King, Melissa. “Better Online Living through Content Moderation.” Model View Culture. Feminist Technology Collective, 14 Oct. 2015. Web. 23 Mar. 2016.
In “Better Online Living through Content Moderation” by Melissa King content control features has its pros and cons. There’s many settings such as a block list, privacy settings, and content warnings. These are good things for a person who just wants to have total control over what they want to see or happen online. Others such as people who suffer from PTSD use these features for things that trigger their anxiety. Either way it’s their choice to use or not to use the control settings. According to King, society doesn’t take a like to people who use the control features because the person is considered too sensitive. But, there is definitely cyber bullying happening and the internet can be a dangerous place. Like I mentioned above people dealing with PTSD gets anxiety attacks from seeing or hearing certain things and people just dealing with bullies online isn’t safe either. How would you feel having someone threaten your life through the internet? The block feature or report feature comes into hand in situations like this. Cyber abuse is a serious problem that still happens today and although this one thing can’t stop it all but it can help contribute to the elimination of the abuse.
The major argument of this whole issue is a person’s sensitivity. But how can you measure someone else’s sensitivity? But for that reason Exposure Therapy came into play. According to King, Exposure Therapy is “a type of therapy designed to combat severe anxiety through gradual and controlled exposure to its source, to inure an individual to these triggers and lesson the disruptions they can cause.” This type of treatment is suppose to have a highly positive effect on people who have PTSD. A common myth that goes along with PTSD is that only people who have went into combat are the only ones who suffer from this but that’s not correct at all. According to Caleb Lack in his research he found that online harassment can cause PTSD. He then makes the statement, “‘Yes, you can ‘get’ PTSD from Twitter.'” If the harassment carries on for a long period of time a person will get diagnosed with PTSD.
Blocking and a block list are the most popular elements from content control currently. Of course people who are getting harassed or just doesn’t feel comfortable with someone or something they’ll use the block setting, but what’s interesting is that people who feel as if the harassment is wrong to someone else they’ll block them too. I’ve never heard of Gamergate, but according to King apparently it’s pretty serious and dangerous. It’s online abuse to it’s max. They go so far as in threatening family members, posting addresses, and pictures of targets. They just want to silence people. It’s just crazy!
At the end of the day this is something that occurs in society and we have to deal with it. Content control is a good ideas just too many views from too many people around the world just cause chaos. So, there really isn’t a solution currently.