By Cheong Kah Shin
2012 was an exciting but troubling year in the online world. Several unfortunate online incidents made headlines and the talk in coffee shops.
Top on the list was the Amy Cheong’s sacking as National Trade Union Congress (NTUC) Assistant Director after making particularly vile racist comments about Malays and their weddings. Another was mainland Chinese Ministry of Education scholar Sun Xu calling Singaporeans “dogs” on his micro blog. Netizens bayed for his blood, often in vulgar terms, and called for his scholarship to be revoked. More significantly, not only Sun, but also Chinese immigrants as a group were targeted. Then there is the furore over a junior college student who used the F-word three times in his blog when criticising Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean’s performance at a pre-University seminar.
What these three said was clearly beyond the pale, but the irrationality and uncivility – or worse – of the comments by many netizens in response to the incidents is also worrying. The tone ranges from the vicious (on Sun Xu, one comment read, “Anyone has his address, let’s make sure he feels like a DOG and CRAWL like one.”) to the stark raving mad (another comment on Sun Xu read, “can Iran use nuclear bomb on China? I would love to see that! WOOHOO!”) and the vulgar. Quite often arguments are also ad hominem, directed against the person, rather than their logic.
More civility
For 2013, this is my very wish: a more civil and mature cyberspace. Why cyberspace and not any other place? Because being online often lulls us into saying things we would not think of uttering face to face — even when we are not hiding behind an anonym.
First, my wish is that we as a community online should clean our own backyard by speaking out against cyber-hooligans—cyber-bullies, name-callers and those who abuse the right to free speech for spiteful agendas. Yahoo’s 2012 “Silence the Hate” campaign provides useful guidelines: giving “thumbs down” to uncivil comments and “thumbs up” constructive ones; reporting “deliberately abusive and malicious” comments; and signing a pledge to acknowledge that freedom to comment does not mean freedom to abuse others through hateful and hurtful insults.
We can also help – even start — online watchdogs against incivility such as the blog Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining that documents abusive anti-foreigner speech online. Such collective efforts will not eradicate online vitriol, but they set a moral tone, especially for young digital entrants who might think the worst found online is actually the norm.
More rationality
Second, I wish that netizens would learn to critique principles, instead of targeting people by witch hunting. It is not that personal details are irrelevant: Amy Cheong’s job in a public institution clearly is. But in other cases, netizens have dug out details that are not just irrelevant but also harmful. In April 2012, some netizens went on a witch hunt for a ‘Filipino drummer boy’ in Chua Chu Kang, who was accused of disturbing his neighbours with his loud drumming. But they got the wrong guy– one Kenneth Milana– causing this innocent man’s photos, age, educational background and details of his previous workplace to be revealed on forums and websites. One can only imagine the mental stress and frustration Milana had to go through.
Singaporeans might also remember that in September 2012, five of the 50 participants in a television forum with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong were exposed online as PAP members.
This is rightly so, because their political affiliations were very relevant to an event billed as a dialogue with ‘ordinary’ citizens. The principle is that of transparency. But unfortunately netizens also went further by publicising their addresses and phone numbers. Mediacorp and the PAP participants failed, but so did the more zealous online citizens.
More self-policing
Thirdly, I wish we would learn how to resolve online issues amongst ourselves, instead of running to the nanny state as a knee jerk. It seems that every time someone says something racist, someone else would make a police report. The latter may feel that they are doing their civic duty to protect racial harmony or that the authorities are more effective in getting the offending person to change his behaviour.
Media academic Cherian George however calls for community moderation noting that “hate speech does not always require a red card” (that is, calling for the intervention of state authorities). We as citizens could name and shame the offender, “publicise the breach or organise a boycott until the speaker grovels in contrition, or explains his pure motives to the aggrieved party’s satisfaction”. Another option might be to write open letters to the offender expressing disapproval and extending forgiveness. For the most egregious cases, the police are indeed the best or only resort, but for the rest, community regulation is surely a more mature way of handling affairs.
These three wishes do not imply that all is rotten online. The good news is that there are online spaces that are civil, rational and self-policing – and that they seem to be growing. The commentaries in such blogs– and the comments from their readers – show how the online world enriches our democratic discourse. Also, research by my think-tank, the Institute of Policy Studies, has found that the main socio-political blogs have their own codes of conduct aimed at reducing the risk of defamation, but also ensuring that readers’ comments are civil and rational. Efforts such as Yahoo’s “Silence the Hate” campaign and the Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining blog, also help to educate netizens. However, much still needs to be done to ensure that in future we will have more civility, rationality and self-policing online.
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