Communities, discursive practices and behavioral patterns of digital vigilantism in Russia: politico-axiological approach

Some of the hypotheses regarding the activities of vigilantes formulated by M. Asif and D. Vennik in the article “Vigilante rituals theory: A cultural explanation of vigilante violence” can be recognized as universal and fair in relation to digital vigilantism today:

-- “The likelihood for people to engage in vigilante violence increases when perceived violations of moral imperatives arouse righteous anger and fear in them.

-- The likelihood for vigilante violence increases when righteous anger and fear, aroused by perceived violations of moral imperatives, are mobilized and channeled through vigilante rituals.

-- The likelihood for people to transform these emotions into violence through vigilante rituals increases when legal legitimacy is low.

-- The likelihood for people to transform these emotions into violence through vigilante rituals increases when authorities encourage vigilante action”.

Similar hypotheses stay relevant in relation to digital vigilantism when it comes to people's attitude to digital vigilantes and the violence they carry out:

-- “Low legal legitimacy is positively associated with the support for vigilante violence.

-- Authorities' encouragement of vigilante self-help is positively associated with the support for vigilante violence” [13, p. 15].

-- It should be added that the attitude towards virtual violence (bullying, shaming, doctored photos, etc.) in society is more tolerant by analogy with virtual violence in games.

Thus, the repertoire of the vigilantes' network activity includes actions that compensate for the insufficiently effective activities of the state bodies, as well as actions that usurp state functions, up to the right for legitimate violence. Digital vigilantism in the implementation of discursive practices focuses on both established national values and mobile “universal” values introduced in social networks, illustrated by the phenomenon of “new ethics”. Digital vigilantism is an actual phenomenon for many modern states, not only in terms of the legal aspects of the activities of vigilantes, but also in terms of their participation in the process of forming public values via social networks. Vulgarization of language and communication practices in social networks becomes a tool of speech influence on the formation of people's consciousness and behavior. Instead of the bet on intelligence (knowledge and understanding), the bet in social networks is on the primitivization and manipulation of human biological behavior, and on its liberation from beliefs, knowledge, understanding, morality. The brightness, imagery, accessibility of visual and textual content of social networks makes groups living in networks a super-ideological digital community ready for external manipulation and management.

It is a common fact that the formation of public values involves the discussion of the most significant challenges and the joint formation of the public policy agenda, it is a joint activity of the state and civil society. A number of communities of “vigilant citizens” is really capable of interacting with the state, but among the vigilantes there are tendencies to ignore the state and law. We are talking about actions that replace legal justice, not only violating the freedom of others, but sometimes creating conditions for “opponents” and “violators” for physical violence and extra-judicial, extra-legal mechanisms and acts.

First of all, this concerns the practice of turning people into memes and using doctored photos and digital civil lynchings, often going from online to offline space. There are many examples of civic vigilance, when the initial act (an unsuccessful formulation, thought, quote) causes a reaction that, from a moral point of view, is much more dangerous and disproportionate to the act itself. For example, in October 2018 in the Sverdlovsk region, Olga Glatskikh, director of the Youth Policy Department of the Sverdlovsk region, addressing the youth, framed the infamous phrase “the state did not ask you to give birth” and enlarged the public base “Quotes from officials” Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1c_4BUoqvQ (accessed: 23.08.2021)., where in the comments there are calls to kill, emotional and obscene expressions. As a reaction in the network, you can find photoshopped and doctored photos of an official (Olympic champion in rhythmic gymnastics in 2004) that are offensive and contain threats of physical violence. Despite the official inspection by the executive authorities, despite the explanations of the official about the words taken out of context, even after several years, links to mutilated photos and obscene comments accompany this surname in the search bar. Online activity is increasingly turning into offline actions, as was the case with the conflict in Yekaterinburg or the events in the Chemodanovka in 2019, digital vigilance is a spreading and mobilizing force that is simply impossible to ignore in modern conditions.

Based on numerous studies, it can be argued that digital vigilantes, seeking to regulate ideas about the “normality” of behavior, claim to be a significant subject in the formation of public values, using often aggressive, bordering on extremist forms of social interaction in the social networks of the digital environment. At the same time, they increasingly turn out to be not nameless avengers, but rather individuals seeking to assert themselves and achieve through inciting conflict not only their own goals (including making a profit), but also a certain popularity or “network power” that is well monetized.

The question arises about the correlation of protest practices and vigilantism. It seems that the defining issue is relations with the state. Most modern protest movements and initiatives are addressed to the state and are a form of interaction and polemics (up to demands of regime change), but not a dialogue. Digital vigilantes, claiming online to legitimize (by increasing the number of likes) an alternative system for identifying violators, criminals, victims, and punishments, are building an alternative process for the formation of public values that ignore and could replace the state. In the language of M. Foucault, visible political violence allows them to “deploy its pomp in public” [14, p. 3]. The conducted research allows to conclude that vigilantism as a social phenomenon is and will be a specific form of civic engagement and involvement in publicity for certain groups of the population. The possibility of interaction with such movements (both online and offline formats) is not excluded for the system of public policy, if a framework (procedures, rules) will be established for them, which will determine their auxiliary functions (notification, informing, propaganda). The proliferation of vigilante movements and their demonstration of direct violence is a significant indicator of the inefficiency of the public policy system, a decrease in the level of legitimacy and support for its institutions and indicates an increased risk of loss of state governability.

Continuing to study various aspects of modern public policy in Russia and in the world, we are sure that “the civil organizations and citizens' remoteness from the centers, political and governmental decisions channels of passing by bureaucratic procedures, regulations, legislative rules, have to be overcome not only by the interactions initiated by the power, but also by creation of conditions for development of the local citizens' initiatives contributing to the development of society and multiplication of the public benefit (including using the ICT)” [28, p. 345-346]. However, in the context of the problem of the development of vigilantism in Russia, the importance of the formation of “constitutionalism of citizens' consciousness” as a factor of for preserving state governability is only increasing.

References

1. Smorgunov, L. V. (2019), Institutionalization of governability and the problem of veillance in the space of digital communications, Iuzhno-rossiiskii zhurnal sotsial'nykh nauk, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 62-75. (In Russian)

2. Danilov, A. N. (2020), Return of the dictatorship: a new reading of modernity, Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Philosophy and Conflict Studies, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 105-115, https://doi.org/10.21638/ spbu17.2020.109. (In Russian)

3. Sunami, A. N. and Trufanov, G. A. (2021), Hostility discourse on account in mediasphere and risk reflection frame, Konfliktologiia, no. 4, pp. 43-57. (In Russian).

4. Smith, N. R. (2019), Contradictions of democracy: Vigilantism and rights in post-apartheid South Africa, New York: Oxford University Press.

5. Lund, C. (2006), Twilight institutions: Public authority and local politics in Africa, Development and Change, vol. 37, no. 4, pp. 685-705.

6. Arrobi, M. Z. (2018), Vigilantism as `Twilight Institution': Islamic Vigilante Groups and the State in Post-Suharto Yogyakarta, PCD Journal, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 213-237. https://doi.org/10.22146/pcd.35215

7. Nivette, A. E. (2016), Institutional ineffectiveness, illegitimacy, and public support for vigilantism in Latin America, Criminology, no. 54, pp. 142-175. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12099

8. Moncada, E. (2017), Varieties of vigilantism: conceptual discord, meaning and strategies, Global Crime, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 403-423.

9. Johnston, L. (1996), What Is Vigilantism?, British Journal of Criminology, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 220-236.

10. Phillips, B. (2017), Inequality and the Emergence of Vigilante Organizations: The Case of Mexican Autodefensas, Comparative Political Studies, vol. 50, no. 10, pp. 1358-1389. https://doi. org/10.1177/0010414016666863

11. Kyei, J. R. K. O. and Berckmoes, L. H. (2021), Political Vigilante Groups in Ghana: Violence or Democracy?, Africa Spectrum, vol. 55, no. 3, pp. 321-338. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002039720970957

12. Schuberth, M. (2013), Challenging the weak states hypothesis: Vigilantism in South Africa and Brazil, Journal of Peace, Conflict & Development, no. 20, pp. 38-51.

13. Asif, M. and Weenink, D. (2019), Vigilante rituals theory: A cultural explanation of vigilante violence, European Journal of Criminology, vol. 19, iss. 2, pp. 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1177/1477370819887518

14. Ward, M. (2020), Walls and Cows: Social Media, Vigilante Vantage, and Political Discourse, Social Media + Society, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 1-4.

15. Bateson, R. (2021), The Politics of Vigilantism, Comparative Political Studies, vol. 54, no. 6, pp. 923955. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414020957692

16. Trottier, D. (2016), Digital Vigilantism as Weaponisation of Visibility, Philosophy & Technology, vol. 30, iss. 1, pp. 55-72. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-016-0216-4.

17. Trottier, D. (2019), Denunciation and doxing: towards a conceptual model of digital vigilantism, Global Crime, vol. 21, no. 3-4, pp. 196-212. https://doi.org/10.1080/17440572.2019.1591952

18. Chang, L. Y C. and Poon, R. (2017), Internet Vigilantism: Attitudes and Experiences of University Students Toward Cyber Crowdsourcing in Hong Kong, International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, vol. 61, no. 16, pp. 912-932. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X16639037

19. Douglas, D. (2016), Doxing: A Conceptual Analysis, Ethics and Information Technology, vol. 18, no. 3, pp.199-210.

20. Skoric, M. M., Wong, K. H., Chua, J. P. E., Yeo P. J. and Liew, M. A. (2010), Online shaming in the Asian context: Community empowerment or civic vigilantism?, Surveillance and Society, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 181-199.

21. Dunsby R. M. and Howes L. M. (2019), The NEW adventures of the digital vigilante! Facebook Meta признана экстремистской организацией в РФ. users' views on online naming and shaming, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, vol. 52, no. 1, pp. 41-59.

22. Mclure, H. (2000), The wild, wild web: The mythic American west and the electronic frontier, The Western Historical Quarterly, no. 31, pp. 457-476.

23. Meagher, K. (2007), Hijacking civil society: The inside story of the Bakassi Boys vigilante group of south-eastern Nigeria, Journal of Modern African Studies, vol. 45, no. 1, pp. 89-115.

24. Tilly, C. (2003), The Politics of Collective Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

25. Volkova, A. V and Lukyanova, G. V (2020), Communication strategies of digital vigilantes: in search of justice, Proceedings of the 2020 IEEE Communication Strategies in Digital Society Seminar, ComSDS, pp. 24-26. https://doi.org/10.1109/ComSDS49898.2020.9101239

26. Kulakova, T. A. and Kuznetsov, N. V (2014), Manageability: mechanisms of ideological coordination of the modern Russian State, Konfliktologiia, no. 4, pp. 160-177. (In Russian)

27. Petrova, N. P. and Petrova, A. A. (2021), Violence as a mechanism of constituting social reality, Konfliktologiia, no. 2, pp. 172-179. (In Russian)

28. Kulakova, T. A. and Volkova, A. V (2019), Ethical dimensions of anticorruption policy, Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Philosophy and Conflict Studies, vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 336-348.

Размещено на Allbest.ru