Essay draft 1

Increasingly, social media platforms such as Facebook have become a platform for anonymous groups in Singapore to target and attack popular social media influences such as bloggers. While what these vigilantes post on their social media platform pages may seem harmless and even taken as a joke to some, there have been instances where lines have been crossed. For instance, the home address of Singapore blogger Wendy Cheng was exposed online by a follower of the anonymous group “SMRT Ltd Feedback” in 2014. The follower had used an online tool that the anonymous group had posted on its Facebook page to find out Wendy’s address. (Cheng, 2015)The reason for this being, they simply did not like her. With thousands of followers on SMRT Feedbacks Facebook page, exposing their victim’s home address online puts their victims lives in danger. While there are laws, such as the Protection from Harassment Act to protect an individual against cyber harassments like these, the solution is not full proof and still leaves many victims of cyber harassment unprotected.

In 2014, Singapore full time blogger Wendy Cheng filed for a Protection Order against the anonymous satirical vigilante group SMRT Ltd (Feedback). According to Wendy, the anonymous group had been harassing her via social media platforms like twitter and Facebook. The group has allegedly posted insulting and derogatory comments about her looks, her character and even accused her of rigging her blog’s statistic counter and fraud, which could have potentially affected her blogging career. (Koh, 2015) When her home address was posted online for virtually anyone to see, Wendy filed for the Protection Order for fear of the safety of her 2 year old son and mother. This is not the first time that the anonymous group has exposed the home address of a person online. In 2014, following an incident where a Sim Lim Square shop owner Jover Chew swindled a Vietnamese tourist into paying a highly exorbitant price for an IPhone. The vigilante group took justice into their own hands by exposing the home address of Jover Chew online so that online users could play pranks on him in punishment for his misdeed. While these may all seem like harmless, satire pranks, it actually poses danger to victim’s lives as well as their careers and businesses.

The Protection Order was put in place in 2014. Unlike any other acts, the Protection Order is extended to the anonymous on social media. The act helps to “protect persons against harassment and unlawful stalking and provide civil remedies in relation to false states of fact.” (Yam, 2014) This means that cyber harassers will no longer be able to make untrue or derogatory and abusive communication about their victims under the Protection Order. They are also liable to punishments if they fail to obey the order. While the act may seem effective, it actually fails to take into consideration certain details, as such making the solution to the problem of cyber harassment a non full proof one.

The Protection Order does not require the anonymous to expose their identities.  This means that anonymous groups like the SMRT Feedback can actually take on another social media persona to attack its victims without breaking the rules of the Protection Order on their social media account. Also, with a large number of followers and fans of the vigilante group, stopping the group itself from cyber harassing its victims does not stop their followers from continuing to do so. As such, the Protection Order does not entirely protect cyber victims from harassments online.

Aside from the Protection Harassment Act that has been implemented, Singapore has also put in place a new “Cybercrime Command” within the Criminal investigation Department (CID) in order to combat cybercrimes. (Lim, 2015) The cybercrime command aims to create a platform whereby young Singaporeans who use the Internet often are able to work hand in hand with the police in investigating cyber-harassers. The Internet is a huge network; it is nearly impossible for the police to track down every single activity. As such, the platform will be an effective measure to take towards cyber-harassment as it allows the online community to give “tip-offs” to the CID whenever they witness an online harassment taking place, the CID will then look into the issue and take necessary actions on the harassers. (Liang, 2015).

While Cybercrime command may be effective in locating and punishing cyber-harassers, like the Protection Harassment Act, it is not a preventive measure towards cyber-harassment. Both measures only solve the issue as it arises. In order to combat cyber-harassment, actions need to be taken at the root of the problem. To prevent these anonymous groups from harassing their victims. A preventive measure would be stating rules that harmful or derogatory comments are not allowed to be posted on social media platform pages. Social media platform administrators should ensure that popular social media accounts with over a certain number of followers are monitored closely with routine checks. Should there be any form of cyber-harassment detected, the social media page will then be forced to shut down after a warning. Should there be a need, the administrators can then report the issue to the police for further action to be taken.

As the saying goes “prevention is better than cure.”  Attempting to solve the issue of cyber harassment through laws such as the Protection act order and the Cybercrime command may be effective in certain ways as mentioned above. However in order to prevent cyber harassment from taking place,  cooperation between both social media platform administrators and the police force is necessary.

References:

Koh, V. (2015, February 6). Channelnewsasia. Retrieved from http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/xiaxue-takes-out/1641824.html

Yam, P. T. (2014, September 19). Singapore Statuses Online. Retrieved from http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/aol/search/display/view.w3p;page=0;query=DocId%3A%2207275b05-417a-4de5-a316-4c15606a2b8d%22%20Status%3Ainforce%20Depth%3A0;rec=0

Lim, Y. (2015, March 06). channelnewsasia. Retrieved from http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/police-to-set-up-new/1698876.html

Cheng, W. (2015, February 6). xiaxue. Retrieved from www.xiaxue.blogspot.com.sg

Liang, L. Y. (2015, March 6). the staits time singapore. Retrieved from http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/more-singapore-stories/story/new-cybercrime-unit-within-the-cid-be-set-20150306