Do you know anyone who has been attacked online?
Shaming and bullying are unfortunately very common pastimes on the Internet today. The Internet is the most revolutionary thing to happen to publishing since the invention of the Gutenberg printing press. Information moves at the speed of light and everyone with an internet connection is now a potential author. Peter Diamandis, author of Abundance writes in Forbes that “a Maasai Warrior on a smartphone today has access to more information than President Clinton had only 20 years ago.” In a world with so much information, it is all too easy to find people with similar views and surround yourself; but isn’t that a little dangerous?
According to Wikipedia, the concept of groupthink originated at Yale University and is defined as follows: “Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome.” Because it is very easy to assimilate with a group on the internet, specifically through social networking, groupthink is more prevalent than ever before.
There’s an excellent Ted Talk by Jon Ronson about what happens when the open internet gets carried away in a collective frenzy of presumably well-intentioned dialogue. It seems that given an emotionally charged reason, citizens of the Internet are especially susceptible to groupthink.
In Ronson’s talk, he tells the story of Justine Sacco, a Twitter user with 170 followers who tweeted “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” Few would deny that the joke is in poor taste and can easily be taken in an offensive way. But alas, we’re talking about Twitter; there is absolutely more offensive content on Twitter. It happens that Justine tweeted this before boarding a plane to South Africa and was somewhat of a celebrity by the time she landed. Ronson reports that in the following weeks, “Justine Sacco” was searched on Google over 1.2 million times. The tweet went viral while she was airborne and journalists, charities, corporations, and countless Twitter users seized the opportunity to publicly shame Sacco and capitalize on the social media frenzy.
Justine received a barrage of malicious tweets which seemed to suggest that someone infected with HIV should rape her during her visit to Africa; a rumor was started that she was the privileged daughter of a South African mining tycoon, and she was fired from her job. By any standard, the malevolent tweets, threats, and personal attacks that she received in response to her offensive joke are not a punishment befitting the crime. People say worse things in the name of comedy, often from more privileged positions online or in mass media. So why did this happen?
Ronson researched this case along with many others while writing his new book, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, and he theorizes that “it’s because Twitter [and the Internet] is basically a mutual approval machine. We surround ourselves with people who feel the same way we do, and we approve each other, and that’s a really good feeling.” That assimilation to collectivist culture is called groupthink, and according to Jon, “it’s making us lose our capacity for empathy and for distinguishing between serious and unserious transgressions.”
Justine is not alone. At Reputation Resolutions, we meet people every day who are in similar situations because they are posted on websites which encourage public ridicule. The environment and opportunity for (temporary) anonymity cause the masses to fall victim to groupthink and apparently take great joy in their own perceived superiority while making allegations which would otherwise be unthinkable. As Jon says, “the hunt is on for people’s shameful secrets. You can lead a good, ethical life, but some bad phraseology in a Tweet can overwhelm it all.” This causes psychological, financial, and emotional harm to victims. Writers like Jon Ronson are bringing added awareness to this issue and some sites are fighting back. Outdated laws are being revisited and hopefully, this trend has hit its peak.
How else can we keep online shaming from getting out of hand?