So You've Been Publicly Shamed

Chapter 4 is divided between two sets of anecdotes. The chapter opens with the story of Justice Sacco, a public relations specialist who, on December 20, 2013, tweeted “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” (64). She then got on an 11-hour flight to South Africa. During that time, her tweet went viral and she became subject to a social media shaming because the tweet was seen as racist. As a result, she lost her job. Ronson meets with Sacco and describes her as “destroyed” by the online firestorm. He describes her as “neither especially privileged nor a racist” (72), and Sacco describes to Ronson how much self-hate and despair she feels in the aftermath of the event.

Ronson then goes to meet with Judge Allen Poe, who was then a Congressman for the 2nd district of Texas. As a judge, Poe was infamous for his unusual public shaming sentences. For example, he sentenced a drunk driver who killed two people to walk along the highway with a placard describing his crime. This drunk driver credits Poe’s methods with helping him turn his life around. Poe agrees with Ronson, however, that social media shaming is worse because it’s anonymous, lawless, and more vicious.