Double-Edged Sword

Despite the relative newness of social media, it has become a cliche or, at the very least, a statement of the obvious to call social media a powerful communication tool. This vehicle enables any one savvy enough and with access to a computer to communicate with hundreds of thousand and even millions of other people with amazing speed and ease. For individuals, this new reality represents an exciting opportunity for any singular man or woman to make greater connections with others who may share similar interests and aspirations though they may not have ever met in-person. For news organizations, social media, including the Internet itself, is a perfect way to bring light into dark countries that censor or limit information that runs counter to what governments want their people to know.

However, most sadly, a tragedy of just a few days ago involving the suicide of an 18-year-old male student at Rutgers University is a reminder that the advanced communication technology now dominating the world's information flow is a double-edged sword. As was once again demonstrated, social media can also be used to do great and serious harm. This young man was outed as being gay by a fellow student who secretly videotaped him being intimate with another young man. Without the student's knowledge or permission, the person who did the taping blasted the video out over the Internet. Upon learning what had been done to him, the Rutgers student committed suicide. It is difficult to find anything in recent days more gut-wrenching than this tragedy. It is the most recent example in a number of incidents in which young people have killed themselves as a result of being humiliated, bullied and/or harassed via social media.

At this point, I remain uncertain as to what can or should be done by our government to prevent this type of tragedy and abuse. Free speech is essential to our free society. But with that comes the reality that there are those who will be abuse it due to their own irresponsibility, stupidity or meanness. My sense is we should not try to legislate that kind of bad behavior even though that is tempting. My concern is such legislation might compromise the kind of legitimate use of the Internet by news organizations, for example, or even responsible or well-meaning individuals. But at least for starters, it might not be a bad idea for parents, educators, civic groups and, yes, even the government band together to begin educating young and old people alike about the double-edge sword that is social media. From what we learned at Rutgers, it is apparently a matter of life and death.