Forget whipping: Log in to Twitter for ignominy

Abstract

‘Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!’ Three years ago, on 20 December 2013, these 53 characters where the only thing Justine Sacco needed to cause commotion in Twitter, gain unwanted fame in social media, appear on newspapers like The New York Times and The Guardian and, not surprisingly, loose her job the next day she tweeted that message. Just 10 years ago, it was hard to think that a text written in a platform as ephemeral and constantly updated as Twitter could have such consequences. Only few people had an account, even fewer knew how to use it and its function was not yet clear to everybody. As any new technology, Twitter –and social media in general- has unseen consequences and uses, which have appeared and changed throughout the years. One of them, with arousing popularity during the last three years, comes directly from the sixteenth century: public shaming as a penalty for a crime. But in a world that is connected in real time every minute of every day, the degree of the sanction can get out of proportion easily.