Taming the online lynch mob with digital justice

Online lynch mobs are as old as the internet . There’s something about the ease and speed of online communications combined with the written word and its lack of emotional context, that leads to flame wars and witch hunts.

Social media in particular is a haven for lynch mobs. On Twitter, we even have a word for it — a “Twitterstorm”. Hundreds have been caught in the eye of the Twitterstorm — Eric Bristow, Justine Sacco and the dentist who shot Cecil the Lion.

Twitterstorms have been around for a while and BuzzFeed have done a great job charting the 29 stages of a Twitterstorm.

But we should not accept them as a fact of life.

We need to tame them, because it’s an all to slippery slope from online anger to active bullying, death threats and real world injustice. Indeed, I think they undermine faith in our justice system because digital shapes our offline behaviour as well.

Just look at how a politician like Trump can criticise the judiciary and get away with it, or some newspapers can call judges enemies of the people. We mustn’t forget that they are reflecting existing public opinion as much as shaping it.

But mob justice is terrifying. Anyone, guilty or innocent, can be caught in it’s snare.

The chilling BBC Newsnight documentary Farkhunda: The making of a martyr — about a woman in Kabul murdered by a lynch mob, falsely accused of burning the Koran, shows the inherent danger of leaving justice to the mob.

Lynch mob mentality must not be left unchecked — online or offline. To work, the rule of law needs to be everywhere, and that includes digital space.

That’s why I was delighted to see a Swiss court convict a man for ‘liking’ defamatory Facebook post in landmark ruling this week.

Now you can be prosecuted not just for posting and commenting on social media but for an online micro-transaction — in this case a Facebook “like”.

But why is a “like” enough for prosecution?

A like tells the algorithm that the content is worth spreading. That’s why you are an accessory. Your action has actively encouraging the illegal act — the publication and promotion of libellous material.

What could this ruling mean elsewhere? Certainly other Facebook actions such as Like, HaHa. And this would apply to other social media channels too such as a Twitter like or an Upvote on YouTube? It’s not yet clear though whether a Facebook “Sad” or a Downvote on YouTube would count in the same way.

Where the ramifications gets really interesting is when we think about the way the Newsfeed algorithm uses “current viewers” to promote a story.

I don’t know how Facebook Live works exactly but if the algorithm promoted a Facebook Live higher up the news feed based on number of current viewers (which would be a logical thing to do — you’re more likely to want watch something all your friends are watching than something that only a few of them are watching,) then the extension of this ruling would be that if you are viewing some illegal act, say a Facebook live, you could become liable for prosecution just for viewing it.

Your viewing would be classified an encouragement (even if unknowing) and therefore make you an accessory to the illegal act.

But the problem is, we don’t know how Facebook’s algorithm works in this case. Regulations for Algorithmic Accountability, an EdgeRank oversight group, have still yet to reach the drawing board.

Maybe if we did know then the solution to Facebook’s moderation crisis (Policing the POPS — the thorny issue of regulating Facebook, Facebook Live: Zuckerberg adds 3,000 moderators in wake of murders) and the tricky problem of curbing illegal Facebook Live’s is really less a Facebook problem than digital empowerment of the existing justice system and the rule of law.

It is clear is that we need is a fully powered up digital justice system. To do otherwise risks letting a infection of digital mob justice spread further.