JUSTICE OR JUST ANGER?

The internet is a very strange place... A person can wake up one morning as a normal human being, go online, make one terrible decision, say something stupid, or do something genuinely harmful, and by evening, millions of people know about it.

Then the comments begin.
“Cancel this person.”
“Never support them again.”
“Don't give them a platform.”
“Make sure everyone knows what they did.”... and before you know it, the internet has become a courtroom.

The funny thing is that most of us didn't apply for the position of judge... We just have Wi-Fi..

I understand why people get angry when someone does something terrible.. Truthfully ,Some actions deserve serious consequences and pretending that harmful behaviour is acceptable simply because the person is popular or influential is not something I support but I have always wondered where the line is between holding someone accountable and simply destroying them because those two things are not always the same.

If someone commits a crime, there are supposed to be institutions responsible for investigating it, determining what happened and applying the law.. Police, courts, lawyers and other appropriate authorities exist for a reason.

The internet does not have a courtroom... It has screenshots and sometimes, screenshots can tell an important story. They can expose behaviour that might otherwise remain hidden... Social media has helped victims speak up and has sometimes forced people and organisations to pay attention to things they would rather ignore.

That part matters but the internet can also move extremely fast.

Someone can be accused today and condemned tomorrow before all the facts are known and once millions of people have decided that someone is guilty, changing the story becomes incredibly difficult... Even when the person later apologises, provides another side of the story or is cleared of wrongdoing, the original accusation may continue circulating forever.

The internet has a very good memory... Sometimes too good... This is where cancel culture becomes complicated for me.

Suppose someone genuinely did something terrible and was found guilty through the appropriate legal process. Should society still have the right to reject that person's work, refuse to support their business or decide that they no longer want anything to do with them?... I think people are allowed to make those choices.

If I don't want to watch someone's movies because of something they did, I can choose not to watch them...

If a company behaves badly, customers can decide not to buy from it... People are not necessarily obligated to continue supporting someone simply because they are famous but there is a difference between choosing not to support someone and organising an online mob to destroy every part of their life.

That difference is important... Accountability should have a purpose.

Is the goal to protect people?
Is it to discourage harmful behaviour?
Is it to demand an apology?
Is it to make sure victims are heard?
Or is it simply because everyone is angry and wants someone to suffer?

Those questions matter because sometimes people don't actually want accountability.

They want punishment and sometimes they don't even care whether the punishment matches the offence.

I have seen situations where someone makes a bad joke and people immediately demand that they lose their job, their career, their business and everything else they have built.

Then another person does something far more serious and somehow the conversation becomes quieter.

That inconsistency makes me uncomfortable.

If we believe consequences should exist, then the consequences should have some relationship with the behaviour.

Otherwise, we are not really talking about justice.

We are talking about anger.... Another problem is that people online rarely know the complete story... We see a thirty-second video, a screenshot, headline, or a post written by someone who was there and suddenly we think we know everything but real situations are rarely thirty seconds long.

There are usually conversations before the incident, things happening behind the scenes, evidence we haven't seen and details that don't fit neatly into a viral post.

This doesn't mean victims should remain silent until the internet approves their evidence.

It simply means we should be careful about turning incomplete information into permanent judgment and there is something else I think we forget.

People can change.

That doesn't mean every terrible action should be forgotten because someone said “I'm sorry.”

Some things have consequences that cannot simply disappear but if we believe in rehabilitation, forgiveness and personal growth, then there should at least be room for the possibility that a person can become better than the worst thing they have ever done.

Otherwise, what exactly does redemption mean?

I also don't think an apology should automatically erase consequences.. f someone hurts people, saying sorry is a beginning, not a magic reset button... Sometimes accountability means accepting that people may no longer trust you.

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