Week 3 - Freedom, and its price.

 4chan

    To anyone that knows this platform, simply hearing the name provokes a certain emotion. A lot of the times, said emotion is.. fear and confusion. 4chan is sometimes recognized as the 'dark web of the surface web'. Essentially, by a lot of people, it is merely considered a more serious/borderless version of reddit. With nearly no censorship, it is an anonymous 'bulletin board' that is a free for all outsiders normally dare not venture into. Even though times have changed quite a lot, I will mostly be talking about the 'classical' part of 4chan. The most famous part. /b/ and /pol/.
    To anyone not familiar with its structure, these are simply subforums within 4chan. Two out of the total of 63 boards. However, those two... Are responsible for 4chan's entire reputation. They are the birthplace Anonymous, they are the brutal war command of the internet. The subforum names themselves seem harmless - /b/ standing for random and /pol/ standing for politically incorrect, though the latter is more understandable in just how it would end up as a brutal bulletin board. 
    In its essence, the anonymous and free nature of 4chan is responsible for everything that has come out of it and its unmoderated status gave birth to the dark side of internet culture. I am in no way condemning it, as I believe freedom of speech should be uncontested, but it is undeniable that some very dark events came out of it. It is also an example of why not to poke one's head into communities you do not fully understand, as these 'dark acts' are almost exclusively retaliatory or political. Instead of delving further into generics, I will simply talk about one of the earliest incidents of cyberbullying - originating from, of course, 4chan.

Jessi Slaughter



    Perhaps one of the most known (and earliest) incidents of cyberbullying known to the general public. Jessi was a Youtuber that, at the age of 10, decided it was a great idea to start a public denunciation against 4chan [1]. To no surprise, the effects were pretty harsh, with her personal details being uncovered by 4chan promptly. It just so happened that there were rumors of Jessi dating the singer for Blood on the Dance Floor [David Torres]. This rumor gave birth to a myriad of images and videos mocking both Jessi and her father, the incident prompting the latter to start one of the earliest major public anti-cyberbullying campaigns in the media, albeit also provoking an even heavier reaction against the two by being part in one of Jessi's videos - evidently not the best idea in such an environment [2]. 
    The incident resulted in several suicide attempts by Jessi, numerous sexual accusations against David Torres, and a failed police investigation. Though what happened is not justifiable by any means, it is a great representation of internet culture, and perhaps.. common sense. The original video by Jessi that provoked the reaction was heavily accusatory and loaded with swear-words [1], and serves as an example of the safety people feel behind the screen. The age of Internet has made people a lot verbose, thinking that they are safe and can go around insulting everyone merely because they are physically distant from them. Clearly, that is not the case - and this is one of the more high-profile incidents of that. The incident serves as a reminder that although you are not face-to-face with those that you communicate with over the Internet, common respect and decency should still be shown, or the consequences might be just as severe as they would if these words had been said face-to-face. 

    I realize this was a much darker post and a little bit all over the place, but I truly feel that the people advocating against freedom of speech on the Internet take the victim's part of the story, often ignoring the other side and what provoked the incident in the first place. Yes, the Internet is somewhat anonymous, but it does not give anyone the right to attack others through it. The perceivable safety of bulletin boards and long-distance communication has made certain people forget that, and sometimes they sadly pay a very heavy price for it. 



[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEfY3kMnG4E - Accessed [17-02-21]

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