Understanding consent becomes complicated when access is easy. And when the default mode of the economy we live in is over-sharing, it raises ethical questions about consent that aren’t easy to answer. It is worse to fall back on declarative laziness.
The largest violations of consent in social media are by the news media, and a lot of it arises from ignorance, or a lack of understanding of how to use the platform to their advantage. For instance, if a woman tweets about being assaulted and a news channel picks it up, displays it prominently, that is violation. The woman’s right to consent is completely ignored; make it a second assault on her agency. To argue that it is public domain, and said news is in public interest, makes it seem simplistic.
Even if the news is in public interest, can that be a blanket reason for all such incidents? Sexual assault and rape are serious issues, and reporting on it requires some sensitivity, a sort that is employed only with regard to the victims of these crimes. If a news channel cannot use a rape or sexual assault victim’s name without their express permission, why then would the same rules not apply to social media? To say that the victim put it up and hence has lost all rights to the content is ignorant and downright unethical.
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Imagine the internet as a physical space, say a park. Every little space occupied by someone is carved out as personal space. In a physical setting, the legal and ethical thing to do is receive permission from a person before encroaching on their personal space. Doing so, the person still has complete control over the space and can exercise their choices in the place. This isn’t dissimilar to a reporter sticking a microphone in front of a man in Nepal who has lost everything he owns, and possibly his family, to a devastating earthquake, and asking him to recap everything that he’s been through. While it may be argued that this is in public interest, one cannot ignore the many issues with such a blatant disregard for another’s free will.
That the media routinely does this, in spite of repeated protests, is no excuse to keep doing so. The nature of the two incidents may not be similar, but the treatment of it raises questions about how the media sees itself and why it finds it tough to respect the personhood of its subjects. That said, if the job of the watchdog is to watch and report on issues in public interest, where then is the line drawn? If it is case-by-case, what are the rules here? Until these questions are answered, it will be difficult to ascertain what actions are appropriate and lead to situations like #GoBackIndianMedia. We shall have to be resigned to being caught with our collective feet in our collective mouths.