Gawker Brings Public Shaming Front and Center Again - Are There Downsides ? ( Pax Dickinson )

Gawker has got me thinking about the age of the internet and " public shaming " again .

I was pretty concerned when one of their properties Jezebel pretty much decided that one mistake was enough to perhaps tar High School kids for life for stupid and indeed offensive comments some made when the President was elected again. I think it was partly the scene of ADULTS taking such glee in it that made me sick to be honest.

I thought of that incident when the Zimmerman verdict was released. I observed that for a few days   a good many kids ( most minority this time the opposite of the above incident )  ) saying horrifiic stupid things that as to twitter will not so easily go away. I did not search it out  but would not be shocked if someone went through the tweets proceeded to find their real names , schools , etc and posted it somewhere. Again troubling but it is the age we live in.

We now enter the fray again via another Gawker property that being Valley Swag and this time it involves an adult.

Over at the Pope Hat there is a post that really gets to  my concerns on where we are going with this and perhaps what we are losing in the process. Like the poster I can see the problem but I have no idea of the solution.

 See Pax Dickinson: Thought Crime, Public Shaming and Thick Liberty in the Internet Age

 He makes a good point that public shaming seems to be hard wired into our DNA. As he mentioned this might be needed for small bands of hunter gatherers but once we get beyond lets say a certain number of people what is really the purpose.