Post something online or speak out about any subject these days and you are leaving yourself open to our modern day version of a witch hunt, aka trial by Twitter. Recently Monica Lewinsky had, as some saw it, the audacity to speak up about the 17 years of bullying she has suffered since her relations with US President, Bill Clinton, were made public.
What this does to a person we can only guess. Lewinsky agreed to do a Ted Talk on the subject of online bullying and what better person? After all, she has been on the receiving end of a public shaming on an almost daily basis since the late ’90s. During her talk, she addressed the question of online censorship and spoke about the need to arm ourselves with a degree of empathy when interacting online, as time and again we see vulnerable people in society reacting to online bullying and shaming with extreme real life actions.
“We talk a lot about our right to freedom of speech, but we need to talk more about our responsibility to freedom of speech.”
What happened next only served to enforce Lewinsky’s message. TedTalk social media editor, Nadia Goodman, recounted:
“As soon as her talk went up on Facebook, in too little time for anyone to have actually watched the 20-minute video, the comment thread was deluged with vitriol and hatred. People called her a slut and a whore, made jokes about sucking dick, and said she deserves the shaming because “shaming is an important part of how we shape our culture.” They attacked her character, her appearance, her choices, even her right to live.”
Goodman explained how the Ted team attempted to intervene and moderate the comments with three individuals monitoring the feed:
“The point of her talk was the danger of online bullying; what would we be if we simply provided a high-profile forum for haters to bash her? We deleted any comments that attacked, disrespected or shamed her, and we responded to positive comments to pull them to the top of the Facebook thread.”
The attempts to focus on the more positive feedback were criticised by the mob for censoring their vitriol.
“One woman was furious that we were deleting the “anti-Monica” comments as if it should be acceptable to attack who Monica is as a person. Others felt that we were censoring their freedom of speech, a freedom they seem to feel comes without regard for the harm they might do to another human being.”
After hours spent moderating the thread the mood gradually began to change. People were sharing more considered thoughts rather than knee-jerk reactions of abuse lambasting Lewinsky. Goodman echoes Lewinsky’s message:
“When we speak up, with something as simple as a supportive Facebook comment, we make it clear that our culture is not a space for public shame and humiliation.”
Across the cybersphere, the general tide is shifting towards more measured engagement with online content. A Facebook page that condemned women for giving birth by caesarian section as “lazy” and “negligent” was recently removed after a petition on change.org.
The page was created by the Disciples of the New Dawn, a group claiming to be a fundamentalist Christian group. The creators posted hateful content such as these pictures:
According to the original page, the mission of the Disciples of the New Dawn founded by Father Patrick Embry was as follows:
“In order to escape the wretched communist dictatorship that now runs our country, we have taken our friends and family off the grid. Deep underground we are safe from the coming storm that will soon be upon this once great nation. When the dust settles and the radiation dissipates, we will emerge, there will be A New Dawn and our progeny shall rebuild this nation as a Federal Republic of Christ as God and the founding fathers intended. Amen.”
It’s unclear whether this is a ‘legitimate’ organisation who truly hold these beliefs or if they are trolling for the sake of trolling. And it hardly matters which is true it is still perpetrating a kind of blanket abuse that propagates negativity for the sake of negativity.
This is online abuse taken to an extreme level, but it is perhaps an interesting reminder that we are all potentially open to the mob’s ire. I read that page, and although I dismissed it as utter bullsh*t, it still tapped into a vulnerable part of me that is sensitive and anxious about the c-section I had. I hate myself for letting it get to me, and this is NOTHING compared with what people like Lewinsky have had to deal with.
The thing we all need to remember before we press enter on that comment is that there is a real person on the end of every Facebook post.
