Monday, 22 October 2012
In our last class, we discussed Amanda Todd's suicide and the internet vigilantism the hacking group 'Anonymous' took to find out the identity of her perpetrator. The group released the name of one British Colombian to the public, who they believe pushed Amanda Todd to commit suicide. Recently, it has come to light that this man was not the perpetrator, after his name has been released. This brings to question whether what the hacktivism group is even right. Obviously they had good intentions in bringing the name of the terrible person that tormented this young teen. However, they did not even give the right name. I understand these groups are trying to do the something good for their community, but they are violating the community's privacy rights. Not only is this illegal, but it can also be dangerous. What if someone that was close to Amanda decided to take the law into their own hands, and harm this man that 'Anonymous' identified. Then later it comes out that he wasn't involved at all. A completely innocent man could have been harmed for no reason, other than because these internet vigilantes thought they could provide justice themselves. This is why i believe criminal justice should be kept in the hands of the police and the judicial system. Here is the article I took this information from http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/10/19/f-doxing-tracking-online-identity-anonymity.html.
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Its the classic case where someone is trying to take the law into their own hands. A lot of super hero movies almost always portray this as cool and helpful, yet extremely detrimental to the strategic process of crime fighting that has evolved over many years. The best way to approach these situations is to work with, not in front of, any efforts to stop crime or solve cases.
ReplyDeleteI like what you said there at the end Phil, however do you feel that if at times we worked in front of certain situations, we could prevent a lot of bad activity? I understand as in this case there are risks to be made,and at times the wrong people may get blamed, but I feel it could be very beneficial as well.
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