It seems today that the online world has created a new way to serve justice to the unjust: online shaming. Someone puts up a video or photo of someone, shaming them for an act of injustice, abuse or offence, and the rest of us do our part by making it go viral. It seems simple and effective, but we have to stop and ask if it's the right thing to do.
I hope to share some ideas that will encourage us to think and rethink this new way of punishing those who need to be punished.
In the age we live in, almost anything can be crowdsourced online, but should justice be one of them? Sure, people who have been shamed online do crazy things that aren't right and should be put up for all the world to see, but don't we all do such things?
A week ago, I have to confess that I caught myself rolling down my car window to shout at a cab driver who thought it was a good day to cut off a small car in a high-speed lane. While in the heat of the moment, I couldn't care less what anyone thought, but when all was said and done, I found myself praying that no one caught me on video.
We all do things that are shameful and that we aren't proud of and we mask them, and then we catch someone on our timeline doing something shameful and something that they probably aren't proud of either and we do our best to expose it for all the world to see. I hope we see something wrong with that picture.
And I hope no one mistakes me for a "thou-shalt-not," self-righteous Pharisee who doesn't walk the talk. I admit that I'm on the same boat as any living soul in this. I have caught myself thinking nasty thoughts and maybe even sharing a shame post at times, but then I realise that maybe I'm no different from this person or maybe the video or picture or caption is terribly out of context and we're not seeing the whole story.
What if the person was having a bad day? Maybe they had a job loss, a bad financial crisis, a family problem or they even hit rock bottom all together? I'm not saying that any of these are excuses to lose your temper in public, hurt someone or say some nasty things, but I call to mind Matthew 7:4–5, which says, "Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye" (ESV).
Or maybe take into consideration how the one time public shaming happened in the Bible was when clueless people shouted "crucify!" at Pilate when asked what to do with Jesus Christ, just because it was "viral."
I'm not saying that justice should not be served, and I'm not saying that people who are shamed online don't deserve it, but is this really the best way?
