Nowadays, public shaming is as common as self-righteous boycotts, Twitter hashtag social movement, and counterproductive protests. So common, in fact, that it is not unheard of for the supposed guilty party, to be entirely innocent. This is one of the reasons I cannot, in good conscience, advocate for the implementation of it as a form of punishment. Furthermore, public shaming is an unfair penalty and should not become an official penalty because it can easily become excessive, is irreversible, and, often, performed on those whose only crime is speech or thought. Public shaming is not a good or particularly effective form of punishment because it almost always becomes too much. In the article, “Mugged by a Mug Shot Online,” the author,
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In Todd Leopold’s article for CNN, titled “The price of public shaming in the Internet age,” Adam Mark Smith describes his own personal experience with public shaming. Smith heckled a Chick-fil-A employee and posted a video of it to YouTube. He came to regret this decision, as he was soon drowning in death threats, lost his job, lost a subsequent job opportunity, and, eventually, even became suicidally depressed. This personal tale shows how irreversible it is because, even if what Smith did was deserving of such a severe punishment, he apologized for his actions, but he did not receive forgiven.The endless quality possessed by public humiliation, it shares with only the punishments inflicted upon the perpetrators of the most heinous crimes. Is it truly fitting to exact the same fate on someone who has simply done something, while irrational, is still within the …show more content…
Aside from very rare occasions, for instance, what is currently unfolding in Tinseltown, where the guilty parties are already rich and famous, and public shaming is the only effective manner of admonishment, it should not become an institutionalized retribution. Moreover, public humiliation is an unjust and overall frivolous penalty. It easily gets out of hand, is impossible to reverse, and, commonly, imposed on those guilty of nothing other than a word or thought crime. The compounding of all of these factors is what makes public shaming an unfair, unjust, and utterly pointless form of
In Todd Leopold’s article for CNN, titled “The price of public shaming in the Internet age,” Adam Mark Smith describes his own personal experience with public shaming. Smith heckled a Chick-fil-A employee and posted a video of it to YouTube. He came to regret this decision, as he was soon drowning in death threats, lost his job, lost a subsequent job opportunity, and, eventually, even became suicidally depressed. This personal tale shows how irreversible it is because, even if what Smith did was deserving of such a severe punishment, he apologized for his actions, but he did not receive forgiven.The endless quality possessed by public humiliation, it shares with only the punishments inflicted upon the perpetrators of the most heinous crimes. Is it truly fitting to exact the same fate on someone who has simply done something, while irrational, is still within the …show more content…
Aside from very rare occasions, for instance, what is currently unfolding in Tinseltown, where the guilty parties are already rich and famous, and public shaming is the only effective manner of admonishment, it should not become an institutionalized retribution. Moreover, public humiliation is an unjust and overall frivolous penalty. It easily gets out of hand, is impossible to reverse, and, commonly, imposed on those guilty of nothing other than a word or thought crime. The compounding of all of these factors is what makes public shaming an unfair, unjust, and utterly pointless form of