I heard this story on NPR last evening ...
"In the aftermath of the white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Va., some people took to Twitter and shared photos of people who allegedly were at the march. The idea was to identify who they were and shame them. But identifying someone from a photo can be tricky — and people managed to make at least one mistake."
The victim of this mistake was Kyle Quinn, a University of Arkansas assistant professor. When someone incorrectly identified him as a participant in last weekend's right wing hate rally in Charlottesville, his email and Twitter account and were flooded with people cursing at him, threatening him and his wife.
On Saturday night, someone tweeted out the couple's home address. The couple immediately got law enforcement involved. This is reminiscent of the incident in 2013 when the New York Post falsely identified two men in a photograph as suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing.
In our mass media age it's easier than ever for such mistakes to happen, and the consequences are exponentially broader in scope than a scarlet letter or the proverbial mob with pitch forks.
But let's think beyond the fact that these were instances of mistaken identity.
Even if self-appointed online vigilantes properly identify someone involved in something criminal or hateful, what productive result does threatening and verbally abusing them achieve? This kind of activity strays well beyond the bounds of valid criticism of someone for their policies or actions that is part of constructive democratic engagement. In short, it is bullying.
Online vigilantism may temporarily satiate our need to feel like we've done something to combat forces of hate, but the object of vigilantism's threats and verbal abuse is still a human being. No human being should be subjected to threats and abuse. And aren't threats and verbal abuse precisely what right wing hate groups direct at minorities, those of different religion traditions, and those who stand against hateful rhetoric?
How does dehumanizing someone work in any way to solve the problem of that person's dehumanization of the people they hate?
