Digital anonymity against faceless victims weakens moral self-sanctions

Evidence

The Internet was designed as a highly decentralized system that defies regulation. Anybody can get into the act, and nobody is in charge. Internet trolls can readily use this unfettered vehicle for destructive purposes. Rubin (1994) describes certain characteristics of electronic technologies that can increase the propensity for moral disengagement. Transgressive acts can be performed privately and anonymously against depersonalized or faceless victims located thousands of miles away. Breaking into an office to steal paper files is difficult to execute, as is escaping detection. But with the right malware, hackers can break into web sites with minimal effort and without leaving tracks or displacing of the owner’s property. The notions of breaking and entering and burglary in the cyberworld are more likely to be viewed by computer hackers as metaphorical rather than criminal. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 474

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the vault’s concern with ordinary-people rationalization of harming dehumanized out-groups: anonymity and depersonalization are the enabling conditions Cooper’s social-conservatism claims gesture toward.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 474