Public Shaming

Sanders was right. At the time of his writing social media was just beginning to take root in our society, Facebook was in it’s infancy, and twitter had been founded year prior. As the two social media giants engrossed us all, like perfect dancers, we danced to the megaphone’s noise. This spread gave us all a megaphone and Jon Ronson’s book So You’ve been Publicly Shamed explores just how we have been using it. But while Saunders was right that we would abuse this megaphone and dumb down our society, the hatred and vitriol it has spread in our society is something that he never could have guessed. The book explores public shaming, evens where many individuals attacked a person for trivial reasons, ruining their lives, hurting their future, and scarring them until the day they die. An avalanche of hatred covers and suffocates this person, but not single one of those snowflakes feels responsible, no one of those snowflakes ever thinks how their actions might are hurting the person, nonetheless, the person dies; a life ruined, and not a person to blame. The megaphone and the distraction it causes allows some to excuses their actions and do things that would be otherwise reprehensible.

In the article, "The Dark Side of Web Fame" by Jessica Bennett, posted online at http://www.newsweek.com/dark-side-web-fame-93505 and published on February 21, 2008, the author recounts multiple stories of when the power of the internet had not benefitted people, but had actually harmed their reputation. Bennett starts the essay by giving an example of a high school boy who made an unfortunately embarrassing video, that was never meant to be published. Sadly, another student found the video and released it online, where the video became a viral sensation and the teen was humiliated not only on a local level, but a global level too. Throughout the article Bennett gives other examples to show the reader that people, using the tool of the

Public humiliation has changed immensely weighing heavily on the creation of the internet introducing the idea of online cyberbullying as opposed to scaffolding in a town square. As modern society revels in putting people on a public pedestal, the scaffold that Hester Prynne is put onto marks her as no longer a person with feelings, just as a negative figure people look upon to make themselves feel higher. After the news broke of Monica Lewinsky’s scandal, people no longer recognized her as a young adult who makes mistakes, but was treated like a person with no emotions and incapable of being affected by her mistakes. As the story went on throughout the internet, she was only represented as a person through the mistake she made just as Hester Prynne was recognized for the crime she committed. Publicly shaming Hester Prynne and Monica Lewinsky is and was a way for people to make themselves feel better and place themselves higher in society.

In “The Problem with Public Shaming,” an essay that first appeared in the Nation, Stryker argues against the form of public shaming promoted by online networks and how people have figured out a way to deal with crimes but not with social media. Stryker introduced the essay’s subject matter through social media examples, while reflecting on past experiences and stating important details that reinforce the subject of public shaming as well as “dox” and discusses this term throughout the essay. Stryker helps define the term “dox” by listing the common traits and information “doxxers” try to gather, which include—name, phone number, address, social security and financial

People started realizing the benefactors of bulling over the internet. The cyberbully method became an outbreak and now, it is one of the most common ways public shaming and humiliation start. Corresponding to influential decisions, politics associate in the persuasion of this concept. As many representatives or future candidates of the United States mock one’s opponent, it sends a message to everyone watching; its acceptable to publicly humiliate and shame someone to put oneself ahead of another. Women also relate to either being publicly shamed or publicly shaming one another. As the different period of times show the relation with public shaming, it seems to still be a reoccurring problem around the world. Social media, politics, and the different arguments about women are some of the vast contributions of the influences to public shaming and

The Flip Side of Internet Fame by Jessica Bennett. I believe her argument is how things posted on the internet is big, like once someone post something on their it’s going to be on the internet forever. I agree with her because once you posted something on the internet it’s forever going up there even if you deleted the post or the picture. I am going to write about the first person that Jessica Bennett talks to about the “Star Wars Kid”, bullying, and the cyber world.

It’s common to argue that a perpetrator “deserves” to be shamed, but in fact human psychology doesn’t work this way. Many pedophiles, for instance, recognize that that they are inexorably—even biologically—bound to impulses that they themselves loathe. Does the shaming—through public registries for example—cause the pedophile to reform? Unlikely. Does it deter others from engaging in pedophilic acts, or does it drive them to darker corners and sneakier tactics?

Public shaming has been around for a long time. Back in the 1700s it was very popular, especially with the Puritans. Literature such as Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible show examples of such public shaming and punishments. Hester Prynne is made an example by the colony’s leaders by forcing her to wear a red A on her clothing. By doing this along with public hangings seen in The Crucible by Arthur Miller, people would follow the rules because they do not want to end up like the example set before them. Although there are not public hangings like in The Crucible, at least not in America, there are still forms of public shaming that are sentenced by courts. Public shaming as a punishment to criminals can be fair and just depending upon the crime and whether the judge takes things too far; it can also be effective in making the criminal not want to do what he did again.

Shaming or puritan punishment like forcing people to keep a sign with a dishonorable inscription seems more like retaliation yet, not justice. Nonetheless, if we look at this problem from a different angle, exposing criminals to the public condemnation may be quite beneficial because it may have a powerful educational effect on potential criminals, and thereby may prevent some of the crimes that could already be planned. At the same time, a prison cannot cause such a vivid condemnation that public shaming does consequently, cannot be an effective behavioral corrector just by itself. I think that combining these two types of punishment into one can give a staggering result and, perhaps, in the near future humanity will forget about such problem

Ronson also talks about how Google plays a role in the continuation of public shaming. Ronson quotes Jared Higgins, who says “What the first page looks like determines what people think of you” (Higgins 265). Through this quote, Ronson shows how public shaming ruins an individual for years to come. The results of their shaming incidents will always be at the top of Google’s search engine.

Most people believe that public humiliation is cruel and unusual punishment, yet it seems to be the only thing working. Doxxing is when you take someone's personal info -info such as social security numbers or address- and post it for the world to see. Some people still see doxxing as ineffective and just flat out wrong as discussed Cole Stryker in “The Problem with Public Shaming” written in The Nation, Stryker notions that public shaming doesn't work and that people need to talk about its effects on people all around the world. Stryker discusses how doxxing and Scarlet Letters are one in the same and are equally bad to do, he even “And when it slithers its tentacles in a person’s life, we become desperate for some way to fight back—to

Before the school officials released his name, a group of students released his name on Facebook, identifying him as a rapist before anyone knew the story. Shortly after, the internet had a field day and were constantly bashing him without any evidence, but the word of mouth. It also got as far as a news company released the victim's version of events without his side of what happened. Even though no charges were made, the student will not be able to forget. While the author talks about how internet shaming is a crisis, the act of publicly humiliating has been around for centuries.

The book, “So You've Been Publicly Shamed” written by Jon Ronson, commences by disclosing his own experience with identity theft on social media. His story involves three educated men, who have taken over his identity by creating a twitter account. The men are careless and unashamed of their actions. Therefore, Ronson decides to meet with the three gentlemen to discuss shutting down the account. As they talked, Ronson is simultaneously recording them and realizes that the men lack empathy for his concerns and Ron’s portrayal on social media. Moreover, Ronson decides to post the video on Youtube, and later receives an abundant of supporting comments on the incident. Eventually, the account is shutdown and proves how publicly shaming someone

“Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change”(Brené Brown). In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, a woman is publicly shamed for having a child with a man who is not her husband. Another example of public shame can be seen in modern day articles “Florida ‘Scarlet Letter’ Law is Repealed by Gov. Bush,” by Dana Canedy, and “Houston Couple Gets ‘The Scarlet Letter’ Treatment.” Both talk of public shame that people have had to endure in the present day. Public shaming is not an effective punishment because it is a cruel and unusual punishment, it does not deter crime, and it can emotionally traumatize the one being shamed.

Of course, shaming should be part of society due to the fact that it brings order and control among the people. Shaming controls people who perform unacceptable behavior that can cause great damage. It is extremely critical for any society to be in order since it brings peace and balance. But, in order for that to happen society must shame people who violate or break moral and social norms that are highly valued. According to Eric Posner, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School stated that, “Shaming is a form of social control... Shaming has always been extraordinarily important—often... shaming was a major source of public order”(sec. 2). Controlling individuals with shame is the