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Example Of The Bystander Effect

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Imagine being able to hear someone screaming for help and being hurt without reporting it to the police. The Bystander effect, in psychology, is explained as “the failure of people in groups to help others in distress” (“Innocent”). In other words, people watch something terrible happen, but do not intervene because they feel the other bystanders will intervene. The Bystander effect can be seen in many places, in real life and online. The Bystander effect is very common online, especially among young adults and teenagers; the most common places for the Bystander effect to happen online are on live streams, through strange behavior online, and cyberbullying. Facebook and Periscope, social media websites, allow users to livestream videos to their followers. In his article, Clyde Haberman, a journalist, reports that “In March [of 2017], half a dozen boys and young men lured a 15-year-old girl to a house in Chicago and sexually assaulted her there, brutally and repeatedly. But what made this episode singularly appalling was the attackers ' streaming their crime on Facebook Live”. Around forty people watched the live stream and saw what was happening, but none of them intervened. This shows the Bystander effect in action on Facebook Live. However, this is not the only case of live streaming a sexual assault to a passive audience. In 2015, an eighteen year old woman witnessed her friend being raped. Instead of calling the police or trying to help the victim, she started
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