Outing Sexual Harassers: A Networked Coordination Game
By: Boon Palipatana
In Gillian Tett’s article for the Financial Times, “Trump and the ‘information cascade’ created a cultural reckoning,” Tett examines the behavior of individuals within the waves of sexual harassment scandals that have arisen over the past months. The series of scandals Tett refer to were seemingly sparked by some initial, well-publicized allegations made against the likes of high-profile individuals such as former President George H.W. Bush, Democratic senator Al Franken, and many notable actors and producers including “House of Cards” actor Kevin Spacey and Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. The first half of Tett’s article examines the effects that “information cascades” have made on the movement, while the second half shifts towards the role Tett believes Trump has played in unleashing the waves. Thus, for the purposes of connecting to the concepts learned in our class, we will place our focus on dissecting the first part of Tett’s writing.
Tett first outlines the nature of the incidents in a similar manner to how we’ve already described – allegations have been made against many relevant figures across various disciplines, but most notably in the entertainment and political areas. Further, there’s good reason to suspect that similar cases may manifest in areas such as business as well. However, Tett soon brings up an interesting question to ponder: Why are people speaking now, and what kept them from doing so before? Tett begins her explanation with a brief personal anecdote, where she reveals that she once attempted to combat mild harassment against her on her own, which not only proved unsuccessful, but resulted in her being expelled. Tett points out that although there were some cases where individuals guilty of harassment were held responsible, most of the time victims had to endure an arduously long, slow-moving legal process. Now, Tett claims, the use of social media and other technologies has made it possible for victims to not only spread their voice more efficiently, but has allowed them to find more power in their cause through congregating with others. Tett describes this phenomenon as “information cascades” effectively overturning obstacles.
While Tett centered her examination of the recent waves of outing sexual harassers through her concept of “information cascades” (which are a bit more loosely defined than how we used the term in class), we can view the events from the modified perspective of a networked coordination game. The events relate to the model well on a few levels. First, each individual’s behavior seemingly relies on the behavior of those around them, due to some implicit payoff that the individual attains depending on the decisions of others in the network. This idea is evident in Tett’s own anecdote about trying to combat a harassment on her own. Working as an individual, Tett was unsuccessful, and was even punished for her actions. During the movement currently, individuals have the ability to act in coordination, make knowledge of their incidents public, and hold their transgressors responsible, all while effectively toppling any obstacles that held them back prior.
As the model for a network coordination game would suggest, there is likely some sort of “threshold” that individuals align their behavior with. When victims don’t have enough people close to them that can support their case by providing their own similar experience of being sexually harassed, the victim does not typically gain much ground, and the act of outing a sexual harasser does not end up being one worth making. On the other hand, when there are enough people close to the victim that can help address an incident by citing their own, all individuals involved can gain greatly, which not only solidifies the effectiveness of their own actions, but can also cause other victims to join in as well. This concept of a “threshold” explained in class aligns nicely with the reality of the events that have unfolded. Furthermore, one role that technology could play in effecting the network coordination game model is by forming more links within the network to connect victims with other victims that choose to speak out about their incident. In the concepts defined by the network coordination game, this would allow individuals to reach their “threshold” to speak out with much more ease, since they can easily be connected to other victims that they wouldn’t have connections to through other means. This idea can serve as an underlying explanation in addressing how the movement has been closely linked to social media, and also parallels the ideas Tett touched on in addressing the importance technology played in sparking the movement.
Source: https://www.ft.com/content/6973e6d6-d047-11e7-9dbb-291a884dd8c6