I wasn’t sure if I ever would be rendered as speechless at when I found out about the gang rape in the Congo, but I have to say, this is absolutely disgusting.
A Vancouver news outlet is covering the story of a female teenager who was gang raped at a house party over the weekend. Authorities say that she was given some form of a date-rape drug, brought to a field behind the house, and gang-raped by several males.
If that’s not disgusting and horrifying enough for you, then take a gander at this: one of the alleged rapists took pictures of the entire incident and posted them on the internet — Facebook of all places.
Yes, not only was this girl taken advantage of and made vulnerable, but she has now been subjected to the torture of having photographic (and videographed) evidence of her traumatic experience spread virally …
… across the internet.
I won’t even ask what kind of people commit these acts of violence and violation. It is truly beyond me. But what I do want to address are the roles that social networking and the rapid file sharing made possible by the internet play in these types of incidences.
In the modern day it is no doubt easier than ever to spread information with family, friends, communities, and even entire cities and countries. While this obviously has its benefits, it opens up a entirely new method of sexual harassment and abuse. The case in question might seem extreme, but it is almost too easy for images of these sort to go viral on the internet and reach audiences that we never thought possible.
So what does this mean?
I’m not too sure. I remember the period of time about six years ago when MySpace was first getting popular. I was fourteen or so, and heavily immersed in the culture of self portraits. Before long, my parents discovered my MySpace page … and they were furious. They felt that the pictures that I had posted of myself were provocative and should not be on the internet and insisted that I deactivate my account. I was in tears over the loss of my internet identity, which felt huge at the time. And it didn’t stop at age fourteen — I was also annoyed in my senior year of high school when we were all told to edit our Facebook pages because college admissions might look at them.
But with stories like the rape of this teenager in Vancouver, I have to acknowledge the dangers of our tendency to share information so readily on the internet. It is undeniable that many of us send our friends pictures or text that we consider morally questionable. It might not seem like much at the time (I’m only sending it to one friend!), however, it must be taken into consideration that sending something to even just one person can begin a wildfire-esque spread.
I truly hope that the perpetrators of this crime are caught and brought to trial. In the meantime, I’m going to be thinking twice before sharing someone’s Facebook pictures with others.
You should have been thinking twice about sharing other people’s photos prior to this. And blaming the internet?? Really? How about blaming boys who took the photos for raping that girl instead? How about blaming the parents who did not apparently teach their sons that raping = bad. The internet is a tool. Do you blame the chainsaw when some psycho starts chopping people up? The pigs on the farm for eating the hookers? Blame the people who committed the crime. This is a slippery slope down which you are so merrily making your way.
To me the most disturbing part of this story is that the photos have been continually circulated among various people on Facebook. So it’s not just the rapists who are posting these photos- it is a group of kids. Every time the police locate the photos online and have them taken down- they pop up again somewhere else.
That, to me, is horrifying. That group of kids could find this sort of behaviour acceptable is just mind blowing to me. I’ve read researching into the changing attitudes towards privacy as a result of Facebook. Youth often do not have a clear concept of what is private and what is not- for example, a boy will sneak out of the house to go to a concert, post photos of it on Facebook, and then feel like his privacy was violated when his parents’ find out via someone on his friends list. Children do not view the internet as public domain- which of course it is.
The distribution of these photographs is further proof of this effect, and is showing the dangerous effects of having any sort of allusion that anything posted on the internet maintains any sort of privacy. Because it doesn’t, and we’d all fair much better to think of internet privacy as non-existent.
I most certainly am not blaming the internet for the actions of the individuals who raped this girl. Their actions are inexcusable. I was merely interested in how the internet has provided a new realm for sexual harassment and abuse.
The internet is what we make it and thus a broad topic. Lets focus on whats been made in it…say “social networks”. Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and blogs.
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Many people are becoming more aware of how fast relevant information can be moved in a social network.
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Lets say to took a picture of my cat and named that picture bobby’s cat and put it on a random backwater page called bobbyandcats.com. No one I know will find that picture and it will have no meaning to people passing by. It has no meaning because it is not connected to enough relivant points data in my life.
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Social networks carry information instantly to people who can use it. I put my cat up on Facebook and 10 minuets later girls I have not seen in six years from highschool can tell me how cute it is and then compare cats with me.
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Six degrees of separation world wide. Three degrees for local? Look it up if you do not know what it means. To me it means that if their is a facebook page I can’t access I only need to travel three friends deep to get access with a person that I might know well and that they trust. A simple “put in a good word for me” and I might even get “friended.” My own personal window to someone else.
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Scared yet? I know I am.
A new web etiquette is badly needed. I do not invite fiends on my facebook page unless I can dive to their location and kick them in the head. This won’t stop whats happened to this girl though. Sue sue sue is all I can say.
“How about blaming the parents who did not apparently teach their sons that raping = bad”
I believe this at one point, but after going around and asking 13-14 year old boys if they knew what rape was and if it was wrong…a “yes” every time.
It truly boggles me how my gender is said to be conveniently ignorant of rape. I’m sorry, Tara, I just do not believe that either… I think they knew what they were doing and did it anyway. I think that they should be tried as adults to full extent of the law. I also think anytime date rape drugs(maybe including alcohol) are found in a girls system everyone in that room had better be able to prove they had no idea or did something to stop it else be tried as participants in the rape.
If that mean parents wont let their male children go to parties with girls because they don’t know what type of supervision/can’t be sure of their sons so be it. I don’t care if it was Canada, they are our neighbor and I don’t like it happening next door either.
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I am concerned about a society of voyeurs that would watch this horrendous act and then pass it on.