Mainly, this will reference and expand upon the mid-year developments in cyber-bullying protection in the Family Court as discussed in this ABC article. Summarily, a 21 year old man was sentenced to community service for sending threatening text messages to a 17 year old boy who subsequently committed suicide. I believe instances such as this show a responsive invocation of society's methods and means being applied in a progressive manner. Here, Victoria's stalking laws we relied upon; laws which have themselves been progressively interpreted to adapt to the emerging virtual realm. Accordingly, they were shown to extend to matters such as the present, where a framework is needed so that "...people can operate and know what they can and can't do..." (Mr Nicholson, Chair of the National Centre Against Bullying, quoted on p. 1). This would appear to be a step towards our acceptance of "virtual" responsibility as an extension of those we labour under the "real" world. Seems radical?
I believe that while there are obvious differentials in aspects of physicality in the virtual world, it is an abrogation of our existing sociological systems for us to draw absolute distinctions between the "real" and "virtual" whereby we renounce the practical ramifications of actions we take, albeit while sitting in front of a screen. Furthermore, I don't think that the citation of isolated instances such as that of the above should be utilised for undue fear-mongering about the dangers and insecurities people feel online - insecurities they similarly feel in the "real" world. Rather, these are small pieces of the puzzle of how our sociological mechanisms and processes must adapt in tandem with our own development.
Conversely, it has been suggested at one or two junctures this year that maybe our liberties are at stake in this processes of delimiting the ideal and virtual realms. There is merit to this, along the lines of its interior logic of John Stuart Mill, regarding the continuance of our inalienable rights to conduct ourselves as we wish - up until the point that it impinges upon others. Just like life. Until we can wholly extract ourselves from the spatio-temporality of "reality" while navigating the virtual world, how can we maintain these illusory distinctions and allowances of "imaginary" and "real" without it necessarily collapsing into a solipsistic selfhood of everything we are, have been and always will be. All in the name of anonymity we're conditioned to fear in "reality"; underneath that Burqa, lying underneath our bed. And yet it's pragmatically tolerated, in part merely because the digital technologies we have developed are one step ahead of our historic systems of governance? Whether or not we're "appearing offline", there are real consequences to everything, seen not only in similar cases to the present, but the very fact we're not - in line with such pragmatics - where we aren't when we're anywhere (i.e. the fact of we're surfing the internet doesn't mean that we've ceased to exist anywhere else nor can we be assured that if we live out our dichotomous delusions, our cat won't die, husband/wife won't leave, and tax collectors won't beat our doors down).
In conclusion, we should also consider the reasons driving our longing for such an idealised 'virtual' space. Who are we really running from? Even if we had the keys to the kingdom of such a Utopia, where have ideals ever existed unfettered from the realities of poisoned apples, persuasive talking snakes and/or the very structure of the ideal that dictates "this is ideal, this is not. You are, and you aren't."
Andrew
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