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.