What is the bystander effect? Well, PsychologyToday defines it as "when the presence of others discourages an individual from intervening in an emergency situation." Online abuse could definitely be considered an emergency situation if you have a person's reputation, emotions, or eventually what could be their life at stake. When people witness online abuse they become bystanders to the situation, even if the situation is occurring through a computer screen or mobile phone.
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| Be like this kid. Put on your hero mask and save someone's day. |
I found that the article by Carrie Rentschler brought up some very interesting points in regards to this bystander effect on the internet.
Rentschler quotes Jacque Wernimont saying,
“There is no technological fix to online violence. The problems are social and so are the solutions.”
This is so true in regards to online abuse. People may want to say that we should make more laws fighting against online abuse to make the internet more friendly but the reality is that laws are meant to be either followed or broken. Abusers on the internet will continue to find different ways to keep on doing what they do. The real solution is to fix the social aspects of the problem. If we can create an online society of non-abusers than it will be less likely that people will act in an abusive way. As Rentschler says, "To be effective, bystander intervention must be a collective effort, not only an individual act." As a society, if we start and continue to take away bystanders and turn them into by(STAND UP)ers than abusers may start to shy away knowing they will not be able to get away with that behavior.
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