De Facto Life Sentences
Via Slashdot, the NY Times reports on an online community that hunted down a car thief. (NYT requires registration.) Stealing a car is a pretty stupid thing to do (not to mention pretty illegal), and there should be some serious consequences for it. But look at the last line of the article (quoted in the Slashdot summary):
“This guy has worldwide recognition for being a car thief for the rest of his life,” Mr. Ironside said. “The Internet is not going away.”
This is way, way more punishment than a stupid teenager deserves. The quote neatly captures the geographical and temporal scope of internet fame and infamy: world-wide, and forever. GW Law Prof. Daniel Solove has a book called The Future of Reputation (available free online) that talks about the effect of technology on social interaction. I’m guessing he’ll have something to say about this article over at Concurring Opinions pretty soon. I have yet to read his book, so I can’t tie this story directly in with what he writes. But I do have a few thoughts of my own.
In undergrad, a friend of mine did a stupid (and illegal) thing that justifiably pissed off a lot of our mutual friends. There was no legal action, but “justice” was meted out swiftly and harshly through social means. He apologized, but his reputation never really recovered. Talking about it years later, he said that it basically ended him at that college.
So, he transfered. He left that social circle, left his reputation, and got another start. Now, he’s doing very well for himself. He learned his lesson, and he was able to benefit from it because he had a way to start over without that stigma.
That’s the problem with the internet. There is no getting away from it, either by going far away, or by waiting it out. In order to learn from your mistakes, they need to be forgiven or forgotten. But like Mr. Ironside says in the article, the internet doesn’t go away.
So, my initial thoughts are that to account for the infinite duration of any mistakes that manage to make it to the internet, we need to rethink the way we deal with other people socially. People change, but their public record no longer does — it’s all out there, and it’s all very searchable. We need to take this into account when we assess people. Of course, how can you really tell if they have changed? Instinct would tell us that having someone’s life at our fingertips would make it easier to make judgments about them, but if you want to be fair to them, it’s still just as hard as it ever was.
I’ll write more about this after I see what Prof. Solove has to say in his book. Hopefully I’ll also get to take a class with him while I’m at GW. And hopefully, Jamie Jacobson can find some people who are willing to forgive the stupid theft that will follow him the rest of his life.
April 12th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
This raises an interesting point about the nature of forgiveness, and also, an interesting point of Marxist social theory. If we have the ability to change society for the better, shouldn’t we do it? Two things; First, a crime was committed. If we can bring about JUSTICE in a situation where it formerly would have been missed, is this not a better situation? Second, is this not a more certain and frightening (yet more humane than the death penalty) reason to compel individuals to behave?
The implicit point that you are making is about the nature of humans. We choose to not forgive/trust. Yet, critical theory would point out that humans will change (evolve) when their circumstances require it. I think that people will have to learn to be more forgiving when everyone is indicted on some level (John 8:7).
Along these same lines, I think the same thing will happen in baseball. Right now, those who have been convicted in the court of public opinion for doing steroids have been unfairly blackballed from the Hall of Fame and their names have been dragged through the mud. In time, as the public begins to understand the extent of steroid use in the game—that everyone did it— then we can begin to have some much needed healing. When this happens, we will begin to see a change in the way people react to this issue.
There will always be another new issue on the horizon (William James "The Stream of Thought"). What we do about it is how we express our humanity.
April 13th, 2008 at 1:01 am
Regarding your first two points, I agree. There is a lot of value in “internet justice” (as I will call it) that I didn’t address. At the very least, there is economic benefit — it’s cheaper than a police search. A police search for this car would have been economically impossible before, and there would have been no justice. Also, as far as deterrence is concerned, I think you’re probably right. This is a good thing, as far as crime goes.
As for the rest, there’s a lot of good stuff there… enough that, as I start to flesh it out here, I realize that I’ll need to write a post, or series of posts, on it. Look for it tomorrow or the next day.
April 14th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
cheaper than a police search———
so,,,,, do you have any promising leads?????
sure, we’ve got two new detectives on it,,, they’re working in shifts….
Or something like that. I imagine the dude would have approved.