The Milgram Experiment, the Bystander Effect, and the Vancouver Riot

The Milgram experiments of the 60s were part of a study on human social psychology, specifically how individuals react to authority figures.  In the actual experiment, the test subject was given a button which they were told would deliver a nasty electric shock to an unseen participant (actually a voice recording).  The experimenter would ask a series of questions to the unseen participant and would direct the test subject to push the button, while increasing the voltage for each incorrect answer.

With successive shocks, the unseen participant can be heard reacting in pain, often banging against the wall and complaining of a heart condition. If at any point, the test subject raised any objections, the experimenter would prompt the test subject to continue, while assuring the test subject that he or she would not be held responsible for whatever happened.  The experiment would end if the test subject refused to continue or if the test subject delivered a fatal or incapacitating shock.

Given the morals and ethics behind such an action, researchers polled initially believed that only 1 to 3% would be willing to deliver a fatal shock to the unseen participant. The first time the experiment was conducted, 26 out of 40 test subjects were willing to deliver a fatal shock (65%). The experiment has been duplicated several times, each time indicating a surprising percentage of people who were willing to carry out these actions within the scenario, most of whom (if not all) were your average, everyday law-abiding citizen. The test subjects who delivered a supposedly fatal shock also expressed discomfort, yet proceeded anyway.

Stanley Milgram (the psychologist for whom the experiments are named) created the experiment in response to a recent trial of a Nazi war criminal. While not necessarily a defense (ie: "I was following orders"), the findings do have some very interesting (if disturbing) implications for human nature. Indeed, how does one explain why average ordinary citizens who would never steal or murder, are prone to be willing to commit these acts when thrust into specific situations?

As an ardent info-junkie, I've been regularly following the news on the Vancouver Riot ever since the first car was set on fire. As the city has been working to rebuild their now-tarnished image, the courts are trying to bring certain individuals to justice while social media is actively working to identify and shame the individuals responsible for the riot.


The initial assessment from the Vancouver mayor and the Vancouver chief of police were that the riot was the work of recognized anarchists who specifically came to the downtown area specifically intent on causing trouble, and surely enough, some of them were recognized as the same ones that came to Vancouver during the 2010 Olympics specifically to vandalize the city.  And yes, people specifically came to the downtown core with weapons, Molotov cocktails, and other tools of destruction, and would thus represent a very small segment of the people who came to watch the Canucks lose play.

What caught a few people off guard was the fact that the bulk of the people being formally charged with related crimes (assault, arson, vandalism, inciting a riot, etc.) do not fit the "typical" profile of a serial rioter. None of them have prior arrest records, and are often saying that they were "caught in the moment" (or variations to that effect).  This was one of the reasons given by one Camille Cancino, who was caught looting from a Black & Lee formal wear store in her widely-slammed apology (which she has since edited to remove any sort of justification or explanation for her actions).


I'm not quite ready to make up my mind on the public digital shaming thing yet.  In this Web 2.0 era and proliferation of cameras on cell phones, it was inevitable that anyone doing acts of destruction and violence would be caught on camera and identified, so anybody who was down there really should've known better. 

In the intervening week and a half since the city burned, I read everything I could about it, from blogs to editorials to Facebook groups. There's a wide mix of emotions, with blind rage being the most prominent.  It has certainly motivated a lot of social network mavens to identify the people who were involved in this, which has led to several of them turning themselves in, while also giving proper due to the rare heroes of downtown who were attempting to stem the damage.  At the same time, it's also brought about reactions towards some involved individuals which seem disproportionate, such as the death threats towards the family of Nathan Kotylak, prompting them to flee their home. 

A general public this angry clearly wants their pound of flesh, but to them, I propose this: You can have either satisfy your bloodlust, or the guilty parties can repay their debts to society. You cannot have both. 


The relative ease at which typically law-abiding people are capable of committing criminal acts when thrust in certain situations would suggest that this is much less of a black and white issue than the purveyors of social media justice are making it out to be. This is not to excuse any of them, as most the people left the area as soon as the game was over.  But I ask, if 65% of people are able to deliver a fatal electric shock to a complete stranger, how culpable are people in this situations, and what is an appropriate way for the judiciary system to deal with them?  In this case, maybe a philosophy degree might have more use than a law degree.

Again, this is not an excuse for these people.  This was a shameful act against the people who have worked hard to make the city the way it is, whether it be the business owners, tax payers, or the public services (ie: police, firefighters, ambulatory services), and things like this should never be allowed to occur again. However, I'm not really for living in a police state, and the years following the last hockey riot, Vancouver got dubbed as a "no fun city."

As people are trying to make sense of the whole Vancouver riot, there are lots of theories, whether it's herd instinct and the bystander effect, piss-poor parenting, our narcissistic and materialistic world view, failure to establish a sense of responsibility and morals among a frustrated youth, strong identification with our hockey team, or whatever. Or maybe there are just some people out there who want to see the world burn and know how easily the razor thin veneer of civilization can shatter.

If the same types of people came to our next big event (like the off-hand chance that the Canucks make it to the 2012 finals), it's not likely that we'll be seeing a repeat of the Vancouver Riot, given how fresh the memories are.  But if it's another 17 years until another SCF, people will definitely have forgotten and a new generation of youth will be ready to riot as soon as a car is overturned.

One way we can prevent this is if we have better education about this, to remind the people what happens when people act as passive observers, and how susceptible people are to influence.  As part of the judgments handed down towards participants in the riots, if their sentences include community service, it should be mandatory that they give talks to local high schools to tell of their experiences, especially as to how it relates to the online shaming campaigns.  An active effort to educate people about the bystander effect and actually promote the idea of standing up for what's right might help, or at least stem some of the damage caused by things like this.

But these are just ideas. Anyone know who can implement this?

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On Slacktivism

Given my lack of followers, an 8 month hiatus from blogging probably wouldn’t have been noticed that much (laziness, got addicted to Mass Effect 2 and Fallout: New Vegas). I actually have had a few things to write about, but just didn’t get around to putting them down.  This starts now as I’m now down for 2-3 weeks with a knee injury (level 1 LCL sprain), which means most of my evenings are free for the next bit.

Slacktivism (derived from the words “slacker” and “activism”) describes the practice of supporting causes with minimal effort. Wikipedia’s page includes examples such as Livestrong bracelets, signing online petitions, and e-mail chain letters (eg: send this e-mail on and Canadian Cancer Society will donate $1 to research for each person that sends it).  I remember one in particular involving an online trivia game which donated rice to developing countries the more you played.

While some campaigns do give portion of proceeds to specific beneficiaries (portions of proceeds from Livestrong bracelets go to cancer research), others have questionable (or at least difficult to measure) effectiveness, and will even have certain organizations actually attempting to distance themselves from such campaigns.

With Facebook, awareness campaigns have a lot more potential to go viral, especially with the vast worldwide user base and the ease at which one can change their status and profile picture. When memes go viral, they become harder to ignore regardless of the size of your friends list, as a larger percentage of your FB contacts will be participating.  The most recent one had FB users changing their profile picture to an image from a cartoon show and changing your FB status to read, “Change your FB picture to a cartoon from your childhood. The goal is not to see a human face on FB until Monday (Dec 6th) Join the fight against child abuse & copy and paste to your status!”

There are two other FB awareness campaigns that come to mind, in which women posted the colour of their bras with no context whatsoever (eg: “Jane Doe: black”; “Ellen Wong: beige”; etc.), the other in which women posted where they like to leave their purses (eg: “Jane Doe: I like it on the floor”; “Ellen Wong: I like it on the couch”).  These were organized without any direct ties to any non-profit organization, and without context, were generally confounding to those that had idea what was going on.  And, if you were a guy who just thought everyone was posting their favourite colours and it that might be fun to join in, pretty embarrassing too.

This is reminiscent of those commercials for birth control pills where young women identified themselves with the product (“I’m Alesse!”), and then some clueless young male gets pointed and laughed at when he asks, “What’s Alesse?” Canadian advertising standards for prescription drugs aside (notice that Canadian drug ads will never say what it does or what it is used for), for a birth control pill ad, it’s probably okay, given the extremely low probability that a man would purchase it for himself.  And yes, men generally aren’t directly affected by breast cancer, but to completely alienate a potential source of support is short-sighted and counterproductive.

The “I like it on the…” campaign also raised questions the overall effectiveness of such campaigns. While they are generally harmless, there are drawbacks.  One common criticism about such low-effort campaigns is that they instill the sense that the participant is accomplishing far more than they actually are.  Worse yet, there is a possibility that performing such acts will be offset by living less charitably.  This has been seen in studies of individuals that feel environmentally lifestyles (recycling, reducing car use) justify more polluting lifestyle choices (taking long-haul flights).

Given the fact that the level of impact of FB status updates is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to measure, on the surface, these campaigns will have negligible impact compared something requiring continuous and sustained action, such as Movember or CIBC’s Run for the Cure.  As it is, the argument has also been made that donating to charities also has less impact than we believe, given the percentage of money spent on promotion and administration (but that’s a discussion for another time).

I’m probably just as guilty as most.  I participated in Movember by growing my mustache to raise awareness and funds for prostate cancer research.  Since this was done as part of an organized effort (complete with corporate sponsorship, advertising, and association with charitable organizations), the impact was at least somewhat measurable (the campaign has had its most successful year to date), but all in all, what did I really do? I conveniently forgot to shave for about a month and somehow got people to contribute $255 to prostate cancer research. 

This brings us back to cartoon characters on Facebook.  Obviously, a child abuser won’t see the error of their ways once they see a picture of a cartoon character, and given its lack of ties to any organization, any positive impact will be very difficult (if not impossible) to measure.  And out of the dozens of people I know who participated, only a few actually questioned whether or not they were doing anything to prevent violence against children.

However, one standout actually took the opportunity to call attention to a specific charity that benefited child abuse victims, and indicated that she got some support out of it.  Not to be outdone, as a mini-social experiment, I joined the bandwagon and posted a challenge to my FB contacts, offering to match donations to anyone who donated to Boost for Kids, so that anyone participating in the FB meme could actually say then did something to prevent child abuse. 

Out of about a hundred or so FB contacts who were participating in the meme, I got two responses (one who donated to Children’s Help Line, the other who donated to Boost for Kids and is still waiting for her donation to be accepted), which largely confirms my suspicions.  But, on the other hand, some children’s charities did report an increase in donations, which some media outlets attributed to the FB meme.

As a whole, the FB community as a whole has probably accomplished something positive, and that probably is something to feel good about. That is, until you find out that by participating, you may have actually contributed to exploitation of minors, given that metals that make up the electronic components in your computer (tantalum, tungsten, tin, gold) may have been sourced from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the sale of minerals directly funds violent armed conflict.  This results in coerced labour, sexual violence, and death by famine, all inflicted on children.

But let me qualify this by saying that my intent is not to criticize anyone who participates in FB awareness memes or to minimize the positive impacts of such actions.  Given the complexities of life in modern industrialized society, it is impossible to live everyday life without causing suffering or pain.  As it is, we start causing suffering and pain very soon after we’re conceived. 

It is important that we actively question the world we live in and at least think about why we do the things we do.  Is it enough to change the world on its own?  Probably not. But active participation on a viral scale is always infinitely more effective than slacktivism.

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