In the 1700’s there were some fairly effective behavioral modifiers used - public shame. People were locked up in the Stocks for a day or two. Hands or fingers were cut off of thieves. A Scarlet Letter was tattooed on adulterers. Officially sanctioned shaming has been deemed too cruel.
In the 2000’s, people have taken this role into their own hands. Did someone do you wrong? Post about it on your myspace, or facebook page.
Here’s an example - from the Willamette Week
Helen Hunter, a sophomore at Lewis&Clark, says Shaw-Fox forced her to perform oral sex on him the night of Oct. 10. Both of them had been drinking, she says.
“Once things got pretty violent, I didn’t know how to get out of it,” Hunter, who’s 19, told WW of the alleged assault. (She agreed to let WW publish her name and photograph.) “I’m a pretty strong person, but I didn’t know what to do.”
Hunter’s allegation shook the normally placid and insular campus at Lewis&Clark, one of the Pacific Northwest’s more elite institutions, where annual tuition plus room and board cost $40,000.
This was in part because Shaw-Fox was a well-known student, a charismatic 21-year-old junior with ambitions of becoming an actor. A beat-boxer and singer, Shaw-Fox had created Lewis&Clark’s first a cappella group.
But the case also rocked the college because of the way Shaw-Fox’s alleged sexual transgression was publicized on the 2,000-student campus: through a Facebook group called “Morgan Shaw-Fox is a Piece of Shit Rapist.” (The Facebook page itself contained no allegations of rape.) A story in the campus newspaper followed (but didn’t name Hunter or Shaw-Fox), and after Hunter filed an official complaint with the college, administrators convened a hearing. Two days later, college officials suspended Shaw-Fox for a semester, ordered him to seek counseling, and prohibited him from participating in a study-abroad trip to London, which starts this month.
As technology becomes more embedded in our daily lives, we can expect social upheavals such as this…
Tags: Geek, Meta, Oregon, technology // 6 Comments »
