Conversation about Crowd Action

Crowd Action in the Context of Anonymity in Social Media

The following two articles on the use of Anonymity in Social Media served as the background for this conversation:

Does Freedom of Expression Entail a Right to Anonymous Publication?
362 / red-256  (2023-11-27).

Further Analysis and Possibilities with Respect to Anonymity in Social Media
363 / red-257  (2023-12-01).

The following letter from Malik Ghallab started the conversation. It actually referred to the first one of the two articles above:

I fully agree with you. The controversy in the US reflects a strongly individualistic view that can no longer support a peaceful democracy.

Briefly, I consider that:
- there are no possible rights without duties;
- freedom and other rights are limited with respect to the rights of others, individuals, groups, society and nature (we now understand why);
- speech acts can have as much effects as any other acts, including very good or harmful effects;
- harmful acts against society (possibly nature) are even more dangerous than against individuals, they should be more severely prosecuted;
- we should strive to keep a clear distinction between knowledge and belief (a distinction at the core of laic societies); established knowledge cannot be a matter of opinion and alternate trough that can be harmful to society;
- as you explain clearly, there is no technical problem in expressing oneself with a pseudonym that can be traced back by a court if needed to keep every person accountable for her acts, which is essential in a lawful society.

Answer from Erik, 12-02:

I agree with what you say there; society has valid reasons to set up rules about what actions may take place under its auspices. However, there is also another consideration that I think is related to what you write:

- if a large number of people perform similar acts each of which is harmless, then the combined effects of these acts may anyway be quite harmful for a specific person, or for society.

This is an important consideration since our legal system is designed to react on specific acts, by specific persons. It is not focused on situations where each act in a swarm of them is not sufficiently damaging (and not sufficiently well-defined) to warrant a case in court, and where at the same time, the combined effect of the swarm is significant in a negative way. A number of well-known and problematic behaviors can be understood in terms of this consideration, such as the behaviors of mobs and of unruly demonstrators.

The effects of a large number of false statements on-line, or statements of fake news can also be damaging even if each statement taken separately is insignificant. It is a nontrivial problem, having no clear solution, how a society shall best deal with situations of this type. It would seem that both individuals and aspects of government must be engaged in order to handle them.

Malik's reply, 12-03:

You are right, I forgot this aspect which introduces dangerous amplifying effects (positive closed-loop). Re your first paragraph:

This is an important point for society to identify and regulate what is considered harmful.

Re your second paragraph:

I believe there are regulations for groups acting in unruly ways, eg, in France demonstrating is a constitutional right, but demonstrations can be forbidden on a case by case basis if there are clear risks of harm to society. We have some evidence from social sciences of what social media posting can be harmful, and we can further develop studies and criteria allowing balanced regulations

Erik's reply, 12-03:

Agreed, but at the same time I think the measures that our societies have at their disposal for handling 'crowd action' are quite blunt and need to be made more effective. Moreover, they have evolved for handling things such as demonstrations which have been around for a long time, whereas new technology such as social media introduce new challenges which will require new solutions. These challenges do not merely concern 'fake news' and the like. The use of social media (as well as cell phones) for assembling flash mobs is another example.