Online shaming is a form of
public shaming in which targets are
publicly humiliated on the
internet, via
social media platforms (e.g.
Twitter or
Facebook), or more localized media (e.g.
email group
A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. The term is often extended to include the people subscribed to such a list, so the group of subscribers is re ...
s). As online shaming frequently involves exposing private information on the Internet, the ethics of
public humiliation has been a source of debate over
internet privacy and
media ethics. Online shaming takes many forms, including call-outs, cancellation (
cancel culture
Cancel culture, or rarely also known as call-out culture, is a phrase contemporary to the late 2010s and early 2020s used to refer to a form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles—whether it be online, on ...
),
doxing, negative reviews, and
revenge porn.
Description
Online shaming is a form of
public shaming in which
internet users are
harassed,
mocked, or
bullied by other internet users
online. This shaming may involve commenting directly to or about the shamed; the sharing of
private messages; or the posting of private photos. Those being shamed are perceived to have committed a social transgression, and other internet users then use public exposure to shame the offender.
People have been shamed online for a variety of reasons, usually consisting of some form of social transgression such as posting offensive comments, posting offensive images or
meme
A meme ( ) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural i ...
s, online gossip, or lying. Those who are shamed online have not necessarily committed any social transgression, however. Online shaming may be used to get
revenge
Revenge is committing a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance, be it real or perceived. Francis Bacon described revenge as a kind of "wild justice" that "does... offend the law ndputteth the law out of office." Pr ...
(for example, in the form of
revenge pornography),
stalk
Stalk or stalking may refer to:
Behaviour
* Stalk, the stealthy approach (phase) of a predator towards its prey
* Stalking, an act of intrusive behaviour or unwanted attention towards a person
* Deer stalking, the pursuit of deer for sport
Biol ...
,
blackmail
Blackmail is an act of coercion using the threat of revealing or publicizing either substantially true or false information about a person or people unless certain demands are met. It is often damaging information, and it may be revealed to fa ...
, or to threaten other internet users.
Privacy violation is a major issue in online shaming. Those being shamed may be denied the
right to privacy and be subject to
defamation
Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...
. David Furlow, chairman of the Media, Privacy and Defamation Committee of the
American Bar Association, has identified the potential privacy concerns raised by websites facilitating the distribution of information that is not part of the
public record (documents filed with a government agency) and has said that such websites "just
ivea forum to people whose statements may not reflect truth."
Types
Call-outs and cancellation
''Cancel culture'' or ''call-out culture'' describes a form of
ostracism in which someone or something is thrust out of social or professional circles, either online on
social media, in the real world, or both. They are said to be "canceled".
Merriam-Webster
Merriam-Webster, Inc. is an American company that publishes reference books and is especially known for its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States.
In 1831, George and Charles Merriam founded the company as ...
defines ''cancel'' as "to stop giving support to that person",
and
dictionary.com defines it as "calling out the bad behavior, boycotting their work (such as by not watching their movies or listening to their music), and trying to take away their public platform and power".
Lisa Nakamura
Lisa Nakamura is an American professor of media and cinema studies, Asian American studies, and gender and women’s studies.University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Asian American Studies. She teaches at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, ...
, professor of
media studies
Media studies is a discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history, and effects of various media; in particular, the mass media. Media Studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but mostly ...
at the
University of Michigan, defines ''cancelling'' as simply a "cultural boycott" in which the act of depriving someone of attention deprives them of their livelihood.
The notion of cancel culture is a variant on the term "call-out culture", and constitutes a form of
boycott
A boycott is an act of nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organization, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for moral, social, political, or environmental reasons. The purpose of a boycott is to inflict som ...
involving an individual (usually a celebrity) who is deemed to have acted or spoken in a questionable or controversial manner.
Over the past few years, cancel culture has become a pervasive presence in American society. Most Americans find the term more associated with social media and entertainment instead of politics. ''
Business Insider'' conducted a poll in conjunction with
SurveyMonkey that asked 1,129 respondents "When you hear the term 'cancel culture,' which of the following do you most associate it with? Please select all that apply." 48% of respondents identified cancel culture with social media, 34% identified cancel culture with the entertainment industry, 31% associated it with the news media, 20% listed colleges, and 16% did not know what cancel culture was. Regarding politics, partisan splits on this issue were widespread; for instance, almost half of Republicans associated cancel culture with Democrats.
Doxing
Doxing involves researching and broadcasting
personally identifiable information
Personal data, also known as personal information or personally identifiable information (PII), is any information related to an identifiable person.
The abbreviation PII is widely accepted in the United States, but the phrase it abbreviates ha ...
about an individual, often with the intention of harming that person. This information may include the person's
home address
An address is a collection of information, presented in a mostly fixed format, used to give the location of a building, apartment, or other structure or a plot of land, generally using political boundaries and street names as references, along w ...
,
workplace or
school, full name,
spouse
A spouse is a significant other in a marriage. In certain contexts, it can also apply to a civil union or common-law marriage. Although a spouse is a form of significant other, the latter term also includes non-marital partners who play a social ...
s,
credit card information, and
phone number.
Bruce Schneier, a lecturer and fellow at
Harvard Kennedy School, has elaborated that doxing does not just happen to individuals. Companies such as
Sony and
Ashley Madison have been involved previously in doxing schemes.
Negative reviews
User generated review sites such as
Yelp,
Google Maps and
Trip Advisor have been used to publicly shame or punish businesses.
Revenge porn
Non-consensual sharing of sexually explicit material in order to humiliate a person, frequently distributed by
computer hackers or ex-partners. Images and video of sexual acts are often combined with doxing of a person's private details, such as their home addresses and workplaces.
[Eric Larson]
"It's Still Easy to Get Away With Revenge Porn"
, ''Mashable
Mashable is a digital media platform, news website and entertainment company founded by Pete Cashmore in 2005.
History
Mashable was founded by Pete Cashmore while living in Aberdeen, Scotland, in July 2005. Early iterations of the site were a ...
'', October 21, 2013. In some jurisdictions, revenge porn is a criminal offense.
Social status shaming
Social status shaming is a form of online shaming that involves bullying others online due to their socioeconomic status. This phenomenon is centered around using someone's income, social status, health, and influence to subject them certain types of bullying and online criticism. It is often utilized as a vessel for
social control among classes, and has been regarded as one of the most effective models in which to examine social status and its influence on controlling those below oneself. In the digital world we live in, there is a social standard that people fall into and try to mimic. Thus, social status shaming is a form of
social exclusion, where if someone isn't as rich as another, then that person will be subjected to some form of bullying and criticism in order for them to retain social control over the poorer person.
Notable examples
Ashley Madison data breach

In July 2015, a group hacked the user data of
Ashley Madison, a commercial dating website marketed as helping people have extramarital affairs. In August 2015, over 30 million user account details; including names and email addresses were released publicly.
A variety of security researchers and
Internet privacy activists debated the ethics of the release.
Clinical psychologists argued that dealing with an affair in a particularly public way increases the hurt for spouses and children.
Carolyn Gregoire argued "
cial media has created an aggressive culture of public shaming in which individuals take it upon themselves to inflict psychological damage" and more often than not, "the punishment goes beyond the scope of the crime."
Charles J. Orlando
Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English language, English and French language, French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic, Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*k ...
, who had joined the site to conduct research concerning women who cheat, said he felt users of the site were anxious the release of sexually explicit messages would humiliate their spouses and children.
He wrote it is alarming "the
mob
Mob or MOB may refer to:
Behavioral phenomena
* Crowd
* Smart mob, a temporary self-structuring social organization, coordinated through telecommunication
Crime and law enforcement
* American Mafia, also known as the Mob
* Irish Mob, a US crim ...
that is the Internet is more than willing to serve as judge, jury, and executioner" and members of the site "don't deserve a flogging in the virtual town square with millions of onlookers."
Tim Hunt controversy
In 2015, the Nobel laureate Sir
Tim Hunt was involved in a highly publicized controversy at the World Conference of Science Journalists (WCSJ) in
Seoul. At a lunch for female journalists and scientists, Hunt gave a speech at short notice which was later recounted by an unnamed EU official:
In the audience were science journalists Connie St Louis,
Deborah Blum and
Ivan Oransky
Ivan Oransky is the co-founder of Retraction Watch, a blog reporting scientific retractions, and a writer in residence at New York University's Arthur Carter Journalism Institute. Oransky graduated from New York University with a medical degree an ...
, who found Hunt's remarks highly inappropriate. They decided to publicize his remarks on Twitter, giving St Louis the task of writing a short text to be tweeted and corroborated by the other two.
The tweet cast the remarks in starkly
sexist
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers primaril ...
terms, declared that Hunt had "utterly ruined" the luncheon, and gave no indication that he had been joking.
St Louis's tweet went viral, setting off what ''
The Observer'' described as a "particularly vicious social media campaign."
The
Royal Society quickly distanced itself from Hunt's comments as reported and emphasized its commitment to equality in the sciences.
To ridicule the "sexist scientist", the online
feminist
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
magazine ''Vagenda'' urged female scientists to post mundane pictures of themselves at work under the
hashtag
A hashtag is a metadata tag that is prefaced by the hash (also known as pound or octothorpe) sign, ''#''. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services such as Twitter or Instagram as a form of user-generated ...
"#distractinglysexy".
Two days after the speech, Hunt gave a BBC radio interview saying "I did mean the part about having trouble with girls. It is true that I have fallen in love with people in the lab, and that people in the lab have fallen in love with me, and it's very disruptive to the science. It's terribly important that, in the lab, people are on a level playing field. And I found these emotional entanglements made life very difficult. I mean, I'm really, really sorry that I caused any offence – that's awful. I certainly didn't mean – I just meant to be honest, actually."
Hunt went on to say "I'm very sorry if people took offense. I certainly did not mean to demean women, but rather be honest about my own shortcomings."
Numerous media outlets reported on the incident and the interview, citing portions of Hunt's original remarks and criticizing them as sexist.
The editors of ''Nature'' called on "all involved in science
ocondemn the comments", which they took as a seriously intended suggestion "that single-sex labs might be preferable". Hunt felt he had made it clear he was joking because he had included the phrase "now seriously" in his statement.
[McKie R]
Sir Tim Hunt: my gratitude to female scientists for their support
The Observer, June 20, 2015. The reconstruction of his words by an unnamed EU official corroborated the inclusion of these words.
Resignations
On June 10 Hunt resigned from his position as an honorary professor with the
University College London's Faculty of Life Sciences
and from the Royal Society's Biological Sciences Awards Committee. Hunt's wife, immunologist
Mary Collins, had been told by a senior
t UCL
T, or t, is the twentieth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is deri ...
that Hunt "had to resign immediately or be sacked".
He was consequently required to step down from the science committee of the
European Research Council
The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientific ...
.
Jonathan Dimbleby resigned from an honorary fellowship at UCL in protest at its treatment of Hunt.
Also, author and journalist Jeremy Hornsby wrote University College London out of his will in protest, leaving it "about £100,000 worse off".
Wider reaction
At least 8 Nobel prizewinning scientists and 21 honorary fellows had criticized the treatment of Hunt following his resignation.
Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, and
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An ath ...
,
an evolutionary biologist expressed similar indignation. A few scientists, such as Hunt's co-Nobelist,
Paul Nurse
Sir Paul Maxime Nurse (born 25 January 1949) is an English geneticist, former President of the Royal Society and Chief Executive and Director of the Francis Crick Institute. He was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine alon ...
, were critical of Hunt's conduct and said that his resignation was warranted.
Imran Khan, Chief Executive of the
British Science Association, speaking to the
BBC, described Hunt's comments as "careless", adding that it is "hard to find Sir Tim's comments funny if you've been held back by
systemic bias for years – whether those remarks were intended as a joke or not".
In a letter to ''The Times'' a group of 29 staff scientists, students and postdoctoral fellows, both male and female, who had worked with Hunt, wrote in support of his character. They described how his help had been "instrumental in the advancement of many other women and men in science beyond those in his own lab" and how he had "actively encouraged an interest in science in schoolchildren and young scientists, arranging for work experience and summer students of both genders to get their first taste of research in his lab". They urged the ERC and UCL to "reconsider their rush to judgment".
Hunt had been scheduled to appear later in June at the 2015
Lindau Meeting but it was decided that his presence would be a distraction for the rest of the panel. His case was discussed, however, at a panel on science communication as a possible example of "communications overkill".
Paul Nurse, head of the
Royal Society, who shared the 2001 Nobel prize in medicine with Hunt, while stressing his esteem for Hunt as a person, originally stated that Hunt had said "some stupid things which cannot be supported and they had to be condemned" and that the affair had been bad for science and for the Royal Society in particular, adding that the discussion had "become totally polarized with extreme views on both sides".
In a later statement, Nurse described the response to Hunt's comments as "a twitter and media storm, completely out of proportion", adding that "he should never have been sacked by University College London".
For his part, Hunt has distanced himself from the controversy, commenting that he had been "turned into a straw man that one lot loves to love and the other lot loves to hate and then they just take up sides and hurled utterly vile abuse at everyone".
"Shirtstorm" controversy
In November 2014, while giving a televised status update on the
Rosetta space craft,
Matt Taylor wore a shirt depicting scantily-clad cartoon women with firearms made by his friend, a female artist.
Taylor's decision to wear the shirt to a press conference drew criticism from a number of commentators,
who saw a reflection of a culture where women are unwelcome in scientific fields (see
gender inequality).
Others, including
Boris Johnson,
Julie Bindel[ Op-Ed.] and
Tim Stanley, made arguments against this criticism. The woman who made the shirt for Taylor as a birthday present stated that she "did not expect" the shirt to attract the level of attention that it did.
Taylor later made a public apology, saying: "The shirt I wore this week – I made a big mistake, and I offended many people. And I'm very sorry about this".
Some writers expressed appreciation for Taylor's apology.
A campaign was set up on the crowdfund website
Indiegogo,
with the objective of raising $3,000 to buy Taylor a gift, as a token of the public's appreciation for the work that he and the team had done. The campaign raised a total of $24,003, of which $23,000 was donated to
UNAWE Universe Awareness or (UNAWE) is an international programme that aim to expose very young children in under-privileged environments to astronomy.
History
Inception
In 2004, Leiden University professor George K. Miley first began exploring the id ...
at Taylor's request, the remainder going towards a plaque commemorating the mission.
''Hypatia'' transracialism controversy
The feminist philosophy journal
''Hypatia'' became involved in a dispute in April 2017 that led to the online shaming of one of its authors.
[Brubaker, Rogers (May 18, 2017)]
"The Uproar Over 'Transracialism'"
''The New York Times''. The journal published an article about
transracialism by Rebecca Tuvel, an assistant professor of philosophy, comparing the situation of
Caitlyn Jenner
Caitlyn Marie Jenner (born William Bruce Jenner; October 28, 1949) is an American media personality and retired Olympic gold medal-winning decathlete.
Jenner played college football for the Graceland Yellowjackets before incurring a kne ...
, a trans woman, to that of
Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who identifies as black. The article was criticized on Facebook and Twitter as a source of "epistemic violence", and the author became the subject of personal attacks.
[Singal, Jesse (May 2, 2017)]
"This Is What a Modern-Day Witch Hunt Looks Like"
''New York'' magazine. Academics associated with ''Hypatia'' joined in the criticism.
[Oliver, Kelly (May 7, 2017)]
"If this is feminism"
''The Philosophical Salon'' (''Los Angeles Review of Books''). A member of the journal's editorial board became the point of contact for an open letter demanding that the article be retracted, and the journal's board of associate editors issued an unauthorized apology, saying the article should never have been published.
[McKenzie, Lindsay; Harris, Adam; and Zamudio-Suaréz, Fernanda (May 6, 2017)]
"A Journal Article Provoked a Schism in Philosophy. Now the Rifts Are Deepening."
''The Chronicle of Higher Education''. Rogers Brubaker
Rogers Brubaker (; born 1956) is professor of sociology at University of California, Los Angeles and UCLA Foundation Chair. He has written academic works on social theory, immigration, citizenship, nationalism, ethnicity, religion, diasporas, gen ...
described the episode in the ''New York Times'' as an example of "internet shaming".
Goblin Valley rock-toppling incident
In October 2013, a delicately balanced
hoodoo in
Goblin Valley State Park was intentionally knocked over by
Boy Scout
A Scout (in some countries a Boy Scout, Girl Scout, or Pathfinder) is a child, usually 10–18 years of age, participating in the worldwide Scouting movement. Because of the large age and development span, many Scouting associations have split ...
leaders who had been camping in the area. David Benjamin Hall captured video and shouted encouragement while Glenn Tuck Taylor toppled the formation.
They posted the video to Facebook, whereupon it was viewed by thousands and the two men began receiving death threats. Their claim that the hoodoo appeared unstable, and that they vandalized it out of concern for passersby, was rejected by Fred Hayes, director of the Utah Division of State Parks and Recreation. Hall and Taylor were expelled from Boy Scouts and charged with third-degree felonies, ultimately pleading guilty to lesser charges of
misdemeanor
A misdemeanor (American English, spelled misdemeanour elsewhere) is any "lesser" criminal act in some common law legal systems. Misdemeanors are generally punished less severely than more serious felonies, but theoretically more so than adm ...
criminal mischief.
Dog Poop Girl
In 2005 in South Korea, bloggers targeted a woman who refused to clean up when her dog
defecated on the floor of a
Seoul subway car, labeling her "Dog Poop Girl" (rough translation of ko, "개똥녀" into English). Another commuter had taken a photograph of the woman and her dog, and posted it on a popular South Korean website. Within days, she had been identified by Internet vigilantes, and much of her
personal information was leaked onto the Internet in an attempt to punish her for the offense. The story received mainstream attention when it was widely reported in South Korean media. The public humiliation led the woman to drop out of her university, according to reports.
The reaction by the South Korean public to the incident prompted several newspapers in South Korea to run editorials voicing concern over Internet vigilantism. One paper quoted
Daniel Solove as saying that the woman was the victim of a "cyber-posse, tracking down norm violators and branding them with digital
Scarlet Letters." Another called it an "Internet witch-hunt," and went on to say that "the Internet is turning the whole society into a
kangaroo court."
''Cooks Source'' incident
The food magazine ''Cooks Source'' printed an article by Monica Gaudio without her permission in their October 2010 issue. Learning of the copyright violation, Gaudio emailed Judith Griggs, managing editor of ''Cooks Source Magazine'', requesting that the magazine both apologize and also donate $130 to the Columbia School of Journalism as payment for using her work. Instead she received a very unapologetic letter stating that she (Griggs) herself should be thanked for making the piece better and that Gaudio should be glad that she didn't give someone else credit for writing the article. During the ensuing public outcry, online vigilantes took it upon themselves to avenge Gaudio. The ''Cooks Source'' Facebook page was flooded with thousands of contemptuous comments, forcing the magazine's staff to create new pages in an attempt to escape the protest and accuse 'hackers' of taking control of the original page. The magazine's website was stripped of all content by the staff and shut down a week later.
See also
*
Abusive power and control
Abusive power and control (also controlling behavior and coercive control) is behavior used by an abusive person to gain and/or maintain control over another person. Abusers are commonly motivated by devaluation, personal gain, personal gratifi ...
*
Anti-social behaviour
*
Anti-fan
An anti-fan, hater, or anti is someone who enjoys writing, discussing or in some cases making derivative works about a piece of media, but solely for the purpose of railing against or parodying it. Someone who opposes a ship (a romantic pairing be ...
*
Cancel culture
Cancel culture, or rarely also known as call-out culture, is a phrase contemporary to the late 2010s and early 2020s used to refer to a form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles—whether it be online, on ...
*
Character assassination
*
Culture of fear
*
Cyberbullying
*
Deplatforming
Deplatforming, also known as no-platforming, has been defined as an "attempt to boycott a group or individual through removing the platforms (such as speaking venues or websites) used to share information or ideas," or "the action or practice o ...
*
Double standard
*
Escrache
*
Ghosting
*
Internet troll
In slang, a troll is a person who posts or makes inflammatory, insincere, digressive, extraneous, or off-topic messages online (such as in social media, a newsgroup, a forum, a chat room, a online video game), or in real life, with the int ...
*
Internet vigilantism
*
Ostracism
*
Peer pressure
*
Review bomb
*
Shame campaign
*
Shunning
*
Smear campaign
A smear campaign, also referred to as a smear tactic or simply a smear, is an effort to damage or call into question someone's reputation, by propounding negative propaganda. It makes use of discrediting tactics.
It can be applied to individual ...
* ''
So You've Been Publicly Shamed''
*
Struggle session
*
Twitter
References
{{reflist
External links
Hate Crimes in Cyberspace– by Danielle Keats Citron
''The Outrage Machine'' a short documentary by
Retro Report that looks at the origin of Internet shaming and what it feels like to be caught up in a case of online shaming gone viral.
Cyberbullying Reports an online community dedicated to exposing cyberbullying.
Internet vigilantism
Internet privacy
Cyberbullying
Cyberspace
Internet-based activism
Internet trolling
Politics and technology
Internet culture
Information society