Editing in an age of outrage

There are two types of social force: physical violence, and attack on reputation (shaming). However imperfectly, we instantiated The State as a monopoly on violence, subjecting violent force to The Rule of Law; while the success of that enterprise is hotly contentious, it's fair to say it works at least sometimes (exonerating some innocents who might simply be killed under pure tribal dynamics; allowing some who are guilty to redeem themselves after "paying their debt to society").

But we've never really conceived of an equivalent "Rule of Law" for reputational attack: both epistemically, to decide whether someone is actually guilty, and proportionally, to decide what is the proper social punishment and the appropriate path to redemption.

What's more, the internet has vastly increased the power of reputation attack, for better and worse: it's good that it's more difficult for an actual sexual predator to skip town and offend again, but bad that someone unjustly accused (including of lesser crimes) cannot restart their life. Instant world-wide communication has introduced a super-weapon, like going overnight from spears to aerial bombardment.

I frankly have no idea how we would go about constructing a Rule of Law for shaming. The distributed, bottom-up nature of the phenomenon is one of its strengths, able to act nimbly to respond to cases that the Law cannot; and each person's ability to make their own assessment of the character of others (including outsourcing that intelligence to the crowd) is a non-negotiable component of individual freedom, the Liberal Enlightenment tradition, etc.

But none of that changes the fact that every tweet can now carry the social equivalent of a tactical nuke. If we don't find a way to solve that problem, however imperfectly, we'll have to learn to live with a certain degree of unjust collateral damage, both to individuals and our social infrastructure.

> Silencing people we don’t like will make it easier for others to silence the people we do.

Well-stated, though in his particular case I think Ian might've done himself a favor by publishing a piece by one of the accusers and their experience alongside the piece by Ghomeshi. I'm conflicted because I understand his point but I also understand the problem with giving someone in Ghomeshi's position a platform, which is that some will interpret it as a show of support for that person or even endorsement.

>If we don't find a way to solve that problem, however imperfectly, we'll have to learn to live with a certain degree of unjust collateral damage, both to individuals and our social infrastructure.

On the bright side, the collateral from such situations is not always entirely negative. My (imperfect) words once fell "victim" to shaming on a popular social media website; while there was a large downside associated with this, I, much like the author, owned my opinion and clarified where needed. The outreach I received from those who actually mattered turned out to weigh more positively than the hatred from those who didn't.

> some will interpret it as a show of support for that person or even endorsement.

IMHO, that's a good thing, since I'll know who to ignore.