Digital harassment and the mistake of believing you are attacking someone who will not retaliate

Social media is a fabulous forum for debate in which some people project their inability to respect others.

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Just as in real life, some people lack the most basic skills and arguments to engage in reasoned debate, and faced with the obvious consequences of this when confronting others with their opinions (for example, being ridiculed), some take a dangerous shortcut: harassing those who disagree with them. This harassment often includes not only insults, defamation, and slander against the targeted person, but also the publication of personal information to intimidate the victim and force them to self-censor to avoid further problems.

I think it goes without saying, but those who choose to harass others because they are unable to respond to their arguments are demonstrating that they are despicable and intolerant people who hate freedom of expression, who cannot accept opinions different from their own, and who try to force others to subscribe to their views or remain silent. A democratic society cannot condone such behavior, and tolerating it is moving towards the law of the jungle.

Those who engage in cyberbullying demonstrate a complete lack of moral scruples. They are malicious individuals who believe the ends justify the means and that the rules of coexistence in a civilized society do not apply to them. These kinds of people often harass others by taking advantage of the fact that their victims are not like them. A bully will always feel stronger the better person the victim is, believing that the victim will not retaliate. The problem for these evil people is that a bully always runs the risk of encountering a victim who is just as bad as they are, or even worse.

I don't expect to peacefully convince those who act like totalitarians, but I believe it's necessary to issue a warning, for the good of society. Under normal circumstances, a person who expresses their opinions respectfully online has the incentive of public scrutiny to act correctly. If they say something wrong or commit an injustice, that person knows their prestige and credibility would be at risk. However, when a harassment campaign is successful, the victim usually fades into the background and becomes discreet. What was once a person who dedicated their time to offering arguments and protecting their reputation is now a person with a lot of free time who no longer acts in the public eye.

Imagine what such a person might do if they turn out to be as bad as, or even worse than, their bullies, or if the bullying has simply left a psychological scar that translates into an obsession with taking justice into their own hands. The more widespread bullying practices become on social media, the more likely it is that some victims will end up like this, and that the bullies will suddenly become the target of a retaliation they won't even see coming. This is the risk that malicious people run when they trample on the rules of coexistence and engage in bullying. They believe that threatening the private life of a good person is the right thing to do if they win, and in doing so, they forget that they too have a private life that can be threatened by attitudes like theirs, coming from those who have suffered their despicable acts.

Thus, every time harassment begins, a clock starts ticking that the harasser doesn't see: the one that indicates the time that the harasser can spend from the moment they begin trying to intimidate a person until those attempts turn against them. If we're talking about harassment motivated by political extremism, the situation worsens, since the harassers are possibly creating new extremists (their current victims) and an environment conducive to revenge. In Spain, we already had a clear example of this: far-left activists who dedicated themselves to harassing ideological rivals ended up suffering a response of their own making, and now they're complaining because if before they were the harassers, now they're the ones being harassed.

It goes without saying that I don't feel sorry for those bullies who have become victims, but their cases should serve as an example to many: this is what you risk when you try to intimidate others with mafia-like tactics. In the end, you might end up running into people just as mafia-like as yourself. That's why it's important to respect the basic rules of coexistence, because outside of them, you find yourself in a situation that can end up causing serious problems for everyone, including those who choose not to respect them.

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Photo: @lcaohoanq / Unsplash.