Currently reading
Spam Nation: How the Demand for Cheap Prescription Drugs Is Endangering Americans, Threatening National Security and Enriching the Cybercrime Underworld
What Do You Do With a Chocolate Jesus?: An Irreverent History of Christianity
How Music Works
So You've Been Publicly Shamed
Jon Ronson books are typically a collection of amusing anecdotes about the lunatic fringe or bizarre situations. This book has a more sinister edge as it delves into the mire of the internet mob mentality. The narration is delivered with the usual seemingly naive earnestness that Jon is known for but in this book there is a sympathy for the victims of public shaming and disgust for the perpetrators that he seems honour bound to step back from straddling the line of journalistic objectivity.The stories here stir you up as you hear of people's lives being ruined by the fury of an Internet of pathetic people hiding behind a keyboard. The subject of the first story probably deserved his shaming but stories of some of the poor people that follow make you sick as a private conversation or failed attempt at a joke goes viral and their lives and careers are permanently changed.
Does the Internet champion free speech or is it just a mouthpiece for cheap speech?
