Social media is great for keeping in touch with people, but it is a shame that it is being used to publicly humiliate the victims of sexual assault, and to egg on their attackers. While these videos and photos create awareness for issues such as rape and bullying, there are better ways to raise awareness than using the humiliating evidence of an unwilling advocate's assault for the cause. A person might not have been physically involved in the attack, but by sharing the evidence, I think they are almost as bad as the physical attacker. No matter what their reasoning is for sharing the post, they are only worsening the victim's situation. When social media becomes involved in these situations, I think they become so much worse. They often end in suicide of the victim. It is bad enough having people you know comment on your life, but when strangers start to attack you through comments, a line is crossed.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Social Media and Privacy
Reading this article was a huge wake up call to the implications of social media. Yes, I realize that in come cases, the pictures and videos of sexual assaults shared on the Internet created more witnesses to implicate the attacker. However, it also created more witnesses to the victim's pain, embarrassment, grief, etc. How is it right that the world can know what happened to an unconscious girl at a party before she even knows what happened to her herself?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I agree with your post 100%. I believe that publishing these stories in the media without permission from the victims is wrong. Although it could help bring justice to the situation, it will probably have negative implications on the victim a thousand times worse. The article was super eye opening, and scary in a way. Especially how everyone else seemed to know what happened to that girl who passed out at a party.. all because of social media, but she had yet to fully grasp what happened. Social media is great for some things, but personal stories such as rape should remain personal.
ReplyDeleteAlong with Alexis I agree with your post completely. I also talked in my post about how I felt that using social media to bring awareness to a sexual harassment situation is not a solution to the problem. I feel that it is only worsening the situation. The victims must already feel completely humiliated and embarrassed and having thousands of individuals on social media reliving their embarrassment is not going to solve any problem. The situation should be kept completely private. It is sad to think that maybe something so simple as not posting an image could save an individuals life like Audrie Pott.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your feelings on the postings of these events causing more pain for the victims. It is a horrific thing that these terrible, traumatising nights in these victims lives are publicly posted in photos and videos for the rest of their lives on the internet. It exposes more and more people to how ashamed and embarrassed they must feel about the things that have occurred. Yes, it is also giving awareness on the issue to more people but if I put myself in these victims shoes for just a minute, would I really want my whole school to have a visual of the pain I endured? I have to answer no to that. Social Media has taken away any type of privacy we used to have, and not only for regular people but the victims of hate crimes as well.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you. I feel like social media has become very negative. It should not be used to share an event that ruined someones life. Using social media to make awareness of sexual assault is not the right way to do it. That will only make things worse and the victim will be devastated. No one should be violated like that. There are many other ways that we can raise awareness of crimes like these, without betraying the victim. If they do chose to publish the video or photo then they definitely need to get permission from the victim. It is very sad to hear about so many lives being taken by young girls because they were humiliated in a picture or video that they do not even remember happening. It is awful and it needs to be stopped.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with what you were saying. It really is a shame that people don't understand how posting embarrassing pictures or videos on the internet can truly ruin a person's life. These people that post them have no control over who see's them and what they do with them. I definitely think that a person can be just as emotionally affected as a person who was physically abused. Bruises will go away but something on the internet will be there forever. It really is a shame that people do this to one another.
ReplyDelete