Banning of creepy streams: a good wish or a reality?

Experts are sure: the rejection of broadcasts will not cancel the craving for cruel entertainment among adolescents, and the reasons for such actions are sociocultural

In Russia, there is a series of tragic cases in live broadcasts from popular bloggers, including fatalities.

Sociologists, psychologists and experts in the field of digital have conditionally designated this phenomenon as trash broadcasts.

Today the Federation Council announced that they intend to fight this new phenomenon, which is followed by millions of viewers on the Internet. Moreover, the users themselves stimulate trash streamers with a ruble, donate by ordering shows.

“Recently, such a phenomenon as trash streams has become widespread on the Internet. They humiliate, beat, bury people in the graves, and so on. We need amendments that will ban trash streams as such. This is an important topic, because the propaganda of asocial behavior degrading human dignity should not take place on social networks”, - said Senator Alexey Pushkov.

The chairman of the Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko personally suggested to work out the legislative initiative:

“Unfortunately, we are late with the adoption of measures to prevent and prevent certain vicious phenomena occurring on the Internet and are working in pursuit. Of course, you have to think about what to do with it. Let's instruct the Constitutional Legislation Committee to see what needs to be adjusted in our laws in cooperation with platforms, with Google, others - in order to prevent this kind of phenomena, these are terrible things that happen, ”she said.

Video blogger Reflay (Stas Reshetnikov) was detained in early December on suspicion of deliberately causing grievous bodily harm, which resulted in the death of the girl.

On December 2, Reeflay subscribers watched his dead girlfriend Valya on the air for about two hours. The streamer dragged the girl's body into the room and put it on the sofa, after which he tried to revive her, sobbed and asked the audience to call doctors. The ambulance staff who arrived declared death. The examination revealed that she had a closed craniocerebral injury, multiple bruises and a subdural hematoma. The deceased herself often participated in the streams of Reeflay. On the air, a young man poured pepper mixture on her face, and she threatened him with a knife. A year ago, during the broadcast, Reshetnikov himself was beaten. During the arrest, Reeflay voiced his own version of an overdose, from which his girlfriend allegedly could die.

“During the next stream, a girl died - also practically on the air. She had an intestinal disorder, the blogger kicked her out so that she would not break wind in the house. Kicked out naked. And yesterday it was cold. She knocked on the door, but he would not let her in. He was streaming. It is unclear what she died from - hypothermia or something else. But the fact is that the girl was kicked out naked in the cold and was not allowed in for the hype - new subscribers, fame and money. When she died, the blogger dragged her into the house - live. An ambulance arrived on the air. “Che, is she really dead? Che really died? " - the blogger did not stop asking and showing off in the stream when the body of a numb girl lay next to him on the couch. “Ask again,” the medic answered mockingly. Even the police arrived live.

No, I understand that the old God for these people has died, and now they worship only a god named Almighty Hype. “Love your neighbor” - no, they have not heard about it. But I have a practical question in this regard - do you want to see this “blogger” on talk shows? Do you want the whole country - your parents and children - to watch the antics of this primitive organism? And I have no doubt that he will be called, if not already called, with all his friends. They will also pay money. Perhaps from our taxes",- comments Marina Akhmedova, a member of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation.

At the end of February this year, the birthday of “pharmacy blogger” Yekaterina Didenko ended with the death of three people, including her husband Valentin.

The holiday was celebrated in the "Ninth Val" bath complex. The guests died due to the fact that 30 kilograms of dry ice, once in the pool, quickly turned into a gaseous state. In high concentrations, carbon dioxide can cause loss of consciousness and suffocation. Two people died on the spot - they jumped into the water, lost consciousness and drowned, the blogger's husband died in intensive care. Several more people were poisoned, among the victims was Catherine's pregnant sister. After the incident, Didenko continued to record stories on Instagram. In social networks, the girl is still accused of the wrong reaction to the death of loved ones.

The Investigative Committee opened a criminal case for causing death by negligence.

After the incident, another million people subscribed to the "pharmacy blogger" with a million audience.

“In stories, she conducted live broadcasts from the intensive care unit, from home. And most of all I was struck by the one where her husband's grief-stricken mother had ugly fallen on the sofa. “This is Valya's mom”, - said the pharmacy blogger, pointing the camera at her. And then it became clear that in the modern world, death on the air is also a commodity.

Since then, the blogger made herself a new breast, went on talk shows, got a new young man, filmed with him in a kokoshnik and announced that she was pregnant. Subscribers cheer, follow with interest and envy. What for? The same glory that the death of her husband and several other people brought to a woman. Everyone wants the same - millions of subscribers, advertising money, and invitations to TV talk shows. And for all this you only need a little bit - to become famous at any cost. Without becoming a scientist, an outstanding doctor, not even jumping into a burning house to carry a child. And to become famous without doing anything or doing some dirty trick that cannot be popularized at all, but for some reason television popularizes such “people”", - says Marina Akhmedova.

The popular blogger Mellstroy (Andrey Burim) grabbed the model Alyona Yefimova by the neck in his live broadcast and hit her head on the table several times. In addition to the fact that the streamer's subscribers watched the broadcast, the incident itself happened in front of hundreds of people during a party in the Federation Tower in Moscow City. The author hastened to delete the stream recording, but the video still spread over the network. The victim posted a photo of her bloody lips and said that the blogger broke her braces, after which a bloody mess formed in her mouth. Medical experts have confirmed a fractured jaw. The police began an investigation into the fact that the girl was injured.

In the COVID-19 pandemic, many areas of human life have become even more online. In conditions of self-isolation and a lack of communication, streams began to be in demand - live broadcasts with the active participation of the audience in them. At the same time, many subscribers pay their favorite bloggers and believe that they have the right to order content from him to their taste.

"Society is faced with a quiet revolution - the basic principles of communication between people are changing before our very eyes. We are rapidly moving from offline to online. In megacities, 95% of young people practically live on the Internet, and the new communication environment sets new formats for communication. We see how the new digital reality does not let you get bored and throws up intricate social practices every day. It is necessary to comprehend in what brave new world we find ourselves. Unfortunately, we react rather slowly to the risks that are associated with the new world, in a reactionary mode", - says Kirill Rodin, director for work with state authorities at VTsIOM.

The expert calls addiction to digital intoxication and the time that the average user spends on the Internet significantly increased during a pandemic.

1600 respondents of all age groups from different regions of Russia took part in the VTsIOM sociological survey. 54% of respondents answered that the disappearance of the Internet will completely or significantly change their usual life.

It seems quite logical that, with the increase in the time spent by users on the Internet, those things that previously would have had a chance to remain behind closed doors began to fall out on public display.

- Believe me, no one wants to specialize in the category of trash streams, these are exceptions, these are improvisations that have gone out of control. Three tragic examples are accidental. As of today, I don't know a single such blogger who would deliberately engage in trash broadcasts. Another thing, of course, is that, having committed something terrible by accident and finding resonance and advertising contracts, some bloggers confuse this with fame. By the way, eSports, by the way, unlike ordinary bloggers, has long had clear moral and ethical rules that community members try to follow - both during live broadcasts and during competitions. This is important in order to remain a member of the community, teams that make up an important part of the leisure, life of a resident, that is, we are talking about the human ecosystem, - says an expert on ecosystem creation, esports commentator and streamer Mikhail Bakhman.

Internet platforms Youtube, TikTok, Instagram, of course, also have their own rules that prohibit certain actions. The platforms track dislikes, comments, user complaints and block sensitive content. The only problem is that the algorithms do not yet allow doing this promptly, at the moments of the live broadcasts themselves. In addition, no one forbids bloggers who are blocked today to “rise from the ashes” tomorrow under other names and continue broadcasting.

- Today we are not talking about any new phenomena, we just changed the communication platform. Violence has always been and will be inherent in a certain type of people - immature individuals, whose desire to get adrenaline prevails over reason. Thrills, risk, danger - will always be in demand among people. I will not do it myself - I will peek from the side (I will watch the broadcasts) and also get vivid impressions. This is human nature. But violence also attracts increased attention of adolescents, and at this age it is fraught with the fact that cruelty will have imitators. And to a lesser extent than adults, they can calculate the consequences of their actions. Transferring 100 rubles to a blogger who mocks people or animals live is also an imitation, - says the chief freelance child psychiatrist of the Moscow Health Department, head of the department of emergency psychiatry and assistance at the V.P. Serbsky Federal Medical Research Center for Psychiatry and Narcology "The Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation Anna Portnova.

How can the trend be reversed? After all, a conditional teenager, whose arena is an entrance or courtyard, will have few followers. But the same conventional "hero" who goes with these ideas to the Internet space can concentrate millions of fans around him every day.

Bans in adolescence not only have no effect, but have the opposite effect. Let's ban trash-ethers, and they will go to basements and place bets there. It is for this reason, for example, that both advertising and anti-advertising of drugs are prohibited: telling a teenager about which drugs are bad means, on the contrary, arousing interest in him and trying to check it, the psychiatrist is sure.

The main component of the "vitality" of trash formats is that they bring money, and this is a two-way process - there is someone who plays music, but there is also someone who orders and pays for it, says a member of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and human rights Kirill Kabanov:

- Unfortunately, for the reasons already named by Anna Portnova, violence, insult, humiliation, multiplied by Internet addiction - this is what young people face. We analyzed this phenomenon with law enforcement agencies and realized that people on the other side of the screen are no less important players here. The viewers themselves pay for this cruel entertainment, and they are accomplices, and among them there are many very wealthy people. Millionaires donate money for these services. From a different age category, by the way, - he clarifies.

- There can be only one effective method: an alternative. We can’t do anything with human nature - it’s much easier to eat a caterpillar, get drunk, beat someone up, and so on and “wake up famous”. But it is absolutely necessary to create positive examples, other ways to get adrenaline, to achieve imitation of something good, and this is the only way out. Young people need opportunities and platforms where they will earn the same decent money, receive the same moment of fame and the same excitement, the desire to win by creating something good. In addition, one must always look into the essence of the problem, analyze its origins. If the problem of domestic violence were solved offline, young people would not beat their girls and women on the air, and the Internet has nothing to do with it, - Anna Portnova emphasizes.

Why is trash content suddenly so popular? The answer is as old as the world. There is a demand, there is a supply. At the same time, demand is always determined by moral, ethical and cultural conditions, says Urvan Parfentiyev, coordinator of the Center for Safe Internet, leading analyst at ROCIT internet technologies center:

"Watch circus and theatrical performances of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, read the full version of Tolstoy's "Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin" and discover amazing reprises. Our young people are no different from previous generations and gravitate towards the emotional, towards the clip. Now life has simply been transferred to the Internet, and everything the same that was in society 100 years ago is practiced simply on other sites. All the same marginalized people and, literally speaking, people who are sensitive to trends. My recipe: a general rise in culture, ethics, education of the Internet audience and the creation of equal opportunities so that people do not have to make money with these trash methods, misanthropy, to call a spade a spade".