Looking back on the Vancouver riot, when social media took public shaming to new heights

Open this photo in gallery:

On the night of June 15, 2011, Mallory Newton, wearing a Vancouver Canucks scarf, posed for an unfortunate photograph. Standing next to a guy whose face was completely obscured with a black ski mask, she threw up a peace sign and smiled. The ski-mask guy was wearing a T-shirt. “I’m just here for the riots,” it read.

The next day, at work, Ms. Newton could hear her phone blowing up with notifications. That photo, taken downtown during the Stanley Cup riot, had gone viral. Online stones were being cast against Ms. Newton; she had no ability to explain or provide context.

Ms. Newton’s cheerful photo was a wrong place/wrong time (and bad judgment) situation. She was nowhere near the destruction, she says in a new documentary, I’m Just Here for the Riot, screening at the Vancouver International Film Festival. That didn’t stop people from denouncing her.

A Vancouverite, I remember that night very well – and what happened next. The following day, ordinary citizens came downtown to clean up. They swept up debris and wrote bathroom-graffiti-type love notes to Vancouver on boards covering vandalized windows. It was beautiful.

The other thing that happened made me feel less hopeful about humanity, though I know many would disagree. The virulent naming-and-shaming campaign to expose the rioters took on a life of its own, as photos circulated documenting that evening’s ugliness.

Then-Vancouver Police Department chief Jim Chu calls what happened “the world’s first smartphone riot.” Facebook users created public pages to identify the rioters. The VPD launched its own page. Charges were laid and cases prosecuted, which was good.

As for the public shaming that took place, however, no official or legal procedures were required in this early example of online mobbing.

“There were two riots going on. There was the physical riot. And then there was the exact same thing on the internet,” doc subject Sarah McCusker says.

Opportunities were lost; lives were changed. Ms. McCusker, who had turned 21 the day before the riot, believes her experience of being named and shamed contributed to her developing a drug addiction.

Alex Prochazka, then a professional mountain biker, posed for a photo in front of a burning car. Within days, he lost his sponsorships. Fair enough.

But a boy in the film identified as “Dylan” – whose photo brandishing a hockey stick while standing in front of shattered bank windows went extremely viral – was doxxed and harassed with at times racist abuse. He was 17.

Ms. McCusker was also called names we can’t publish. “The mobs on the internet,” she says in the film, “were no better than the people in the riot.” I’m not so sure about that. Ms. McCusker had reached through the broken window of an H&M, pulling out some clothing. When she turned around and saw cameras pointed at her, she dropped it on a bench, she recounts.

You could say the violators deserve to be shamed. But in the name of fighting for what’s right – a peaceful, civilized, orderly society where, for instance, a hockey game loss won’t spark a riot – people, cloaked in decency-warrior personae, can become monsters themselves.

Social media has allowed for “a great renaissance of public shaming,” as Jon Ronson calls it in his 2015 bestseller So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. What stupid things did you do as a 17-year-old that nobody caught on camera because we weren’t all walking around with them 24/7 in our pockets? Granted, you probably didn’t riot, break into stores, flip anyone’s car or set it on fire. But you might have done things you are embarrassed about today – if you can remember them.

Why do some people take delight in online shaming?

Now when still-maturing young people break the rules – or an adult behaves badly in the spur of the moment, perhaps driven by emotion on a bad day – it can be a life-changing event. The internet never forgets. A baseball fan throws a beer can in a moment of passion; a casual social-media user posts a bad tweet. Do they deserve to lose their jobs, or have their lives ruined – or, at least, irrevocably altered?

It depends on what it is they did or said, sure. But the aggressive meanness of the pile-on is disturbing. Mr. Prochazka calls it a “hate bandwagon.”

In the film, Ms. McCusker says, “there are no consequences for the people on social media, for what they did.” But I would argue that there are. The posters’ names (if they use real names) and comments are also searchable: their racist, sexist, homophobic taunts, their death threats.

What is it that people get out of shaming others? Is it a 15-minutes-of-fame thing? The need to be right?

The baseball playoffs are on, as is the NHL preseason. The culture wars are raging. People are struggling to pay their bills. There is a lot to be angry about.

I’m going to think twice before I post.