This is according to a study titled 'User Reactions to Rape News Shared on Social Media: An Analysis of Five Facebook Reaction Buttons'.
27% of responses to rape news are humorous. Psychologists say they lack emotion and sex education.
It shows that 43.22 percent of the respondents reacted angrily to the news of rape. The regretting response was 21.82 percent. Less than 6 percent of users responded to the love-indicator. About 2 percent of users expressed surprise.
Anger, laughter or ha ha, sadness, love or gain and surprise or wow response can be given to any post of a user on Facebook. Now, of course, Facebook has added another opportunity to respond. That is, care. Apart from this, 'likes' can be given and comments can be made.
Researchers have shown that this response to laughter is conducive to rape. A kind of distorted mentality is manifested through the reaction of laughter. On the other hand, a psychologist told Prothom Alo that those who give such reactions lack scientific sex education, feeling and etiquette.
The study was done by Jahangirnagar University Lecturer in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies. Saeed Al-Zaman. He is currently studying Digital Humanities at the University of Alberta, Canada. Tasnuva Alam, a student of the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Jahangirnagar University, was with him in the study.
The research article was published in the Asian Journal for Public Opinion Research on February 26. The South Korean Center for Asian Public Opinion Research and Collaboration Initiative publishes the journal.
The study analyzed 35 lakh responses given by users in 9,429 reports shared on Facebook pages of 10 media outlets in the country. The reports are for the period from 2016 to 2021. The researchers analyzed the responses to news published on the online editions of four magazines and four television stations and on the Facebook pages of two online media outlets.
Researcher Saeed Al-Zaman told Prothom Alo that Facebook is the most popular social media in Bangladesh. There have been anti-sexual harassment movements like 'Mitu' and 'Andrepculture' through Facebook. However, in many cases, through Facebook, a large number of users are inciting sexual violence and rape. He is presenting serious crimes like rape as a humorous subject.
On the positive side, however, most people have expressed anger, grief, love for the victim and expressed surprise at the news of the rape. The total rate of such reactions is 74 percent.
The study further found that there was a correlation between users' reactions to rape news. As the response to anger increases, so does the response to grief. When the response to grief increases, the response to anger decreases. In other words, users are reacting to the rape through these two. The response to laughter, on the other hand, was somewhat sporadic. With the incident of rape, the reaction of laughter has become more or less.
Researcher Saeed Al-Zaman said that the news of rape becoming common and regular on Facebook may have affected the reaction of users.
According to the human rights organization Odhikar, 1,411 women and children were raped in 2021.
Ahmed Helal, an associate professor at the National Institute of Mental Health, thinks there are three reasons behind the laughter response to the news of rape. He pointed out the lack of scientific sex education in a large part of the country. "We need to develop the habit of not looking down on women and looking at them with respect," she said. It is also important to know the minimum etiquette in using social media.
Professor Helal thinks that sensitive news like rape is being published in many cases. The media has to be more responsible in covering such news.
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