'Revisiting Privacy and Dignity: Online Shaming in the Global E-Village' by Anne Sy Cheung
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Using public shaming as a form of criminal sanction has remained a controversial topic. Yet in the Internet era, we do not need to wait for state approval to administer this form of punishment. Rather, online shaming against those who have violated social norms is proliferating fast in cyberspace, where the personal information of targeted individuals is often disclosed and displayed for the purpose of humiliation and social condemnation. Whether or not the victims themselves are perpetrators of wrongdoing in the first place, this article argues that online shaming is a blatant form of attack on a person’s innate dignity, and is a violation of the right to privacy. Drawing on recent jurisprudence from both the English Courts and the European Court of Human Rights on the relationship between the right to private life and dignity, the discussion will explain how the role of dignity has informed the development of privacy right where its value has played a distinctive role. This refers especially to the context in which the plaintiffs could be said to be partly at fault as transgressor-victims. In this article, the term ‘dignity’ refers to one’s innate personhood, integrity and self-respect.
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It was Marshall McLuhan, writing in the 1960s on the phenomenon of electronic media, who already had foretold that we would live in a state of ‘new electronic interdependence’ in a ‘global village.’ To him, the speed of this electronic media would wire us up to act and react to global issues instantaneously, continuously and collectively. McLuhan warned us that the global village has every potential to become a place where totalitarianism and terror may rule due to the sacrifice of individualism and lack of in-depth reflection. He left us with a piece of advice, asking us to be vigilant towards the dynamic that technology would bring and to the impact of the influence of the media on our social interaction, lest we would find ourselves locked ‘in a small world of tribal drums, total interdependence, and superimposed co-existence.’
Sadly, McLuhan’s prophesy holds true for the 21st century cyber global village because we have seen that the Internet is replete with examples of those tribal drums in the form of online shaming. New information communication technologies have led to an increasing popularity and fascination with capturing others’ images, exposing others’ wrongdoing, and bringing the people concerned to a brand of online justice in the form of a manhunt which, in both the cyber and real world, can easily and quickly spin out of control, often descending into various forms of shaming, humiliation, character assault, and even harassment. Hence, a distorted form of freedom of expression is enjoyed by an anonymous online mob at serious heavy cost to the dignity of others, a core element of one’s privacy. As a result, this practice of online shaming has raised unanswerable ethical and legal questions. In our attempt to search for legal guidance from the European Court of Human Rights, we have noticed an emerging jurisprudence on the recognition of one’s innate dignity and its relation with privacy regardless of the wrong of the transgressor-victim. Yet in all those cases, the defendants could be clearly identified, while the perpetrators of online shaming are likely to be an anonymous crowd from different jurisdictions. Indeed, another research project would be necessary to do justice to the issues of accountability and responsibility but it is hoped, at least, that this article has laid the ground work for the recognition of a legal right to privacy, based on the right to dignity.
Dignity has been described vividly by Reaume as a guardian angel hovering over our laws. It is, perhaps, time now to call upon our legal guardians for protection in favour of a proper responsible participation in the E-village.
