Online shaming is a door that swings only one way: You may have the power to open it, but you don't have the power to close it. The Internet had it now, and nothing I said or did was going to change that." As Krahulik wrote after the PR bully pleaded with him to make the abuse stop, "Once I had posted the emails I didn't have the power anymore. The bigger the so-called Donglegate story became, the more disproportionate and unfair Richards' original tweet seemed, even if that level of exposure was never her intent.
That's why starting a shaming campaign is not a decision to be taken lightly - especially because the Internet doesn't do take-backs if you change your mind later. And it turns out to have real-life consequences for everyone involved. Using an influential social media account to call out individuals, as Richards did, isn't simply saying something is "not cool" it's a request to have someone put in the digital stocks, where a potentially unlimited number of people can throw digital stones at them. These days, too many Internet shame campaigns dole out punishment that is too brutal for the crime. That detachment can sometimes be liberating, and it's often a good thing that people speak bluntly online, especially against injustice that they see around them. Internet speech can be cruder and crueler than our real-life interactions, in large part due to our literal distance from the people we're talking to and their reactions.
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Indeed, the online elite don't always wield the same sort of social power and influence in their offline lives and jobs many have been victims of bullying themselves. It also involves a power differential: The bully is the one who's punching down.Īnd this is precisely the differential that so many of us fail to grasp when our friends and followers are just abstract numbers on a social-media profile. We despise racism and sexism because they bully the less powerful, but at what point do the shamers become the bullies? After all, the hallmark of bullying isn't just being mean. But does a 16-year-old making crude comments to his friends deserve to be pilloried with a doggedness we typically reserve for politicians and public figures - or, at the very least, for adults? Yes, what these kids wrote was reprehensible. Most of the kids have since deleted their Twitter accounts, but search any of their names on Google and you'll likely find references to their racist tweets within the first few results. In some cases, Jezebel listed the hobbies and activities of the students, essentially "SEO-shaming" them to potential colleges.
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When the website Jezebel cataloged a series of racist tweets by high school students about President Obama, it not only published their names but also called their high schools and notified the principals about their tweets. These feeds shame the jerks they highlight by broadcasting their ignorance far beyond their typically small, like-minded audiences to tens of thousands of people. Following a feed like or can be a powerful experience after a while, the shocking ugliness fades to a dull, steady ache, an emotional corrosion that simulates how the dehumanization of prejudice can become almost mundane. Numerous Tumblr and Twitter accounts have cropped up to document racist and sexist remarks on social media. When Does Shaming Become Bullying?Ĭonsider a form of shaming that a lot of us might want to get behind: calling out people who say indefensibly terrible things online.
We need to think twice before we unleash it. Increasingly, our failure to grasp our online power has become a liability - personally, professionally, and morally.