The Obvious Choice Is Not Always The Right Answer

     The Internet Age is an age where everyone's life is literally on the Internet, their personal information, their bank accounts, their jobs, all revolves around it. Although this technology revolutionise everything including our daily lives, it also brings along bullying, or in this case cyberbullying. With our fast growing Internet which is till in its infantile state, comes the spread of bullying, now not only can people bully others in their neighbourhood, or school ground, they can also bully others who are thousand of miles away. People blamed such widespread of bullying on Internet anonymity, believed to be the source and essence of all cyberbullying. They think that anonymity allows people to bully, and harass others through hate speech, and sometimes even death threats without having to meet the consequences; however there are some people who think that even though with all of its detriment to the society, anonymity provides  so much more to the society that it outweighs the damage that it can and has already caused. Thus, comes the question, should we or should we not proscribe anonymity? Or is anonymity even the main problem?
     First of all, anonymity gives socially conscious voice power. It allows people to focus more on what is being stated rather who is saying the statement. It gives people the freedom to speak out and know that they'll be safe from harm (Milner). People are no longer afraid to express what they believe and what they are seeing of our society. They do not have to hide behind their mental barrier and repress their opinion just because their ideology is different from the world they came from. Therefore anonymity proves to be very important and valuable to the society we are living in today, a society where one can instantly get bashed for sharing a different opinion from the majority. Even though, anonymity gives cyberbullies a free pass to do whatever they want, we have to consider that bullying has existed long before the invention of the Internet. Who's to say that removing anonymity will stop cyber bullying? Anonymity is not the root of bullying, racism, sexism, stereotypes, bigotries, which have been embedded into our society and culture for centuries, are the true centres of bullying. Therefore, if we want to stop cyber bullying and bullying altogether, we should start by ending all of these unnecessary discriminations. After all, if we are to remove the weeds, we should start with their roots, or they'll grow back over and over again.


Norleakvisoth Lim