Online Shaming Research Articles

The Jaina Rhetoric of Nonviolence and the Culture of Online Shaming

This chapter explores the ethics of online shaming or crowd-sourced condemnation. Instead of relying upon standard accounts of ethics from western sources, I engage the Indian religious-philosophical system of Jainism in an effort to highlight what might be problematic about the practice of rallying others to shame offending or offensive individuals. Exploring the practice of shaming as it is practiced on the popular blog Racists Getting Fired, one can see that Jainism gives us a radically new way to diagnose what is wrong with so much of the revenge-seeking online discourse we find ourselves either hating or loving.

Researching protest on Facebook: developing an ethical stance for the study of Northern Irish flag protest pages

ABSTRACTThis paper adds to the emergent literature on Internet research ethics by exploring the ethical implications of researching the use of Facebook to organize the union flag protests in Northern Ireland in January 2013. These protests were viewed as a ‘lightning rod’ for loyalist dissatisfaction with the peace process, as well as a manifestation of their increasing alienation from their unionist political representatives. The covert observation of the Loyalist Peaceful Protest Updater (LPPU) page in January 2013 found some evidence to support the suggestion that social media had become a ‘sectarian battleground’ during the flag protests. This created an ethical dilemma in terms of what level of anonymity should be afforded to those who posted such content on the page. While there was no requirement to ‘please’ unaware participants, the researcher was wary of inadvertently contributing to the online shaming of loyalists by groups such as Loyalists Against Democracy. Therefore, it was decided to only use direct quotes from public figures, such as the leaders of the flag protest movement, who would presumably have no expectation that their comments would remain private. The narratives of the ‘rank and file’ protesters were conveyed through the use of direct quotes that could not be traced back to their authors and the paraphrasing of their comments. In light of the limitations of alternative strategies such as fabrication and word clouds, this was the most appropriate way to illustrate the themes from the LPPU without distorting the voices of these users.

Re-Shaming the Debate: Social Norms, Shame, and Regulation in an Internet Age

Advances in technology communication have dramatically changed the ways in which social norm enforcement is used to constrain behavior. Nowhere is this more powerfully demonstrated than through current events around online shaming and cyber-harassment. Low cost, anonymous, instant, and ubiquitous access to the Internet has removed most — if not all — of the natural checks on shaming. The result is norm enforcement that is indeterminate, uncalibrated, and often tips into behavior punishable in its own right — thus generating a debate over whether the State should intervene to curb online shaming and cyber-harassment.A few years before this change in technology, a group of legal scholars debated just the opposite; discussing the value of harnessing the power of social norm enforcement through shaming by using State shaming sanctions as a more efficient means of criminal punishment. Though the idea was discarded, many of their concerns were prescient and can inform today’s inverted new inquiry: whether the State should create limits on shaming and cyber-bullying. Perhaps more importantly, the debate reintroduces the notion of thinking of shaming within the framework of social norm enforcement, thus clarifying the taxonomy of online shaming, cyber-bullying, and cyber-harassment. This article ties together the current conversation around online shaming and cyber-bullying and cyber-harassment with the larger legal discussion around social norms and shaming sanctions. It argues that the introduction of the Internet has altered the social conditions in which people speak and thus changed the way we perceive and enforce social norms. Accordingly, online shaming is (1) an over-determined punishment with indeterminate social meaning; (2) not a calibrated or measured form of punishment; and (3) of little or questionable accuracy in who and what it punishes. In thus reframing the problem, this article looks at the viability of the legal, normative, private, and State solutions to controlling online shaming. It argues that looking only to State regulation will be an inefficient and ineffective solution. Instead, it proposes using the realizations from the shame debate, successful uses of online norm enforcement, and private remedies to inform the debate around State intervention.

Revisiting Privacy and Dignity: Online Shaming in the Global E-Village

Since the introduction of new Web-based technology in the early 21st century, online shaming against those who have violated social norms has been proliferating fast in cyberspace. We have witnessed personal information of targeted individuals being disclosed and displayed for the purpose of humiliation and social condemnation by the anonymous Internet crowd, followed often by harassment and abusive behavior online and offline, resulting in serious disruption of personal life. While public shaming as a form of criminal sanction has been widely discussed in present literature, social policing by shaming transgressions via the Internet is largely a new terrain yet to be explored and studied. Drawing on socio-legal literature on shaming and punishment, and jurisprudence from the English Courts on defamation, harassment and misuse of personal information and the European Court of Human Rights on the relationship between the right to private life and dignity, the discussion will explain how the role of dignity has informed the development of the right to privacy where its value has played a distinctive role. This refers especially to the context in which the plaintiffs could be said to be partly at fault as transgressor-victims. It argues that the recognition and protection of the dignity and privacy of an individual is necessary in order to arrive at norms and values inherent in decent participation in the e-village. In this article, the term “dignity” refers to one’s innate personhood, integrity and self-respect.

Offline Politics / Online Shaming: Honor Codes, Modes of Resistance, and Responses to Sikh Gurdwara Politics

This article investigates notions of “shaming,” “resistance,” and “honor” within the Sikh community from an historical perspective and investigates the “online shaming” that of late has been taking place within a number of ethno-specific “online spaces.” It focuses on Sikhs’ and specifically Sikh youths’ contributions and responses. Gurdwara brawls that have taken place over contentious issues have been often filmed and posted on social networking sites; this article analyzes the “online shaming” that appears to be taking place during times of off-line conflict within gurdwaras in North America.

Offline Politics / Online Shaming: Honor Codes, Modes of Resistance, and Responses to Sikh Gurdwara Politics

Offline Politics / Online Shaming: Honor Codes, Modes of Resistance, and Responses to Sikh Gurdwara Politics

Revisiting Privacy and Dignity: Online Shaming in the Global E-Village

Using public shaming as a form of criminal sanction has remained a controversial topic. Yet in the Internet era, we do not need to wait for state approval to administer this form of punishment. Rather, online shaming against those who have violated social norms is proliferating fast in cyberspace, where the personal information of targeted individuals is often disclosed and displayed for the purpose of humiliation and social condemnation. Whether or not the victims themselves are perpetrators of wrongdoing in the first place, this article argues that online shaming is a blatant form of attack on a person’s innate dignity, and is a violation of the right to privacy. Drawing on recent jurisprudence from both the English Courts and the European Court of Human Rights on the relationship between the right to private life and dignity, the discussion will explain how the role of dignity has informed the development of privacy right where its value has played a distinctive role. This refers especially to the context in which the plaintiffs could be said to be partly at fault as transgressor-victims. In this article, the term ‘dignity’ refers to one’s innate personhood, integrity and self-respect.

Online Shaming in the Asian Context: Community Empowerment or Civic Vigilantism?

Online shaming is a phenomenon where citizens engage in social policing by shaming transgressions via the Internet. It has been argued that the proliferation of new communication networks and digital recording devices could bring about a new paradigm for ensuring conformity to social norms through the self-regulation of society. Incorporating literature from criminology, law, psychology, sociology, and surveillance studies, this two-part exploratory empirical study conducted in Singapore aims to give an account of why people engage in online shaming (Study 1) as well as who is likely to be deterred and who is likely to contribute content in relation to personality traits, adherence to Asian values and social responsibility (Study 2). The in-depth interviews revealed that people engage in online shaming mainly to raise awareness about the lack of civic-mindedness in society. Furthermore, a survey of 321 Singaporeans suggest that people who are more likely to be deterred by the threat of online shaming are those who more socially responsible, more agreeable, more neurotic and adhere more strongly to Asian values. Furthermore, our findings suggest that individuals who are more likely to contribute to online shaming websites tend to be more socially responsible and open to new experiences. The theoretical, technological and policy implications of the findings are discussed.

Policing diversity in the digital age

Members of `terrestrial' communities are migrating in ever-increasing numbers to a new `Third Space' that manifests outside traditional geographical physical boundaries. This online space consists of purely social relations where interaction and community are performed at-a-distance. The diversifying populations of these virtual villages, towns and cities now constitute very real communities. Online non-gaming spaces such as Ebay, Active Worlds and Secondlife, for example, deliberately utilize the discourse of community in an attempt to instil a sense of communal space and shared responsibility among their members. While the majority subscribe to the rhetoric of `netizenship' others find alternative means to participate online. The avocations of these few have resulted in the endemic deviance/crime problem that exists online. As a result, online communities have developed their own distinct history of control and regulation. This article explores the ways that online social spaces maintain orderly `communities'. It contrasts `proximal' (online) forms of governing online behaviour, such as online reputation management systems, `virtual' police services and vigilante groups that employ `online shaming', with `distal' (offline) forms such as offline policing and criminal justice processes. The central theme of the article is a critical account of how these, often contradicting, nodes of governance interact.