Public Shaming - Week 7

I read an interesting article title "How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco's Life"  written by Jon Ronson and published in the New York Times. The article outlines instances of severe public shaming brought on by a mob mentality through social media. The main topic of discussion in the article follows a famous tweet by Justine Sacco and the resulting repercussions of it. For those unfamiliar with this, Justine tweeted “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” while on holiday in 2013. She was waiting in Heathrow’s international terminal for her departure to Cape Town. Justine didn't expect much from the tweet considering she had only 170 followers but during her 11 hour flight to Cape Town, unknowingly her tweet blew up into the #1 trending topic. People were outraged by her insensitivity to an issue that is not such a good idea to joke about. The following public shaming by tens of thousands of angry tweets resulted in a loss of her job, death threats, and severe psychological and emotional damage. Her story is similar among many including high school students.

Obviously, Justine was the one who wrote the insensitive tweet but did her punishment fit her actions? I don't know the type of person Justine is, nor am I defended her or agreeing with what she said, but she has been permanently labeled in a certain way now by a comment less than 140 characters long.  I'm sure she does not continue to stand behind her comment either. We all make mistakes but I cannot imagine we should be subject to such a large public harassment.  It reminds of this:

(State Archives of Florida)

This photo is supposed to be of Jonathan Walker who, in 1844, was convicted as a "slave-stealer" for attempting to aid several slaves escape off the coast of Florida. He was sentenced to imprisonment, heavy fines, and being tied to a pillory as a form of public shaming. The difference now compared to the 1800's in Florida is that the pillory, brought on by "social justice" through social media, is capable of following somewhere wherever they go. Also, who should be held responsible for their actions in Justine's case? Justine is wrong is saying what she did, the people who shamed her are no better for the comments they make personally attacking her, twitter has provided a platform for this to occur, and the internet is not policed to protect against any of it. So what can someone do? The answer.....is to be a digitally responsible citizen. I have posted about this topic before but after reading Justine's story, I felt to go on further. It is so important that we know what we put out in the world (via spoken word, art, internet) can dramatically change our lives and it's so important that our youth know this. I for one will be incorporating social media in classroom, using board approved platforms of course and I will for sure only use platforms that I can personally regulate.