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TikTok has developed another worrying form of cancel culture.

There is the digital equivalent of every neighbourhood’s curtain-twitching busybodies emerging on social media, calling out random people for cheating or lying or something of the sort on their platform, causing more harm than good.

Dazed Digital is pleading that these puritanical snitches stop their TikTok vigilantism tactics and stick to minding their own business.

Cancel culture is a cultural phenomenon in which an individual deemed to have acted or spoken in an unacceptable manner is ostracised, boycotted, shunned, fired or assaulted, often aided by social media. While this trend has slowly started to show more fang than function, a new form of digital vigilantism is making the world feel like a giant Neighbourhood Watch Association.

Internet vigilantism describes punitive public denunciations, aimed at swaying public opinion in order to “take justice into one’s own hands” by engaging in forms of targeted surveillance, unwanted attention, negative publicity, repression, coercion or dissuasion. While this trend is not exactly new, a TikTok iteration is making waves.

In the latest instance of this emerging trend, a woman on TikTok posted a video (June 25)  of a man on a plane after eavesdropping on his conversation and accusing him of cheating. She then went on to list a number of identifying details and urged her followers to help track down his wife to break the news.

This bid for help was successful; both the man and his wife were quickly identified, and their names were posted online, along with photos of their family.

The post spread like wildfire, with the response largely split down the middle. For some, the post was a disturbing act of spying, bordering on harassment; for others, it was “accountability reporting”, an effective form of activism in some circles.

is this why they’re banning tiktok pic.twitter.com/K3pbvVMcnD

— jen rice (@jen_rice_) June 24, 2024

Granted, there have always been cases where it’s permissible, or even for the public good, to share footage of someone acting badly in public – like if someone is screaming racist abuse at someone else, then privacy is second to none. However, the line for the kind of behaviour that invites this response is moving all the time. Now it has gotten to the point where it includes intimate situations which shouldn’t honestly concern anyone but the people involved.

What also makes this kind of online vigilantism different is the moral posturing.

When the latest incident went viral, it was disturbing how many people defended it as a morally upstanding course of action; a blow against misogyny, or an uplifting example of women sticking together.

While cheating is obviously morally wrong and harmful, sacrificing real people on the altar of viral content is inevitably going to do more harm than good.

@prettycriticalwhen i saw someone post a family photo, i knew y’all had lost the plot♬ original sound – prettycritical

It adds salt to the wound when you’re made to discover something so painful by thousands of internet-poisoned meddlers turning your private life into a public spectacle, posting your personal details and (if you have any) photos of your children, and ensuring that everyone you know hears about it at the same time as you do.

This all begs the question; do people have a right to police someone random when they disapprove of their conduct in their private life?

Unless we want to live our lives scared of the TikTok secret police, it’s time to stand up to the snitches and bring back minding your own business.

[source:dazeddigital]