Social Media Trials – an inferno which will engulf us all

Al Franken resigned from the Senate last week after a spate of allegations against him. His resignation speech was massively criticised by many.  When I listened to it, the speech reminded me of the multiple facets which were wrong about our system. As a person growing up in India, I always read news where media would convict an individual without proper trial. Then, there were instances where people take laws into their own hands and hand over punishment to people on the streets. The inability of the judicial branch to run a fair and fast trial on the accused or protect the rights of the common citizens, made the medial and social trials a very fancied alternatives. All of a sudden there was a craze to beat someone on the streets with no trial. While they did get the right perpetrator at times, it was a dangerous trend, as it gives authority for a group to hit anyone you don’t like. With the social media, I now see these two dangerous trends have been amalgamated to create a parallel judicial system filled with trolls who have the attention span of a sparrow. If legislative side is beginning to get affected by this then I feel the next few years are extremely dangerous. I want to break this down by clarifying my position on sexual harassment, and then on this public justice obsession.

Most traditions and almost every religion claims that it has great respect for women, however I haven’t seen even a single one do so in practice. Women have been subjugated and abused for generation. It is great to hear their voices and see the change in the society.

Sexual abuse is a despicable act and shouldn’t be tolerated even between partners. What is worse than the abuse itself is the victim bashing. One cannot blame someone else for one’s inability to keep their libido to themselves. It is paramount to have a society where people speak out against the perpetrators without any inhibition. It is also more important to ensure the society protects these people. I wish more people come out in open to share their stories and more people do so immediately. Above all, I wish these incidents stop happening in the generations to come. So, I want to eliminate these three main oppositions to the people coming out.

1. They had it coming because of their lack of culture, values or morality.
2. They should avoid group mentality and handle this as individuals.
3. They should have done it immediately. Since they have delayed it, the accusation lacks merit.

All three reasons are copouts by people who do not have any intellectual capital.I have carefully framed the sentences neutrally with no reference to any gender.

My concern is not with people coming out but the way these accusations are being dealt. For what it is worth, these are still accusations and do not have proof yet. I want more and more people to come out and share their experiences, but I do not want people to take action on that. We should have an investigation before taking actions. Ten accusations doesn’t mean one is guilt of the crime, it just increases the probability of having done it. Investigation needs honest assessment of facts over emotional reaction to certain posts. Reality is different from reality shows. Facts cannot be measured by number of likes. This lynch mob mentality has been a dangerous development in the last few years. Someone says something and twitter goes crazy for a couple of days. Then they move on to the next issue leaving people behind.

Genuine Victims are left behind

Social Media is great as a mechanism to reach out to thousands of people. What used to take days to achieve has been reduced to minutes if not seconds. However, the mechanism to disseminate information cannot be used to accelerate investigation. One of the key aspect of investigation is protection of victims and ensure they get their due justice. By not letting investigation run through its due coarse and by exhibiting the primitive mob mentality, people affected will not get the necessary justice. They are told that a bunch of people have just abused the accused perpetrator and at its worst, the person will have to find another job. This is not justice for the genuine victims. This doesn’t prevent further such incidents, this doesn’t provide legal protection to the victims, this doesn’t ensure that the victim can move on in their life.

You could hurt an innocent

It might sound harsh and even brash to the moral crusaders in Twitter, you can hurt innocents by doing your emotional justice mechanism. When Starbucks CEO said that he plans to recruit refugees, one group started going more to Starbucks and another one started attacking them. The result is few innocent coffee-goers got hurt. By responding to sexual abuse allegations with instant vilification, you might end up crusading against everyone and not just the perpetrators. You also set a dangerous precedence where anyone can raise a point and a mob picks it up and acts on it. This is not different from how the notorious religious extremist groups react. They don’t care about facts, they just pick up clues from one of their biased media outlets or Twitter rants and react. In this process, you do not know who gets hurt.

Facts are bigger than emotions

The media is hardly sharing facts. In stead they are sharing emotions. For some reason, this seems to be the anti-pattern. When I read a news item, I am looking for answers to the three of the important questions.

1. What did the person do?
2. What is the evidence for saying that the person did that?
3. What are the causal factors which led to this?
4. What are the supporting evidences which will corroborate this story if any.

At the same time, I am wary of flowing emotions and call for immediate judgements without presenting any evidence what so ever. As I say this, I also acknowledge that most sexual abuses happen when there is no third person to testify. Also, it makes the life of the victim extremely harrowing to answer prying and deeply skeptical questions. This also is a testimony to my original point of protecting the victim. So, it is a fine balance and a skill to muster enough evidence to be able to piece together a picture. We are emotional beings but making decisions without looking at facts, especially when it can affect countless lives is a dangerous precedence.

Selfishly, it could be “you”

As the saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for, lest it come true.”  When people ask for these emotionally charged immediate decisions, it sets a dangerous trend. I have been having discussions with some of my colleagues on this dangerous trend. Everyone can fall into a majority or a minority group depending on the group. So, if you start to make decisions depending on whether the victim belongs to a discriminated minority and not on facts, the trend can come back to hit you hard. Let’s focus on the crime and evidence and not the demographic. If I find ten non white, straight, christian, male to say something about you, then are you guilty?

You follow the collective over the cliff

The other dangerous trend I see is to claim innocence if a person is elected. Donald Trump, Roy Moore or Al Franken cannot be termed innocent because people have decided to elect them in spite of the accusations against them. This is a phenomenon of collective suicide. Popular opinions and facts are not always linked. Further it creates a herd mentality and people stop thinking.

Conclusion

To conclude, I feel people should take the following steps before taking against individual.

1. Hear the victim
2. Protect victim’s identity and interest
3. Share the next steps with the victim and also call out for the need to protect the accused’s identity
4. Commit to a free and fair investigation
5. Act based on the evidences found
6. 1. Take necessary strong action if the evidence is conclusive
   2. If the result is inconclusive but favours one party over the other, then
   3. 1. Protect the identity of the individuals
      2. share the findings
      3. Issue necessary warnings
      4. Move the doubtful person from any role of influence on the other
   4. If the result is completely inconclusive, then
   5. 1. be transparent with the findings
      2. protect identities
      3. ensure you take necessary actions to be able to capture evidences in the future.
7. Reflect on the policies and make appropriate changes

If you do not follow the due process before making any decision, then it is a dangerous trend. It could very easily create divisive environment, snowball into a moral crisis and polarise people to form group consensus rather than solve the issue.