Self-promotion and online shaming during COVID-19: A toxic combination

Abstract

A public shaming frenzy has spread through social media (SM) following the instigation of lockdown policies as a way to counter the spread of COVID-19. On SM, individuals shun the idea of self-promotion and shame others who do not follow the COVID-19 guidelines. When it comes to the crime of not taking a pandemic seriously, perhaps the ultimate penalty is online shaming. The study proposes the black swan theory from the human-computer interaction lens and examines the toxic combination of online shaming and self-promotion in SM to discern whether pointing the finger of blame is a productive way of changing rule-breaking behaviour. A quantitative methodology is applied to survey data, acquired from 375 respondents. The findings reveal that the adverse effect of online shaming results in self-destructive behaviour. Change in behaviour of individuals shamed online is higher for females over males and is higher for adults over middle-aged and older-aged.