Technology as a double-edged sword is now common wisdom. Social media, instant messaging and file-sharing sites have become fertile grounds for disseminating information. While Internet technologies have been harnessed for public good, they have also given rise to undesirable behaviours with devastating consequences.
Recent incidents include a student from a local university who became the target of vile attacks on Facebook after she criticised the university’s financial aid system, and a grassroots volunteer’s personal particulars, including his mobile number and his child’s information being posted online.
Singapore’s first case of online harassment with fatal consequences was recorded in 2010. Then, a student from Myanmar committed suicide after her ex-boyfriend wrote cruel insults on her Facebook page.
Online harassment runs a wide gamut, from impersonating someone, spreading rumours and lies about the victim, posting pictures of victims without their consent, to unrelenting verbal abuse and threats. Much attention has been drawn to problems faced by children and youth, and cyber-bullying is the most widely known form of online harassment.
When encountering vitriolic speech in forums or on websites, one can exercise the power to ignore, report or leave. However, when one has pictures and personal information, sometimes embellished with untruths, disseminated online, one becomes powerless. A victim’s humiliation and desperation multiplies online and with no boundaries.
A recent conference organised by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) deliberated on harassment in various contexts. The conference was attended by about 100 participants from academia, the legal profession, civil service, non-governmental organisations, voluntary welfare organisations and the media. A common theme that ran across all three panels is the stark lacuna in Singapore’s legislative framework.
In Singapore, the Defamation Act protects individuals from libel, slander and malicious falsehoods while the Miscellaneous Offense Act targets threatening, abusive or insulting words and behaviour. However, these acts do not cover conduct that does not directly threaten the recipient but still constitutes harassment.
Other forms of legal redress under Singapore law, such as pursuing a private summons or the application of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cap 68) that deals with trespass, do not address the problem of cyber-stalking activities. Furthermore, obtaining a civil injunction from the court to restrain the perpetrator may provide victims only with delayed recourse, if any, as information is disseminated widely and almost instantly on the Internet.
Victims of harassment suffer from insufficient protection and face an unclear path when seeking recourse, especially when harassment occurs or spills over to daily life. Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Law, Mr K. Shanmugam, has indicated that new laws on harassment will be tabled next year.
The announcement has been met with support, ire and skepticism. There are discernible misgivings concerning the government’s true intent as well as contention on who should be responsible for curbing online harassment. Some perceive that the implementation of yet another regulation smacks of a nanny state over-extending its grasp on individual freedom.
Clearly, the lines of intent, responsibility and ownership are blurred, which is why several issues need to be addressed.
Protection versus censorship
Any regulation pertaining to online speech inadvertently triggers doubts on the government’s motive, sparking fears of censorship and a clamp-down on online discourse.
What governments in other countries have done when it comes to online harassment is to either implement new legislations or amend existing ones. Regardless of the approach, they target communications that are threatening, grossly offensive, indecent, obscene or knowingly false. One example is New Zealand, where a recently proposed legislation makes incitement to commit suicide an offense.
In July 2012, the State of New York became the 15th state in the US to pass a cyber-bullying law in response to rising incidents of online harassment of children and youth on Facebook, Snapchat and chatrooms. The amendment specifically targets electronic communications that repeatedly comment on a child’s sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and statements that cause serious embarrassment to a child.
As such, any new laws targeting online harassment will have to be lucid in defining what constitutes objectionable material, leaving no doubt that they are victim and harm-focused.
Responsibility and ownership
One of the key takeaways of a panel at the IPS conference is that law plays a dual role. Other than providing legal recourse for victims, it assumes a symbolic role through setting standards for acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, reinforcing positive social norms in the long run.
Speaking at the conference, Prof. Tan Cheng Han, Chairman of Media Literacy Council, mooted the idea of establishing an independent tribunal to look into cases of online harassment. Victims can seek help from the tribunal if websites do not take down the comments or postings in question. Besides providing a more informal and speedy way to redress victims, a tribunal involving known individuals in the public domain helps shift the locus of responsibility away from the state to the community.
Finally, as users of technology, we have to assume greater ownership for our actions online. We need to be more cognizant of the dangers that lurk beneath the web and be responsible for the information we share about our lives, ourselves and our children.
Many are unaware that changing privacy policies and default settings on social media platforms such as Facebook are making our profiles increasingly less private. Even more are unaware of the fact that the pictures we take with our mobile devices and share online have longitude and latitude information embedded in them, which allows for location tracking.
No one deserves to be a victim of harassment, not any child, any woman or man. It is our personal responsibility to be aware of the consequences of going public and to make informed decisions so that we are less susceptible to abuse. It is now time for all of us to draw the line.
The writer is a research fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies and works in the area of arts, culture and media at IPS.
A shorter version of this was first published in the Straits Times on 30 November 2013.