Digital Victims

It is said that the digital age has begun with the pandemic. Maybe this is a forced transition. Of course, a certain audience was already living in the digital age. However, the pandemic has forced everyone into a digital ecosystem. We have made our work digital, our news digital, our communication digital, in short, we live our lives digitally. While this is the case, where are we in this digital world and how safe are we?

Everyone is a candidate to become a digital victim. You ask why? There is a serious misinformation. At the same time, there are vulnerabilities depending on the users or the organizations that provide the technology. We need open pathways to justice for individuals and groups harmed online and through technology. Inadequately regulated data services and products and laws and rules established in the physical world are not reflected in the digital world. As a result, the public has little or no knowledge of who is behind deliberately harmful digital behavior. This has allowed known forms of physical abuse (bullying, gender-based violence, stalking, sexual assault, elder abuse, trafficking) to proliferate on uncontrollable scales. For example: 2 out of 5 women experience online sexual harassment. 1 in 12 adults in the US is a victim of non-consensual pornography. 96% of deep frauds are non-consensual pornography targeting women without their consent. There has been an 86% increase in image-based abuse since the Covid-19 measures went into effect in Australia. 59% of teens report being harassed or bullied online. 48.7% of LGBTQ students have been cyberbullied. The age group most targeted by cybercriminals is people aged 60 and over.

The above information is only the moral and ethical side of the business. There are many people who have been defrauded with technology, whose information has been stolen, who have been misguided to gain benefits, whose accounts have been emptied, and who have been harmed due to information errors. Regardless of whether you suffer commercial or individual damage, regardless of the type and size of the damage, unfortunately, there is not a state or platform where you can fully seek your rights or have legal investment enforced. This makes your potential to be a digital victim at any time very high.

For example, let's try to explain the issue with a very simple example. Imagine that you are a company that provides services in the plastics industry. A customer or individual is dissatisfied with a product and your customer or individual has no morals. You can start a smear campaign by spending money about you, your company or your product using digital channels and you may have to fight this smear campaign even though it is not true. When it comes to digital platforms, a snowflake can turn into a snowball in a very short time, and a snowball can turn into an avalanche with incredible speed. With this avalanche, you have to fight the windmills relentlessly by spending time, money and money. Moreover, as a result of this struggle, even if you have managed the crisis very well in one way or another, rumors will remain. Is it not possible to prevent this or to manage such chaos harmlessly and correctly? Of course it is possible to create a larger avalanche and respond with the same strategy. In other words, it is possible to take precautions by being strong in digital media, by taking the necessary precautions well in advance and creating awareness much, much earlier.

In order not to be a digital victim, it is inevitable for us to know digital life and live according to its rules. The right education and the right perspective will always introduce you to the right digital life. Doubt is not a flaw but a way of life today.