A disturbing new wave of online hostility is dragging Sri Lanka’s public discourse into a pit of vulgarity, eroding democratic dignity and empowering voices that thrive on hatred rather than reason.
Sri Lanka witnessed an unsettling and deeply revealing moment shortly after President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s address to the nation on the devastation caused by Cyclone Ditwah. As the country reeled from a natural calamity, a different kind of storm erupted online. A grotesque display of digital filth unfolded across social media, exposing once again the darker underbelly of modern online culture. A former journalist, now reportedly living in the UK, appeared intoxicated by the thrill of unrestricted posting and released a barrage of obscenities against the President, as if social media were a licence for vulgarity. What was once a respected profession rooted in truth and public service has, for some, decayed into a craving for provocation, filth, and self-projection. Criticising a president is legitimate in any democracy, but when criticism mutates into naked abuse, it signals a profound collapse of civic culture.
This incident is not isolated. It reflects a recurring pattern. A small but loud group of Sri Lankan men living comfortably in Western cities now presume to dictate terms to Sri Lankans at home, as though citizenship were nothing more than broadband access and indignation. They hurl accusations from afar, claiming moral authority, while accepting no responsibility for the consequences of their words. Democratic discourse cannot be outsourced to individuals who have detached themselves from social belonging yet demand the right to shape it. And when their interventions descend into the language of gutter theatrics, it raises a serious question: what compels them to believe that such behaviour counts as political thought?
Part of the answer lies in the toxic architecture of social media itself. The platforms are designed not to elevate truth, dignity, or civic reasoning but to amplify whatever is most emotional, divisive, and dehumanising. Outrage becomes profitable. Contempt spreads faster than clarity. Decency becomes invisible. In this digital marketplace, those who engage in abusive theatrics believe they possess influence not because they have meaningful ideas but because algorithms reward their emotional extremism. In this delusion, they mistake shock value for significance.
The deeper tragedy is that the symbolic respect owed to the office of a president, respect founded not on personality but on the sovereignty of the people, has been surrendered to this digital culture of degradation. A president, any president, represents the collective will of the nation. His policies must be criticised with rigour. His decisions must be interrogated with force. His ideological commitments must be challenged with courage. But reducing him to a target of vulgarity damages not just the office but the civic fabric that supports democracy. The line between criticising a leader and demeaning the institution is not an outdated ritual. It is a protective boundary that prevents national institutions from collapsing into personalised chaos.
Where such boundaries erode, a society sinks into corruption, not only institutional but moral and psychological. When obscenity becomes the currency of public discourse, imitation follows. When imitation becomes habit, it forms culture. And culture, once degraded, becomes difficult to repair. If citizens normalise following online provocateurs, granting them the oxygen of attention, the algorithms respond. The platforms amplify. The public sphere fills with noise rather than thought.
This is why responsibility does not lie solely with governments. It lies with every citizen who chooses whom to follow, whose content to support, and whose worldview to legitimise. To unfollow such provocateurs is not merely a digital action. It is an ethical act. It is a refusal to participate in the degradation of the common space. It is a reassertion of dignity and a reclaiming of agency from the machinery of digital manipulation.
Many of these digital aggressors resemble less political commentators and more individuals projecting inner turmoil onto public figures, using the national stage to express unresolved psychological conflicts. The compulsion to insult rather than argue, demean rather than analyse, indicates a psychological dislocation more than political conviction. It is not the role of public discourse to diagnose individuals, but patterns are visible. When anger becomes an identity, hostility becomes a hobby, and obsession becomes performance, society must recognise deeper issues at play. In such moments, responses must be compassionate but firm. Those who show signs of escalating aggression, distress, or addiction should be encouraged by their communities and, if necessary, by institutions to seek mental health support before online hostility translates into real world harm.
The primary responsibility, however, rests with the audience. The digital mob survives only when it is fed. Ignored, it withers. Unfollowed, it becomes irrelevant. Denied attention, it loses power. In the recent attack on the President, the greater danger does not lie in the obscenities themselves but in the silence of those who know better but refuse to speak. Political organisations, intellectuals, activists, and citizens who stay silent surrender moral ground to the forces that corrode civic life. Silence is not neutrality. Silence is complicity.
A mature political culture must develop the courage to reject vulgarity in all forms, regardless of its source, regardless of whether the abuser aligns with one’s ideology. When barbarism is excused because it targets someone we oppose, we legitimise a weapon that will eventually be wielded against everyone. Defending dignity is not defending an individual. It is defending the republic.
Sri Lankans abroad who wield their social media platforms like megaphones of contempt must reflect on the privilege afforded to them by the countries that host them. Western democracies insist that freedom of speech comes with responsibility. Hate speech, harassment, and incitement are not tolerated. If individuals now display behaviours bordering on instability or aggression, diplomatic missions and authorities should intervene through available legal and administrative mechanisms. These interventions are not censorship. They are necessary to safeguard both individuals and the public.
The wider lesson is clear. Social media, when misused, becomes a breeding ground for psychological projection, ethical decay, and communal harm. Like any tool, it remains neutral until wielded by human hands. The question is not what social media is doing to us but what we allow it to do through our choices.
Sri Lanka must reclaim its collective agency. Citizens must cultivate the discipline to unfollow, refuse, and reject digital absurdity. Public discourse must be elevated by rewarding thoughtfulness instead of tantrums, analysis instead of abuse, courage instead of cruelty. If this is ignored, Sri Lanka risks becoming a society where public reason collapses, institutions lose their symbolic value, the loudest drown out the wisest, and democracy becomes indistinguishable from chaos.
At this moment, the choice rests with the people. We can continue lying down with dogs and rising with fleas, or we can rise with dignity, clarity, and a renewed resolve to defend the public sphere from those who revel in its degradation. The future of civic life depends not on the few who shout but on the many who choose wisely what to hear. Reject these embodiments of banality before their filth corrupts you irreversibly.
