Photo By Dana LeBron
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the viral craze
https://www.buzzfeed.com/mx/tag/jennifer-lawrence-nude-pictures
The response from the public that you would hope for is one based on sympathy and understanding. As empathetic creatures, we don't blame the person whose house was broken into during the night. Or the person whose car was hotwired and stolen.
Yet something about this case was different. While some felt sympathy for the stars, others deeply blamed and shamed them for what was viewed as a "sex scandal" or "carelessness." 'Scandal' here insinuating blame and guilt. Online forums and app feeds were riddled with insults and direct attacks on the victims, both angry and mocking.
As if that wasn't malicious enough, others directly participated in the crime by further distributing the content on other sites. Many users viewed it as a joke or prize. A woman prided herself on sending the video to her husband while amusingly calling herself the best wife ever. A man posted it as something akin to a present on 4chan for other users to have for their own pleasure.
Let's not forget the popularized image of the hacker persona. This blamed brand we place on victims has upheld its structure even with the character created through cinema and media. The hacker is usually depicted as a destructive narcissistic figure obsessed with his personal significance with a blatant disregard for others surrounding.
Though this is rooted in stereotypical perceptions, even with a widely accepted hacker persona, we are still eager to attack the victims from not only the celebrity photo incident but every other hack.
Shouldn't we have deleted the photos and reported the posts? Shouldn't we have openly expressed our empathy in our tweets and snaps?
I say empathy here rather than sympathy because, at the end of the day, can't we truly relate? Those of us who have a phone, laptop, iPad, what have you, are all at risk for security breaches like this. In the advanced technological era we are living in today, it's next to impossible to be completely private online. While it is important to understand a device's capabilities for defense against hackers, it is progressively harder to limit our exposure.
Cybercriminals have found ways to monetize just about any kind of data and one simple mistake can lead to one worm, one virus, one malware that has the ability to enlist our devices to botnet networks, gain access to personal accounts and information, and infect other computers. Whether our personal data is shared with advertising companies or third parties, there's a very real chance it is indefinitely stored in databases.
Like it or not, we all have potential targets on our backs.
I say this not to create fear, but awareness.
Somewhere along the way we normalized this blame.
We know the internet isn't impenetrable. These violations serve as reminders that it's an unstable foundation, and yet we forget. So let's write it on the back of our hands and remember that hacks could happen to anyone. In shaming those celebrities you are a shaming a potential you.
Sure there are other important questions to ask: what can we do to further prevent victims from hacks?
There are measures we can take to try to take and prevent attacks such as updating passwords, installing a credible VPN, and recognizing potentially threatening emails. And at the same time, we can't monitor our information stored in large databases like Target and Sony, whose databases were breached last year.
Because the internet has grown to be so vast and complex over the past thirty years, so have the hacks. Instead of looking out for just one species, there are new and improved breeds every day.
In a seemingly inevitable future, it's important to focus on finding a healthy way to reverse this societal blame that has constructed a harmful stigma. Maybe through spreading awareness about our susceptibility, it will invoke compassion in bitter users who have lowered themselves to victim blaming. Perhaps it also will invoke fear. It's hard to say, but one thing is for certain:
Being hacked or potentially hacked shouldn't stop you from living your life . We can't listen to the cruel voices that echo our guilt, it's not worth it.
Sure, we could delete our online accounts, refrain from taking photos, live in constant anxiety. Or, we could accept a rational risk in trusting that our privacy is safe and acknowledge that everyone else is doing the same.
It's time to shatter the stigma and embrace the takeaways that celebrity hacks and other leaks have taught us: invasion of privacy is wrong. The internet shouldn't influence that ruling. The victims of these attacks aren't to blame because we are all potential victims to these personal violations, just as we are in the offline world. So let's start treating these incidents the right way.
The hacked are not to blame, guilt, or shame.
Using Social Media To Promote Positivity
Social media is often seen as a negative, but recently I've been trying to use it to feel gratitude.
I spend a lot of time thinking about, looking through, and posting on social media sites like Instagram and Facebook. Communicating with many of my friends all at once, anytime, both enhances and limits my life. I love keeping up with everyone, seeing their adventures and whatnot but a lot of the time social media is a huge source of my own insecurities.
Not only insecurities of body image, beauty, and fashion haunt me as I scroll but I find myself comparing other aspects of my life to those that I see on screen. Should I be eating at those trendy restaurants? How can these girls afford to buy such expensive cocktails every night? Are they having a better college experience than I am?
They all look so happy.
In a sea of beautiful people, Instagram has become a place of competition. If your picture is poorly edited, you bet it's being critiqued by a group of sorority girls somewhere. If you misspell a word or your grammar is a little off, it's the same. Don't forget the constant need for validation from likes that's even expanded to asking people "is this OK to post?" before showing off another selfie.
I'm absolutely guilty of doing all of these things, but recently a close friend of mine had the brilliant idea to share positivity on social media. Not just a graphic of a quote he found on Pinterest, but a list of small things he noticed throughout the day that he appreciated and wanted to pass on.
"Today I'm Grateful For:"
Like many things on social media, others noticed what he was posting and there was nothing but inspired feedback and admiration by imitation. Soon I started posting lists of things I appreciated as well and so did others on my feed. It was a chain of passing on positive ideas.
After posting for a few weeks, gratitude posts can get a little harder to make. I found myself dedicating time in the day to thinking back on how I spent my time and what ordinary things I noticed. While I composed my ideas every day, Kevin, the man who started it all, was working on creating a social group to post and share these gratitudes called "Marvel at the Ordinary." Watching the group grow on Facebook was just validation of what was already seen on Instagram –– people want to engage in practicing and sharing gratitude with others. The group grew from 11 members to over 600 in about two months.
Posting gratitude on social media a way to ground yourself in meaningful validation. People will comment that they relate or love what you're writing. Instead of a like or a comment on a picture, you will get a more personal human interaction over social media through gratitude journaling.