The Use of Social Media for Shaming Strangers: Young People´s Views

Recent years have seen an increase in a practice known as online public shaming. Online public shaming is when social media, and related technologies, is used as a platform for ´shaming´ individuals for perceived violations in social norms and etiquette. This qualitative study explored young people´s views on the occurrence and acceptability of this practice, including how it varies from related phenomenon such as cyber-bullying. The findings indicate that young people consider there to be a number of benefits to public shaming e.g. Deterring similar behaviours, and these also make it distinct from bullying. The discussions raised a number of related issues surrounding privacy, surveillance and managing online ´presence´, which highlighted several implications for practice and requirements for future research.