to go outside and hangout while others lived through a screen the whole lives. Very interesting indeed the differences.

5 things that are beneficial about my generation (Gen z), is that 1) We now could look information up quickly, 2) contact anyone in a matter of seconds 3) I don’t have to talk to people face to face all the time 4) Everything is quick pace 5)Transportation Is a lot easier as well. 5 things that I feel as though is not so great, is that 1) people forget how to speak properly to each other due to a human disconnect of phones , 2) Social norms are changing such as being respectful on dates like going to the door instead of waiting in the car ( Im old school what can I say), 3) people want attention 24/7 instead of just living their lives 4) People have been more sensitive.. not my age group so much but younger people who are only a few years younger than me… it could also be immaturity as well though 5) People are more focused on what is going on in other people’s lives which leaves their face in the phone instead of enjoying the day.

News Link: https://www.socialmediatoday.com/topic/algorithm-updates/

This is a link that has information on what algorithms other social media sites are using or changing. It is connected to other links of what you want to know on what apps I guess.

(SUBMITTED LATE WITH APPROVAL). Another week, another topic of social media. We focused this week’s discussion on newspeak, memes, emojis, & participatory culture and the semiotics of social media. We read the articles “emojis don’t mean what they used too,” and ‘ if it doesn’t spread, its dead,” and breaking up isn’t as hard as it used to be (on facebook)’ and last but not least we watched movie called “White Christmas” which is a black mirror episode. In the episode, it starts off with two men in the cabin and Matt wants Joe to open up about why he’s there in the first place. He ran a service where he helped men meet women and he placed a camera on him to help him out. This led him to accidentally being killed because the women he was pursuing was mentally ill and thought he was too so she did a murder suicide on both of them. Joe then open up and tells Matt that he was ” blocked” by his finance after they fought over her decision to have an abortion. Blocking means that they see each other in kind of like a grey blob or so and you can’t see or hear them but you know they’re there. Each Christmas Eve he goes to his ex fiancés fathers house to see (spy)on the little girl even though he is blocked from seeing her. The block was removed when his ex died and it finally allowed him to see the little girl’s face and he discovered that she had an affair and wasn’t the father. He confronted the father and struck him in the head which led to him dying and then left which then led to the little girl to find her grandfather and walk in the snow to go find help which ultimately led to her freezing to death. There’s more to the movie but I’m going to focus on the blocking. 

I found it to be very interesting that the movie portrayed “blocking” as in real life blocking and not just on the internet, however, it does the same thing in a sense. When you block someone on social media sites you really do not see them unless you happen to run into each other by accident but even then there is no communication ( for the most part I guess). That relationship is terminated in a sense. In the article,”Breaking up isn’t that hard as it used to be,” it talks about how they use algorithms when a relationship is done in order to avoid ties or contact or association with that person. By not seeing them as often on your feed, it allows for a quicker healing time of a break up because you are not constantly reminded of them. 

In the article, “emojis don’t mean what they used to” it talks about the evolution of emojis and how they are now being used in today’s atmosphere. It has moved away from ideography and more towards illustration which is very interesting. Im must admit I do use them quite a bit if I am being honest and I love to use them. You don’t even have to type sentences to express yourself.. just put emojis. Another thing Is memes as well. Memes have really transformed and like it said in the ted talk, if it’s not trending then it’s dead. Which is true because it’s basically not being seen which has zero benefit. I love memes because they are so funny and they are funny to me because some memes hold truths for me and some I can personally rate too. Others are political or poking fun and all have an agenda and that is very interesting to me. 

News: https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/10/24/132228/political-war-memes-disinformation/

This is a link that has a some more added info on the weaponization of memes.

This weeks topics is zoned in on ethics, privacy, revenge porn, and last but not least, terrorism. we read articles such as ” Social Media spreads terrorism and propaganda,” and ” IS Social Media warfare in Syria and Iraq,” and ” Why privacy matters even when you have nothing to hide”, and a video on “Newsroom “Boston””. The “newsroom Boston ” is based on the real life event of the Boston marathon bombing that occurred and it showed how the media, and apparently reddit, horribly misconstrued the event. The media decided to take it in their own hands to try to figure out and they gathered all this information and from reddit and started comparing faces and people..and off of reddit they got their theories as to whom the suspects were. I guess they also used tweets and things of that nature to try to gain information as well. They identified their suspects off of theories on reddit and none of the information was necessarily valid nor accurate because to reiterate, it was just a theory. They identified the wrong men and those men were wrongfully accused and that threw the whole investing to a wrong direction and poor men who were wrongfully accused and quite frankly put their life in danger!

Social media is such a weapon nowadays. You would think with this generation specifically, they would be more careful or concerned about what they post or say but it is just the opposite for the most part. I think they just do not care. Revenge porn is a topic that I am more directly talking about in this case and like I said before, it is just a weapon and that is scary. In the article, “6 reasons why Revenge porn is so fucked up,” it talks about Chrissy Chambers, who is an LGBTQ activist youtube star, and how she is a woman making history by pressing criminal charges against her ex who posted Revenge porn. While trying to end things, she got extremely intoxicated and he took advantage of that and sexually assaulted her and filmed the entire process which she was on the verge of unconsciousness and without her consent. It then spread to many many different porn sites which included her face and first and last name but blurred his own face. I just don’t understand why people are so evil, the internet is forever and people cannot just unsee things even if taking It down. 

Going on to privacy..People need to realize that it is not that you have something to hide, but it’s about keeping your things private and just to yourself. Sure you might not be doing anything illegal, but would you let a person see your social security numbers or credit card information? No. And why is that ? because it is private and for your eyes only. Would you want a stranger coming into your house to have a look around ? if not, why ? You don’t have anything to hide? It all comes down to privacy and privacy is something that you need to protect. Everyone does have something to hide, however, not anyone should be entitled to look into your personal life. 

News: The link below talks about the weaponization of the internet.

https://www.npr.org/2018/10/09/655824435/the-weaponization-of-social-media-and-its-real-world-consequences

This week we are focused on the topic of celebrity, branding, and marketing on the internet. People such as influencers or instagram models and act. We read articles called “Essena O’Neill Quits instagram,” and  ” A Follow up to That,” and the other article called ” Why people get annoyed with celebrities on kickstart, and shouldn’t,” followed by the film called “The Social Network.” The Social Network is a movie based upon Mark Zuckerberg and the creation of facebook. Mark Zuckerberg was a computer genius that was studying at Harvard University and was in the midst of a concept that eventually turned into the global social network that is or now known as facebook. He and his friend, Andrew Garfield, went through the entire process together in creating facebook, noting that what made it special was exclusivity and status with this site and that’s what differentiated it to other sites on the internet. They were partners and Andrew put up a lot of the money to help with the site and its success. The business grew and eventually went global.. leaving his former friend Andrew behind in the process. This led to Mark becoming the youngest billionaire ever, however, this also leads to two lawsuits against him. One of them is from the people who thought Mark stole their idea of facebook, and the other lawsuit was from his former friend Andrew for essentially screwing him over. This completely changed the game of social media and the internet. 

This movie goes into Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of facebook, and the events that lead into his success and how the evolution of facebook changed how social media is today. It shifted from just posting pictures and retaining info, to now having exclusivity with friends and the status that is held in their bios. This led to instagram, twitter, and things like that.. and clearly you can see that instagram has even shifted for its purpose. Now you see ads, Instagram models, influencers, and it is also used for marketing as well. People and companies now profit from Instagram and it has become a little toxic because now it is reinforced that gaining attention is a priority for success. People get paid for how many followers and likes they receive off of instagram.. to do that you need hold a certain image. This goes into the article of “Essence O’Neill quits instagram” and ” A follow up to that.” In these two articles, it’s about a young woman who had more than 612,000 followers and held a platform of self promotion. She made an income off of this but eventually she quit social media all together because she described it as ” contrived perfection made to get attention.” She also said it was a toxic environment because they see these models and people online and think their life should be like the people on the internet. Looks, money and life is what people constantly compare their life too and quite frankly that is sad because it is not real life. People see what they want you to see. 

The next article is the after math of her deleting social media. She received death threats and horrible comments to her after deleting it and even mockery of her for stating that she thought it was toxic. She even tried to create a new website that was like instagram but there is no like button or comment button and it’ll be strictly for content. Which quit frankly I like this idea because it’ll take away from the attention seeking from other sites and it’ll be about real life.

This is an article about social media and marketing.

https://marketingland.com/library/channel/social-media-marketing

This week’s topics focus on Politics, Subversion of Democracy, News “fake”, and Digital Activism. I read an article called ” Long time NBC reporter quits,” watched “John Oliver on Journalism,” and another article about Facebook and if they can fix their own bug. While watching the clip of John Oliver, he talks about journalism and how the media and news take the information from the newspaper and incorporates it into their stories. He explained how the news casts and media don’t do much of their own reports and simply uses others and they now want the newspaper companies to write, tweet, post and all of that and it is a lot to ask for so things eventually get messed up. I found that rather interesting. Also he stated that they are starting to decline now and without the papers digging into information, it will be all surface things and now actual news… He gave an example at the end making fun of it turning it into a joke. The video were these actors at the newspaper and they had a story of a corrupt politician but they did not care and wanted to focus on puppies instead because that was going to get them the most likes and views. So Instead of reporting actual news, they are going to report things they think the public would want to see or read and this generates more revenue and likes I guess. That explanation to me was pretty eye opening and rather scary.. I feel as though reporting real events and news is way more important than just generating likes or ” what the people might want to see’ instead of what we need to see.

I then read the article called ” Long time NBC reporter quits,” and he talks about why he quit and everything behind his reasoning. He states that some journalism has steered away from reporting actual news and have gone into a realm where they are now commentators to what is going on. He states that it is a tricky situation because they are supposed to be unbiased but also be reporting what is happening in the world. Also, because of this, news coverage has begun to get shallower and shallower thus not getting deep coverage of the event. To comment on this, I absolutely hate when news cast put their own opinion on events. I like to see all the information and come to an opinion on my own and of course by doing so on the news, it makes so that they are biased which means I can not fully trust the news report. This really takes away from news reporting because people need the facts and information, not your personal opinion. This also leads to lack of reporting and coverage which is crucial because we can’t just have half the information… This leads to people being misinformed and “fake news” being spewed out to the public so no one knows what is real or not. What are your thoughts on this subject ?

Here is a link to an article about fake news and its impact.

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/14/eaay3539

This week the topic is about copyrights, piracy and fair use. We read the articles “”South Park wins Lawsuit over  “What what in the Butt” Parody”” and the other article called ” Yes, Copyright’s Sole Purpose is to Benefit the Public.” We also watched a documentary called Napster Documentary  which was a very interesting documentary. In the video documentary, it talks about Napster and how it was for unauthorization sound recording. People stated that they cannot afford to pay 16 dollars for a CD so instead they turn to Napster. The program quickly spread like wildfire and soon everyone was using this program. People don’t view it as stealing because it is the songs they like and are interested in. The documentary stated that millions of people used this site to swap music files off of each other’s computers for free. No one anticipated that people would be willing to share their hard drive with other people..the thought of it was absurd however people were doing just that and it opened up a whole new realm. 

Going over to the South Park lawsuit article, it talks about how they were sued over an episode in which the character Butters recreated an internet video sensation from the singer Samwell. Samwell had a really big hit with that song and got millions of views with it. According to the article, Viacom claimed it was a parody and fell squarely within “fair use ” exceptions to copyrights. Viacom ended up winning this lawsuit due to the fact that it was less than. minute in a 25 minute episode and made the video even more outrageous than the original so it indeed was in fair use. I just feel as though people are getting out of control with these copyrights suing.. even if you have something in the background of a video they could take down your video due to “copyrights’.. frankly it’s annoying and absurd and needs to be taken down a notch. 

The second article is ” Yes, Copyrights sole purpose is to Benefit the public,” and it talks about the actual sole purpose and background behind the copyrights. It states that it is for the author first and the nation second. It also states the clause ” To promote the progress of science and useful Arts, by securing for limited times to Authors and inventors and exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” So initially it was not for other kinds of creativity and it is supposed to benefit the public instead. With this whole article I feel as though I need to go back a few times to really understand because I never really thought much about copyrights because I don’t post videos often and things like that, however, it is a topic and issue that has gone overboard like I said before. 

Below is an article that gives many examples as to who was impacted by copyrights and how and the new regulations that the supreme passed for it. You now have to get a copyright registration before suing for a copyright and it could take up to years.

https://www.intellectualpropertynews.com/copyright-news/

This week’s topic is about digital activism and social justice and we have articles and ted talks that went along with that theme. The article called “the cute cat theory of Digital Activism, another article called ” The Digital Culture Shift: From scale to power,” ” twitter hashtags that changed the way we talk about social issues,” and lastly a Ted talk called ” Digital Activism Ted Talk.” In Digital Activism Ted talks, It talks about technology and social movements and how it may be weakening them. She asks the question about what makes success possible and turns to twitter and twitter is the key. Turkey got used to the power of twitter and the Turkish media would censor things from the public. So in result of that, a man took the censored pictures and posted it on twitter and it went viral. The news covered penguins  instead of the protests that were taking place . They used the internet to show protest and things like this go back a long way according to the ted talk. She talked about how twitter and the internet equals global attention so it is globalized. Then she goes on to say that the hopes the people rightfully raise are not really matched by what they were able to have at the end and so she asks the question.. As digital technology makes things easier for movements, why haven’t successful outcomes become more likely as well? She states that easier to mobilize does not mean easier to achieve goals. Are we overlooking slow and sustained? The ending finalizes that taking the fast route, aka social media, and not replacing the benefits of slower work does not give you that long term success. Figuring out collective thinking, having a strategic plan and strategy and goal and structure is the way to achieve such goals. 

After viewing this, I came to realize that she made excellent points as to why these protests and things with such massive attention and hype end up phasing out in a way and why we don’t see long term changes or things being productive afterwards. There is no organizational collective thinking and planning and are constantly being done. They don’t necessarily have the next step in place in order to make efficient moves from what they have done. All of this being done is for short term, unfortunately, instead of longer term. I didn’t realize that all of the protests and things like that consisted of internally until I listened to the ted talk. It is very eye opening to me and how technology plays a role as well.

We also were assigned articles such as ” twitter hashtags that changed the way we talk about social issues,” and ” The Digital Culture Shift: From scale to power.’ With the first article, it talks about hashtags that are directed towards social issues and things of that nature. For example, #prayforJapan, #bringbackourgirls, and #ice bucket challenge to name a few. All of this to spread awareness and to spark the discussion of things going on today and possibly make a change. With the second article, it talks about the Digital culture shift and from scale to power. It is a good read and it touches on blm and other movements as well as the notion of voices being heard. 

News Article: Here is link that discusses technology and social justice

This week we touched on the topic of that of cell phones and how much privacy we do and don’t have.. in this case, we clearly have none but we think we do. We watched the movie Snowden, read articles such as ” How long til hackers start faking leaked documents”, “5 worst data hacks” and ect. All along the theme of technology, hacking, and how vulnerable we really are to technology and the data it possesses. In the movie Snowden, The leading actor Is a CIA agent and he has seen all the in’s and out’s of the operations. They could track anyone and know everything about them, their friends, family and all in a matter of seconds. They can read your text messages, emails, your social media posts along with private messages. They could also have control of your camera on computers without you, the user, having to turn it on. He thought all this tracking and knowing every information was about preventing terrorist attacks, bombs, and national threats.. but instead he found that it was also about economic and social control and they have all the information about regular citizens, not just ” bad people.” H decided to leak all this information to journalists and is then considered a traitor and is essentially a fugitive from the law. 

In the movie, it shows that the government and the CIA can basically see and track everything you’re doing. It can see all messages, emails, your web camera (live), and they can see who you’ve talked to and everything that you’ve posted. Basically your entire life. Now in the movie his girlfriend tries making the argument that she has nothing to hide.. however that is a lie essentially. Everyone does whether they admit it or not. You wouldn’t give someone all your credit card information right? or see private photos? It is about the security of your life and privacy.  The government claims they do this to provide security to others and to the nation.. or do they cross the line to what is essentially private ? An example of crossing the line is being able to hack the camera off computers and see you without consent or knowledge. I think a lot of us don’t realize that we are vulnerable when it comes to technology. None of us really have that privacy we think we have.. instead were secretly exploited without our knowledge. I am uneasy about this because on one hand I think it’s important to have security when it comes to serious threats but on the other I would like my privacy and things kept out of view of others.. I now keep a post-it note on my laptop because of this movie. 

In the article “How long til hackers start faking leaked documents” discussed how hackers leak private and sensitive information out to the world and exposing them… the next step is what if they alter that information before leaking it? As if leaking information isn’t bad enough.. false information is way worse and could have very dangerous and bad impacts. The other article is “5 worst data hacks”It talks about breaches and hacks with yahoo accounts, the Marriott, friend finder networks, and Equifax. No one is safe.

News: Here is link to more information about hacking and cyber information.

This week we talked about “Black Mirror: Hated in the Nation”, read the article “How the Internet created an age of rage,” and a short video called ” Bad Behavior Online,” just to name a few but all along this theme of online rage and behavior. Going into the episode of Black Mirror, it starts off with a detective giving her testimony on a murder of a journalist, and other murder’s, and the event that lead up to it. A journalist is being hated for an article that she released to the public and has been receiving hate mail, hate messages, death threats online, a thread on her that is a #deathto_ , and even a hateful messaged cake that was delivered to her house. She dies in her house and her husband, terribly wounded, said she killed herself. Soon after, there was another report of a similar incident of a man receiving pains and trying to kill himself out of nowhere and another similarity was that both these victims received hateful messages online and the thread of #deathto_ with their names at the end. The thread #deathto is designed for the people to vote for the most unpopular person and whoever has the most votes dies. They come to realize that it was an ADI bee that got into their brain and was pressing on the pain center causing them to kill themselves. They have ADI bees in replacement for bees for the environment due to the endangerment of bees. Someone, however, hacked the system and took control of some of the bees and targeted only those individuals who were number one on the death toll. They tried saving the 3rd victim but they did not succeed. The hacker then took control of the whole system and took control over all the bees and then targeted those who posted the thread and used the #Deathto. The hacker wanted for people to pay the consequences of what they say and do and give them a moral lesson. A ton of people died and they cops then had eyes and location of the hacker and the episode ends with that. 

Going into depth of this episode, the cops went and confronted this lady who took part in the thread and her response was that online is not real and she only half meant what she had said. 3D is real life, online is not, it’s just funny. With this, I think a lot of people have this mindset but the receiver of all these hateful messages feels otherwise and it is in fact real. Also, people who partake in this has a sense of diffusion of responsibility because others part take in it as well so they start to point fingers and say other people do it and as a result, they refuse to take full repsoibilies of their own actions. Another point in this movie that I would like to point out is that the hacker targeted people who took part in the thread. It showed that instead of the evil person society targeted, the actual evil person were themselves and they didn’t even realize it. 

With the short video of “Bad Behavior”, it goes more in depth of online bullying and hateful words that are being posted and people think of it as funny. People online experience disinhibition because they can’t see the other person that is their target so it has to impact on them. In the article, “How the internet created rage,” they talk about how people experience deindividuation which is when social norms are withdrawn because identities are concealed. Many people experience this when online or commenting on other peoples accounts. Have you ever experienced hateful online comments/ posts? If so, how did that make you feel ? Have you ever taken part of online bullying or targeting a person and making hateful/ hurtful comments? 

This article is about cyberbullying and the impacts it has on the receiving individual

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200122080526.htm