Monica Lewinsky's Mistake On The Internet

How much of the U.S have social media accounts? Seventy eight percent. (According to Statistica) How many of them can use these accounts to cyber-bully, humiliate, and harass people online? All seventy eight percent. That is thousands and thousands of people around the U.S able to do whatever they want and say whatever they want, which continues to add on to a huge problem today-- public shaming. To publicly shame someone is to harass, humiliate, and even threaten people online or in person. Many cases of public shaming can be seen today, right now, on gossip sites, Instagram, etc. The internet is a dangerous place. Anyone can post what they want, whenever they want, and everyone in the world who has a phone, laptop, iPad, can see it. Even …show more content…
Monica Lewinsky definitely could say her one, huge mistake impacted her life in a way no one could imagine. She is know for today as the woman that had an affair with Bill Clinton, who was the President of the United States at the time. “Not a day goes by that I’m not reminded of my mistake, and I regret that mistake deeply” (Lewinsky 1). As a result of her affair, the internet, news channels, articles, and more blew up with news feed of this, which resulted in a wave full of hate and harassment towards Monica. She continued to explain that today, what happened to her online is what many would call it cyber bullying. The worst part was that this news was public, and today in this society, someone's secret can become someone else's gossip or news, for the public to hear and see. Monica expresses “...reliving a time when both of my parents feared that I would be humiliated to death, literally” (Lewinsky 2). It is horrible to think that parents and family of the victim could be scared, because of horrifying possible results of depression or even suicide. Hester Prynne could say that her mistake put an impact on how she was viewed in her community. In “The Scarlet Letter”, puritan people were extremely harsh and took sins and their punishments very seriously. “In all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it” (Hawthorne 93). Even though it was just the one day, for that one amount of time she was humiliated in front of the town, she will always carry that pain and guilt around with her. Hester thought up on the scaffold how she would’ve rather died than be standing up there, embarrassed and ashamed. “It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself” (Hawthorne 61). The prices of public shame might