Before reading any further, I would suggest you familiarize yourself with the following:
Let’s start by talking about Ethics. What is Ethics? Rather than pulling something pointless from the dictionary, I’d rather define Ethics how I see it from my perspective, in the context of Software Engineering.
Ethics as it is defined from person to person can be difficult to place properly within the context of our lives. One person’s definition of what is ethical may not line up with that of another person. People can also perform actions that most would consider unethical, but then justify it to themselves as OK. In order to combat this, we as software engineers need a common code of ethics that everybody can agree on.
Enter the ACM Code of Ethics. The ACM Code allows software engineers to define what is ethical and what isn’t, and gives us a code of conduct to follow so we can be relatively sure we’re doing the right thing (I say relatively because you may disagree with the Code of Ethics for one reason or another, or the Code might even be wrong itself). Therefore, using the ACM Code of Ethics as a backdrop, we can define ethics in the context of software engineering as a set of moral standards we uphold as agreed upon by the community, to try to live life with as much moral standing and goodness as we can.
Now that we’ve defined ethics, let’s talk about two specific cases of online harassment and how that relates to our definition of Ethics: GamerGate and The Serial Swatter. In case you’re in a hurry and/or lazy and don’t want to read additional background information, GamerGate and the Serial Swatter are harassment cases using tools online such as Twitter, Twitch, Skype, and Facebook, as well as doxxing, blackmail, DDOSing, and other forms of online harassment. GamerGate in particular was about the harassment of various female game developers, while The Serial Swatter involved harassment of several female streamers on Twitch. People will generally agree the actions of the harassers were extermely unethical, so I’m not gonna bother with that. Rather, I’d like to analyze why exactly things like these happen, and what we can do about it as software engineers to prevent it from happening again.
People have always bullied and harassed each other for as long as civilized society has existed, but it’s definitely made a rise in modern society with the advent of social media and the internet. People who have never met or interacted before sling mud over the internet in the worst way possible. Things like doxxing, death threats, blackmail, and such were never as widespread as they are today. Bullying and harassment has stepped up its game in a way never seen before. But why?
A major part of the reason harassment exists online in the form it does is due to the anonymity of the internet. The anonymity of the internet breeds a relatively consequence-free environment where people can say or do as they please without being linked to their image in real life. There’s no real threat of retaliation (banning and verbal retaliation doesn’t really deter people), and no permanent image or account they need to protect (as anyone banned from anything can easily circumvent it with other accounts and proxies, and easily pretend to be someone else to shed their negative reputation), so harassment naturally comes out as people are essentially allowed to do whatever they want.
That isn’t the only reason anonymity breeds harassment. Anonymity also hides the recipient of the harassment. Since people are not interacting directly, a lot of times many people will subconciously disconnect the person behind the keyboard and the target of their harassment, making it easier to justify their behavior to themselves. In general, a lot of people would never do the same kind of thing in real life to an actual person as they would over the internet.
Ignoring the obvious, is there anything the developers of platforms that allowed this to happen could’ve done? Could Twitter have done anything to prevent this behavior? What about Facebook? Or Twitch? Well…yes and no. The issue is not really that black and white, and arguments can be made for either side. To be honest, I’m not even sure which side is right, but here are the arguments I’ve thought of for both sides.
Companies can increase their crackdown on harassment. It’s important for every social media platform to have strong moderation teams that do not tolerate any sort of harassment. A lot of people who use these platforms for harassment are often not punished or dealt with in any significant way, or if they are, it’s often way too late, after the damage is already done. It’s important that these companies create a culture on their platforms that doesn’t tolerate hate speech and harassment.
People are jerks and dealing with harassment is impossible from a technical standpoint. How can a team moderate everything that gets posted? How does the team breed a culture that doesn’t tolerate harassment? And if the team automates the process, how do you prevent unfair bannings? How does the algorithm differentiate an inside joke among friends from a cyberbullying circle? How do you differentiate legitimate cases from people attempting to ban others for kicks? And even if the right people are banned, how does the team prevent them from just making another account and continuing on with their business?
It also can be argued that it isn’t really the responsilibity of tech companies and software engineers to deal with societal issues. Online harassment comes from deep-seated real-life social issues that can’t just be swept under a rug. Even though it happens online, people’s real feelings create this harassment, so it would take societal changes to really see the eradication of harassment.
Honestly, I’d say the best way to curb online harassment is to introduce real and tangible consequences for doing so. However, the only way this could happen would most likely be to remove anonymity from the internet. When people’s real-life profiles are linked to their online profiles, it means that if anyone was permanently banned, it would really mean they were permanently banned (no alternate accounts). It would also mean anyone could see what kind of things you say to people, and it would affect your real life reputation if you were to participate in online harassment.
On the other hand, what kind of world would we live in if the internet wasn’t anonymous? Personal information would be rampant, making it really easy to doxx anyone. Anyone who already faces real life social issues would have no safe haven. Under the internet’s anonymity, everyone is equal, but without it, gender, race, and socioeconomic standing begin to seep back into the internet. So it’s kind of a catch-22, really. If people are anonymous, there are no consequences for harassers, but there’s also no protection from those same harassers either.
So what can we do then, as software engineers? The best I can say is try to speak out against online harassment, enforce zero tolerance as best you can with powerful moderation teams and tools, and maybe one day the world will change and we won’t have to deal with this problem anymore.