Black Mirror chapter: Is it okay to judge people in social media?

A lot has happened sine I last wrote in here. The most relevant thing would definitely be the appearance of the new "Black Mirror and Philosophy" book! My humble chapter in this book is about "Hated in the Nation" and it´s a reflection (pun intended, lol) about how social media can exert a punitive action on people, acting without any sort of restriction: the jury and the executioner are the same and they usually don´t know both sides of the story. 

Here, I can speak freely of my two motivations behind this chapter; and I´ll talk about the bad side of  the "trial by Twitter", but I´ll definitely talk about the good side too.

The bad side of denouncing on social media is, that the very same infrastructure promotes judgement, based on a single side of the story. One example would be this: if my Facebook friend were to denounce that someone mistreated her on a famous clothing shop, I wouldn´t even doubt it, and I´d probably feel the moral duty of helping her, and perhaps, to be against the clothing store myself. But, as you can see, that is only one side of the story. With enough momentum, such story could become viral, and a simple comment can potentially turn into a hate campaign given that the terrain is fertile enough. The cigarette butt became the wildfire. 

Many prople have been fired, bullied, shamed, traumatized etc. by an invisible mob that feels the right to judge others without having real evidence and no clear rules on where to stop the online harassment. People get hurt in this way, specially vulnerable people, and not enough attention is usually put to this subject. My book chapter is a humble effort to make these victims more visible.

But also, I used to have a very strong position against any sort of online bullying/harassment, etc., because social media is a place with no clear rules, until I saw a  video on TV. The video was about a man who was crossing the road, carrying a small bag of groceries. Out of nowhere (really, really out of nowhere), a huge bus comes at full speed at him, and runs him over completely, including the front wheels and the back wheels. In the video you can see the man in pain, but alive, but then again the bus doesn´t even stop to check on him. The only camera available is too faraway to distinguish the plates, and nobody is around to witness this. Usually, cases like this happen everyday, and they go unpunished here in Mexico, mainly because poor people usually have no chance to win similar cases without a proper lawyer; but now that his video has gone viral, he has at least the smallest chance to get an economical compensation and that the driver could, at least, be fired. And this is a really good use for some victims to get proper justice.

My opinion in this matter is, then, that social media in general, are a terrible, clumsy, unfair way to judge and punish people, and yet sometimes it is the only option available when justice fails, and that, in the latter case, it might even do some real good. The main thing to take in account is to be aware of these possible consequences, and to act online with caution and awareness.

And, if you would like to read more about my opinion, here´s the amazon link, in case you would like to give this fantastic book a chance. If you enjoy philosophy I´m sure you´ll enjoy this one. There are many great insights, I was really surprised by many of the views!

https://www.amazon.com/Black-Mirror-Philosophy-Blackwell-Culture/dp/1119578264

 Please let me know what you think about the book or the chapter! Thanks!