The Wild Wild Web
Carl Skadian <==== columnist from straits times
WHAT is it with people when they go online? In fact, what is it
about the Internet?
Have you ever noticed how normally ordinary folks turn into
monsters when they are chatting on the Internet, or the kind of
stuff you can find online - and no, I'm not even talking about
common or garden variety pornography here.
An academic who went online to study the habits of teenagers on the
Internet told this paper a few weeks ago that whenever she entered
a chatroom, the talk turned to sex, whether she posed as a
20-year-old or as a 60-year-old grandmother.
Her survey created a hubbub of its own when it revealed that
Singaporean teens are more likely to engage in risky - and risque -
online behaviour than their Nordic counterparts.
That's telling in itself.
Singaporean teens... more adventurous in the wrong ways. That could
lead to a whole new debate in the Forum pages about the relative
merits of Eastern and Western values.
Don't parents tell their children not to talk - let alone meet -
strangers in dark places any more?
Then there are postings like this, from the wildly-popular
icered.com, in response to what seemed a pretty straightforward
question about what a Singaporean with an MBA from a United States
university can earn here: 'If you really want money, learn from
Anna Nicole Smith.'
And: 'Don't come back, there are no jobs here.'
Those are the milder ones, mind you. A majority of the 'views'
expressed at such sites don't meet the minimum standards of
decency.
I'm sure most of the posters are fairly normal folk, but something
happens to them the minute they get online and hide behind the
anonymity the Internet offers.
Why?
Looking for the answers led me to a story in The New York Times,
which offered the most succinct explanation yet of why people who
are perfectly sound turn into cretins when they get online.
The story was of an Internet advertisement on US President George
W. Bush's website which attacked Senator John Kerry, who is
emerging as the front-runner in the race to be the Democrats'
candidate in the American presidential elections in November.
In the advertisement, a woman who is seeking information about Mr
Kerry online gets all sorts of scandalous tidbits.
Within the paper's story, which examined the new trend of what it
called a 'bare-knuckled political use of the World Wide Web' was
this nugget: 'Most significantly, the Web has evolved as a
relatively permissive environment.
'A negative advertisement that might rub viewers the wrong way in
their living rooms is apparently less likely to do so when they are
at their computers.'
It went on to say that 'clearly, we seem to be settling into an
equilibrium where standards on the Web are different...'
The report, however, did not answer a pertinent question: Is a
'permissive' message on the Web somehow OK because of the
medium?
Or is it because people change personalities when they go online,
and something that might anger them if found in the pages of, say,
The Straits Times, would cause hardly a ripple when they log on as
'amy99' or something in a chatroom?
My guess would be the latter, which makes it all the more
worrying.
The Web has become a parallel world with its own rules - or, some
would say, no rules - so people who hang out there aren't bound by
conventions of civilised behaviour.
This leads them to ask perfect strangers questions about their bra
sizes and such.
It's easy to dismiss such morons, but parents, especially, should
take steps to protect their children, who are increasingly using
the Internet not as an information tool, but as a meeting
place.
A quick poll by The Straits Times Interactive two weeks ago
revealed that more people are worried about chatrooms and such than
undesirable sites.
But the vast majority of those polled admitted they have not taken
all the steps available to them to protect their children, such as
moving their computers to common areas in the home and using
filtering services provided by Internet service providers.
There are enough signs that the 'permissiveness' of the Web, and
the change that a person goes through when he enters the modern-day
equivalent of Dodge City, make for a potent cocktail.
People do strange and dangerous things when the cloak of anonymity
confers them additional protection in a dark alley.
Here's some evidence: There were 11 rapes and seven outrage of
modesty cases here last year which involved contact over the
Internet or telephone chatlines.
Parents should act soon, before the lawlessness of the cyberworld
claims a victim close to them.
