About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

75 Md. L. Rev. 1029 (2015-2016)
Re-Shaming the Debate: Social Norms, Shame, and Regulation in an Internet Age

handle is hein.journals/mllr75 and id is 1053 raw text is: RE-SHAMING THE DEBATE: SOCIAL NORMS, SHAME, AND REGULATION IN AN INTERNET AGE KATE KLONICK* Advances in technological communication have dramatically changed the ways in which social norm enforcement is used to constrain behavior. Nowhere is this more powerfully demonstrated than through current events around online shaming and cyber harassment. Low cost, anonymous, instant, and ubiquitous access to the Internet has removed most-if not all-of the natural checks on shaming. The result is norm enforcement that is indeterminate, uncalibrated, and often tips into behavior punishable in its own right-thus generating a debate over whether the state should intervene to curb online shaming and cyber harassment. A few years before this change in technology, a group of legal scholars debated just the opposite, discussing the value of harnessing the power of social norm enforcement through shaming by using state shaming sanctions as a more efficient means of criminal punishment. Though the idea was discarded, many of their concerns were prescient and can inform today's inverted new inquiry: whether the state should create limits on shaming and cyber bullying. Perhaps more importantly, the debate reintroduces the notion of thinking of shaming within the framework of social norm enforcement, thus clarifying the taxonomy of online shaming, cyber bullying, and cyber harassment. This Article ties together the current conversation around online shaming, cyber bullying, and cyber harassment with the larger legal discussion on social norms and shaming sanctions. It argues that the introduction of the Internet has altered the social conditions in which people speak and thus changed the way we perceive and enforce social norms. Accordingly, online shaming is (1) an over-determined punishment with indeterminate social meaning, (2) not a calibrated or measured form of © 2016 Kate Klonick. .Ph.D. Candidate in Law, Yale Law School, and Resident Fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. The author is grateful to Jack Balkin, Danielle Citron, Dan Kahan, Eric Posner, Robert Ellickson, Eugene Volokh, Emily Bazelon, Christina Mulligan, Xiyin Tang, Kiel Brennan-Marquez, Brad Greenberg, and Goutam Jois for helpful thoughts and comments on earlier versions of this Article. 1029

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most