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Bobby Travis

This is a post by Bobby Travis, who wrote with me at 40Tech from 2009 through 2012. Bobby has since moved on to bigger and better things, but I've left all of his great contributions up on the site. - Evan

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Normally, I like to stick to light and fluffy things like how-to’s and reviews. I don’t get up on my soapbox often and I don’t like to mess up people’s days by spreading things that I wasn’t happy to learn. Today is a bit different. The fundamental shift in the way we gather, process, and spread information, while having a hugely positive affect on social efforts like fund and awareness raising, has an equally destructive affect when in the hands of those whose moral centre lays somewhere a billion or so feet below ground. What happened on Facebook over the past week — and is still happening now — is every bit as horrible and disgusting to me as the act that preceded it. I am, quite frankly, unable to fully process it, which is why I am writing about it, trying to put it into some sort of sense.

I live in the Vancouver area (Canada), not far from a relatively small suburb that is mostly a farming town. Last Saturday night, a rave was held in Pitt Meadows. At this rave, a 16 year old girl was separated from her friends, most likely drugged, and gang raped by seven males, in a field in the back of the home. A 16 year old boy took pictures of the act — and then posted them on Facebook. If both of those things weren’t disgusting enough, you won’t believe what happened next. The photos went viral. Even though Facebook acted fairly quickly, once informed, and removed the pictures, people were sharing them with other people. People were downloading the pictures to their computers. They apparently keep resurfacing, no matter what lengths the police and others have gone to remove them.

What kind of sick, bloody, world do we live in? Oh, I am perfectly aware that things like gang rape and other deplorable acts have gone on since the beginning of mankind, and are likely going on even as we read this — but for people to actively participate in this sort of thing by sharing it with others and saving it for later viewing and yet more sharing?? That is the sort of thing that makes me want to say to hell with the world, the internet, social media, and people in general, and take my wife and 2yr old daughter to live somewhere far off and secluded, in the middle of nowhere. I really, truly, cannot process or in any way understand this sort of behaviour. I think that everyone involved, including those perpetuating this disgusting mess, should be made to understand exactly what that poor girl went through. Figuratively of course.

I am not an advocate of capital punishment — not usually — but things like this make me reconsider that stance. There have been at least two arrests, thus far, one of them being the boy who posted the photos, and another an 18 year old male who allegedly participated in the assault.

Your average human being with a heart will be horrified enough by what happened to the girl. How, then, are we supposed to react to or handle people gaining enjoyment from photos of such a thing — and then continuing to use the world’s new social medium to share and spread that twisted enjoyment with others — who also enjoy it? I’m at a loss. Is there even a precedent for prosecution for that, outside of child pornography cases?

I really don’t know.

You can get more information at the Vancouver Sun’s website.