In the case of Andy Byron, of Coldplay concert infamy, there are multiple articles asking “who is his wife?” and speculating about his family. As 404 Media writes, the incident is “emblematic of our current private surveillance and social media hellscape,” where TikTok commenters are using face-recognition tools to identify random people online.
“I think shaming is the extension of the algorithmic flow toward extremism,” says Cohen. “The internet normalizes content as it progresses, meaning anything extreme must continue to become more extreme … We’re also living through a period of perceived lawlessness, and true-crime investigations and shaming seem like justice, albeit amateur, vigilante justice.”
Writing on Reddit in 2023, user Electronic_Gur_843 appealed for advice after being “blasted publicly on the internet” for a “mistake.”
“It was a traumatic experience that resulted in me being torn down by hundreds of thousands of people. It was on me for making the mistake, but it was also blown out of proportion. I don’t want to reveal too much, but I can assure you it was nothing illegal or bad enough to deem me a ’bad person.’ I was just young/naive about the power of the internet and stirred up some drama.”
They say their google results turn up “pages of articles” about them, adding that the whole experience left them “severely depressed.”
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 17 percent of adolescents have been cyberbullied and 9.5 percent of adolescents have made a serious suicide attempt, as of 2023, meaning that putting a stranger’s business on main can have real, and sometimes devastating, consequences.
“The aim of public shaming is to hold people accountable for their behavior that operates outside of the social norms or is considered to be offensive,” says Fox Hamilton, adding that this is usually done with the aim of creating a society where everyone toes the line. But this mentality also means if something bad happens to someone—like being caught cheating online and having your family messaged by strangers as a result—we’re more likely to victim blame, because we see them as deserving it.
Ironically, Fox Hamilton says that “people who have that belief in a just world are often more likely to publicly shame or jump on the bandwagon with stuff like this, because they think ‘you did a bad thing, it’s your fault, and I’m not responsible for anything bad that happens here.’”
There’s also a slippery slope when we start policing people according to our own morals and assumptions. In response to the Coldplay concert scandal, right-wing influencer Matt Walsh wrote on X, “One of my least popular (but still correct) opinions is that adultery should be a criminal offense punishable by serious prison time for both parties involved.” It’s not hard to imagine how that logic could be used to apply to a woman trapped in an abusive marriage or to people who don’t subscribe to monogamy.
When the target is a public figure, like a CEO, audiences can feel even more justified in attacking.
“There are so many issues going on in the world at the moment with big tech companies, and I think to some people Andy Byron represents that in a symbolic way,” says Fox Hamilton.
Whether they’re posting a video recounting a case or posting active surveillance, the PIs interviewed by WIRED all say they are careful to obscure faces and any identifiable landmarks to protect the identities and locations both of the accused and the accusers. In Stephanie’s case, she sometimes goes a step further, reenacting cases for video—a step taken to make sure of her client’s confidentiality. None of their clients or clients partners have been doxed online.
Allen-Stell agrees the public can take things too far—describing the Coldplay show fallout as a “witch hunt.”
“What started out as holding people accountable has turned into the sport of public humiliation,” she says. “It’s reckless. The internet is not a courtroom, and random users are not investigators.”
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