17.2. Crowd Harassment

Harassment can also be done through crowds. Crowd harassment has also always been a part of culture, such as riots, mob violence, revolts, revolution, government persecution, etc.

Social media then allows new ways for crowd harassment to occur.

Crowd harassment includes all the forms of individual harassment we already mentioned (like bullying, stalking, etc.), but done by a group of people.

Additionally, we can consider the following forms of crowd harassment:

• Dogpiling: When a crowd of people target or harass the same person.

• Public Shaming (this will be our next chapter)

• Cross-platform raids (e.g., 4chan group planning harassment on another platform)

• Stochastic terrorism

  • The use of mass public communication, usually against a particular individual or group, which incites or inspires acts of terrorism which are statistically probable but happen seemingly at random.

  • See also: An atmosphere of violence: Stochastic terror in American politics

In addition, fake crowds (e.g., bots or people paid to post) can participate in crowd harassment. For example:

“The majority of the hate and misinformation about [Meghan Markle and Prince Henry] originated from a small group of accounts whose primary, if not sole, purpose appears to be to tweet negatively about them. […] 83 accounts are responsible for 70% of the negative hate content targeting the couple on Twitter.”

• Twitter Data Has Revealed A Coordinated Campaign Of Hate Against Meghan Markle

17.2.1. Reflection Question

Do you believe crowd harassment is ever justified?