Citizen Journalism or Mortification?

Photo : Mediacorp

In the past when women got into a heated argument, it would probably escalate into a public shouting match. A little public embarrassment for both parties but there would be nothing more than that. At the most there would be an exchange of colourful swear words and vivid descriptions of each other’s genitalia. But that would be about it

But today, when women get into a heated argument, they would most probably take out their mobile phones and take videos of each other. These embarrassing movie clips would then find its way onto various media sharing websites for all to see as a form of sweet revenge.

A simple search on Youtube and other similar sites would attest to this fact. These popular video sharing portals are now home to several movies of women quarrelling at the train stations, office lift lobbies, markets and various other public spaces that women have no qualms about making a scene at.

But embarrassing videos are just the tip of the trend. Public humiliation by popular media seems to be the latest fad amongst Singaporeans today. Websites like Stomp are now the latest weapons against anything or anyone that we have an issue with. These include personal peeves, neighbours who hang wet laundry, inconsiderate commuters who don’t give up their seats, bad service staff and even harmless old women giving foods to cats.

Some hail this as testimony to the glory of citizen journalism. I see these as thoughtless citizen mortification.

Now that cameras can be found on virtually any mobile phone, privacy is increasingly becoming a rare commodity. Yet some have taken it upon themselves to blatantly invade the sanctity of others by recording and photographing actions that they themselves deem inappropriate – and then uploading it onto “citizen journalism” sites that are more than willing to further humiliate these unsuspecting victims. Better still, there is nothing that the law can do about it.

Ours is but a tiny island that is getting very crowded by the day. Life is bound to get unpleasant if we do not start to think about legislations that could protect our dignity in the context of today’s technology. We need to ponder this very seriously indeed. It’s about time that an unwell person should be allowed to take his seat on the train in peace, without having to worry about being photographed by anyone whenever a pregnant lady steps in.

But while some kind of law to this effect starts to kick in, there needs to be a conscious effort, especially by the owners of these popular media to inculcate the values of responsibility and respect for the space of others. Candid and voyeuristic photography should not be encouraged to flourish, like what some radio station is doing.

Starting this month, Class 95 FM is offering a cash prize of $950 to anyone who could record down and make public a video of Singaporeans behaving either badly or nobly in public. These “Ugly Singaporeans” videos will then be published on a podcast site for viewers to judge. Do we really want to encourage this kind of behaviour in Singapore? Are they really that desperate in driving traffic to their sites at the expense of other people’s dignity? I shudder to think of the dozens of videos of innocent people framed to look like they have done something eminently wrong.

A word of advice for all those wanting to win this cash prize by hunting for these ominous videos – to find the ugliest Singaporean, you may only need to point your camera at the mirror.