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Facebook vigilantes

Since the Vancouver riots, more than 100,000 people have posted riot photos or links to photos on their Facebook walls. Is this a means to justice or a dangerous path toward mob rule?

Jesse Hirsh, a CBC technology columnist and owner of digital strategy firm Metaviews, believes it’s the latter.

On MetroMorning this week, Hirsh said he was horrified by what is happening on on Facebook and other places around the web with the riot photos and shaming that happens because of it.

Here he explains further why social media doesn’t necessarily lead to social justice.

You’ve likened the hunt for vandals in the Vancouver riots to a lynch mob. How so?

Like a lynch mob, these people are too impatient to wait for the official process of justice to run its course, so they are taking justice into their own hands.

In many cases the justice that they are serving is harsher and far longer lasting than what would occur through normal and traditional justice. Lawlessness begets lawlessness as emotions overwhelm any rational pursuit of justice.

Isn’t it the case, though, if these rioters did damage, were photographed and identified online, this helps them get caught and justice is ultimately served?

It is mob justice, yes, but my argument is that society as a whole suffers anytime there is mob justice. Further as mob justice presents itself as more efficient, people will find the traditional (rational and legal) form to be obsolete and obstructionist.

Trial by social media, sentencing by Google, with no right to fairness and no sense of a punishment that fits the crime. The sentences being handed out are far too severe for the crimes that were in theory committed – yet not proven in court so all is accusations.

Why do you think people are posting the incriminating photos?

People are posting photos because the photos are dramatic. The photos are riot porn. The photos are meant to be shared. I have no problems with the photos being shared. I have problems with the actions take after said photos are shared.

The police are wholeheartedly supporting the digital lynch mob. Is that irresponsible?

It’s not clear to me that they are supporting it. They’re not actively trying to stop it. Perhaps because they too fear it. Yet I do not see them supporting it. They are asking for people to give them photos, but that is not mob justice. That, given due course, would be normal justice.

The issue is what people are doing after the photos are posted.

What is happening on social media is people are moving beyond investigation to actual punishment. This undermines the system and is a form of mob justice.

I often find people are using the web for revenge wrong me and I’ll embarrass you online. Or, if there’s a case of bad customer service, accusations fly against the business. What do you think is the impetus for such behaviour? That is, where did this “out for justice” thing come from online?

I believe as a society most people have recognized that the rule of law is breaking down and no longer something people believe.

In the absence of law you have tyranny, which is manifest via the idea that “might is right”. Each and every day people are exposed to the expression of might is right, in traffic, in the workplace, in politics, in sports.

Social media celebrates might is right when it comes to influence and authority. People realize that if you have a big enough mob you can do whatever you want.

Do you think sharing a photo of a kid who broke a window on Facebook will actually ruin his life?

My issue is not with the sharing, but with what happens next.

People are creating testimonials towards the accused over multiple sites, with annotation and moralizing. These memorials to their stupidity are permanent, and in an age where search engines define people before they can themselves, these individuals will always be associated with this one discretion.

Further many others are targeting these individuals, harassing them, calling their friends, family, co-workers. That is the behaviour I am objecting to. If it were only sharing of photos I wouldn’t care.

So how do we stop this? How do we stop the societal urge to capture everything and put it online?

How do we stop people from supporting mob justice at the expense of legal justice? That is a broader issue.

Fundamentally it comes down to what we believe as a society and what we tolerate. As it stands now we have no empathy for the criminal. We dehumanize them, and allow anything to be done to them in the interests of so-called justice. This will only hurt us in the end, as eventually we will all be criminals.

I still stand by my assertion that most of the riotous activity was performance art for the camera. Attention is power. People participate in spectacular events to get attention and enhance their social standing (in this case perhaps as young rebels).

People will always do dumb things. Increasingly these dumb things are more and more accountable. Yet that won’t stop them. We speed on the roads all the time but we either think we won’t get caught or the punishment is modest enough that we can afford it.

Hockey riots in Canada are part of our history. People wanted to be part of history. I don’t approve of their behaviour, but I also don’t believe their lives should be ruined over it.

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