Well, Twitter is on the news again.
This time, it's on the spotlight after a freshman at Rutgers University tactlessly ousted his shy, homosexual roommate on the social networking website. The 18-year-old roommate, Tyler Clementi, ended up committing suicide.
On the evening of Sept. 19, student Dharun Ravi is believed to have tweeted: "Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly's room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay." Before leaving his room, he had stealthily set up a web cam to catch his roommate in the act. He went on to broadcast Clementi's sexual encounter on the internet. Two days later, he did it again: "Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes it's happening again."
The next day, Clementi jumped off a bridge and killed himself, just moments after he updated his Facebook status from his mobile: "jumping off the gw bridge sorry"
It's completely incredible how big of a role social networking sites now play in our lives. Just think -- a few strokes on the keyboard have the potential to drive someone to his death. More so than ever, the discrepancy between our digital world and our real world is melting away to form a new realm in which html codes and binary numbers are as relevant as spoken words.
In this digital age, each one of us newly hold significant power in possession, a kind of power that is not unlike that of celebrity tabloid magazines. They make profit out of full-page headlines that shout baseless claims about certain celebrities engaging in steamy affairs, using drugs, abusing their kids, getting liposuction, and the list goes on. Celebrities' lives are flipped inside out for the entire world to scrutinize and gossip about, regardless of whether the claims are true or not. Their reputations are constantly on the line.
Now, with about 20 million users on Facebook, 75 million on Twitter and 100 million on Youtube, it's quite apparent that the internet is the biggest, greatest forum to exist, definitely incomparable to the circulation of a tabloid magazine. And the thing is, we all have the access and the authority to act as its "contributing reporter." We have at our disposal a sizable audience who would read our posts and watch our videos. And with the internet culture's lack of censorship and obsession with memes (definition: "Phrase used to describe a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the Internet, much like an esoteric inside joke."), achieving a "viral" status takes mere days, if not minutes. For instance, via the web, your average Joe can very easily become a celebrity(i.e. Antoine Dodson of the 'bed intruder' fame).
As respectable citizens of the World Wide Web, we should recognize the power of the typed word and the streamed videos as well as the diminishing line between reality and the virtual world. For Ravi, who has been charged with invasion of privacy and possibly with bias intimidation for targeting Clementi for his sexual orientation, he had to learn the hard way that merely deleting those immature tweets won't bring his roommate back.
To borrow a line from Spider-man's beloved Uncle Ben (may he rest in peace): "With great power comes great responsibility."
The Clementi story is really, really devastating...such a sad situation.
ReplyDeleteI think what is so hard about internet communication is how tones and motives are often misinterpreted. It is so easy to quickly type something and click a button without thinking about how your words could be taken out of context or read from a different perspective. The internet truly does give you so much power.
I was really saddened by the Clementi story also. Just to illustrate an ironic point, I found out about it via the nytimes.com on Google Reader, an RSS feed, and the first thing I did was retweet the headline on my Twitter account. The Internet is truly a crazy place where you can instantly connect and influence people in real time. Sometimes it takes a case like the one that came out of Rutgers to make us realize the very real consequences of our Internet interactions.
ReplyDeleteSnaps to you for this post. It goes hand and hand with my post. The internet is such a super highway and is connected everywhere and to almost anyone and so much gets out on the public domain. Tyler's roommate deserves a life of shame and guilt for what he did to another individual. The power that someone can wield in the click of a mouse amazes me sometimes. Along the lines of great quotes "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" And the internet is absolutely powerful.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very sad story. Indeed we must look at the power of the internet/twitter/etc, but also recognize it is the power of words in themselves. Since the internet makes it so easy to say what you want, when you want, something in our manner of communicating will need to change before we all hurt each other. Whether it be an understood code of digital ethics or actual written law, individuals must be held accountable for their cyber actions- to the point that they will think twice before hurting somebody else.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kate. When people type things, even in a text message, for example, they can be easily misinterpreted, taken out of context, or affect someone far more than the author had originally intended. People need to realize the ability they have to truly hurt another person from behind their computer screen.
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