When internet users publicly pillory those they consider guilty, their support for such actions is often linked to pleasure from others' suffering and a desire to demonstrate their own moral superiority. This is the conclusion reached by researchers Dosun Kim and Yong Su Kim of Tonguk University in Seoul. Their work was published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.
The subject is so-called online lynching (vigilantism) - when internet users band together to expose, criticize or punish a person who, in their opinion, has violated social norms. This happens outside the official legal system. Typical manifestations are public humiliation, collective bullying and doxxing: publishing a person's personal or identifying information without their consent. Anonymity and a wide audience allow such campaigns to spread quickly and last a long time, sometimes leading to the "social death" of the victim.
The researchers surveyed 1,000 adult residents of South Korea. Participants answered questions about their experience of participating in online harassment, their propensity for schadenfreude and moral grandstanding. Schadenfreude is a German term denoting pleasure or satisfaction at another's misfortune. Moral grandstanding is the tendency to use moral arguments primarily to enhance one's own status or self-esteem. It was divided into two types: prestige-seeking (the desire for others to recognize you as good and moral) and dominance-seeking (the desire to influence, assert authority or shame those who disagree).
Participants were divided into three groups. Non-participants had never encountered online harassment. Passive participants viewed or sought out content criticizing offenders. Active participants took direct actions: shared others' personal information, wrote accusatory comments or created critical posts.
Active participants showed a significantly higher level of schadenfreude, prestige-seeking and belief in the effectiveness of online harassment than the other two groups. Non-participants had the lowest scores for schadenfreude and belief in effectiveness, but slightly outpaced passive participants in prestige-seeking. The picture for dominance-seeking turned out differently: passive participants scored lower than both active participants and non-participants.
Within the groups, their own connections emerged. Among active and passive participants, higher levels of schadenfreude and prestige-seeking were associated with the conviction that online harassment is effective. Among non-participants, schadenfreude was also associated with belief in effectiveness, but instead of prestige-seeking, support was linked to dominance-seeking. Perhaps some non-participants approve of internet justice because it symbolically punishes offenders and confirms their moral superiority from a safe distance.
The authors emphasize that these are statistical associations, not causal relationships. The study relies on self-reports at a single point in time, so it cannot be said that schadenfreude leads to support for harassment - it may be the other way around. Participants may have given socially desirable answers. Perceived effectiveness reflects only subjective opinion, not the real ability of harassment to deter violations. The sample is limited to adults from South Korea, so the results may not transfer to other cultures and platforms.