In 2015, a man was falsely accused of being a pedophile after taking a selfie with a Darth Vader display at a shopping center in Melbourne, Australia. The man saw a Star Wars display and decided to take a picture with it to send to his kids, who are big fans of the movies. There were a couple children standing around the display, so he politely told them he would just be a second and that he was taking a picture to send to his kids. The children’s mother was standing nearby and saw what happened. She misunderstood the situation and thought that he was taking a picture of her children. She took a picture of the man and posted about the situation on Facebook, calling him a “creep” (a screenshot of her post has been attached). The man didn’t see the mother and had no idea that she took a picture of him. He found out during a meeting at work when his phone kept going off. The post was gaining attention on Facebook and people were calling him a pedophile, sex offender, and creep. He immediately went to the police station to explain what had happened. He was cleared of any investigation, but the damage had been done online. Afterwards, some people went on to attack the mother for her mistake. She even received death threats.
This situation happened because there was a miscommunication. The mother saw what was happening but was not close enough to hear everything the man said. Therefore, it was taken out of context. Instead of addressing it in person, the mother decided to publicly shame the man online. Social media is unique because it can reach any type of audience. In this case, a mother was the author who shared a post about someone threatening her children. Other mothers saw this post wanted to share it in order to raise awareness and protect their children. Through people sharing the post, it reached an even wider audience. The audience took what the mother said to be true, even though they were not there to see it for themselves. One of the biggest problems that comes along with the internet is that people often assume what they are reading is true instead of taking the time to check out the source. While there is no way to undo the damage that has been done, this situation could have easily been avoided. If the mother had either confronted the man in the store or turned him into the police, without spreading his picture all over the internet, none of this would have happened. We live in a “cancel culture” that believes in publicly shaming people on the internet instead of confronting them one on one. This is dangerous because someone’s reputation can be ruined because of a misunderstanding. This can take a toll on their mental health, family, job, and lifestyle. This situation is similar one mentioned in So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed where Adria Richards tweeted a picture of two guys that made an inappropriate joke during a conference. In this situation both Adria and the man she shamed online lost their jobs and were humiliated on the internet. In the Star Wars selfie case, both parties involved also suffered from this public shaming. While no one lost their job, they were both humiliated and received hate online. Sometimes when a public shaming takes place, the person who did the shaming can receive backlash and shame as well. This goes to show that in most cases one should try to deal with situation in person before bringing it to the public online. Sources: https://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/outer-east/men-feeling-under-siege-after-revelation-man-was-wrongly-accused-on-facebook-of-being-a-creep/news-story/1c97a18d00d0977191b5493ba69c221c https://mashable.com/2015/05/11/darth-vader-selfie/
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November 2019
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