My account got banned?? That’s fine, I’ll just create a new one
Liking and commenting on a picture is a common feature supported by many social media platforms. People like their friend’s picture to show support and comment to communicate. Unfortunately, those aren’t the only ways people use the tools given by social media.
Creating a social media account is easier than reading a children’s book. For social media platforms such as Instagram, all you need to do is enter an email and choose a password. If one doesn’t want to use their personal email, they can create a new email easily as well. The ease of creating an account allows for a single person to create numerous fake accounts which can be disposed of once an account gets banned by a platform.
L. Winner introduces the idea of social determinism of technological theory, where the organization and society determines the use of the technology. Having the tools of creating multiple anonymous accounts, leaving rude comments and harassing others on social media has become too easy.
Even though social media, such as Facebook and Instagram, should be platforms where everyone should feel safe and comfortable, we can’t ignore the fact that cyberbullying is prevalent. Hailey Baldwin, an American model married to Justin Bieber, posted a video of herself and her puppy. Though the post’s primary focus was on the pup, there were comments, such as “You can’t copy selena try your best I challenge u”, comparing Hailey to Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber’s ex girlfriend. Hailey later on posted a picture with the quote, “Just because you don’t look like somebody who you think is attractive doesn’t mean you aren’t attractive”. Through some of the posts Hailey writes, you can easily tell that she can see all the negative comments.
I personally have seen an Instagram story posted by an anonymous account mocking an individual who committed suicide who was in high school. The story contained horrible racial slurs and people had a hard time figuring out who the account’s owner was as it was a fake account created by a student attending the same high school.
Though social media was created to be an online community where you can help, share, educate, and entertain, parts of the platforms became a space to gossip, hurt, and expose. Using the powerful idea of being anonymous through easily creating fake accounts, cyberbullies are using technology to fulfill their own needs.
