Post #4: "Panopticism"

The thought of what 17th century towns did during a plague is a frightening one. People were prisoners in their own homes, and were punished by death if they dared to leave. Everyone was monitored and locked up in a metaphorical cage. Citizens of the town were permanently watched and controlled; guards would report to the mayor and magistrates were in charge of keeping watched over the households. Each individual was constantly examined and their every move was supervised.
Enter the Panopticon: a type of circular prison in which inmates could not tell when they were being watched by their superiors. Designed by Jeremy Bentham, the Panopticon was created to imply the presence of an invisible watcher. The idea that a person is always being watched will inevitably alter their behaviour.
The idea of the Panopticon can be related to Internet vigilantism. In the case of "dog-shit girl" as we see in Kingsley Dennis' article about online surveillance, the general public has a large amount of power. In South Korea, a young woman refused to clean up her dog's defecation on the subway even though fellow passengers urged her to do so and offered her tissues. Passengers snapped pictures of the girl, her dog, and the mess that she made on the subway and posted the pictures on a popular Korean website. In a short amount of time, the girl was identified and began to receive negative media attention.
This kind of "web vigilantism" is prominent on an imageboard website called 4chan. The site is split into many different categories, such as Cartoons and Comics, Video Games, Cooking, and Sports where users can anonymously post content. The most notorious board on 4chan is /b/, in which there are no rules as to what users can post. Users on /b/ are infamous for tracking down individuals based on pictures or information that they post. In February 2009, a boy posted a video of himself abusing a cat on YouTube. Users on /b/ were able to find out the boy's identity and alert the authorities. Along with tracking down people who have made bomb threats, /b/ revolutionized the notion of Internet Vigilantism.
I find Internet Vigilantism fascinating. Rarely are users ever credited with bringing others to justice. This is the true spirit of vigilantism: focusing on justice rather than glory.