The Disadvantages Of Public Humiliation

Anyone who has ever been on the Internet has seen or been hurt by vitriolic comments. Someone has become the target of Internet criticism probably because of a careless word or an inappropriate behavior; someone made irresponsible comments to express themselves because of “Internet freedom. ” In the article “The Flip Side of Internet Fame” by Jessica Bennett, she shows readers how a person's reputation can be destroyed in seconds due to the Internet. She cites three examples to reproduce the lives of people who have suffered public humiliation in real life to point out that the impact of the Internet on society is negative. Public humiliation is harmful to the person not only because it damages the reputations of parties, it also seriously disturbs the normal life of them and affects the social ethos.

First, public humiliation can damage the reputations of parties. The first person in "Flip Side of Internet Fame", Bennett talks about is Ghyslain Raza, the “Star Wars Kid” which is a short video of a chubby Canadian teen who films himself in a fight scene with a makeshift lightsaber. Raza leaves the video on a shelf in school but another student took it and posted it online. As Bennett describes in the article, “It was posted on hundreds of blogs, enhanced by music and special effects, and watched by millions. Entire Web sites were dedicated to the subject; one, jesimaster. net, was even named one of Time’s 50 best sites of 2003” (228-229). It isn’t right for Raza’s schoolmate to post his video without his permission. Since the video was spread online, many people have watched it and laughed at him, he had to seek help through treatment. His schoolmate infringes his privacy and damages his reputations. The impact of public humiliation just seems to embarrass the parties at the beginning but actually can lead to serious problems later. Secondly, if people are humiliated publicly, their life can be seriously disturbed. Bennett gives an example to illustrate the parties suffer whether or not the "violent" events are true. “Most recently a student at Lewis & Clark University in Portland, Oregon, was public accused- on Facebook, the social-networking site- of sexually assaulting another student…without including the supposed perpetrator's version of events” (229). Faced with the humiliation, abuse, condemnation and slander of netizens, the student was unable to clarify or fight back against their "human flesh search" attack and fear filled his mind and makes him unable to live normally.

Even if the wronged student finally gets his innocence, the damage done to him by public humiliation has been done and can never be undone. Another example which is a tech woman who was given an unpleasant joke by two male guests at a tech conference, later she posted photos of them on a social networking site to express her displeasure, and the impact on the two male guests quickly took place: One of the men was recognized by his employer and lost his job. The backlash against his firing then triggered a massive onslaught of online abuse against Richards, who also got fired. No one emerged happy. “I have three kids, and I really liked that job,” wrote the newly unemployed jokester. “Let this serve as a message to everyone, our actions and words, big or small, can have a serious impact. ” Later, Richards made a similar assessment: “I don’t think anyone who was part of what happened at PyCon that day could possibly have imagined how this issue would have exploded into the public consciousness … I certainly did not, and now … the severest of consequences have manifested. ” (Hudson)This example is also fully reflecting public humiliation has become the core competitive power of the Internet, it can destroy life and make lasting effects on the victim. Finally, when public humiliation is growing, most people probably won't mind other's thoughts anymore and the social ethos will be affected by despicable ways. If public humiliation becomes a viral epidemic, the sense of security of people living today will be greatly reduced.

For instance, there are some frivolous people who make fun of others on the social platform and even make abusive remarks to them. As time goes on, the spreading surface becomes more and more widespread, and many children who have not yet formed views of value will imitate this behavior. The media will magnify the case of public humiliations to get people's attention and it will influence the whole society. As a conjoint lecturer in Philosophy at University of Newcastle Russell Blackford said: I noticed the trend – and began to talk about it – around five years ago. I’d become increasingly aware of cases where people with access to large social media platforms used them to “call out” and publicly vilify individuals who’d done little or nothing wrong. Few onlookers were prepared to support the victims. Instead, many piled on with glee (perhaps to signal their own moral purity; perhaps, in part, for the sheer thrill of the hunt). This phenomenon is gradually developing a bad culture. If more and more people humiliate others in pursuit of short-term pleasure, then the social atmosphere will deteriorate as well.

In addition, because of the influence of the Internet today, people are losing their privacy gradually and feeling insecure. After all, numerous facts indicate that most cases of online violence lack authenticity and objectivity and the netizens are constantly copying and overstating the truth. If somebody deliberately wants to harm another person and posts bad comments on the website, they can spread like a virus but we can't do anything about it. Public humiliation is harmful to the person, it is undoubtedly a strong psychological abuse for the parties involved in terms of damaging the reputation and disturbing the order of life. It affects the moral values of netizens thereby affects the social ethos. Moreover, the Internet should not be to cause confusion, but rather to make life better.