The woman standing in front of you has been silent in public for ten years. Obviously, it's different now, but it's only recent. A few months ago at Forbes. 30 entrepreneurs under 30? I made my first public speech at the summit. There are 1500 outstanding people at the summit, all under the age of 30. This means that in 1998, the oldest person is only 14 years old and the youngest is only 4 years old. I was joking with them. Some people seem to have only heard my name from rap music. Yes, rap music has sung me, and there are almost 40 such rap music.
On the night of my speech, something unexpected happened. As a 4 1 year-old woman, a 27-year-old guy hooked up with me. I know. Is it hard to believe? He was charming and said a lot of flattering things, but I refused. Do you know where he failed to strike up a conversation? He said he could make me 22 again? That night, I realized that I might be the only one who didn't want to go back to being 40 and 22. When I was 22, I fell in love with my boss. At the age of 24, I understood its devastating consequences.
Can everyone please raise their hands and tell me, if you feel that you didn't make a mistake at the age of 22 and didn't do anything that you regret, please raise your hands? As I thought, like me, at the age of 22, some of you are likely to make mistakes, and the person who falls in love with the mistakes may be your boss. But unlike me, your boss is probably not the president of the United States. Of course, life is full of accidents. I am reminded of this mistake every day and deeply regret it every day.
1998 after being involved in an impossible love, I was involved in the whirlpool center of politics, law and media, an unprecedented whirlpool. Remember, just a few years ago, there were only three sources of news: reading newspapers and magazines, listening to the radio and watching TV, and that's all. But my life is not very good. This scandal was made public through the digital revolution. The digital revolution means that we can get all the information we want anytime and anywhere. The scandal was first exposed through the Internet on June1998+1October 65438. This is the first time that the traditional media has been preempted by the internet in reporting major events, and it has resounded all over the world.
Personally, it changed me from a completely unknown person to an object of public humiliation by the whole world overnight. I became patient zero, and experienced for the first time how to lose my personal reputation instantly on a global scale.
This hasty moral trial promoted by science and technology led me to be besieged by stone-throwing thugs in the online world. Admittedly, this was before social media appeared, but people can still post comments online, forward stories by email and, of course, forward cruel jokes. The news media posted my photos everywhere to sell newspapers, attract advertisers for websites and attract attention for TV.
Remember that picture of me? The one in the beret? I admit, I made a mistake, especially I shouldn't wear that beret. Besides paying attention to stories, people's personal attention and moral judgment are unprecedented. I was labeled as a slut, prostitute, bitch, bitch, of course? That woman? . Many people have seen me, but few people know me. I understand that it is easy for people to forget that a woman is multidimensional. In fact, she also has a soul, which was once complete. 17 years ago, there was no special term for these things that happened to me. Now, we call it cyber bullying and cyber harassment.
Today, I want to share some personal experiences with you. I want to talk about how these experiences have shaped my cultural observation. I hope my past experience can cause changes and make others less bullied. 1998 I lost my reputation and dignity. I almost lost everything, including my life. Let me describe it to you. This is September 1998. I sit in an office without windows. In the office of the independent prosecutor, I listened to my voice under the buzzing fluorescent light. This is the voice of telephone eavesdropping admission a year ago. This tape recorder, I used to be a friend. I sat there because the law required me to personally identify all the 20-hour conversations. In the past eight months, the mysterious contents of these tapes have hung over my head like the sword of Damocles. Think about it, who can remember what they said a year ago. I listened with fear and humiliation, listening to my rambling in my spare time, and pouring out my love for the president. Of course, my heart is broken. I heard that sometimes I'm cunning, sometimes I'm grumpy and sometimes I'm stupid? Ruthless, vengeful and rude. I am deeply ashamed to hear this. This is my worst side, so bad that I don't even know myself.
A few days later, starr report submitted it to Congress, and all the recordings and original manuscripts, all the stolen words, became part of it. Let people understand the manuscript. It's not over yet. It's scary. A few weeks later, the videotape was made public on TV, and a large part of it was spread online. This kind of public humiliation is very torturous, and life has almost become unbearable. This does not happen very often in 1998. This situation? It refers to stealing people's private words, behaviors, conversations or photos and making them public-without consent, context and sympathy.
Fast-forward 12 to 20 10, social media appeared, and more and more examples like me began, even regardless of whether the parties made mistakes or not. Moreover, public figures and ordinary people suffered greatly, and the results of some incidents were very tragic.
20 10 in September, I had a phone call with my mother. We talked about a news about the freshmen of Rutgers University. His name is Tyler? Clementi? Taylor, who is kind, sensitive and creative, was photographed by her roommate having intimate behavior with another man. The video spread on the Internet, igniting the fire of ridicule and cyber bullying. A few days later, Taylor went from George. Did the Washington Bridge jump? Life just passed away? He is only 18 years old.
My mother was very excited when she talked about Taylor and his family. She has a heart attack. I didn't understand it at that time, but I gradually realized that she was reliving 1998, the time when she sat by my bed every night, the time when she told me not to close the door in the shower, and the time when she and her father were worried that I would die in humiliation. It's no exaggeration.
Now many parents have not had time to intervene to save their beloved children, and many parents have not had time to know the pain and humiliation of their children. Taylor's tragic and meaningless death was a turning point for me. Let me re-examine my personal experience, let me start thinking about the world full of humiliation and bullying around me, and let me see something different.
1998, no one knows where the new technology of internet will lead mankind. Since its birth, the Internet has connected human beings in an unimaginable way, allowing people to find their lost brothers and sisters, save lives and launch a revolution. But at the same time, the dark side, cyber bullying and wanton abuse I have experienced have mushroomed. Every day on the internet, there are always people, especially young people who are immature and don't know how to deal with these things. They are always bullied and humiliated so that they feel that they will not live the next day. Some people really die tragically. This is not virtual at all.
ChildLine is a British non-profit organization dedicated to helping young people deal with various problems. Last year, the organization published an amazing statistical result. From 20 12 to 20 13, telephone calls and emails related to cyber bullying increased by 87%. A comprehensive analysis from the Netherlands shows for the first time that cyberbullying is more likely to lead to suicidal thoughts than offline bullying. Last year, there was another study that shocked me. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised. This study shows that humiliation is a stronger emotion than happiness or even anger. Being cruel to others is nothing new, but on the Internet, technology-driven humiliation will be magnified, unconstrained and visible at any time. Traditional humiliation will only be confined to families, villages, schools or communities, but now it will be extended to online communities. Millions of people can attack you anonymously with words, which will be very painful, and there is no limit to the number of people who can publicly see these attacks. Being publicly humiliated is very harmful to individuals, and the spread of the internet has greatly enhanced this harm.
Over the past twenty years, we have gradually sown the seeds of humiliation and public humiliation in the soil of culture. Whether online or offline, gossip websites, paparazzi, reality shows, politics, news reports and even hackers are all channels of humiliation. Insensitive and pervasive network environment makes network incitement, privacy invasion and cyber bullying more and more rampant. This transformation made Nicholas? Professor Mills said it. Shame culture? .
Let's look at some notable examples, which have only happened in the past six months. ? Snapchat？ This service is mainly used by young people. It claims that its content is burn after reading, and the information will only exist for a few seconds. You can imagine what kind of content will be involved. A third-party application used by Snapchat users to save information for a long time was invaded, and the personal conversations, photos and videos of100000 people were leaked online, so the life of these contents became forever. Jennifer. Lawrence and several other actors' iCloud accounts were hacked, and private nude photos were spread online without permission. A gossip website has received more than 5 million hits just because of this content. Think again that Sony Pictures was hacked, and the most concerned documents are actually some private emails with the most public humiliation value. In this humiliating culture, public humiliation has also been labeled with another price tag. What is measured here is not how much pain Taylor and other victims have suffered, but the experiences of many people, especially women, members of ethnic minorities and members of multi-gender groups. The price tag here measures the profits of those who profit from it, encroaches on others' private fields, becomes a raw material, and is ruthlessly excavated, packaged and sold by these people. A market was born, and public humiliation became a commodity.
Shame becomes an industry. How to make money? Click. The more humiliation, the more clicks, the more clicks, and the more advertising fees. This is a dangerous cycle. The more we click on these gossips, the more numb we become to the people behind the story. The more numb we are, the more we will click. From beginning to end, some people are taking advantage of other people's pain to make profits. Every time we click, we are making a choice. The more public humiliation in culture is accepted, the more we will see cyber bullying, cyber incitement, hacker attacks and cyber harassment. Why? Because their core is humiliation, this behavior has become a cultural symptom that we have created.
Changing behavior begins with changing beliefs. Regardless of racial discrimination or homosexual discrimination, many discriminations in the present and the past have been eliminated in this way. With the change of the concept of same-sex marriage, more people are given equal freedom. With the advocacy of sustainable development, more and more people begin to recycle. So should the culture of humiliation. We need a cultural revolution, and this bloody entertainment of public humiliation should end. Whether online or culturally, it's time to get involved.
Transformation can start with simple things, but it is not simple in itself. We need to return to an inherent human value, that is, compassion and empathy. The Internet is experiencing a crisis of lack of sympathy and empathy. Quote researcher Brin? Brown's words? Shame can't survive under empathy? .
I have experienced some extremely dark days in my life. It was the sympathy and resonance from family, friends, professionals and even some strangers that saved me. Even if only one person understands it, it will be very useful. Social psychologist Sergei? Moscovici's theory of minority influence holds that even a minority can be changed as long as it persists. In the online world, we can cultivate the influence of the minority by standing up. Standing up means that we are no longer indifferent but make positive comments to support the victims or report bullying. Believe me, compassionate comments can reduce negative effects, and we can also fight against this culture of humiliation by supporting organizations that deal with such problems. For example, is there Taylor in America? The clementi Foundation has anti-bullying programs in Britain and Rockit programs in Australia.
We often talk about the right to freedom of speech. Besides, we should talk more about our responsibility in freedom of speech. We all want our voices to be heard, but we need to distinguish between those who have intentions and those who ask for attention. The Internet is a super expressway of self-expression. However, putting yourself in others' shoes online is beneficial to everyone. It can help create a safer and better world. We need to communicate on the internet with compassion, watch the news with compassion, and click on the website with compassion.
Imagine living in someone else's headlines.
Finally, I want to end my speech with a personal explanation. In the past nine months, the most frequently asked questions are why, why now, and why I want to do this. You should be able to understand the implication of these questions. The answer has nothing to do with politics
My answer is: because it's time, it's time to stop being cautious about the past, it's time to live without shame, and it's time to tell your own experiences. Not just to save myself. What should people who have been humiliated and humiliated in public know? You can do it. I know it's hard. There will be pain. It's not easy. But you can stick to it and write a different ending. Compassion for ourselves, we all deserve sympathy, whether online or offline, we all need to live in a more compassionate world.
Thanks for listening!
& gt& gt& gt More exciting next page? Lewinsky's ted English speech?