The Price of Shame

[Diana]

In 1998, says Monica Lewinsky, "I was Patient Zero of losing a personal reputation on a global scale almost instantaneously." Today, the kind of online public shaming she went through has become a constant. In a brave talk, she takes a look at our "culture of humiliation," in which online shame equals dollar signs — and demands a different way.

It's a LONG video, but the topic is really interesting. The internet is a really powerful tool and can turn any person in to a huge spectacle. And no one thinks about the actual person they are trashing when they gossip and crack jokes.


For those of you that actually sat through the whole video, what did it make you think/feel?

How do YOU use the internet when it comes to dealing with the now very public lives of all the people you talk to?

 

[Space Cowboy]

<3 Ted Talks.

Beautiful video and a wonderful speech, with a strong, positive message. It needs to be heard, and disseminated every way possible. It needs to go beyond "Monica Lewisnky" speech though, and other, prominent people need to stand up for the same message, and not just those that have been victims to the gossip/embarrassment game, or victims of cyber-bullying.

I believe cyber-bullying laws need to get passed and upheld hardcore, and need to be applied to those of all ages (and not seen as some silly law for teenagers or young adults), and that the punishments need to be appropriately severe. You can't hide behind the guise of anonymity and have horrible things happen directly to your cause. The example she cites of the young man who was secretly recorded by his roommate: "30 days in jail, 3 years probation, 300 hours of community service, a $10,000 fine, and counseling on cyberbullying and alternate lifestyles" is not enough of a punishment, IMO.

 

[Cpt Toellner]

I'm sorry, but Monica Lewinsky is the last person I would want to hear this from. She has gone to efforts to make herself known and find any sort of profit from the situation she found herself in nearly 2 decades ago.

I have listened to the first few minutes, and may listen further tonight. But at the current moment I find myself disagreeing with some of the points here.

At what point does this:

I believe cyber-bullying laws need to get passed and upheld hardcore

,turn into censorship?

Who is the one to decide what is and is not offensive to others?

If somebody calls me a "boob" online and I take offense because somebody had breast cancer in my family, can I enact cyber-bullying laws on them?

Call this flawed thinking, but I was bullied to the point of hospitalization in school, and my family and myself stood aside as the school systems routinely failed to act upon anything. I learned that only I can shape these events to my liking, so I worked out, I learned what these people harassing me liked, then I asserted myself through both intellect and strength. I didn't have the choice to avoid school, but I could control the environment in a limited fashion.

You can choose not to have a presence online. I have not been on my Facebook for 3 years, if I see a comment I find offensive or otherwise frustrating, I can choose to ignore it and move on with my life. People will always find ways to antagonize other humans, it's in our nature, no law will remedie that. Instead of striking back at these harrassments, rise above them, be cautious about how you share information online. You'll find that if you are carefully about what you say, you won't be having any threats sent to your home.

That's just my unpopular opinion however.

 

[Space Cowboy]

The point is well-made and valid, but you can't say things like harrassing a 12 year old girl constantly online with things like horrible pictures, doxxing, calls to her home at early hours, snail mail hate mail, which trickles to school yard bullying/hate, etc., etc. is something to just "get over". You don't just hit the gym and get better at that point. You don't just let it roll off your shoulders after the 22nd time someone texts your 3rd new number a dick picture. It just ain't that easy anymore to escape/get rid of bullying.

You call it censorship, and yes, it can come to that. But "cyberbullying" can quickly become harassment, hacking, stalking, and any number of other legitimate crimes.

 

[Cpt Toellner]

The point is well-made and valid, but you can't say things like harrassing a 12 year old girl constantly online with things like horrible pictures, doxxing, calls to her home at early hours, snail mail hate mail, which trickles to school yard bullying/hate, etc., etc. is something to just "get over". You don't just hit the gym and get better at that point. You don't just let it roll off your shoulders after the 22nd time someone texts your 3rd new number a dick picture. It just ain't that easy anymore to escape/get rid of bullying.

You call it censorship, and yes, it can come to that. But "cyberbullying" can quickly become harassment, hacking, stalking, and any number of other legitimate crimes.

Why is this 12 year old getting harassment in the first place? Was she picked randomly by fate's "Wheel of Misfortune"? As petty as they may be, things don't happen without reason. Allow me to give a piece of advice stemming from my medical profession; don't just treat the symptoms. Having a reactant policy towards harassment is understandable, but when people sign up for online websites, take their private lives into public, or otherwise share their opinions, they open themselves to negative reaction.

The real world does not respect your feelings, it does not care what offends you, everybody is not a winner. These ideals need to be taught, we can't expect to live in ignorance of this. Life is harsh, instead of fooling ourselves and making it seem like we are all special, that no one has the right to question or challenge our positions, I offer another alternative. Why not take those things that may cause harassment, and in the words of Tyrion Lannister; "Wear them like armor." I support rising to your opponents, rather than pretending they don't exist.

No law, no matter how understanding or draconian, will ever rid any society of internal harassment. This is human nature we're talking about. No matter how hard you try, there will never be anything that humanity can agree on 100%. Accept it, stand up to your bullies if you can, take the measures not to be targeted if you cant. Nobody held a gun to this fictional 12 year old and forced her to share whatever thing she is being harrassed for, nobody forced her to have an online presence.

"Cyberbullying," indeed can lead to a number of bad things. But I feel that you are misunderstanding my prior post as avocation for harrassment, which I am not. Harassment is a horrible thing, but we can beat it if we teach the proper ways to respond to it instead of attempting to take a natural human reaction to change and trying to snuff it out.

 

[Diana]

Oh nu, dun tell that fictional little girl that she should just avoid getting online if she doesn't want to be bullied. That's like telling a woman she shouldn't wear short skirts if she doesn't want to get raped. Yes, we should try to take care of ourselves and be as safe as possible, but you can't tell a victim they didn't do enough to protect themselves and continue to let the problem-people keep on being problems with the excuse of "this is how the world is". Just like you said, we should be taking responsibility for ourselves and that INCLUDES shutting down people who are behaving horribly.

Not that I agree with making a ton of laws either. o___o If someone is legit stalking someone, then yes. Throw their ass in jail. But what we actually need is EDUCATION. We should be teaching people that you ARE accountable for the shit you say on the internet. That real people and real lives are being affected by the things you say.

 

[Cpt Toellner]

We should be teaching people that you ARE accountable for the shit you say on the internet. That real people and real lives are being affected by the things you say.

This goes both ways, to both sides of these conflicts. I agree completely.

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

For those of you that actually sat through the whole video, what did it make you think/feel?

Online trolling, harassment etc is something I'm exposed to everyday (and before people jump on me. No I'm not talking about anyone here. I'm talking about other sites I frequent).

So this is a topic I am very used to.
I still hate cyber bullying and would love to see it stopped.
But I've stared at it right in the eyes enough times to know that pulling at people's heart strings and then throwing a bunch of laws at it isn't going to help the issue.

If anything, it has a reverse effect and becomes a tool for bullying.
People who get offended by just about anything would abuse the laws and use it to silence anyone they disagree with.

And another point I want to bring up.

It's not always as simple as "Bully vs Victim".

Now the case starts off simple enough.
A little girl is using snapchat, but then some of her classmates start sending racist comments at her for being black.
Her Dad starts off doing the respectable and reasonable thing, trying to reach the father, talk to him about it, and talk to the school.
But those efforts weren't necessarily going anywhere... which is a shame, the bullies father and the school should have been more cooperative.

However, the victims father's reaction to this (in my mind) is just as shameful.
He then went ahead and appealed to the Internet, he sent the other fathers info out publicly for the Internet to go pester and harass.
To the point that the bullies father even lost his job over it. Now, was the bullies father pretty despicable in his reaction of being told his kids were being racist?
Of course, the guy even went ahead and acted racist himself.

But at the same time, responding to cyber bullying with cyber bullying is not helping anyone. Especially when jobs are lost over it.
I don't care how much feel good vibes people get for showing up some racist asshole, by doing that crap you are only continuing the cycle of cyber-bullying even more.

How do YOU use the internet when it comes to dealing with the now very public lives of all the people you talk to?

I'm an open book. The way I see it I have nothing to hide, because if people don't like who I am and then I'd better off knowing it so I know who to spend my valuable time with.

 

[Brovo]

Something a significant margin of people seem to forget a lot in these discussions, is that life is half chance and half choice. I did not choose to be born into poverty, and I did not choose to be born into a life where my mother would abandon me when I was fifteen, and I did not choose a life where I would be bullied and mocked for such things all throughout high school. I did not choose this life, and I had no control over that. What I can do, is control myself. My emotions, my decisions, and where I should invest my time. If I am being bullied and harassed online, and this bothers me, then I should avoid such locations in which such vicious activity goes on unabated. If I choose to publicize my life, then I must live with the consequences of both those who may support and profess my efforts to be just, and those who will simply attempt to burn me because they can.

You cannot control life. You cannot control the reality that exists independently of you. So long as human beings have independent thought, so long as people can be born to unequal circumstances, so long as free will remains: So will those who will grow up to be malevolent tyrants. Punishing all individuals for the acts of a minority of the population is damaging the chains of society which bind us all to the social contract envisioned by Rousseau or Hobbs: You damage human rights and freedoms by advocating for the vague restriction of human actions that cause no physical harm to another human.

I would not try to teach the bully not to be a bully. We have an endless plethora of third party groups and story writers and so on who expose that message in every facet of life, everywhere you go. Those who ignore it the first twenty times are going to keep right on ignoring it. I would not try to restrict the mobility and freedoms of all individuals in such a manner as censorship either: This merely leads to a state in which the believed values of one particular group are perceived as concretely superior to all others, and that never ends well, no matter how righteous the cause may be. Good men with good intentions can nonetheless do horrible things if they're allowed to mandate these kinds of restrictions on human beings.

What I would teach, is that how much you expose of yourself, and what decisions you make based on the circumstances life gives you, and how much self control you wield, the company you keep, and the consequences of your decisions, are all on your own shoulders. If someone treats you poorly, push them away. If you cannot, then grow stronger until you can. If you are bullied online, find other places to be: The wonderful nature of the Internet is its inherent anonymity.

The only person who can ultimately destroy you from within is you. Therefore, if you feel weak, change that about yourself, become that which you wish to see differently. If you want more kindness, wield kindness. If you want more tolerance, wield tolerance. If you want freedom from your life, nobody is stopping you from walking out your door right now and signing up to a thousand different hobbies and interest groups and religious organizations and conventions and charities and...

... You get my point, no?

Teaching bullies not to be bullies will not stop all bullies, and censorship ends with the question "whose morality is the most superior?" Therefore the only person left in the equation is the victim. If we teach victims the plethora of options they have at their disposal to escape--or even defeat--the shitty behaviour of other people, we enable success, rather than punishing on suspicion. Remember: A teenager's entire world is typically high school. Show them there is more than high school. Give them outlets. Be involved in their life!...

...Orrrr just fucking censor everything. It worked out really well over the past 5,000 years of human history when we tried it, right?

 

[Diana]

Well of course, you can't stop all of them. Some people are just born assholes and there is nothing that can be done about it. D:

But that doesn't mean you can't still put the time and energy in educating people on how not to be a dick. That's the whole point of basic social manners, isn't it? o__o

 

[Brovo]

Well of course, you can't stop all of them. Some people are just born assholes and there is nothing that can be done about it. D:

But that doesn't mean you can't still put the time and energy in educating people on how not to be a dick. That's the whole point of basic social manners, isn't it? o__o

Yes, but as I said, there are plenty of groups that already do this. There are hundreds (if not thousands, probably more in the realm of tens of thousands) of stories alone that paint out villainy as being a generally terrible idea. Be a dick all you want, it'll only make you miserable in the end: Mr. Scrooge, anyone?

Then there's all the third party groups that preach it, the education system that preaches it, the news that preaches it...

I'd be hard pressed to present examples where someone thinks bullying is an acceptable and encouraged behaviour, who wasn't immediately socially eviscerated for encouraging such malevolent antics.

 

[☆Luna☆]

Well of course, you can't stop all of them. Some people are just born assholes and there is nothing that can be done about it. D:

But that doesn't mean you can't still put the time and energy in educating people on how not to be a dick. That's the whole point of basic social manners, isn't it? o__o

I actually think manners are the problem... Defining a monolithic set of acceptable behaviors is essentially how dicks are created.

Just look at lawyers. (not all of them, just the ones that I'm sure you are aware of)

 

[SlamifiedBuddafied]

That's just my unpopular opinion however.

If that's an unpopular opinion then please, somebody shoot me.

 

[Dervish]

If that's an unpopular opinion then please, somebody shoot me.

K.

 

[Ai]

I honestly don't know anything about this woman, from a non biased and 'empathetic' point of view. What she says is correct.
I have always lived by the rule that I should not try to prevent want I feel about people, if I feel that way I do. That's the end of it. I think others should be able to give themselves the same leniency. There is nothing wrong with feeling love and like she said there is NOTHING wrong with making mistakes. We are all only human and cyber-bullying does get out of control.

Her statement is a sound one and her story could be an inspiration to people, I feel if they forget to empathise with others. If you look at this video with the point of view that she is trying to encourage others to be more Human on the internet and not just the face of a machine, it's a good video, but as a 'political' statement it's something that needs some ore thought and consideration as how to execute it.

The things she listed are a problem and I think it's needless to say that once in everybody's life a person has had a bad day and bought somebody else down because of a negative opinion. Negativity is infectious, but so is happiness. The problem is, people focus on the negative more, because it is how we learn from our mistakes. I wonder just maybe though, that focusing on the negative has gotten out of hand.

Not long ago I posted a video named "To This Day" a project created by a poet Shane Koyczan, he appeared on the same show TED with a beautiful poem that states more powerfully the message that she's trying to get across. I found that video as an inspiration for me to not only be a better person, but also to love myself and Get a better mirror.

I agree with the concept of what she is trying to say and respect her for her courage but I feel Shane Koyczan addresses a similar/the same issue with a more effective and creative way.​

 

[Dervish]

I honestly don't know anything about this woman, from a non biased and 'empathetic' point of view. What she says is correct.
I have always lived by the rule that I should not try to prevent want I feel about people, if I feel that way I do. That's the end of it. I think others should be able to give themselves the same leniency. There is nothing wrong with feeling love and like she said there is NOTHING wrong with making mistakes. We are all only human and cyber-bullying does get out of control.

Her statement is a sound one and her story could be an inspiration to people, I feel if they forget to empathise with others. If you look at this video with the point of view that she is trying to encourage others to be more Human on the internet and not just the face of a machine, it's a good video, but as a 'political' statement it's something that needs some ore thought and consideration as how to execute it.

The things she listed are a problem and I think it's needless to say that once in everybody's life a person has had a bad day and bought somebody else down because of a negative opinion. Negativity is infectious, but so is happiness. The problem is, people focus on the negative more, because it is how we learn from our mistakes. I wonder just maybe though, that focusing on the negative has gotten out of hand.

Not long ago I posted a video named "To This Day" a project created by a poet Shane Koyczan, he appeared on the same show TED with a beautiful poem that states more powerfully the message that she's trying to get across. I found that video as an inspiration for me to not only be a better person, but also to love myself and Get a better mirror.

I agree with the concept of what she is trying to say and respect her for her courage but I feel Shane Koyczan addresses a similar/the same issue with a more effective and creative way.​

She was an intern in the White House during Bill Clinton's presidency who was the one who was caught giving him a blow job. It became quite the scandal and ultimately cost Clinton has presidency. She kind of became famous for it.

She's also one of my favorite points against 9/11 "Truthers". An insanely elaborate plot to blow up the Trade Center was launched where somehow somebody rigged two buildings up with explosives that nobody noticed happening, 4 aircraft went missing along with the crew and passengers while missiles mocked up to look like the missing planes (reaaally?!) were used to strike the buildings, rendering the controlled demolition theory pointless, if not potentially ruining the plan from damaging the explosive charges and/ or preemptively tripping the charges, meanwhile the hundreds of people who would have to have been in on the plan somehow managed to keep this all a secret and pulled it off with zero means to practice or reherse the plan and none of them developed a guily conscience over murdering thousands of people that somebody would have tried to stop.

Meanwhile, the White House can't even hide a blowjob.