Conflicts in social media

Language directs, determines, reflects our thinking, and adjusts to some‐ thing or against someone.

Speech aggression is no less dangerous than physical aggression – it is the violence but it is expressed differently. Unlike violence, speech aggression does not leave scratch marks or bruises. But it inflicts worries, a blow to self‐esteem, loss of confidence and mental pain. Offensive words could be insultive and re‐ membered for a long time. There is no particular accuracy in them – rather, cohe‐ rence, sometimes semantic, sometimes purely phonetic with other phenomena, as a rule, unpleasant. Verbal aggression is not only shouting or insults, which can be easily identified as aggression. It can manifest itself imperceptibly and only the confusion and insecurity experienced by the object of aggression indicates that something is wrong. The main forms of speech aggression are considered: shout‐ ing, threats, insults, command tone, devaluation, criticism.

The complexity of the definition of the concept of «speech aggression» lies in the fact that this is not a single form of behavior that reflects any motivation. This term is used to describe a wide variety of actions. The manifestations of speech aggression are heterogeneous in terms of motivation, situations of ma‐ nifestation, forms of expression, results, etc. [1].

Communication of parents in social media chats can sometimes be called a virtual terror of dissidents. The emerging micro‐group enters into conflicts with separate «not submitted» individuals, publicly suppressing the centers of resis‐ tance. There is a tendency when in order to become aware of your new sub‐ community, it is imperative to resolutely dissociate from someone, push off and virtually kick. And at that moment, when the binary, black‐and‐white binary scheme characteristic of human psychology «we and they, ours and theirs, ours and not ours» will take shape completely, punishing someone and hitting is obli‐ gatory already in reality: the solidarity with a new authority, even virtual, usually secured with alcohol, blood and money. Moreover, the most aggressive chat ac‐ tivists can involve relatives or friends who have nothing to do with the chat but are ready for fight or insult.

Communication in a social media group chat is nothing more than commu‐ nication according to the rules of the «street» and not at all a polite conversation. Therefore, success here accompanies three categories of people: those who grew up on the street have the appropriate conflict skills; those who often go to the «virtual street», chronically live there and are always aware of the discussed mat‐ ter, those who spend most of their time not on discussing the issue of conversa‐ tion itself, but on building communication with other people, on creating their own «support group», who are aware that discussing anything is just a conve‐ nient reason to declare yourself [2].

This communication in a social media group chat is not a hidden, but a pub‐ lic dialogue. When the presence around, though virtual, but nevertheless wit‐ nesses and eyewitnesses, increases the degree of emotions and does not allow retreat, since it is a shame to set aside virtual territory. In the presence of others, people take greater risks and sacrifice than if they can quietly and unnoticed leave the game.

Hence, based on the viral spread of the practice of social media group chats of people unfamiliar with each other (with different cultures or behavior) a fur‐ ther increase in the number of conflicts and crimes based on communication in parents chats is predicted in the future [3]. As a result, there are more and more cases of fights, insults and violence. Usually it starts with a delicate discussion of some general problems, then they turn to personalities, insults and threats and in real life fights and murders take place. One wrote it wrong, the other read it wrong. Increasingly, the aggression from parental correspondence in messengers results in not virtual clashes at all.

A shocking deliberate attack in Volgograd on a young father, Roman Gre‐ benyuk (which led to his death), committed by Arsen, the brother of a young woman with whom Roman had a different position in the school's parent chat (the attacker himself did not correspond in the chat and was not even familiar with that whom he attacked!), makes us seriously talk about the dangerous side of digitalization of communication and social life online.

On November 21, 2020, residents of St. Petersburg started a skirmish in their parents' chat and decided to find out who was right on their fists. In addi‐ tion, one of the participants in the skirmish decided to back up his arguments with a gun and shooted his opponents. There were no casualties in this accident, although it is difficult to call this showdown a trivial fight.

According to psychologists, such outbursts of aggression are associated with the fact that, defending the interests of their children, parents are capable of almost everything. There is certain impersonality in chats, due to which users can allow themselves what they try to avoid in personal meetings. The upbringing and general attitude of the communicants are also of great importance. Attempts to resolve the dispute with the use of violence, even virtual, psychologists also associate with a difficult situation due to the pandemic. According to experts, in this way, people are trying to «drain the tension».

Unfortunately, now there are some difficulties in qualifying this phenome‐ non as «speech aggression in social media chats» and bringing communicants to justice. But, taking into account the increase in the number of conflicts and crimes on the basis of communication in the parental chats, one should take the threats of the «chat authorities» seriously; take care of their safety and the safety of their property. It includes first of all – promptly take screen shots of corres‐ pondence if you are directly insulted or threatened. With this, one can file a law‐ suit for the protection of honor and dignity, and prove the validity of your de‐ mand to start a criminal case or at least check the available facts.