Assignment 6- " My safe word is code blue."

Initially, when I was attempting to think of online reproach episodes, all of the examples I thought of had something to do with noobs being pwned by l33t members of whatever online group they were both a part of. These episodes are relatively minor and generally don’t cause either party any sort of lasting harm. Unfortunately, online reproach can’t always fix the damage done by violating established norms. Take the case of Congressman Mark Foley. I doubt I have to go into too much detail about what he did. Congressman Foley turned out to be a pedophile who enjoyed talking to young congressional pages on instant messenger about explicit sexual topics. I think Foley was given a false sense of security by the nature of instant messaging. It’s synchronous, so when the boys didn’t give him negative feedback right away, he probable felt that his behavior was acceptable. In addition, instant messenger gives the impression that it is recordless even though it is most decidedly not.

Foley violated not only Internet norms, but possibly the law as well. A huge range of sexually explicit material is perfectly acceptable online, just not when it involves individuals below the age of consent. An ABC news blog was the first to break this story. From there, more information was posted on other blogs ultimately forcing Foley to resign from Congress. The collective raised eyebrows of a nation destroyed his credibility.

Another online reproach episode occurred last year, when a man named posted an ad to the Craiglist’s personals section pretending to be a female who was into BDSM and looking for a dominant male. (Disclaimer: I’m sure some of you have heard of this story and know the real name of the perpetrator. I am not going to write his name here because based on what I have found out about him online, he seems to be a professional troll. I don’t want this blog coming up when people search for his name on Google. I doubt he would have any qualms about coming to this blog and causing trouble. I will henceforth refer to him as the troll.) Not surprisingly, many men responded to the ad. The troll proceeded to post the contact information, personal emails, and pictures these men had sent him onto a website, enabling many of them to be easily identified. A mild uproar ensued, with bloggers tripping over themselves to condemn him. Internet vigilante justice ended up scaring him into backing down from his stunt. People posted his address online and he had several threats made on his life. It is unclear if he was actually assaulted in real life.

The troll violated several Internet norms. Most shocking to a lot of people was that he shattered their ideas of the Internet as an idyllic paradise where they had full control over their identities. In Wallace’s categorization of Internet reproach incidences, this would probably be considered an ethical violation. The troll violated Craigslist’s policies and threatened the whole community with his actions. The troll disregarded Craigslists “sign on the door” and misrepresented himself and his intentions. The troll committed the mortal sin, in the online relationships world at least, of gender swapping. The only way sites like Craigslist can stay alive is by having relatively accurate listings and fostering a sense of safety among its users.

Unfortunately, the troll’s Craigslist stunt prompted others to pull similar copycat stunts and seemingly hasn’t stopped him from trolling. As it says on the site where his “Craigslist experiment” was posted, “He did it for the lulz.”