Study on hidden cyber violence and its legal governance in “Internet toilet”

Abstract

“The ‘Internet Toilet’ is a platform designed for creating dedicated BOT accounts, Tieba groups, topics, and communities. It allows users to anonymously post content, send messages from afar, and receive and post sa - tirical, malicious comments, curses, and insults directed at specific groups or individuals. The ‘Internet Toilet’ has become a hidden arena for public opinion among teenagers, breeding the seeds of online violence. Users of the ‘Internet Toilet’ are often younger, mostly from the post-00s and post-05 generations; they build walls with abbreviations and slang, circulating a ‘language currency’ specific to these topics. Within these walls, the threshold for violence is low, and differences in appearance or other aspects can easily become targets for attack. In recent years, behaviors such as ‘posting in the toilet’ and ‘opening boxes to post people’ have gained attention, but legal regulation faces risks of ineffectiveness. The violent behavior in the ‘Internet Toilet’ involves issues like ambiguous venue identification, difficulty in defining violent language, severe circumstanc- es being hard to determine, high difficulty in attributing responsibility, and challenges in evidence collection. Moreover, the ‘Internet Toilet’ reflects the mindset and values of teenagers in cyberspace, thus it urgently re - quires thorough discussion from all sectors to find solutions.”