My topic of project 5 is about cyberbullying. The inspiration came from something that happened to a friend of my friend. She was suffering from depression and posted on the internet that she wanted to commit suicide, but instead of stopping her netizens posted vicious comments encouraging her to do so. She eventually chose to commit suicide because of these comments. However, fortunately it didn’t work and she is still being treated in hospital now. I was outraged by this incident and fear that the invisible power of the internet can really do great harm in reality.I earnestly hope that cyberbullying will be reduced and want to find the ways to change.
The Internet has made it possible for all of humanity to communicate with each other as never before. But instead of expanding our online social circles, we have reverted to a time of constant conflict and tribalism. We are always polite and courteous with strangers in real life, but often we become a different person on the internet. This situation became more pronounced during COVID-19，social media has given people who are confined to their homes a sense of relief, allowing us to escape from our small rooms and enter other people’s lives in a virtual way. It has also led to an increase in online violence, women and members of ethnic minorities who suffer the most from online violence on social media.
I collected various data on cyberbullying and also created a questionnaire to interview people around me. I received a total of 43 responses, of which 81.39% of the respondents had been attacked by bad comments on the internet and 0.04% had been subjected to a mild degree of cyberbullying. Women were 52.17% more likely to have experienced cyberbullying than men. This constant cyberbullying forces silence and compels people to stay away from online platforms, which further reduces the expression of different voices and multiple viewpoints online. And the situation shows no sign of abating. A survey last year revealed that 40% of British adults have experienced online violence, with nearly half of them experiencing more serious harassment, including physical threats and stalking. Seventy per cent of women said online harassment was a ‘problem’.
Then I did a lot of research about cyberbullying and found the definition of cyberbullying from Marshall. I have concluded from my research that the following are the main reasons for the formation of cyberbullying:
Firstly, because of the anonymity of the internet, people can speak more freely on the internet, even nonsense and also no reputational implications or penalties for bad behaviour.
Secondly, the psychology of wanting to gain attention. Recent studies have shown that messages posted with words about morality and emotion are more likely to go viral on social media. Every word of righteous anger or emotion in a tweet increases the retweet rate of the tweet by 20%. You can promote yourself to your entire social network, in which case the benefits to the individual of expressing anger are greatly increased. On the positive side, online moral outrage has enabled marginalised and disadvantaged groups to advance causes that were previously difficult to pursue and has played an important role in shining a spotlight on the sexual abuse of women by powerful men. But it also exacerbates the indiscriminate cyberbullying。
Thirdly, when a law is blatantly violated by most people and left unenforced. Often cyberbullying is formed with the involvement of hundreds or thousands of people. It is difficult to track down everyone involved in cyberbullying in real life and punished with the law.
I tried to find solutions to the cyberbullying and there are currently several ways to effectively control cyberbullying in terms of technology. Many anti-social behaviours online stem from the anonymity of online interactions, and robots offer a solution to this online problem. One experiment involved having robots switch to white appearance avatars to reply to tweets sent by some racists to other black users, which drastically reduced the abuse from racism. Another solution to the fact that personal reputations are less likely to be damaged despite bad behaviour on the internet is to create a social punishment mechanism. For example, the game company League of Legends has introduced a “court” function where negative behaviour can be punished by other players.
At the same time, there are many artists who are speaking out against cyberbullying.The picture in the below shows 700 banners, either long or short, are linked together and total length is 3,000 metres were placed on the bales by an artist team called Purple Garlic and the local people. According to the statement of artists, they wanted to create a “museum of cyberbullying” in this “no man’s land”.The irony is that the members of Purple Garlic have chosen to carry out this art project anonymously for fear of cyberbullying. In the artists’ statement, they recounted what happened during the installation of the banners. The art team enlisted the help of locals and there were many people asking, why are you sticking such dirty words in here? One guy kept asking questions and even said he would not to do it unless he was given an explanation. Because he felt that by putting such dirty words on the mountain was doing something worst. When these words are made physical, it is intuitive that they should not be spoken on the internet either.
Through research in both technical and artistic aspects, the change I plant to see will combine internet technology and art. Based on the foundation of the last project,I will use computer technology to create a series of the virtual jewellery. I would like to create a link and share in the social medias to collect what people received in the internet. Every terrible words I collect will become a thorn in the jewellery. When all the jewellery is covered with thorns, I will 3D print them and hold a activity to let people wear these jewellery on site. I think visualising cyberbullying in reality and making the damage it causes tangible can make people realize cyberbullying must be stopped and every word we said online may be hurt other people.
Reference:
4.Gaia Vince, Using evolutionary theory to explain why we look different when we go online
5.Museum of Cyberbullying, Purple Garlic, https://matters.news/@shenbolun/%E8%A1%8C%E5%8A%A8%E8%A1%8C%E5%8A%A8-04-%E4%B8%80%E7%99%BE%E5%85%AC%E6%96%A4%E8%84%8F%E8%AF%9D%E9%93%BA%E6%BB%A1%E4%B8%80%E5%BA%A7%E5%B1%B1-bafyreidc5qyforkjecjtrnbqrx455qiy7zeu3nrfvisvfkmha6eby773im
6.https://www.broadbandsearch.net/blog/cyber-bullying-statistics