We tackled the challenges they face creating potentially controversial
material in an environment of mounting oppression as well as the common
pitfalls that come along with exposing people to ideas they may not feel
entirely comfortable confronting.
After a lengthy discussion about the potential repercussions to come
from tackling difficult topics, one director nonchalantly dropped in at
the end of the conversation that, “then, of course, there’s the death
threats.”
This was accompanied by a little chuckle and a disheartened grin that
implied these were all just accepted annoyances of having a voice in
today’s society. And that, it appears, is exactly what they are.
When asked to elaborate, she explained, “You know, the usual stuff. It’s
normal.”, as if it were as natural as brushing your teeth in the
morning.
The writer Anthony Horowitz said in an article this week for The Guardian that
people simply don’t disagree anymore, they send death threats. For a
person to hold an opinion that differs from your own, these days, is
seen as a personal attack of the highest degree.
This severe and knee-jerk reaction has become common place in society.
To lash out at someone with threats of death when faced with an opinion
or a standpoint we find challenging is almost de rigueur, whether we mean it or not.
Twitter Trolls send 600 rape and death threats to Labour MP in one day dlvr.it/PhlBl4
5:27 AM - 26 Aug 2017
It seems large swathes of us Internet dwellers experience such rigidity
in the way we think, the information we consume and the way we interact
that if something steps outside of those set, pre-determined lines we’ve
lost the ability to react in a rational and considered manner.
There was a time when a death threat was the exclusive territory of
maniacs and serial killers. The realm of mad men with crazy eyes who sit
in dank rooms, meticulously cutting out letters from a magazine and
glueing them together while Vivaldi plays in the background and a light
bulb flickers in the corner.
It appears this is no longer the case. The death threat has well and
truly come out from the dark recesses of society and is now fair game
for any person with two thumbs and a keyboard, while the rest of us just
accept this as standard.
I suppose our blasé attitude towards them can be partly put down to
experience. After all, of the millions of violence-inciting comments
that are spewed on the Internet each day, very few of them actually come
to fruition. And, while in the early days of the Internet, we may have
found them more jarring, in these later years we’re all a little more
war-weary on this digital battlefield.
These days, there’s not many of us who have managed to avoid the sting
of the ubiquitous Internet troll. Anything from name calling, right up
to rape and death threats, litter the comments section of many pages.
While most are ignored, laughed at, or baited further, and only an
infinitesimal number actually mean what they say, doesn’t it strike you
as crazy that this doesn’t strike us as crazy anymore?
** This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not reflect the views of Asian Correspondent
