{"id":62750,"date":"2018-02-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foxtail\/2018\/02\/16\/jon-ronson-twitter-shaming\/"},"modified":"2018-02-16T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-02-16T00:00:00","slug":"jon-ronson-twitter-shaming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/en\/firefox\/jon-ronson-twitter-shaming\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWe\u2019re creating a culture where people are constantly surveilled\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Internet as we know and love it thrives on anonymity. Every day, in small and sometimes extraordinary ways, we benefit from the ability to choose our identities online; to share and explore things we might not be able to share and explore in public. But the more we put ourselves out there, even under the cover of a clever handle, the more we invite scrutiny into our lives; on and offline. <\/p>\n<p><iframe frameborder='0' height='200px' scrolling='no' seamless src='https:\/\/embed.simplecast.com\/036ebe44?color=f5f5f5' width='100%'><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>We caught up with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/media\/2015\/dec\/20\/social-media-twitter-online-shame\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Jon Ronson<\/a> &#8212; author of several best sellers, including <em>So You\u2019ve Been Publicly Shamed<\/em>, <em>The Psychopath Test<\/em>, <em>Them: Adventures with Extremists<\/em>, <em>Lost at Sea<\/em>, and <em>The Men Who Stare At Goats<\/em> &#8212;  to talk about surveillance and shaming in social media. <\/p>\n<p><strong>There\u2019s no doubt the shaming online is pervasive and corrosive. You proved this in your investigations and it\u2019s on Twitter\u2019s front page at all hours. Where do you draw the line between shaming and accountability? How do we, as civil society, use the web for good and not as a place to use 140 characters to torment people?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The people I wrote about in <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2015\/mar\/15\/publicly-shamed-jon-ronson-is-shame-necessary-jennifer-jacquet-review-think-before-you-tweet\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Shamed<\/a><\/em> were &#8211; with one or two exceptions &#8211; chosen from a narrow criteria. They were private individuals disproportionately punished for some minor transgression. A joke that came out badly. That kind of thing. None of them were even intending to be offensive. In most cases their jokes were misinterpreted. The world took the tiniest sliver of information and decided they knew everything about them. Curiosity and compassion and empathy fell out of vogue. Those things were replaced by instant judgment.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the shamers were just trolls, or misogynists, or bored hipsters. But with others the intention was good. It was for social justice reasons. Although I would argue that those cases were &#8211; in the words of the writer <a href=\"http:\/\/bostonreview.net\/books-ideas\/meghan-ogieblyn-jon-ronson-public-shaming\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Meghan O\u2019Gieblyn<\/a> &#8211; a &#8220;cathartic alternative to social justice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Lately there have been some social media shamings that are far more important. Charlottesville. The sexual predators. It feels exciting to live through this important social change. Hollywood bullies, for instance, deserve to be taken down. I have no time for people who behave cruelly. But as I write this, an important writer for an important American publication just <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ajc.com\/news\/national\/writer-emily-lindin-closes-her-twitter-after-sexist-tweets\/iBlrMp8KTQx6Zd1R8M3gZL\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">tweeted<\/a>: \u201cI\u2019m not at all concerned about innocent men losing their jobs over false sexual assault\/harassment allegations.\u201d So. Here we go again.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Have your own Twitter habits changed much?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yes. I am more cautious. I\u2019m Eve having eaten the apple. I miss the days that people could be unselfconscious on Twitter. That doesn\u2019t mean I advocate offensive language. I don\u2019t. I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s when Saturday night TV in Britain was racist and sexist and homophobic. \u2018Political correctness\u2019 has done a lot of good. But I do miss the unselfconsciousness. People being themselves, not brands.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Any thoughts on the nature of privacy online? Clearly, technological innovation is outpacing privacy protections. You famously lived this when a bot was impersonating you. How do you think our concept of privacy has changed and what are the implications?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Writing <em>Shamed<\/em> (and <em>The Psychopath Test<\/em>) made me more sympathetic to laws like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2018-01-18\/google-braced-for-england-s-first-right-to-be-forgotten-trial\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">The Right To Be Forgotten<\/a>. I don\u2019t mean for powerful public figures, but for private individuals shamed for nothing, damaged people turned into the world&#8217;s playthings, etc.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You gave a talk at <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/internetcitizen\/2017\/10\/23\/glass-room-london\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">The Glass Room London<\/a> called \u201cTech and Porn and Shame\u201d. Without turning my face red, can you tell us what was in the talk and if we can expect it in print anytime soon?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The talk was adapted from my podcast <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jonronson.com\/butterfly.html\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">The Butterfly Effect<\/a><\/em>. It\u2019s a show about consequences of the tech takeover of the porn industry. It\u2019s such an amazing story, and my producer Lina and I spent a year reporting it. <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s sort of about porn, but it&#8217;s about a lot of other things. It&#8217;s sad, funny, moving and totally unlike some other nonfiction stories about porn, because it isn&#8217;t judgmental or salacious. It&#8217;s human and sweet and strange and lovely. It&#8217;s a mystery story, an adventure. It&#8217;s also, I think, a new way of telling a story. This season follows a single butterfly effect. The flap of the butterfly&#8217;s wings is a boy in Brussels having an idea. His idea is how to get rich from giving the world free online porn. Over seven episodes I trace the consequences of this idea, from consequence through to consequence. If you keep going in this way, where might you end up? It turns out you end up in the most surprising and unexpected places.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Anyone else you\u2019d recommend for our readers who is writing thoughtfully on the internet and technology?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I like the work of <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/megogieblyn?\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Meghan O\u2019Gieblyn<\/a>, who I mention above. Of course I love my friend <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/monica_lewinsky_the_price_of_shame\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Monica Lewinsky<\/a>\u2019s anti-shaming stuff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Internet as we know and love it thrives on anonymity. Every day, in small and sometimes extraordinary ways, we benefit from the ability to choose our identities online; to share and explore things we might not be able to share and explore in public. But the more we put ourselves out there, even under [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1521,"featured_media":20698,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>\u201cWe\u2019re creating a culture where people are constantly surveilled\u201d<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We caught up with Jon Ronson -- author of several best sellers, including So You\u2019ve Been Publicly Shamed, The Psychopath Test, Them: Adventures with Extremists, Lost at Sea, and The Men Who Stare At Goats -- to talk about surveillance and shaming in social media.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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