The Dark Net (34 page)

p.193
‘A 2007 study examining . . .’ Bond, E.,
Virtually Anorexic – Where’s the Harm?
,
http://www.ucs.ac.uk/Faculties-and-Centres/Faculty-of-Arts,-Business-and-Applied-Social-Science/Department-of-Children,-Young-People-and-Education/Virtually%20Anorexic.pdf
;
https://bir.brandeis.edu/bitstream/handle/10192/24532/BeliveauThesis 2013.pdf?sequence=1
.

p.196
‘I found hundreds of Tumblr . . .’ And although many of these platforms ban content that glorifies eating disorders and self-harm, it is a rule that is extremely difficult to enforce. When Instagram banned users from searching for the hashtag ‘thinspo’, users started writing it as ‘th1nspo’ instead.

p.205
‘But providing information or discussing . . .’
http://www.ealaw.co.uk/media/uploaded_files/circular-03-2010-assisting-encouraging-suicide.pdf
; see ‘Encouraging or Assisting Suicide: Implementation of Section 59 of the coroners and Justice Act 2009’,
MoJ Circular 2010/03
, 28 January 2010. The law applies the same online as off. ‘Subsection (2) of section 59 sets out the single offence which replaces the offences of aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring suicide and of attempting to do so. The offence will apply where a person does an act which is capable of encouraging or assisting another person to commit or attempt to commit suicide, and intends his act to so encourage or assist. But simply providing information about or discussing the issue of suicide through the internet (or any other medium), where there is no such intent, is not an offence.’
http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/prosecution/assisted_suicide_policy.html
;
http://lostallhope.com/suicide-statistics
;
http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/Suicide_DataSheet-a.pdf
.

p.205
‘More than two thirds were . . .’ Bale, E., Bergen, H., Casey, D., Hawton, K., Shepherd, A. and Simpkin, S., ‘Deliberate Self-Harm in Oxford 2008’, Centre for Suicide Research.

p.207
‘Within hours Amelia and dozens . . .’ This specific case was discovered and set out by Emma Bond in her book, Bond, E.,
Virtually Anorexic
.

p.209
‘This strange phenomenon became known . . .’
http://informahealthcare.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/08039480410005602
.

p.209
‘The month after the August . . .’ Coleman, L.,
The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow’s Headlines
, Paraview and Pocket Books, p.2.

p.209
‘In the 1980s a number . . .’
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/media-spotlight/201208/when-suicides-come-in-clusters
;
http://railwaysuicideprevention.com/scientific-literature-review/choose.html
;
http://ccp.sagepub.com/content/12/4/583.full.pdf+html
;
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/mar/01/bridgend-wales-youth-suicide-media-ethics
;
http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20595753,00.html
.

p.209
‘The same phenomenon has been . . .’
http://www.ivonnevandeven stichting.nl/docs/SuicideAndTheMedia.pdf
; Kristakis, N., ‘Connected’;
http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1808446,00.html
. It’s also true in less damaging circumstances. If those around us are overweight, we’re more likely to pile on the pounds. Canned laughter on television makes us more likely to laugh. If we’re told how many other hotel guests reuse their towels, we’re more likely to do the same,
http://www.media-studies.ca/articles/influence_ch4.htm
;
http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/publication/exploring-beliefs-about-bottled-water-and-intentions-to-reduce-consumption-the-dual-effect-of-social-norm-activation-and-persuasive-information/
;
http://www.otismaxwell.com/blog/persuading-people-social-proof/
.

p.209
‘As a result, many countries . . .’ The Samaritans released an excellent report of guidelines in 2013, specifically designed to reduce copycat suicides. The Press Complaints Commission Released a special briefing note on press coverage of suicide in March 2009,
http://www.pcc.org.uk/advice/editorials-detail.html?article=NTU4MQ

p.210
‘“Have a nice life!” . . .’
http://archive.ashspace.org/ash.xanthia.com/conibear.html
.

p.211
‘Academic research has found that . . .’ Taylor, J. et al., ‘Motivations for Self-Injury, Affect, and Impulsivity: A Comparison of Individuals with Current Self-Injury to Individuals with a History of Self-Injury’,
Suicide and Life-Threatening Behaviour
, vol.42, no.6, December; Hawton, K. et al., ‘Self-harm and Suicide in Adolescents’,
The Lancet
, vol.379, issue 9834, is another excellent source,
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1943-278X.2012.00115.x/pdf
.

p.212
‘As he recovered in hospital . . .’ The footage is still, at the time of writing, available on the website live leak. The four chat quotes were collected by the author freeze-framing the video footage each time the filmer returned to update the /b/ board.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/12/04/university-of-guelph-student-who-attempted-to-take-his-life-on-internet-video-now-cyberbullied-on-facebook/
.

p.213
‘Self-injury, eating disorders . . .’ There are serious difficulties in recording incidences of self-harm, and it is widely considered to be under-reported. A similar thing occurs in respect of suicide, which coroner’s reports will often not include.

p.213
‘There were more suicide pact deaths . . .’
http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/02/14/bjsw.bct015.full.pdf+html
. See also: ‘Dying Together: Suicide Pacts and Other Episodes of Paired Suicides in Yorkshire and the Humber’.

p.213
‘Cases of self-injury have . . .’ There is a wealth of research work on this subject, including the following: Gunnell, D. et al., ‘The Use of the Internet by People who Die by Suicide in England: A Cross Sectional Study’,
Journal of Affective Disorders
, vol.141, pp.480–3. See also:
http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/files/pdfversion/cr158.pdf
;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-health/4682209/Anorexic-girls-admitted-to-hospital-rise-by-80-per-cent-in-a-decade.html
;
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmhansrd/cm070606/text/70606w0016.htm
. A 2013 King’s College study in the
British Medical Journal
concluded that between 2000 and 2009, anorexia and bulimia rates remained stable. However, it also noted that British definitions of these eating disorders are different to those in the US. There were between 1 and 2 instances of bulimia per 100,000 for males, and between 21 and 25 per 100,000 for females between 2000 and 2009 in the UK. There were between 0.2 and 2 instances of anorexia in males per 100,000, and between 11 and 17 cases of anorexia in females per 100,000 between 2000 and 2009 in the UK. However, diagnoses of ‘eating disorder not otherwise specified’ increased by 60 per cent in females, from just under 18 per 100,000 in 2000 to 28.4 per 100,000 in 2009, and by 24 per cent in males, from 3.4 to 4.2 per 100,000:
http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/5/e002646.full.?rss=1#F1
;
http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/projects/inside-the-world-of-anorexia-blogging/
;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10607237/Eating-disorder-increase-among-young-people.html
;
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/iop/news/records/2013/May/Eating-disorders-increase.aspx
.

p.213
‘Sites and forums that reduce . . .’ Mental Health Foundation,
The Lonely Society?

p.214
‘Being a nurse, Cami could . . .’ This is taken from relevant court documents:
http://www.mncourts.gov/Documents/0/Public/Clerks_Office/Opinions/opa110987-071712.pdf
and
http://www.margaretdore.com/pdf/melchert-dinkel_ff_etc_001.pdf
.

p.216
‘Cami was a middle-aged man . . .’ Labi, N., ‘Are You Sure You Want to Quit the World?’,
GQ
, October 2010,
http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201010/suicide-nurse-mark-drybrough-chatrooms-li-dao
(accessed 5 December 2013).

Conclusion
Zoltan vs Zerzan

p.219
‘In Plato’s
Phaedrus
, Socrates worried . . .’ Plato,
Phaedrus
, translated by Jowett, B. (Project Gutenberg, 30 October 2008).

p.219
‘When books began to roll off . . .’ Bell, V., ‘Don’t Touch that Dial! A History of Media Technology Scares, from the Printing Press to Facebook’,
Slate
, 15 February 2010,
http://www.slate.com/id/2244198
.

p.219
‘Although Marconi believed his radio . . .’ ‘Radio in the 1920s: Collected commentary’, National Humanities Center,
http://americainclass.org/sources/becomingmodern/machine/text5/colcommentaryradio.pdf
. Also O’Shei, T.,
Marconi and Tesla: Pioneers of Radio Communication
.

p.220
‘It would, he believed . . .’ Pierce, J.R., ‘Communication’,
Scientific America
, vol.227, no.3, September 1972, cited in Hauben, M. and Hauben, R.,
Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet
, p.56. Greenberger, M. (ed.)
Management and the Computer of the Future
,
http://www.kurzweilai.net/memorandum-for-members-and-affiliates-of-the-intergalactic-computer-network
; J. C. R. Licklider quoted in Woolley, B.,
Virtual Worlds: A Journey in Hype and Hyperreality
,
http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_licklider.htm
; Licklider also quickly appreciated the power of computer networks, and predicted the effects of technological distribution, describing how the spread of computers, programs and information among a large number of computers connected by a network would create a system more powerful than could be built by any one organisation. In August 1962, Licklider and Welden Clark elaborated on these ideas in the paper ‘On-Line Man Computer Communication’, one of the first conceptions of the future internet.

p.220
‘Anarchists dreamt of a world . . .’ Cited in Dery, M.,
Escape Velocity
, p.45.

p.220
‘The early nineties were ablaze . . .’ There is an excellent resource which documents 1990s predictions about the future of the internet, here:
http://www.elon.edu/e-web/predictions/early90s/

p.221
‘“We’re talking about Total Possibilities” . . .’
Mondo 2000
, no.1, 1989.

p.221
‘Nicholas Negroponte – former Director . . .’
http://motspluriels.arts.uwa.edu.au/MP1801ak.html
.

p.221
‘“They gaze on technology as” . . .’
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/nissenbaum/papers/The-Next-Digital-Decade-Essays-on-the-Future-of-the-Internet.pdf
.

p.222
‘Others were concerned that we . . .’ Furness, T. and Lanier, J.,
Are New Realities More or Less Real?
; Heim, M.,
Scholars Try to Measure the Impact
; Celente, G.,
Online, All the Time; Today’s Technology Makes the Office Omnipresent, but is That Any Way to Live?

p.223
‘“By thoughtfully, carefully and yet” . . .’ More, M., ‘The Philosophy of Transhumanism’, in More, M. and Vita-More, N.,
The Transhumanist Reader: Classical and Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology and Philosophy of the Human Future
, p.4.

p.223
‘(Nick Bostrom, a well-known . . .’
http://www.nickbostrom.com/papers/history.pdf
.

p.224
‘In 1993, Vernor Vinge popularised . . .’ ‘The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era’, available here:
https://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/misc/singularity.html
; Good, I. J., ‘Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine’,
Advances in Computers
, vol.6.

p.224
‘By 1998, the burgeoning group . . .’
http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/a-history-of-transhumanist-thought.pdf
; More, M. and Vita-More, N.,
The Transhumanist Reader
, pp.54–5. Even before this was the lesser known ‘Transhuman Manifesto’, penned in 1983 by Natasha Vita-More.

p.228
‘In 2012, in Essen . . .’
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-09/04/diy-biohacking
.

p.233
‘A growing number of writers . . .’ For ‘Technostress’, see Powers, W.,
Hamlet’s Blackberry.
The other terms are respectively attributable to William van Winkle, David Lewis, Eric Schmidt and Leslie Perlow. See Schumpeter, J., ‘Too Much Information: How to Cope with Data Overload’,
Economist,
30 June 2011.
http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/files/pdfversion/cr158.pdf
.

For anyone wishing to explore the subjects and issues raised in
The Dark Net
in greater detail, there are many excellent books, articles and web resources available on each of the themes I covered. The following list will offer, I hope, a useful starting point.

Introduction
Liberty or Death

Bell, J.,
Assassination Politics,
http://www.outpost-of-freedom.com/jimbellap.htm
.

Boyd, D.,
It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens
. An incredibly useful and clear-eyed account of young people’s relationship with social networks.

Hafner, K. and Lyon, M.,
When Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet.

Krotoski, A.,
Untangling the Web: What the Internet is Doing to You.

Pariser, E.,
The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You.

Suler, J., ‘The Online Disinhibition Effect’, in
CyberPsychology and Behaviour
. An extremely influential theory about what effect that communicating from behind a screen has on us.

Turkle, S.,
The Second Self
;
Life On the Screen
and
Alone Together
.
Sherry Turkle is without question one of the world’s experts on this subject, and someone whose studies on the impact of computers on human behaviour and identity are required reading.