Living in a world where one tweet can split the internet into raging sides of a battle, reading this book becomes crucial. The idea for this book dawned when Jon Ronson, the author, posted a video exposing some people who had created a spam-bot parody of his twitter account. What he hadn't anticipated, was the massive trolling that followed for those people, leading to them having to delete their accounts. The thought of how powerful a tool of 'justice' social media has become, led to the culmination of this book.
"It felt like we were soldiers in a war on other people's flaws, and there had suddenly been an escalation in hostilities."
This book is essentially a sequence of interviews, a study of the human understanding of punishment. Jon starts by interviewing a few people who had been 'cancelled' for being racist or sexist in their tweets. While talking to these people, we find out that their intent was only humour or satire. But their public shaming had cost them their jobs along with their reputation and self-confidence. The book then progresses into direr offences, which is when Jon notices discrepancies in the reception of public-shaming. The shaming seemed to affect women more than men, while some people with criminal offences could recover their image and bounce back into society with a mere scratch on their reputation.
"As soon as the victim steps out of the pact by refusing to feel ashamed," he said, "the whole thing crumbles."
Laden with dashes of philosophy and deep historical digging of the psychology of punishments, what this book drives home is, Social Media can only serve as a platter for rage and protest. Any verdict arrived at by such a large group of people, is more likely a reflection of crowd mentality than facts. I found this book intriguing, humorous, and essential in this time when even the tiniest of actions can have resounding consequences.
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