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THROWING
a puppy off a cliff? It would be difficult to invent a
better metaphor for cruelty. Small wonder, then, that
when a recent video began circulating that showed a US
Marine apparently doing just that, online communities
the Web over erupted in anger and disgust.
It was a
despicable and even shameful act, but the reaction was
no better. Before any of the facts were established—the
Marine’s identity, for instance, or whether the video
was some kind of hoax—the cyber mob had its torches
lighted, and the auto-da-fe had begun. Barely a day
after the video surfaced, a Marine’s reputation was in
tatters, his life threatened and his family terrorized.
The
video goes like this: Two Marines are standing on a
desert precipice in full battle gear. It could be in
Iraq. One is holding a small, black-eyed puppy by the
scruff of its neck.
“Cute
little puppy, huh?” “Oh, so cute—so cute!” coos the
second Marine.
“Whoops,
I tripped,” says the first and hurls the animal off the
rocky incline. As it twirls in the air, you hear a
series of heartbreaking yips.
“That’s
mean,” says the second Marine. “That’s mean...,” he
repeats, adding the thrower’s distinctive surname.
The
Marines quickly began an investigation into the video
and did not deny its authenticity. (Some viewers thought
the puppy, which wasn’t moving before it was thrown,
might have been dead already or just a doll.)
Because
the video has been reposted so many times, its origin is
hard to pinpoint. But a version posted on a dutch web
site two days before the story gained wide attention is
still online and has received nearly 500,000 views.
With no
facts to fill the information vacuum, the online hordes
moved straight to conjecture. The crowd found a Marine
with the same last name who had a personal Web page on
the social network Bebo.com. And that was all that was
needed; the accusations, slander and intimations of
violence came like a tidal wave.
Someone
tried to leave this comment on my Web Scout blog: “I
hope he gets killed by insurgents and burned to death
and thrown off a cliff.” I didn’t publish that or a
dozen others like it, nor did I allow commenters to post
the besieged Marine’s address and telephone number.
Not that
it mattered: Internet vigilantes and a number of angry
bloggers already had plastered the Web with the man’s
contact information as well as the names, phone numbers
and addresses of his mother and sister—who in short
order received a wave of harassing phone calls. The
family eventually had its phone number disconnected.
“We feel
like we’re living in a nightmare,” the Marine’s sister,
who lives in Washington, told Seattle radio host Dori
Monson. Her family, the sister said, had received
multiple death threats related to her brother’s
alleged—but unsubstantiated—participation in the video.
“I do not want to confirm if this is real or not,” she
said. “Because I don’t want to do anything to
incriminate him.”
In his
show, Monson called the family’s travail a “witch hunt.”
“We’re talking about human lives that are not in any way
connected to the video that’s inspired such anger,” he
told listeners. “And people want to do to them what he
did to the dog. I think this is a cautionary tale about
how fast a life can get turned upside down on the Web.”
And he’s
right. A presumption of innocence never entered the
picture. It was straight to the gallows for the Marine
and his family. No need for pesky facts or
time-consuming due process—the crowd’s appetite for
revenge had to be sated.
The
response was more measured at sites for service
personnel such as Military.com. Marines, Army, Air Force
and Navy members—many under their real names—debated the
video’s authenticity and significance and worried the
video could harm the reputation of men in uniform.
“If
true, all the individuals who were there need to face
legal action,” wrote a commenter who identified himself
as a retired Air Force major. “The military doesn’t need
the kind of publicity this kind of thing brings with
it.”
Others
felt the outrage was unwarranted: “I don’t know about
your unit and training, but I was taught to view the
enemy as something other than human because it makes
them easier to kill,” wrote a commenter whose profile
indicated he was a former Marine lance corporal. “If the
allegations are true, he killed a defenseless animal and
should be punished. But this throwing the book at
him—simmer down, people. It was a puppy, not a human
baby.”
After
the puppy video surfaced, the online crowd dug up
several other online videos that appeared to depict
service members engaged in other acts of violence
against animals, including dogs and sheep being shot or
tormented.
Might
battlefield stress or military training play a role in
such acts of cruelty? This is a touchy subject. Raymond
Novaco of the University of California, Irvine, and
whose studies include the relationship between anger and
posttraumatic stress disorder, said he has been working
with armed-forces personnel for decades and has “great
compassion for them.” As such, he said an event such as
the one portrayed in the puppy video would be “very
unusual.”
“If the
incident even happened, I’d say it was a stretch to
connect that with combat stress. The Marines don’t train
people to do that.”
What is
clear is, real or not, the puppy video has been a
lose-lose situation for all parties. Even if it’s
discredited, the Marines might find that the image of
one of their men holding up the ill-fated puppy won’t be
easily erased. And the men involved might find it can’t
be erased at all.
But the
biggest loser here is the Internet. As it becomes
trivially easy to play vigilante without coming out from
behind your sheet, too many people are confusing bravery
with downright cowardice. |
