‘Cancel Culture’ Has Become More Pronounced on Social Media – DLSU Study

Instances of cyberbullying and harassment have become more pronounced on social media as they are no longer limited to individuals or groups, but include even personal beliefs, opinions or general ideas, too.

Falling under these broad yet related categories is the rise of “cancel culture,” otherwise known as “callout culture,” which excludes someone out of social or professional circles, as well as “public bashing,” which refers to often accusatory or abusive verbal attacks circulating in cyberspace.

In a 51-page study titled “How Filipino Youth Identify and Act on Bullying and Harassment on Social Media,” a five-man research team of communication and psychology experts from the De La Salle University (DLSU) concur that bullying and other forms of harassment can manifest as either direct or veiled acts online.

“Bullying and harassment on social media are shaped by how the youth enact different kinds of relationships through their use of polymedia, that is, the integrated communicative environment that emerges from the mixing and matching of the different features of social media,” the report said.

Citing various studies done across the globe, the researchers acknowledged that “bullying and harassment are unfortunately becoming an increasingly familiar experience with the youth on social media,” and Filipino teenagers and young adults are no exception.

They noted that the Philippines has a “staggering” 89 million active social media users (or 80.7 percent of the total population), almost 44 million of whom are people aged between 13 to 24 years, despite the country’s relatively underdeveloped telecommunication infrastructure.

“[T]hese young people have also been reported to spend the most time on social media in comparison to global counterparts. On average, they are online for 4 (four) hours and 15 minutes per day across these different platforms,” the study said.

The project was conducted over a period of two years involving in-depth online interviews with 152 Filipinos, aged 15 to 24, across different genders and educational status. The participating subjects were from Metro Manila, Batangas, Negros Occidental and Misamis Occidental.

“We wanted to go beyond (the) official definitions of social media bullying and harassment, and hear what young people themselves had to say,” according to principal investigator, project director and communication professor Cheryll Ruth Soriano.

What constitutes bullying and online harassment?

The research showed that the Filipino youth characterize bullying and harassment on social media as an intersection of three key dimensions: targets, acts, and spaces, taking into account how they identify and experience them.

“Bullying and harassment can be aimed at individuals. Beyond this, online posts, memes, and the like can also be aimed at groups like the queer community and ideas like believing in a particular political stance,” Department of Communication associate professor Jan Michael Alexandre Bernadas said.

Another communication associate professor and research fellow, Jason Vincent Cabañes, noted that acts of outright bullying and harassment can be carried out directly against a target individual or group, which can take place in both the physical and virtual realities. These actions may also be delivered indirectly and sometimes subconsciously.

“Bullying and harassment can be direct and in your face. But it can be veiled because you can just subtweet someone or talk about a person who isn’t part of the group chat you’re in,” Cabañes said.

“Sometimes, bullying is also concealed in the form of jokes, teasing, and sarcasm among friends that may seem like fun, but are actually perceived as bullying and hurtful to the peers,” he added. Intentionality, therefore, is not always necessary for an act to be considered as bullying.

Liking, sharing or retweeting some random memes, which may or may not be attributed towards a hated person in a group, can likewise be construed as a veiled act of cyberbullying. This is akin to “pagpaparinig,” in Tagalog parlance, as experienced by some participants.

“In a group of friends, there’s someone who they find toxic so what they do is they share a meme, which aims at him just because they don’t like him. This meme may not be too obvious, but the circle knows what it is about and who is being targeted,” according to a female high schooler in Misamis Occidental.

Consequently, the researchers determined that “online bullying is fluid” and may be found in bounded spaces such as private group chats, which may later on cross over into open spaces such as public walls or even real-world experiences.

“Coupled with advanced cameras and videos, social media features can extend from in-person aggressions to social media,” the study said. Such instances may impact the self-image, psychological well-being, interpersonal relationships and mental health of the person being targeted.

For example, “when someone shares your photos without permission and makes jokes out of them. They expose your insecurities and spread it on social media. Instead of gaining confidence, [you] end up feeling like [you] are being dragged down,” a female respondent from Batangas said.

Tagging other friends could reinforce the attack, turning it into “bashing” in the form of “kuyog,” a Filipino concept referring to collective antagonism toward another or mobbing someone, which can then lead to escalated aggressions, the study stated.

“These things can start in a private chat. But it can escalate to the point that it happens openly on social media, like what you see with ‘bashing’ or with ‘cancel culture,’” according to licensed psychologist and psychometrician Kimberly Kaye Mata.

Public awareness of the phrase “cancel culture” varies – sometimes widely – across demographic groups, a May 2021 article from the Pew Research Center said, noting that lines are often blurred between genuine calls for accountability and censorship or punishment during this scenario.

One female participant from Metro Manila shared an experience about getting attacked in the comments section just because she criticized some policies of the government during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s like they’re attacking your personhood... Some stranger commented that I’m still young. And so, I don’t have a right to speak... And then, he started attacking me. That based on how I looked, it seemed like I knew nothing,” she said.

The negative consequences can manifest in both short- or long-term, depending on the coping mechanisms of the victims, but for some, the experience can be so awful and traumatic to the extent that they would rather choose to isolate themselves from others both online and offline.

“[B]ecause it’s a form of disturbing someone else’s peace, and when peace is disturbed, things happen. And the outcome of those things [are] fear, paranoia and trauma, because we don’t anymore feel safe in the platform,” a male respondent from Negros Occidental explained.

What can be done to protect the youth and ourselves?

The researchers recommended a broad range of collective responses that could help foster a safer social media environment to prevent, if not, mitigate the prevalence of online bullying and harassment among the youth and other netizens.

One of these is making the community standards and policies of social media networks – particularly Facebook, which funded the project – reflective of the cultural nuances and wider range of scenarios that can qualify as bullying or harassment.

“Facebook is encouraged to make interactive educational materials (such as short videos, infographics) to communicate the breadth of bullying and harassment acts and experience, in ways attuned to local contexts,” the authors said.

The DLSU research team will try to do just that by launching a series of online videos and downloadable posters for schools and guardians on how to address cyberbullying and harassment based on their findings.

These multimedia materials will be available in English, Tagalog, Hiligaynon, and Bisaya. It will be unveiled during an online event happening this Friday, July 8, at the 2022 DLSU Research Congress.

“Responding to the challenge of social media bullying and harassment cannot just be done by the Filipino youth alone… There also needs to be collective responses from social media platforms and local communities,” psychology professor and registered psychologist Maria Caridad Tarroja said.

The researchers encourage the promotion of parent-teacher partnerships to prevent cases of bullying and harassment – both on and offline – as well as the explicit discussion of these topics in student handbooks.

Cultivating a safe home environment by facilitating open conversations about the experiences of teenagers and young adults are also highly recommended, as well as the practice of digital safekeeping or exercising restraint and setting limits when using social media.

Recently, an official from the Department of Education also reminded schools to respect and be more tolerant of the students’ gender expression and identity after a group of transwomen students took to social media their complaints about being barred from attending their graduation rites.

“The youth’s experiences and feelings should not be invalidated simply because these may not fit our conventional definitions or expectations of what bullying and harassment should be,” the researchers pointed out.

“Their own interpretations of bullying or harassment – as experienced in context – should be recognized and acted on. This is important because recognition of their experiences will shape the way in which they will and can respond,” they said.