Social media can kill – the phenomenon of secondary victimization after the crime of July 16, 2023 in Poznań on the example of the Sadistic.pl website

Abstract

On Sunday, July 16, in Poznań, a 31-year-old perpetrator murdered a 30-year-old man in front of his fiancée. Immediately after the event, short videos and photos from the scene began to be shared on social media, followed by comments from Internet users. The subject of the analysis undertaken by the author are comments that were placed under video materials illustrating crimes posted on Internet portal Sadistic.pl, and especially comments that concern the fiancée of the murdered person. She became a victim of secondary victimization. The trauma she experienced during her fiancé’s murder was prolonged on social media, where hateful comments against her appeared. The analysis undertaken by the author was qualitative and exploratory in nature and will refer to the concept of secondary/double victimization. The author is also in favour used elements of discourse analysis and quantitative content analysis, analyzing the frequency of epithets and types of argumentation used in entries. The author distinguished three types of comments among the videos showing this event: (1) indifferent to the matter, (2) with a negative attitude towards Julia (the murdered man’s fiancée), (3) empathetic –compassionate. The author also discovered that the film about the crime was probably most often shared on Twitter Sadistic.pl. Due to the lack of legal regulations and mechanisms protecting victims of secondary victimization against hate, the author proposed a number of activities involving state institutions and social organizations.