Online shaming in Singapore: Is it so daunting to intervene?

Last week, civil activist and opposition politician Ravi Philemon posted a status to his Facebook page, calling out two videos that he said were moving quickly online.

Both happened to feature commuters on MRT trains in Singapore. One, he said, was of a teenage boy who appeared to be masturbating, while the other was of a woman hitting a young boy with an umbrella.

In his status, which received 77 likes, Ravi urged people who had seen either of the videos to refrain from sharing them. What if the subject was your brother, son or grandmother? Would you still treat the videos in the same way?

There is also the fact, astutely raised by someone who commented on his post, that the law protects minors for a reason.

In a comment in response, however, one FB user argued that it appeared that in the case of the first video, the boy knew full well that what he was doing was both wrong and shameful, and therefore it was not morally wrong to shame him.

Besides, in the interest of public awareness and deterrence, the user said, such videos are useful in warning people against behaving in socially-unacceptable ways.

Personally, I was rather appalled to read that there was someone who would not only be in favour of shaming a person online, but beyond that, even go as far as to attempt to justify doing that as a good thing.

Yet, a casual scan of STOMP, a site built from citizen contributions, informs me that there are numerous individuals who agree with the commenter's opinion. In just six days  of coverage, there were at least 15 different reports of accidents, fires, people behaving – or simply dressing – badly or weirdly in public.

None of these reports show any indication that the so-called "STOMPer" had contacted the relevant authorities involved or made any attempt to intervene or assist in each situation.

In fact, in the case of the mother hitting the boy with an umbrella, the person taking the video ironically pointed out that "no one stopped the lady" until a man stood up to intervene, when the woman taking the video herself could very well have stepped in.

Are our priorities wrong?

I then asked myself after seeing the contributor's comment – at which point did it become more of a priority to take a photograph or a video of something happening in order to submit it to a website than to contact a relevant authority or step in to stop what was happening or help a person in need?

Take a fire or a car crash, for instance. For what appears to be a significant-enough group of people, the first instinct is to take a photo or video of it and send the material to STOMP or post it online, instead of running over to check if anyone is injured or more importantly, calling the SCDF or the police.

There were a number of reports on STOMP about things that annoyed or shocked the people who submitted them: a) an ATM had fluorescent paint splashed all over it, b) a driver parking his car at the loading bay of a school, c) a man spotted urinating into a drain, d) a woman who seemed to be missing her pants. These are four examples picked at random.

But aren’t there better options than taking a picture of and having it posted online with the accompanying caption: "I am too shocked for words"?

In the four instances mentioned, the solutions to the problems, respectively, would be to: a) report it to the relevant bank or police; b) leave a note on the driver's windscreen, and should that fail, report him to campus security or to the school's administration; c) approach him to stop him, or report him to the police if he refuses; d) approach her to express your concern about her dressing.

All these steps are simple and straightforward enough. In the case of the first three scenarios, doing this will alert people who are empowered to do something about the problem to act. All it takes is a few minutes to make a phone call or to converse with the personnel involved. Indeed, video or photo evidence may come in handy, but it should be recorded to show to the authorities as proof, and not for public shaming.

Or are we just afraid?

Perhaps the question I should be asking instead is this: why are we escaping from scenes like these that we witness by hiding behind smartphone screens and not actually doing something about them? Why do we find it so daunting to approach people or to file reports over things we notice and know to be wrong or in need of intervention from the authorities?

After all, some years back, I myself didn’t take the high road. After getting frustrated by two noisy schoolgirls on the train who were putting their legs all over each other and spreading them wide, behaviour that didn't do them any favours with their skirted uniforms, I snapped a picture of it and posted it to my Facebook page.

While I took care to restrict my privacy settings to "Friends Only", I was still chided by a few friends of mine for complaining about it instead of going up to them to tell them, gently, that they should sit properly and speak at lower volumes, as they were not only being disgraceful to themselves but also tarnishing the reputation of their school. This, on hindsight, I certainly do regret, because it is true – I absolutely should have done that instead.

But it is of course easier for us to complain about something that we see to our friends on social media than it is to actually do something about what we see a problem with. Our Asian upbringing and mentality of "minding our own business" and "not interfering in other families' affairs" is an easy go-to blame for not intervening at the sight of the public scene of a woman caning her screaming child with her umbrella, or, for example, a man hitting his wife or girlfriend.

What if I get told off to mind my own business, or worse, what if the attacker turns on me and hits me instead, because I don't appear burly enough? Should I try to stop the violence, or find out what's going on first, or call the police first? if I do the last, what if the confrontation ends and the people involved leave by the time they show up?

What our first instinct should be

When I ask myself these questions, I know that the answers I have to them are standards I set for myself – and may not be applicable to everyone else. But perhaps we should all remind ourselves of the sole priority here: the victim's safety. Whether it's a girl getting hit by her boyfriend or husband, a woman convulsing violently, the driver in a car crash, or a person who might be trapped in a burning house, our first instinct should always be to do whatever it takes to ensure their safety first – and if we can't do it ourselves, call for help (in the form of bystanders, passers-by or the authorities).

There is also the argument that "there are so many of us gathered here... surely someone must have called the police or ambulance, or pressed the emergency button, right?" Trouble is, if everyone thinks that way, no one, amid the perhaps 30-something-strong crowd gathered around the periphery of whatever is happening, will end up alerting the people best-equipped to deal with the situation.

This brings to my mind the first time I called '995', four or five years ago. On the MRT one afternoon, a woman seated in the same section of the carriage I was standing in suddenly broke into violent convulsions. Everyone gaped at her as she collapsed, uncontrollably, to the floor, and I frantically dialled the SCDF emergency hotline to request an ambulance to Yew Tee, the next MRT station we were heading to.

After hanging up, I realised that everyone was still standing around, not really knowing what to do, and I yelled, "Can someone please press the emergency button?" It was only then that a man standing near one hastily walked up to it and did the necessary, thankfully in time for the train to pull up and stop at Yew Tee, with two or three commuters kindly helping to escort the still-shaking lady out to waiting staff at the platform.

That episode made me wonder, though, whether someone else would have taken the initiative to act if I wasn't there. Or would she have ended up as another entry on STOMP's "Singapore Seen" feed? Would something worse have happened to her if she did not receive the medical attention she needed in time? One can only hope that there would have been one other person in the crowd who did not think, "Surely someone will have called for an ambulance, or pressed the emergency button by now."

In his status, Ravi concludes with an important point: "No matter how old or young, or big or weak we are, we should not be afraid or shy away from intervening in an appropriate manner when the situation calls for it".

I'll be among the first to say it isn't easy, but this is an area we sorely need to consider taking a leaf from our foreign counterparts on – act first in the interest of a person's safety. It's always better to be the second or third person to call for help, or even for the help rendered to eventually be surplus to what is needed, than allow for the possibility of that person not receiving help at all.