Online Mobbing during the Covid-19 crisis: Chris Kyriacou

This blog is based on a presentation delivered at an online meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Bullying, 29th June 2020.

 

ONLINE MOBBING DURING THE COVID-19 CRISIS

 

Chris Kyriacou

University of York

 

During the COVID-19 Crisis a number of well-publicised incidents have occurred that have generated online mobbing of a target person or target group. A major feature of online mobbing is that key individuals and those supporting these key individuals are sent hundreds of abusive messages via social media. Online mobbing is often fuelled by moral outrage, where those on both sides of the argument are attempting to intimidate through abusive messages those they disagree with. In effect, they are following the maxim, “those who shout loudest (and are most offensive) must be right”. Recent incidents include the following three examples.

 

Firstly, Dominic Cummings, following the revelation of his trip to Durham during lockdown and calls for his resignation, which led to him holding a press conference in the Number 10 garden to explain his actions. In the case of Dominic Cummings, the sense of moral outrage was fuelled by the notion that powerful figures can ignore restrictions, often paraphrased in terms of ‘there is one law for the rich and another law for the poor’. Moreover, one of his supporters claimed that Dominic Cummings only did what any loving father concerned with his family’s well-being would have done. Many of the comments posted online in response to this claim were highly abusive. Many people were clearly morally offended by the implication that you were not a loving parent if you had stuck rigidly to the rules during lockdown at your family’s expense.

 

Secondly, George Floyd, following his death in the USA during police custody leading to protests in the UK in support of ‘Black Lives Matter’ and calls for the removal of historic statues linked to the slave trade. In the wake of the protests supporting the ‘Black Lives Matter’ campaign leading to the pulling down of a historic statue in Bristol, counter-campaigns involving some right-wing groups led to action being taken to defend other historic statues under threat of attack. More dramatically, a banner with the phrase ‘White Lives Matter’ was flown by plane over a football match in Manchester just after the players ‘Took the Knee’ at the start of the game. A Government Minister appeared to ridicule ‘Taking the Knee’ as a submissive act that was ‘Un-British’ and more appropriate to ‘Game of Thrones’.

 

Thirdly, J. K. Rowling, following her call for some women-only spaces to be restricted to those who are biologically female from birth, leading to a number of organisations and celebrities distancing themselves from her views as transphobic. In the case of the accusations that J. K. Rowling made transphobic comments, some novelists who use the same literary agent as Rowling have boycotted the agency and called upon others to do the same. In contrast, some of those supporting Rowling have called for a boycott of BodyShop for appearing to side with those who have criticised Rowling. A shadow frontbencher also accused J. K. Rowling of using her own sexual assault as justification for discriminating against trans-people: a claim for which he later apologised.

Once a slanging match develops on social media, supporters of one side of the argument, quickly become victims of abuse by supporters of the other side of the argument. This mutual hostility can then fuel demonstrations, protests, and violence.  There are many examples of how this mutually oppositional campaign for dominance between the two groups can fuel online mobbing.

 

Whenever there was a news-worthy development in the discussion of these three cases, there was often a spike in online abuse and mobbing. Many of the abusive comments which occur on social media in these and other cases of online mobbing, simply comprise derogatory remarks and/or threats against an individual or group of individuals. It needs to be emphasised that the key feature of online mobbing, is not that of seeking to provide a reasoned statement of one’s views. Instead, it seeks to intimate others by adding to a wave of abuse, so that those they disagree with will ‘shut up’ and behave differently.

 

Recent research on the use of abusive messages on social media has been

reported in many diverse areas. For example, Grant McGeechan, at Teeside University, looked at online abuse between rival groups of football supporters (in this case Rangers and Celtic). In another example Snehasish Banerjee, at the University of York, looked at online abuse in relation to the notion of terrorism. It is clear from such research that as a society we are facing a very serious problem regarding online mobbing.

 

There is little doubt that the emotional way many issues are discussed in newspapers, on television and the radio, as well as through social media, is a factor in fuelling online mobbing. Moreover, it is becoming increasingly easy for like-minded members of particular organisations to be mobilised to engage in online mobbing in a coordinated manner. For example, some groups use specific online platforms to share abusive material. A recent report by the Community Security Trust highlighted the use of an online platform called BitChute by far-right groups to spread racist propaganda during the Black Lives Matter protests.

 

Online mobbing is, of course, a complex area to address through education, monitoring, and legislation. We must not treat all abuse on social media as if they were the same in origin and motive. One of the complexities of this is that the messages range from bots (generated by organisations and even governments) at the one extreme and casual comments reflecting all manner of frustration, bile, and prejudice, at the other extreme. Whilst some abusers are out to intimidate and destabilise, others are just letting off steam.

 

Moreover, some people seem to regard anyone who works in the public arena as ‘fair game’ for abuse. This includes members of the royal family, politicians, film stars, footballers, and journalists. Nor can we easily appreciate the impact of abuse on the individual. Some people are much better able to cope with abuse than others.

 

Another feature of mobbing, is that if enough people convey their moral outrage about someone who has said something or done something which is viewed as offensive, the strength of the hostile public opinion indicated, in part, by the volume of abuse expressed online, can led to that person being immediately sacked or forced to resign from positions they hold.  In some cases, a remark made tongue-cheek or a statement quoted out of context, can have harsh consequences for the person before any opportunity to explain or defend themselves has occurred. In some cases ‘trial by social media’ has taken place almost instantaneously rather than a more thoughtful period of consideration and due process. Even a quick public apology and withdrawal may not be sufficient to curtail the consequent damage. In such cases, an element of the online mobbing can sometimes contain false accusations and deliberately contrived fake-news explicitly designed to inflame emotions, which are then widely shared on social media, in order to damage the target of the online mobbing.

 

We now need to understand much better the use of online mobbing to cyberbully others. Widespread concern regarding the use of online mobbing to stifle debate has been voiced in an Open Letter signed by 150 public figures, including Margaret Atwood, Noam Chomsky, J. K. Rowling and Salman Rushdie (Open Letter, 2020). We need to take effective action as soon as possible to ensure that legitimate freedom of speech, public debate and protest can take place in our society without fear of online intimidation and subsequent violence.

 

In thinking about the types of action that could be taken, it would be sensible to focus on cases of online mobbing where a specific, named individual has been targeted, rather than cases of generalised attacks aimed at a group of people. There are five key ways in which action can be taken to deal with the online mobbing of an individual.

 

Education in Schools. All schools have a policy on bullying. Such policies should include having personal and social education lessons on bullying, and procedures to be followed in dealing with cases of bullying. One of the important messages conveyed to pupils is that cyberbullying is totally unacceptable and can cause severe harm to those targeted. Schools need to review their policies to ensure that a consideration of online mobbing of an individual is covered effectively.

 

Work Place Education and Training. Employers and employees need to be aware of behaviour that is unacceptable, and can lead to reputational damage to the organisation and dismissal. It is essential that the consequences for anyone involved in online mobbing, either targeted at a workplace colleague or client, or extending to someone beyond the workplace, are made clear at all times.

 

Regulation of Social Media Providers. Those who provide social media have a moral obligation to ensure that the platforms they provide are not used to harm others through online mobbing. Providers should be required to sign up to a code of good practice that includes action to address the use of hate speech, and to block the accounts of those engaged in online mobbing. Failure to do so, should lead to fines.

 

Citizenship Education. All adults need to be made aware of the unacceptability of online mobbing and the harm it can bring about. This can be viewed as good citizenship, and should form part of public campaigns that seek to address all forms of bullying, and to encourage those who experience or witness online mobbing to call it out.

 

Legislation. Individuals should be made aware that online mobbing can lead to civil and criminal prosecution. In such cases, the focus will need to be on particularly serious cases where those engaged in the online mobbing can be expected to have been aware of the harm being caused to the victim.

 

In conclusion, it is evident that the harm to individuals targeted by online mobbing should not be tolerated. This is undoubtedly a complex area to address, as is already the case for other forms of bullying. However, the diverse nature and extent of online mobbing taking place in our society since the onset of the Covid-19 crisis, indicates that online mobbing may have been fuelled by the anxieties and concerns generated by the crisis. The danger facing us now is that online mobbing will continue to occur frequently after the crisis has ended unless effective action is taken.

 

Correspondence

 

Emeritus Professor Chris Kyriacou, University of York. Department of

Education, Psychology in Education Research Centre, Heslington, York YO10 5DD.

Email: chris.kyriacou@york.ac.uk

 

References

 

Chua, A.Y.K., & Banerjee, S. (2020). The topic of terrorism on Yahoo! Answers: questions, answers and users’ anonymity.

Aslib Journal of Information Management, 72(1), 1-16.

http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/154122/1/Aslib_CQA_Terrorism_PURE.PDF

 

Community Security Trust. (2020). Hate Fuel: The hidden online world fuelling far right terror.

https://cst.org.uk/news/blog/2020/06/11/hate-fuel-the-hidden-online-world-fuelling-far-right-terror

 

McGeechan, G.J. (2020). Scotland’s continued ‘shame’: Sectarianism in the 21st century and the role of computer mediated communication. North of England Bulletin, 1, 36-40 (Leicester: British Psychological Society). A copy of this paper can be obtained from the author: G.McGeechan@tees.ac.uk

 

Open Letter (2020). A Letter on Justice and Open Debate. This open letter was posted online on 7th July 2020.

https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/

One thought on “Online Mobbing during the Covid-19 crisis: Chris Kyriacou

  1. I really admire the clear-sightedness of this blog post and think that it does a spectacular job of making the ‘strange familiar and the familiar strange’. I think that this is exemplified in the statement ‘[wh]ilst some abusers are out to intimidate and destabilise, others are just letting off steam’, because I think that many people make or like comments on Twitter and other social media platforms without properly considering the impact that they may have others’ feelings. Yet, as pointed out, it’s important that as a society we don’t meekly accept online mobbing as an inevitable ‘fact of life’, but instead recognise that it is something that can and should be addressed individually and collectively. Finally, I think that the link drawn between the nature of online mobbing and the degradation of public debate and deliberation is vital – if we’re to have a well-functioning democracy, we need to be able to to communicate tactfully and effectively with those with whom we have disagreements.

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