We are all familiar with the typical Cyber-Troll: the anonymous poster who latches onto someone in any of the myriad cyber-forums devoted to discussion and debate of hot-button topics (like NDE vs. ID, politics of any variety, abortion, insert issue of choice here) and won't let go. Most of us even know of certain personas that have been banned from numerous forums for an inability to maintain civil discourse – or even follow posted 'rules' – but who keep right on changing their pseudonyms and their ISPs and their emails so they can keep right on going without a pause. Very frustrating.

Psychologist Daniel Goleman answered the Edge "World Question 2005" ["What's Your Dangerous Idea?"] with a short piece on what he calls Cyber-Disinhibition. He describes this 'new' psychological disorder thusly:

"The Internet inadvertently undermines the quality of human interaction, allowing destructive emotional impulses freer reign under specific circumstances. The reason is a neural fluke that results in cyber-disinhibition of brain systems that keep our more unruly urges in check. The tech problem: a major disconnect between the ways our brains are wired to connect, and the interface offered in online interactions."

Goleman goes on to mention that this psychological phenomenon has been recognized since the very earliest days of the internet, when Arpanet users invented the term "flaming" to describe a cyber-message using words and portraying a confrontational attitude the person behind it would never use face-to-face. Because to behave this way in real life interrelationships would leave a person friendless or get them fired. Unless they're the boss, in which case they'll likely be promoted.

Goleman takes this farther into cyber-weirdness by linking the disinhibition state to really harmful situations, such as "cyber-bullying" (favored by teenage girls, long known to be the meanest critters on the planet), and even enlisting minors into cyber-sex situations. Goleman's "dangerous idea" – that the internet may harbor social perils our inhibitory circuitry was not designed to handle in evolution.

Something to think about, but fear not! It's not like our Fearless Leaders haven't attempted to deal with this problem in 'the usual' ways! Just last Thursday President Bush signed into law the "Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act," which carried an odd little rider that probably not too many people noticed: it make "annoying e-mail messages" a federal crime.

c/net News has an article by Declan McCullaugh about this little present, which comes attached to stiff fines and up to 2 years in prison for violations.

In Section 113 of the new law there's a little tidbit called "Preventing Cyberstalking," which is basically a rewrite of existing telephone harassment law, which "prohibits anyone from using the internet 'without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy.'" Though the word "annoy" could probably use some clarification, this is what the law now says. The rider was slipped into the reauthorization bill by none other than Arlen Specter, knowing that no legislator would dare oppose the bill because reauthorization of DoJ was necessary. Nifty how that works, isn't it?

An earlier version of the bill was approved by the House of Representatives in September was worded differently, criminalizing only cyberspeach through an "interactive computer service" if it caused someone "substantial emotional harm." Which, believe me, is really difficult to establish in a court of law.

The constitutionality of this law has of course not yet been established. It no doubt will eventually be tested on constitutional grounds as soon as it seriously affects someone with a few million dollars to waste taking it to court. But until then, maybe we should all review our cyber-postings before hitting "Post" to see if they pass legal muster?

This entry was posted on Monday, January 9th, 2006 at 3:04 pm and is filed under Random Stuff, The Debate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.