Recently, while I was watching Monica Lewinsky’s Ted Talk “The Price of Shame” on YouTube, I was compelled to rethink the invasion of information and communication technology in our lives.
During the talk, when Ms Lewinsky was going through her examples (including her own story) and the aftermath of so-called “cyber bullying” on affected people around the world, I realised that I myself have contributed to this phenomenon in some way or another, if not directly.
I guess we all have, to some extent, without even realising it.
Cyber-bullying is not a widely talked-about topic in Bangladesh, which makes us a little bit confused whether we should consider it a good thing or a bad thing.
This attiude of “not so much discussion on the issue” neglects to look whether this crime is prevalent in the country, or if people are well aware of it.
However, a lot of attention is being drawn to cyber-bullying in Europe, North America, and many other places, especially when it affects women and young girls.
A report titled Cyber Violence against Women and Girls: A World-Wide Wake-Up Call was published by the UN Broadband Commission for Digital Development Working Group on Broadband and Gender in 2015.
According to the report, 76% women and 72% men in the world use social networking sites. Among those women, 73% claimed to have been abused online.
Moreover, the report revealed that 9 million women have experienced some form of serious cyber violence since the age of 15.
Considering the number, it is a serious issue which needs dire attention and quick action.
Now, what is the situation like in Bangladesh?
Well, we all remember the incident of a well-known television actor whose private video was deliberately leaked on the internet by an alleged ex-lover a few years ago.
We also know what happened later. We all clicked and the video went viral, and, worse, it became a source of entertainment for young folk for quite some time.
The victim could not expect for any more attention. Unfortunately, the culprit did not have to face jail time or any sort of punishment.
That is when the so-called culture of humiliation merged with our own culture. Such incidents continued to take place in our society, with the culprit getting away every time.
A research carried out on students aged 12-18 years in three countries -- Bangladesh, Thailand, and Malaysia -- by Telenor Group in the beginning of this year revealed some horrifying facts about cyber bullying in these nations: It found that 49% of school students in Bangladesh have been victims of cyber bullying in some way or another, 38% mentioned consulting their parents if faced with online issues that they cannot solve.
Now, the thing is, this scenario is only a small part of the whole picture, as the women aged beyond 18 years are left out in the research.
It is time we started caring about the people who fall victims to cyber bullying. We should not justify our lack of interest in such cases by saying that he/she is not my friend or family member
I mentioned in the beginning that we are somewhat responsible for the increase of cyber crimes.
How?
By clicking.
It is that simple.
No wonder the perpetrators find it very easy to use the internet to humiliate a person if their purposes do not get served.
What do we do? We make more harassing comments about the victim or speak against for him/her.
Why can’t we stop ourselves from clicking such links which contribute to further humiliation of the victim?
Do we realise that we are letting some people make money out of this? And who pays the biggest price?
The victim, as cyber bullying comes with a nice package of mental trauma, extra harassment, and shaming by the society.
It is time we started caring about the people who fall victims to cyber bullying.
We should not justify our lack of interest in such cases by saying that he/she is not my friend or family member.
Most importantly, we should be careful in taking advantage of advanced information and communication technology. Instead of creating more hassles for the victim, let us be more compassionate, a quality which is lacking severely these days.
During the talk, Monica Lewinsky said something that I think is worth sharing: “We talk a lot about our right to freedom of expression, but we need to talk more about our responsibility to freedom of expression. We all want to be heard, but let’s acknowledge the difference between speaking up with intention and speaking up for attention.”
