Cyber Aggression

On Tuesday, March 19th, Professor invited us to attend a STEM presentation over Cyber Aggression, where the presenters focused on trolling attacks on specific women for no true reason other than to troll them. This presentation included examples with crude language and depressing content, statistics on women who are assaulted online, and ended with four options to help combat online aggression. This presentation was definitely hard to listen to because of the truth the presenters were sharing. "Trolls" were creating fake accounts just to harass women- tweeting death and rape threats. The language used was terrifying, demoralizing, and meant to shame the women into hiding. Even reading them, I felt scared for the women.

As the presenters started, they wanted to define the differences between "online aggression," "cyberbullying," and "trolling." At first, I was confused. I was surprised that there was a true difference between each term, as I have heard each term used interchangeably. They defined each as such:

• Online Aggression: hostile and/or violent content that may or may not be directed at a specific individual 
• Cyberbullying: Targeted attacks by a known individual 
• Trolling: Baiting someone to get an emotional rise out of them 

In the examples the presenters gave, most tweets included all three of these definitions, and when you look at each definition individually, they all land on a common purpose: Shame. As the presenters focused on the aggression, I noticed they never mentioned why the trolls/cyberbullies were doing this. I recently read "So You've Been Publicly Shamed?" by Jon Ronson, and all I could think about were the examples Ronson gave, where normal people made one false tweet and became the new campaign for online aggression, cyberbullying, and trolling. The idea of publicly shaming someone is so enticing to some because it gives them the power they cannot get anywhere else. Plus, being behind a screen gives others a double life, allowing them to tarnish and ruin people they do not know without ruining their own reputation. 

While the presentation tried to give examples to correct the situation, there really is no correct answer. As long as people allow others to shame them, there will always be bullying and trolling online or in person. Shame is what drives those to bully and what continues others to keep bullying.