A modern conumdrum
Amidst the madness that seems to have engulfed the world recently – whether you’re talking the 2017 UK General Election result, Brexit, the 2016 US Presidential campaign, the current confrontation between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un or indeed the weekend’s events in Charlottesville, Virginia – one thought has occurred to me about the phenomenon of social media.
It’s not just the saddos that appear on reality television shows and/or in front of Jeremy Kyle for the delectation of the general public that do it – even my thirtysomething kids squirt their every move and encounter onto outlets such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook and I’m aware through family connections that my nephews and nieces spend as much time glued to their smartphones as they do actually living life themselves.
I know, I know, this is the 21st Century … and, because it’s when I grew up or first came to maturity, I’m locked in the middle of the 20th, so I should wise up and get with it (as we used to say, was it in the 1950s or 1960s?).
[By the way, I loved the recent description of Jacob Rees-Mogg as ‘the Member of Parliament for the 18th Century’].
But almost month by month we hear of the dangers of the internet and/or social media.
We learn that porn websites are some of the most popular on the world wide web – and that they may be influencing the views, fashions, attitudes and behaviour of youngsters even below the ages of eight or ten – I’m referring here to girls’ attitudes to pubic hair, body shapes and ‘sexting’ [and I’m not even sure I quite know what that entails – at my age I’m actually hesitant to ask in case my kids begin to think I’m weird and/or a pervert] … and indeed to boys allegedly failing to develop ‘proper’ relationships with the opposite sex because they’re hooked on porn, and so on.
We hear of paedophile rings frequenting chat websites in order to ‘groom’ youngster in order to meet up and have sex.
Of radical Islamic and other preachers using ‘the Dark Web’ (whatever that is) to spread their messages of hatred, terrorism and war upon human society as we know it.
Of websites that promote suicide, drug-taking, criminal activities and all sorts of unimaginable unhealthy or unusual interests – many of them potentially harmful and/or anti-social – because, as night follows day, however weird your own interests in any area of life, a penny to a pound say that there’ll always be someone out there who goes one stage … or maybe three or four … further. And, if by chance you might come across their activities upon the internet, so might you also be taken along to places that you would never previously or consciously have gone if you had been left to your own devices.
Today I came across a report by May Bulman upon the degree of harassment that girls encounter when spending time upon the internet – see here – THE INDEPENDENT
The unwelcome and unedifying thought that I chanced upon today is that – for all its wonders, most particularly the speed of global communication that it promotes – by its very nature, the internet also harbours and promotes many things that are not at all positive.
I’d even go so far as to suggest that – in a reaction to the Western World’s ‘liberal, progressive, PC-correct, gender fluid, female equality in every walk of life, PC-this and PC-that’ media and political obsession – those people who feel disenfranchised, not listened to, disregarded and ignored, just generally being left behind and told that their views or feelings are old hat, old-fashioned, out of touch, Neanderthal … even though they hold all these rationally, honestly, openly and instinctively … have somehow retreated from the world (political and real) as it is and withdrawn to the internet.
Where people like them also exist. Where they can ‘chat’ to such like-minded people. And ‘be themselves’ in a way that they no longer feel able to be in real life.
I’ve heard – and seen examples – of the most vicious social media campaigns being waged by (what we might term) ‘losers’ against celebrities, politicians and others on social media.
You might call it bullying or harassment – May Bulman’s article highlights this.
But what motivates people to dish out such treatment? Is it not because somehow the internet gives them a sense that it is where they can express their real thoughts … and get away with doing that … in that medium, whereas it is no longer possible (or socially, or legally, acceptable) to do that any longer in the real world?
It’s a problem for the Western way of life.
Where is the line between the right to free speech – and to do whatever you want, perhaps just so long as it doesn’t adversely affect the rights of anyone else – and the right not to be harassed, or offended, or threatened, or even physically attacked?
Is there one? Can there be one?
Yes, inevitably there are Islamist agitators encouraging bad things on the internet. Just as there are white supremacists in the Unites States doing similar.
And there are also thousands of young teenagers – and probably not so young misguided middle-aged fantasists too – spewing all sorts of disgusting bile and insults at ordinary members of the public, and/or at celebrities and politicians, presumably just because (on the internet) they can.
The law can only do so much. And usually only after the first ten thousand horses (or more) have already bolted and left the stable. And it can very rarely manage to be ‘up to date’ with technological developments in the world. There’s always a ‘lag’ because politicians take a while to ‘twig’ that something new is going on … and by the time they’ve eventually drafted and debated a law, and then got it passed through their legislature … it is probably by definition already out of date anyway.