In the early days of Twitter, it was like a place of radical de-shaming. People would admit shameful secrets about themselves, and other people would say, "Oh my God, I'm exactly the same." Voiceless people realized that they had a voice, and it was powerful and eloquent. If a newspaper ran some racist or homophobic column, we realized we could do something about it. We could get them. We could hit them with a weapon that we understood but they didn't -- a social media shaming. Advertisers would withdraw their advertising. When powerful people misused their privilege, we were going to get them. This was like the democratization of justice. Hierarchies were being leveled out. We were going to do things better.
Twitter je u svojim ranim danima bio poput mjesta radikalnog lišavanja srama. Ljudi su priznavali svoje sramotne tajne i drugi bi govorili: "Ajme, pa i ja to radim." Nečujni ljudi shvatili su da imaju glas koji je snažan i elokventan. Ako novine objave rasističku ili homofobnu kolumnu, shvatili smo da možemo djelovati po tom pitanju. Možemo ih "uloviti". Možemo ih pogoditi oružjem koje smo mi razumjeli, ali oni nisu - posramljivanje putem društvenih medija. Oglašivači su povlačili svoje reklame. Kad moćni ljudi zlorabe svoje privilegije, mi ćemo ih uloviti. Bilo je to poput demokratizacije pravde. Hijerarhije su se počele izjednačavati. Namjeravali smo popraviti stanje stvari.
Soon after that, a disgraced pop science writer called Jonah Lehrer -- he'd been caught plagiarizing and faking quotes, and he was drenched in shame and regret, he told me. And he had the opportunity to publicly apologize at a foundation lunch. This was going to be the most important speech of his life. Maybe it would win him some salvation. He knew before he arrived that the foundation was going to be live-streaming his event, but what he didn't know until he turned up, was that they'd erected a giant screen Twitter feed right next to his head. (Laughter) Another one in a monitor screen in his eye line.
Ubrzo nakon toga posramljeni pisac popularne znanosti Jonah Lehrer, nakon što je ulovljen u plagiranju i lažnom citiranju, rekao mi je da je duboko posramljen i da se kaje. Imao je priliku javno se ispričati na ručku zaklade. Trebao je to biti najvažniji govor njegova života koji bi mu mogao pružiti spasenje. Prije nego što je stigao, znao je da će zaklada uživo prenositi taj događaj, ali sve dok nije došao, nije znao da su mu odmah uz glavu postavili ogroman ekran s Twitter-feedom. (Smijeh) Još jedan na ekranu na razini očiju.
I don't think the foundation did this because they were monstrous. I think they were clueless: I think this was a unique moment when the beautiful naivety of Twitter was hitting the increasingly horrific reality.
Mislim da zaklada to nije učinila iz zlobe. Mislim da nisu imali pojma: mislim da je to bio poseban trenutak u kojem se predivna naivnost Twittera približavala sve užasnijoj stvarnosti.
And here were some of the Tweets that were cascading into his eye line, as he was trying to apologize:
Ovo su neki od tweetova koji su mu se pojavljivali na razini očiju dok se pokušavao ispričati:
"Jonah Lehrer, boring us into forgiving him." (Laughter)
"Jonah Lehrer, smarajući nas pokušava nas natjerati da mu oprostimo." (Smijeh)
And, "Jonah Lehrer has not proven that he is capable of feeling shame."
I "Jonah Lehrer nije dokazao da je sposoban osjećati sram."
That one must have been written by the best psychiatrist ever, to know that about such a tiny figure behind a lectern.
Taj mora da je napisao najbolji psihijatar kad toliko zna o toliko malenoj figuri iza govornice.
And, "Jonah Lehrer is just a frigging sociopath."
I "Jonah Lehrer je samo sociopat."
That last word is a very human thing to do, to dehumanize the people we hurt. It's because we want to destroy people but not feel bad about it. Imagine if this was an actual court, and the accused was in the dark, begging for another chance, and the jury was yelling out, "Bored! Sociopath!" (Laughter)
Ova zadnja riječ je pravi ljudski čin - dehumaniziranje ljudi koje vrijeđamo jer želimo uništiti ljude, ali bez grižnje savjesti. Zamislite da je to pravi sud i da je osuđeni u mraku te moli za još jednu priliku, a porota viče: "Dosadno mi je! Sociopat!" (Smijeh)
You know, when we watch courtroom dramas, we tend to identify with the kindhearted defense attorney, but give us the power, and we become like hanging judges.
Kad gledamo drame iz sudnice, često se poistovjećujemo s obranom mekog srca, ali kad nam se da moć, postajemo poput sudaca koji osuđuju na vješala.
Power shifts fast. We were getting Jonah because he was perceived to have misused his privilege, but Jonah was on the floor then, and we were still kicking, and congratulating ourselves for punching up. And it began to feel weird and empty when there wasn't a powerful person who had misused their privilege that we could get. A day without a shaming began to feel like a day picking fingernails and treading water.
Moć se brzo mijenja. Hvatali smo Jonaha jer se doimalo kao da zloupotrebljava svoje privilegije, ali tada je Jonah bio na podu, a mi smo ga i dalje udarali i međusobno si čestitali na udarcima. Počelo se činiti čudno i prazno kad se nije radilo o moćnoj osobi koja je zlouporabila privilegije, a koju bismo mogli kazniti. Dan bez posramljivanja počeo se činiti kao dan rezanja noktiju ili pretakanja iz šupljeg u prazno.
Let me tell you a story. It's about a woman called Justine Sacco. She was a PR woman from New York with 170 Twitter followers, and she'd Tweet little acerbic jokes to them, like this one on a plane from New York to London: [Weird German Dude: You're in first class. It's 2014. Get some deodorant." -Inner monologue as inhale BO. Thank god for pharmaceuticals.] So Justine chuckled to herself, and pressed send, and got no replies, and felt that sad feeling that we all feel when the Internet doesn't congratulate us for being funny. (Laughter) Black silence when the Internet doesn't talk back. And then she got to Heathrow, and she had a little time to spare before her final leg, so she thought up another funny little acerbic joke:
Ispričat ću vam priču o ženi imena Justine Sacco. Ona je bila osoba za odnose s javnošću iz NY-a sa 170 sljedbenika na Twitteru i često bi im tweetala sakrastične šale poput ove na avionu iz NY-a za London: [Neki čudni Nijemac: Putuješ prvom klasom. G. je 2014. Nabavi dezodorans. -unutrašnji monolog dok udišem mirise. Hvala Bogu na tabletama!] Justine se nasmijala, pritisnula pošalji, nije dobila nijedan odgovor i osjetila onaj tužan osjećaj koji svi osjećamo kad nam internet ne čestita na duhovitosti. (Smijeh) Tamna tišina kad nam internet ne odgovara. Zatim je stigla u Heathrow i imala je dovoljno slobodnog vremena prije završne postaje, pa se dosjetila još jedne sarkastične dosjetke:
[Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!]
[Idem u Afriku. Nadam se da neću dobiti AIDS. Šala, bjelkinja sam!]
And she chuckled to herself, pressed send, got on the plane, got no replies, turned off her phone, fell asleep, woke up 11 hours later, turned on her phone while the plane was taxiing on the runway, and straightaway there was a message from somebody that she hadn't spoken to since high school, that said, "I am so sorry to see what's happening to you." And then another message from a best friend, "You need to call me right now. You are the worldwide number one trending topic on Twitter." (Laughter)
Opet se nasmijala sebi, poslala, sjela na avion, nije dobila nijedan odgovor, isključila mobitel, zaspala, probudila se 11 sati kasnije, uključila mobitel dok je avion silazio na pistu i odmah vidjela poruku od nekoga s kime nije pričala od srednje škole: "Žao mi je što ti se ovo događa." Zatim druga poruka od najbolje prijateljice: "Nazovi me odmah! Priča si broj jedan na Twitteru - diljem svijeta." (Smijeh)
What had happened is that one of her 170 followers had sent the Tweet to a Gawker journalist, and he retweeted it to his 15,000 followers: [And now, a funny holiday joke from IAC's PR boss] And then it was like a bolt of lightning. A few weeks later, I talked to the Gawker journalist. I emailed him and asked him how it felt, and he said, "It felt delicious." And then he said, "But I'm sure she's fine."
Naime, jedan od njezinih 170 sljedbenika poslao je taj tweet novinaru Gawkera koji ga je proslijedio svojim 15 000 sljedbenika. [Blagdanska šala IAC-ova voditelja za PR] Odjeknulo je kao bomba. Nedugo zatim razgovarao sam s tim novinarom Gawkera. Poslao sam mu mail da ga pitam kakav je bio osjećaj, odgovorio je: "Slastan." Zatim je rekao: "No, siguran sam da je ona dobro."
But she wasn't fine, because while she slept, Twitter took control of her life and dismantled it piece by piece. First there were the philanthropists: [If @JustineSacco's unfortunate words ... bother you, join me in supporting @CARE's work in Africa.] [In light of ... disgusting, racist tweet, I'm donating to @care today] Then came the beyond horrified: [... no words for that horribly disgusting racist as fuck tweet from Justine Sacco. I am beyond horrified.]
Ali nije bila dobro jer dok je spavala, Twitter je preuzeo kontrolu nad njezinim životom i potpuno ga razrušio. Najprije su krenuli filantropi: [Ako vas nepromišljene riječi @JustineSacco smetaju, pridružite mi se u @CARE-ovu pokroviteljskom radu u Africi] [U svjetlu... odvratnog, rasističkog tweeta, danas ću donirati @care-u.] Zatim su stigli izbezumljeni: [Nemam riječi za odvratno rasistički tweet Justine Sacco. Posve sam izbezumljena.]
Was anybody on Twitter that night? A few of you. Did Justine's joke overwhelm your Twitter feed the way it did mine? It did mine, and I thought what everybody thought that night, which was, "Wow, somebody's screwed! Somebody's life is about to get terrible!" And I sat up in my bed, and I put the pillow behind my head, and then I thought, I'm not entirely sure that joke was intended to be racist. Maybe instead of gleefully flaunting her privilege, she was mocking the gleeful flaunting of privilege. There's a comedy tradition of this, like South Park or Colbert or Randy Newman. Maybe Justine Sacco's crime was not being as good at it as Randy Newman. In fact, when I met Justine a couple of weeks later in a bar, she was just crushed, and I asked her to explain the joke, and she said, "Living in America puts us in a bit of a bubble when it comes to what is going on in the Third World. I was making of fun of that bubble."
Je li netko te noći bio na Twitteru? Nekolicina. Je li i vašu naslovnicu potpuno preplavila Justinina šala? Moj jest i pomislio sam ono što su svi pomislili te noći, a to je: "Jao, netko je u škripcu! Nečiji će život postati noćna mora!" Sjeo sam u krevet, stavio jastuk iza glave te pomislio kako nisam posve siguran da je ta šala trebala biti rasistička. Možda je umjesto vedrog šepurenja svoje privilegije, ona izrugivala vedro šepurenje privilegije. Postoji komedijska tradicija ovoga, poput South Parka ili Colberta ili Randyja Newmana. Možda je Justinin zločin bio u tome što nije bila vješta poput Newmana. Kad sam se nekoliko tjedana kasnije u baru sreo s Justine, bila je slomljena. Zamolio sam je da objasni šalu i rekla je: "Život u Americi stavlja nas pod stakleno zvono kada govorimo o tome što se događa u trećem svijetu. Ismijavala sam to zvono."
You know, another woman on Twitter that night, a New Statesman writer Helen Lewis, she reviewed my book on public shaming and wrote that she Tweeted that night, "I'm not sure that her joke was intended to be racist," and she said straightaway she got a fury of Tweets saying, "Well, you're just a privileged bitch, too." And so to her shame, she wrote, she shut up and watched as Justine's life got torn apart.
Druga žena na Twitteru te noći, reporterka za New Statesman, Helen Lewis, u kritici na moju knjigu o javnom posramljivanju napisala je da je tweetala: "Nisam sigurna da je ta šala trebala biti rasistička." i rekla je da je odmah dobila gomilu tweetova poput: "Pa i ti si samo privilegirana kuja." Napisala je kako je na svoju sramotu samo zašutjela i gledala kako se Justinin život raspada.
It started to get darker: [Everyone go report this cunt @JustineSacco] Then came the calls for her to be fired. [Good luck with the job hunt in the new year. #GettingFired] Thousands of people around the world decided it was their duty to get her fired. [@JustineSacco last tweet of your career. #SorryNotSorry Corporations got involved, hoping to sell their products on the back of Justine's annihilation: [Next time you plan to tweet something stupid before you take off, make sure you are getting on a @Gogo flight!] (Laughter)
Postajalo je sve gore: [Svi prijavite ovu ku*ku @JustineSacco.] Zatim počeše stizati zahtjevi za njezinim otpuštanjem. [Sretno s traženjem posla u Novoj godini. #GettingFired] Tisuće ljudi diljem svijeta smatrali su svojom dužnošću osigurati joj otkaz. [@JustineSacco zadnji tweet u tvojoj karijeri. #SorryNotSorry] Uključile su se i korporacije u nadi da će prodati svoje proizvode na račun Justinina uništenja: [Sljedeći put kad poželiš tweetati nešto glupo prije nego poletiš, pobrini se da letiš uz @Gogo!] (Smijeh)
A lot of companies were making good money that night. You know, Justine's name was normally Googled 40 times a month. That month, between December the 20th and the end of December, her name was Googled 1,220,000 times. And one Internet economist told me that that meant that Google made somewhere between 120,000 dollars and 468,000 dollars from Justine's annihilation, whereas those of us doing the actual shaming -- we got nothing. (Laughter) We were like unpaid shaming interns for Google. (Laughter)
Mnogo je kompanija te noći zaradilo masne pare. Justinino se ime prije toga guglalo 40 puta mjesečno, a tog mjeseca, između 20. prosinca i kraja prosinca, ime joj je guglano 1 220 000 puta. Jedan ekonomist za internet rekao mi je da to znači da je Google zaradio između 120.000$ i 468.000$ na račun Justinina uništenja, dok mi koji smo uistinu posramljivali nismo dobili ništa. (Smijeh) Bili smo poput Googleovih neplaćenih posramljivačkih pripravnika. (Smijeh)
And then came the trolls: [I'm actually kind of hoping Justine Sacco gets aids? lol] Somebody else on that wrote, "Somebody HIV-positive should rape this bitch and then we'll find out if her skin color protects her from AIDS." And that person got a free pass. Nobody went after that person. We were all so excited about destroying Justine, and our shaming brains are so simple-minded, that we couldn't also handle destroying somebody who was inappropriately destroying Justine. Justine was really uniting a lot of disparate groups that night, from philanthropists to "rape the bitch." [@JustineSacco I hope you get fired! You demented bitch... Just let the world know you're planning to ride bare back while in Africa.]
Zatim stigoše trolovi: [Ja se nekako i nadam da će Sacco zaraditi AIDS? LOL] Netko je drugi na to rekao: "Netko zaražen HIV-om trebao bi silovati ovu kuju da saznamo štiti li je boja kože od AIDS-a." I ta je osoba prošla nekažnjeno, nitko nije krenuo u lov na nju. Svi smo bili tako uzbuđeni oko Justinina uništenja, a naši su posramljivački mozgovi toliko jednostavni da nismo mogli podnijeti i uništavanje nekoga tko je na neprimjeren način uništavao Justine. Justine je te večeri zaista ujedinila mnogo različitih grupa, od filantropa do "siluj kuju". [@JustineSacco, nadam se da ćeš dobiti otkaz! Poremećena kujo... Samo reci cijelom svijetu da ne planiraš koristiti kondome dok si u Africi.]
Women always have it worse than men. When a man gets shamed, it's, "I'm going to get you fired." When a woman gets shamed, it's, "I'm going to get you fired and raped and cut out your uterus."
Ženama je uvijek gore nego muškarcima. Kad se muškarca posramljuje, to izgleda ovako: "Dobit ćeš otkaz." Kad se ženu posramljuje, ovako: "Dobit ćeš otkaz i silovat će te i izvaditi ti maternicu."
And then Justine's employers got involved: [IAC on @JustineSacco tweet: This is an outrageous, offensive comment. Employee in question currently unreachable on an intl flight.] And that's when the anger turned to excitement: [All I want for Christmas is to see @JustineSacco's face when her plane lands and she checks her inbox/voicemail. #fired] [Oh man, @justinesacco is going to have the most painful phone-turning-on moment ever when her plane lands.] [We are about to watch this @JustineSacco bitch get fired. In REAL time. Before she even KNOWS she's getting fired.] What we had was a delightful narrative arc. We knew something that Justine didn't. Can you think of anything less judicial than this? Justine was asleep on a plane and unable to explain herself, and her inability was a huge part of the hilarity. On Twitter that night, we were like toddlers crawling towards a gun. Somebody worked out exactly which plane she was on, so they linked to a flight tracker website. [British Airways Flight 43 On-time - arrives in 1 hour 34 minutes] A hashtag began trending worldwide: # hasJustineLandedYet? [It is kinda wild to see someone self-destruct without them even being aware of it. #hasJustineLandedYet] [Seriously. I just want to go home to go to bed, but everyone at the bar is SO into #HasJustineLandedYet. Can't look away. Can't leave.] [#HasJustineLandedYet may be the best thing to happen to my Friday night.] [Is no one in Cape Town going to the airport to tweet her arrival? Come on, twitter! I'd like pictures] And guess what? Yes there was. [@JustineSacco HAS in fact landed at Cape Town international. And if you want to know what it looks like to discover that you've just been torn to shreds because of a misconstrued liberal joke, not by trolls, but by nice people like us, this is what it looks like: [... She's decided to wear sunnies as a disguise.]
Onda su se uključili Justinini poslodavci: [IAC na tweet @JustineSacco: Ovo je nečuven, uvredljiv komentar. Traženi zaposlenik trenutno nedostupan jer je na međunarodnom letu.] Tada se ljutnja pretvorila u uzbuđenje: [Za Božić želim samo vidjeti izraz lica @Justine Sacco kad joj avion sleti i ona provjeri poruke/govornu poštu.#fired] [Čovječe, @Justinesacco doživjet će najbolnije paljenje mobitela u povijesti kad joj avion sleti.] [Gledat ćemo kako ova kuja @JustineSacco dobiva otkaz. UŽIVO. Prije nego što i ona sama sazna.] Dobili smo dražestan narativ. Znali smo nešto što Justine nije. Postoji li išta manje osuđivački? Justine je spavala na avionu i nije se mogla opravdati, a njezina nesposobnost činila je ogroman dio komičnosti cijele situacije. Te smo noći na Twitteru bili poput djece koja puzaju prema pištolju. Netko je saznao na kojem je točno avionu, pa je postavio link na stranicu za praćenje leta. [British Airways Let 43 - po predviđenom rasporedu stiže za 1:34.] Cijelim svijetom počeo se širiti "hashtag": #hasJustineLandedYet? [Ludo je gledati nečije samouništenje, kojega oni nisu ni svjesni. #hasJustineLandedYet ] [Ozbiljno, samo hoću kući u krevet, ali cijeli je kafić toliko uživljen u #HasJustineLandedYet. Ne mogu odvratiti pogled. Ne mogu otići.] [#HasJustineLandedYet moglo bi biti najsvjetlija točka mog petka navečer.] [Zar nitko iz CT-a neće do aerodroma da nas obavijesti o sletanju? Hajde, Twitteru! Hoću slike] I znate što? Netko je htio. [@JustineSacco sletjela je na Cape Townovu zračnu luku.] A ako želite znati kako to izgleda kad otkrijete da vam je život u krhotinama zbog pogrešno shvaćene liberalne šale, ne zbog trolova, već zbog dragih ljudi poput nas, ovako to izgleda: [... odlučila se skriti pod naočalama.]
So why did we do it? I think some people were genuinely upset, but I think for other people, it's because Twitter is basically a mutual approval machine. We surround ourselves with people who feel the same way we do, and we approve each other, and that's a really good feeling. And if somebody gets in the way, we screen them out. And do you know what that's the opposite of? It's the opposite of democracy. We wanted to show that we cared about people dying of AIDS in Africa. Our desire to be seen to be compassionate is what led us to commit this profoundly un-compassionate act. As Meghan O'Gieblyn wrote in the Boston Review, "This isn't social justice. It's a cathartic alternative."
Zašto smo to učinili? Mislim da su neki ljudi uistinu bili uzrujani, ali za neke druge ljude Twitter je više-manje stroj za uzajamno odobravanje. Okružimo se ljudima koji imaju ista stajališta kao i mi i međusobno se odobravamo. To je uistinu dobar osjećaj, a ako nam netko stane na put, isključimo ih. Znate li što je suprotno tome? Demokracija. Htjeli smo pokazati da marimo za ljude u Africi koji umiru od AIDS-a. Želja da budemo viđeni kao suosjećajni ljudi natjerala nas je da počinimo ovaj krajnje nesuosjećajan čin. Kao što je Meghan O'Bieblyn napisala u Boston Reviewu: "Ovo nije društvena pravda, već alternativa katarzi."
For the past three years, I've been going around the world meeting people like Justine Sacco -- and believe me, there's a lot of people like Justine Sacco. There's more every day. And we want to think they're fine, but they're not fine. The people I met were mangled. They talked to me about depression, and anxiety and insomnia and suicidal thoughts. One woman I talked to, who also told a joke that landed badly, she stayed home for a year and a half. Before that, she worked with adults with learning difficulties, and was apparently really good at her job.
Zadnje tri godine proputovao sam cijelim svijetom i upoznavao ljude poput Justine Sacco i vjerujte mi, ima jako puno ljudi poput nje. Svakim danom sve ih je više. Želimo vjerovati da su dobro, ali nisu. Ljudi koje sam upoznao bili su iskasapljeni. Pričali su mi o depresiji, anksioznosti, nesanici i samoubilačkim mislima. Jedna žena s kojom sam pričao, a čija je šala također dočekana na nož, ostala je kod kuće godinu i pol. Prije toga radila je s odraslima s poteškoćama u učenju i očito je bila jako dobra u svom poslu.
Justine was fired, of course, because social media demanded it. But it was worse than that. She was losing herself. She was waking up in the middle of the night, forgetting who she was. She was got because she was perceived to have misused her privilege. And of course, that's a much better thing to get people for than the things we used to get people for, like having children out of wedlock. But the phrase "misuse of privilege" is becoming a free pass to tear apart pretty much anybody we choose to. It's becoming a devalued term, and it's making us lose our capacity for empathy and for distinguishing between serious and unserious transgressions.
Justine je, naravno, dobila otkaz jer su društveni mediji to zahtijevali. Ali to nije bio najgori dio - počela se gubiti. Budila se usred noći ne znajući tko je. Ulovljena je jer se smatralo da je zloupotrijebila svoje privilegije. Naravno, ljude je bolje loviti zbog toga nego zbog stvari zbog kojih smo nekoć lovili ljude, poput imanja vanbračne djece, ali fraza "zloupotreba privilegija" daje nam odriješene ruke da razorimo više-manje bilo koga koga hoćemo. Taj termin postaje obezvrijeđen i tjera nas da izgubimo sposobnost empatije i sposobnost razlikovanja ozbiljnih i neozbiljnih prijestupa.
Justine had 170 Twitter followers, and so to make it work, she had to be fictionalized. Word got around that she was the daughter the mining billionaire Desmond Sacco. [Let us not be fooled by #JustineSacco her father is a SA mining billionaire. She's not sorry. And neither is her father.] I thought that was true about Justine, until I met her at a bar, and I asked her about her billionaire father, and she said, "My father sells carpets."
Justine je imala 170 sljedbenika na Twitteru, pa da bi to funkcioniralo, morala je biti fikcionalizirana. Pročulo se da je kćer rudarskog milijardera Desmonda Saccoa. [Ne dajte da vas #JustineSacco zavara, otac joj je južnoafrički rudarski milijarder. Nije joj žao, a ni njezinom ocu] Mislio sam da je to istina o Justine sve dok se nisam sreo s njom i pitao je za oca milijardera. Rekla je: "Moj otac prodaje sagove."
And I think back on the early days of Twitter, when people would admit shameful secrets about themselves, and other people would say, "Oh my God, I'm exactly the same." These days, the hunt is on for people's shameful secrets. You can lead a good, ethical life, but some bad phraseology in a Tweet can overwhelm it all, become a clue to your secret inner evil.
Sjećam se ranih dana Twittera kad su ljudi priznavali svoje sramotne tajne, a drugi su odgovarali sa: "Ajme, pa i ja to radim!" Ovih dana traga se za tuđim sramotnim tajnama. Možete živjeti dobrim, moralnim životom, ali nespretno napisan tweet može sve prenapuhati, postati trag do vašeg tajnog unutarnjeg zla.
Maybe there's two types of people in the world: those people who favor humans over ideology, and those people who favor ideology over humans. I favor humans over ideology, but right now, the ideologues are winning, and they're creating a stage for constant artificial high dramas where everybody's either a magnificent hero or a sickening villain, even though we know that's not true about our fellow humans. What's true is that we are clever and stupid; what's true is that we're grey areas. The great thing about social media was how it gave a voice to voiceless people, but we're now creating a surveillance society, where the smartest way to survive is to go back to being voiceless.
Možda postoje dvije vrste ljudi: oni kojima su ljudi draži od ideologije i oni kojima je ideologija draža od ljudi. Meni su ljudi draži od ideologije, ali trenutno vode ideologije i pripremaju teren za neprestane umjetne drame u kojima je svatko ili veličanstven junak ili odvratan negativac, iako znamo da ljudi nisu takvi. Jesmo pametni i glupi, ali postoji i siva zona. Kod društvenih medija sjajno je bilo to što su dali glas nečujnim ljudima, ali sad stvaramo društvo nadzora u kojemu je najbolji način preživljavanja povratak na nečujnost.
Let's not do that.
Nemojmo to učiniti.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)
Bruno Giussani: Thank you, Jon.
Bruno Giussani: Hvala ti, Jone.
Jon Ronson: Thanks, Bruno.
Jon Ronson: Hvala, Bruno.
BG: Don't go away. What strikes me about Justine's story is also the fact that if you Google her name today, this story covers the first 100 pages of Google results -- there is nothing else about her. In your book, you mention another story of another victim who actually got taken on by a reputation management firm, and by creating blogs and posting nice, innocuous stories about her love for cats and holidays and stuff, managed to get the story off the first couple pages of Google results, but it didn't last long. A couple of weeks later, they started creeping back up to the top result. Is this a totally lost battle?
BG: Ne idi nikuda. U Justininoj priči zapanjilo me kako ako je danas proguglate, ova priča proteže se preko prvih sto stranica rezultata - o njoj nema ništa drugo. U svojoj knjizi spominješ jednu drugu priču druge žrtve kojoj je menadžerska tvrtka za popravljanje ugleda pišući blogove i lijepe, bezopasne priče o njezinoj ljubavi prema mačkama, praznicima itd., uspjela tu priču maknuti s prvih nekoliko stranica rezultata, ali to nije potrajalo. Nekoliko tjedana kasnije, ta priča ponovno se počela vraćati na vrh. Je li to potpuno izgubljena bitka?
Jon Ronson: You know, I think the very best thing we can do, if you see a kind of unfair or an ambiguous shaming, is to speak up, because I think the worst thing that happened to Justine was that nobody supported her -- like, everyone was against her, and that is profoundly traumatizing, to be told by tens of thousands of people that you need to get out. But if a shaming happens and there's a babble of voices, like in a democracy, where people are discussing it, I think that's much less damaging. So I think that's the way forward, but it's hard, because if you do stand up for somebody, it's incredibly unpleasant.
JR: Mislim da je najbolja stvar koju možemo napraviti jest da kad vidite nepošteno ili nejasno posramljivanje, reagirajte jer mislim da je najgora stvar koja se dogodila Justine to što je nitko nije podržavao - svi su bili protiv nje, a to je iznimno traumatizirajuće - da vam deseci tisuća ljudi govori da se gubite. No, ako se posramljivanje dogodi i glasovi se uskomešaju, kao u demokraciji gdje ljudi raspravljaju o tome, mislim da je to puno manje štetno. Mislim da tako možemo naprijed, ali teško je jer ako se zauzmete za nekoga, to je užasno neugodno.
BG: So let's talk about your experience, because you stood up by writing this book. By the way, it's mandatory reading for everybody, okay? You stood up because the book actually puts the spotlight on shamers. And I assume you didn't only have friendly reactions on Twitter.
BG: Pričajmo o tvome iskustvu jer si se ti zauzeo pišući ovu knjigu. Inače, to je obvezno štivo za sve vas, u redu? Zauzeo si se jer ova knjiga pozornost usmjerava prema onima koji posramljuju, a pretpostavljam da te na Twitteru nisu dočekali samo lijepi komentari.
JR: It didn't go down that well with some people. (Laughter) I mean, you don't want to just concentrate -- because lots of people understood, and were really nice about the book. But yeah, for 30 years I've been writing stories about abuses of power, and when I say the powerful people over there in the military, or in the pharmaceutical industry, everybody applauds me. As soon as I say, "We are the powerful people abusing our power now," I get people saying, "Well you must be a racist too."
JR: Neki ljudi to nisu najbolje prihvatili. (Smijeh) Ne želim se koncentrirati samo na njih jer je dosta ljudi razumjelo knjigu i dobro ju je prihvatilo. Ali da, trideset godina pišem priče o zloupotrebi moći i kad spominjem moćne ljude u vojsci ili farmaceutskoj industriji, svi me hvale, ali čim kažem: "Sada smo mi ti koji imamo moć i koji je zloupotrebljavamo", ljudi mi govore: "Mora da si i ti rasist."
BG: So the other night -- yesterday -- we were at dinner, and there were two discussions going on. On one side you were talking with people around the table -- and that was a nice, constructive discussion. On the other, every time you turned to your phone, there is this deluge of insults.
BG: Sinoć smo bili na večeri i vodile su se dvije rasprave. S jedne strane pričao si s ljudima za stolom, lijepa konstruktivna rasprava. S druge strane svaki put kad bi pogledao na mobitel, snašla bi te poplava uvreda.
JR: Yeah. This happened last night. We had like a TED dinner last night. We were chatting and it was lovely and nice, and I decided to check Twitter. Somebody said, "You are a white supremacist." And then I went back and had a nice conversation with somebody, and then I went back to Twitter, somebody said my very existence made the world a worse place. My friend Adam Curtis says that maybe the Internet is like a John Carpenter movie from the 1980s, when eventually everyone will start screaming at each other and shooting each other, and then eventually everybody would flee to somewhere safer, and I'm starting to think of that as a really nice option.
JR: Da, to se dogodilo sinoć. Imali smo nešto kao TED-večeru. Čavrljali smo i bilo je krasno, a onda sam odlučio provjeriti Twitter. Netko je napisao: "Ti si za nadmoć bijelaca." Onda sam se vratio svom stolu, lijepo popričao s nekim, a potom se vratio na Twitter. Netko je napisao da je zbog samog mog postojanja svijet gore mjesto. Moj prijatelj Adam Curtis kaže da je možda internet poput filma Johna Carpentera iz 1980-ih - na kraju će se svi početi derati jedni na druge, pucati jedni na druge i na kraju će svi pobjeći na neko sigurnije mjesto. Sve mi se to više čini kao jako lijepa alternativa.
BG: Jon, thank you. JR: Thank you, Bruno.
BG: Jon, hvala ti. JR: Hvala tebi, Bruno.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)