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You're looking at a woman
who was publicly silent for a decade.

2
00:00:06,464 --> 00:00:08,290
Obviously, that's changed,

3
00:00:08,863 --> 00:00:10,277
but only recently.

4
00:00:10,971 --> 00:00:15,408
It was several months ago that I gave
my very first major public talk,

5
00:00:15,432 --> 00:00:18,193
at the Forbes "30 Under 30 Summit" --

6
00:00:18,217 --> 00:00:22,431
1,500 brilliant people,
all under the age of 30.

7
00:00:23,223 --> 00:00:29,625
That meant that in 1998,
the oldest among the group were only 14,

8
00:00:29,649 --> 00:00:31,969
and the youngest, just four.

9
00:00:32,967 --> 00:00:37,994
I joked with them that some might only
have heard of me from rap songs.

10
00:00:38,485 --> 00:00:40,487
Yes, I'm in rap songs.

11
00:00:40,511 --> 00:00:41,575
(Laughter)

12
00:00:41,599 --> 00:00:44,583
Almost 40 rap songs.

13
00:00:44,607 --> 00:00:46,165
(Laughter)

14
00:00:46,590 --> 00:00:49,407
But the night of my speech,
a surprising thing happened.

15
00:00:50,144 --> 00:00:56,116
At the age of 41, I was hit on
by a 27-year-old guy.

16
00:00:56,140 --> 00:00:57,142
(Laughter)

17
00:00:57,166 --> 00:00:58,725
I know, right?

18
00:01:00,301 --> 00:01:02,698
He was charming, and I was flattered,

19
00:01:02,722 --> 00:01:04,457
and I declined.

20
00:01:05,212 --> 00:01:07,732
You know what his unsuccessful
pickup line was?

21
00:01:08,910 --> 00:01:11,671
He could make me feel 22 again.

22
00:01:11,695 --> 00:01:15,739
(Laughter)

23
00:01:15,763 --> 00:01:18,613
(Applause)

24
00:01:18,637 --> 00:01:20,630
I realized, later that night,

25
00:01:20,654 --> 00:01:26,139
I'm probably the only person over 40
who does not want to be 22 again.

26
00:01:26,163 --> 00:01:29,085
(Laughter)

27
00:01:29,109 --> 00:01:34,886
(Applause)

28
00:01:35,554 --> 00:01:39,747
At the age of 22,
I fell in love with my boss.

29
00:01:40,723 --> 00:01:43,091
And at the age of 24,

30
00:01:43,115 --> 00:01:45,703
I learned the devastating consequences.

31
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Can I see a show of hands of anyone here

32
00:01:50,871 --> 00:01:54,988
who didn't make a mistake
or do something they regretted at 22?

33
00:01:57,232 --> 00:01:59,718
Yep. That's what I thought.

34
00:02:00,473 --> 00:02:06,230
So like me, at 22, a few of you
may have also taken wrong turns

35
00:02:06,254 --> 00:02:09,584
and fallen in love with the wrong person,

36
00:02:09,608 --> 00:02:11,307
maybe even your boss.

37
00:02:12,313 --> 00:02:14,035
Unlike me, though,

38
00:02:14,059 --> 00:02:18,516
your boss probably wasn't the president
of the United States of America.

39
00:02:18,540 --> 00:02:19,580
(Laughter)

40
00:02:19,604 --> 00:02:22,084
Of course, life is full of surprises.

41
00:02:23,877 --> 00:02:28,737
Not a day goes by that I'm not
reminded of my mistake,

42
00:02:28,761 --> 00:02:31,034
and I regret that mistake deeply.

43
00:02:33,570 --> 00:02:40,177
In 1998, after having been swept up
into an improbable romance,

44
00:02:40,201 --> 00:02:45,961
I was then swept up into the eye
of a political, legal and media maelstrom

45
00:02:45,985 --> 00:02:48,192
like we had never seen before.

46
00:02:49,082 --> 00:02:51,710
Remember, just a few years earlier,

47
00:02:51,734 --> 00:02:55,047
news was consumed from just three places:

48
00:02:55,071 --> 00:02:57,313
reading a newspaper or magazine,

49
00:02:57,337 --> 00:02:59,051
listening to the radio

50
00:02:59,075 --> 00:03:00,658
or watching television.

51
00:03:00,682 --> 00:03:02,280
That was it.

52
00:03:02,304 --> 00:03:05,042
But that wasn't my fate.

53
00:03:06,259 --> 00:03:09,734
Instead, this scandal was brought to you

54
00:03:09,758 --> 00:03:11,636
by the digital revolution.

55
00:03:12,430 --> 00:03:15,862
That meant we could access
all the information we wanted,

56
00:03:15,886 --> 00:03:19,420
when we wanted it, anytime, anywhere.

57
00:03:20,976 --> 00:03:25,033
And when the story broke in January 1998,

58
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it broke online.

59
00:03:27,835 --> 00:03:32,313
It was the first time the traditional news
was usurped by the internet

60
00:03:32,337 --> 00:03:34,076
for a major news story --

61
00:03:35,059 --> 00:03:38,917
a click that reverberated
around the world.

62
00:03:40,560 --> 00:03:42,898
What that meant for me personally

63
00:03:42,922 --> 00:03:48,311
was that overnight, I went from being
a completely private figure

64
00:03:48,335 --> 00:03:52,076
to a publicly humiliated one, worldwide.

65
00:03:53,272 --> 00:03:59,262
I was patient zero of losing
a personal reputation on a global scale

66
00:03:59,286 --> 00:04:01,421
almost instantaneously.

67
00:04:03,381 --> 00:04:06,257
This rush to judgment,
enabled by technology,

68
00:04:06,281 --> 00:04:09,358
led to mobs of virtual stone-throwers.

69
00:04:09,889 --> 00:04:12,803
Granted, it was before social media,

70
00:04:12,827 --> 00:04:16,207
but people could still comment online,

71
00:04:16,231 --> 00:04:17,906
e-mail stories,

72
00:04:17,930 --> 00:04:20,941
and, of course, e-mail cruel jokes.

73
00:04:22,714 --> 00:04:25,977
News sources plastered
photos of me all over

74
00:04:26,001 --> 00:04:29,581
to sell newspapers, banner ads online,

75
00:04:29,605 --> 00:04:31,906
and to keep people tuned to the TV.

76
00:04:33,962 --> 00:04:39,353
Do you recall a particular image of me,
say, wearing a beret?

77
00:04:41,480 --> 00:04:44,084
Now, I admit I made mistakes --

78
00:04:44,108 --> 00:04:46,254
especially wearing that beret.

79
00:04:46,278 --> 00:04:48,204
(Laughter)

80
00:04:48,228 --> 00:04:50,890
But the attention and judgment
that I received --

81
00:04:50,914 --> 00:04:54,237
not the story, but that
I personally received --

82
00:04:54,261 --> 00:04:55,821
was unprecedented.

83
00:04:56,713 --> 00:04:59,163
I was branded as a tramp,

84
00:05:00,029 --> 00:05:01,626
tart,

85
00:05:01,650 --> 00:05:03,340
slut,

86
00:05:03,364 --> 00:05:04,975
whore,

87
00:05:04,999 --> 00:05:06,149
bimbo,

88
00:05:06,855 --> 00:05:08,972
and, of course, "that woman."

89
00:05:10,662 --> 00:05:12,709
I was seen by many,

90
00:05:12,733 --> 00:05:15,196
but actually known by few.

91
00:05:16,863 --> 00:05:19,958
And I get it: it was easy to forget

92
00:05:19,982 --> 00:05:22,763
that that woman was dimensional,

93
00:05:22,787 --> 00:05:24,554
had a soul

94
00:05:24,578 --> 00:05:26,170
and was once unbroken.

95
00:05:29,346 --> 00:05:33,882
When this happened to me 17 years ago,
there was no name for it.

96
00:05:34,604 --> 00:05:38,521
Now we call it "cyberbullying"
and "online harassment."

97
00:05:40,584 --> 00:05:43,700
Today, I want to share
some of my experience with you,

98
00:05:43,724 --> 00:05:48,012
talk about how that experience has helped
shape my cultural observations,

99
00:05:49,201 --> 00:05:52,597
and how I hope my past experience
can lead to a change

100
00:05:52,621 --> 00:05:55,241
that results in less suffering for others.

101
00:05:57,887 --> 00:06:03,136
In 1998, I lost my reputation
and my dignity.

102
00:06:03,734 --> 00:06:06,321
I lost almost everything.

103
00:06:07,226 --> 00:06:09,231
And I almost lost my life.

104
00:06:13,031 --> 00:06:14,809
Let me paint a picture for you.

105
00:06:17,365 --> 00:06:20,215
It is September of 1998.

106
00:06:20,866 --> 00:06:23,690
I'm sitting in a windowless office room

107
00:06:23,714 --> 00:06:26,197
inside the Office
of the Independent Counsel,

108
00:06:27,213 --> 00:06:30,040
underneath humming fluorescent lights.

109
00:06:30,892 --> 00:06:33,997
I'm listening to the sound of my voice,

110
00:06:34,974 --> 00:06:38,350
my voice on surreptitiously
taped phone calls

111
00:06:38,374 --> 00:06:41,034
that a supposed friend
had made the year before.

112
00:06:42,018 --> 00:06:45,307
I'm here because
I've been legally required

113
00:06:45,331 --> 00:06:50,997
to personally authenticate
all 20 hours of taped conversation.

114
00:06:52,916 --> 00:06:56,997
For the past eight months,
the mysterious content of these tapes

115
00:06:57,021 --> 00:06:59,897
has hung like the sword
of Damocles over my head.

116
00:07:00,747 --> 00:07:03,714
I mean, who can remember
what they said a year ago?

117
00:07:05,587 --> 00:07:08,599
Scared and mortified, I listen,

118
00:07:10,846 --> 00:07:14,755
listen as I prattle on about the flotsam
and jetsam of the day;

119
00:07:15,771 --> 00:07:19,128
listen as I confess my love
for the president,

120
00:07:19,152 --> 00:07:21,337
and, of course, my heartbreak;

121
00:07:22,710 --> 00:07:28,134
listen to my sometimes catty,
sometimes churlish, sometimes silly self

122
00:07:28,158 --> 00:07:32,031
being cruel, unforgiving, uncouth;

123
00:07:33,031 --> 00:07:38,340
listen, deeply, deeply ashamed,
to the worst version of myself,

124
00:07:39,363 --> 00:07:41,719
a self I don't even recognize.

125
00:07:44,537 --> 00:07:48,382
A few days later, the Starr Report
is released to Congress,

126
00:07:48,406 --> 00:07:53,204
and all of those tapes and transcripts,
those stolen words, form a part of it.

127
00:07:54,694 --> 00:07:58,340
That people can read the transcripts
is horrific enough.

128
00:07:59,221 --> 00:08:00,742
But a few weeks later,

129
00:08:02,044 --> 00:08:04,709
the audiotapes are aired on TV,

130
00:08:04,733 --> 00:08:07,941
and significant portions
made available online.

131
00:08:10,597 --> 00:08:14,015
The public humiliation was excruciating.

132
00:08:14,911 --> 00:08:17,304
Life was almost unbearable.

133
00:08:21,050 --> 00:08:26,095
This was not something that happened
with regularity back then in 1998,

134
00:08:26,119 --> 00:08:31,812
and by "this," I mean the stealing
of people's private words, actions,

135
00:08:31,836 --> 00:08:34,299
conversations or photos,

136
00:08:34,323 --> 00:08:35,942
and then making them public --

137
00:08:36,776 --> 00:08:38,458
public without consent,

138
00:08:39,214 --> 00:08:41,021
public without context

139
00:08:41,849 --> 00:08:44,129
and public without compassion.

140
00:08:45,630 --> 00:08:49,236
Fast-forward 12 years, to 2010,

141
00:08:49,260 --> 00:08:51,706
and now social media has been born.

142
00:08:52,888 --> 00:08:57,897
The landscape has sadly become much
more populated with instances like mine,

143
00:08:57,921 --> 00:09:00,409
whether or not someone
actually made a mistake,

144
00:09:01,128 --> 00:09:05,584
and now, it's for both public
and private people.

145
00:09:06,682 --> 00:09:11,611
The consequences for some
have become dire, very dire.

146
00:09:14,198 --> 00:09:18,878
I was on the phone with my mom
in September of 2010,

147
00:09:18,902 --> 00:09:22,296
and we were talking about the news
of a young college freshman

148
00:09:22,320 --> 00:09:24,053
from Rutgers University,

149
00:09:24,077 --> 00:09:25,756
named Tyler Clementi.

150
00:09:26,724 --> 00:09:32,301
Sweet, sensitive, creative Tyler
was secretly webcammed by his roommate

151
00:09:32,325 --> 00:09:34,531
while being intimate with another man.

152
00:09:36,666 --> 00:09:39,271
When the online world
learned of this incident,

153
00:09:39,295 --> 00:09:42,430
the ridicule and cyberbullying ignited.

154
00:09:44,464 --> 00:09:45,692
A few days later,

155
00:09:46,670 --> 00:09:49,641
Tyler jumped from
the George Washington Bridge

156
00:09:49,665 --> 00:09:50,900
to his death.

157
00:09:51,524 --> 00:09:52,913
He was 18.

158
00:09:55,453 --> 00:10:00,061
My mom was beside herself about
what happened to Tyler and his family,

159
00:10:00,085 --> 00:10:02,918
and she was gutted with pain

160
00:10:02,942 --> 00:10:05,761
in a way that I just couldn't
quite understand.

161
00:10:06,618 --> 00:10:11,164
And then eventually,
I realized she was reliving 1998,

162
00:10:12,021 --> 00:10:15,954
reliving a time when she sat
by my bed every night,

163
00:10:18,570 --> 00:10:19,721
reliving -- (Chokes up)

164
00:10:19,745 --> 00:10:24,347
Sorry -- reliving a time when she made me
shower with the bathroom door open,

165
00:10:25,416 --> 00:10:29,065
and reliving a time
when both of my parents feared

166
00:10:29,089 --> 00:10:31,888
that I would be humiliated to death,

167
00:10:31,912 --> 00:10:33,203
literally.

168
00:10:36,339 --> 00:10:40,030
Today, too many parents
haven't had the chance

169
00:10:40,054 --> 00:10:43,047
to step in and rescue their loved ones.

170
00:10:43,071 --> 00:10:46,849
Too many have learned
of their child's suffering and humiliation

171
00:10:46,873 --> 00:10:48,862
after it was too late.

172
00:10:50,116 --> 00:10:53,951
Tyler's tragic, senseless death
was a turning point for me.

173
00:10:54,485 --> 00:10:58,332
It served to recontextualize
my experiences,

174
00:10:58,356 --> 00:11:02,894
and I then began to look at the world
of humiliation and bullying around me

175
00:11:02,918 --> 00:11:04,403
and see something different.

176
00:11:06,593 --> 00:11:09,575
In 1998, we had no way of knowing

177
00:11:09,599 --> 00:11:14,379
where this brave new technology
called the internet would take us.

178
00:11:14,403 --> 00:11:18,491
Since then, it has connected people
in unimaginable ways --

179
00:11:18,515 --> 00:11:20,567
joining lost siblings,

180
00:11:20,591 --> 00:11:22,158
saving lives,

181
00:11:22,182 --> 00:11:24,110
launching revolutions ...

182
00:11:25,087 --> 00:11:29,192
But the darkness, cyberbullying,
and slut-shaming that I experienced

183
00:11:29,216 --> 00:11:30,484
had mushroomed.

184
00:11:32,874 --> 00:11:37,575
Every day online, people --
especially young people,

185
00:11:37,599 --> 00:11:40,809
who are not developmentally
equipped to handle this --

186
00:11:40,833 --> 00:11:43,187
are so abused and humiliated

187
00:11:43,211 --> 00:11:46,329
that they can't imagine living
to the next day.

188
00:11:46,353 --> 00:11:48,628
And some, tragically, don't.

189
00:11:49,302 --> 00:11:51,453
And there's nothing virtual about that.

190
00:11:52,892 --> 00:11:59,374
Childline, a UK nonprofit that's focused
on helping young people on various issues,

191
00:11:59,398 --> 00:12:02,470
released a staggering statistic
late last year:

192
00:12:03,558 --> 00:12:10,000
from 2012 to 2013,
there was an 87 percent increase

193
00:12:10,024 --> 00:12:13,445
in calls and e-mails
related to cyberbullying.

194
00:12:14,834 --> 00:12:17,126
A meta-analysis
done out of the Netherlands

195
00:12:17,150 --> 00:12:19,007
showed that for the first time,

196
00:12:19,031 --> 00:12:24,179
cyberbullying was leading
to suicidal ideations

197
00:12:24,203 --> 00:12:27,181
more significantly than offline bullying.

198
00:12:28,379 --> 00:12:31,699
And you know, what shocked me --
although it shouldn't have --

199
00:12:31,723 --> 00:12:33,765
was other research last year

200
00:12:33,789 --> 00:12:39,204
that determined humiliation
was a more intensely felt emotion

201
00:12:39,228 --> 00:12:42,704
than either happiness or even anger.

202
00:12:44,371 --> 00:12:47,022
Cruelty to others is nothing new.

203
00:12:48,006 --> 00:12:53,709
But online, technologically
enhanced shaming is amplified,

204
00:12:53,733 --> 00:12:55,301
uncontained

205
00:12:55,325 --> 00:12:57,420
and permanently accessible.

206
00:12:59,213 --> 00:13:04,765
The echo of embarrassment used to extend
only as far as your family, village,

207
00:13:04,789 --> 00:13:06,451
school or community.

208
00:13:06,998 --> 00:13:10,080
But now, it's the online community too.

209
00:13:10,876 --> 00:13:15,312
Millions of people, often anonymously,
can stab you with their words,

210
00:13:15,336 --> 00:13:17,028
and that's a lot of pain.

211
00:13:17,735 --> 00:13:22,918
And there are no perimeters around
how many people can publicly observe you

212
00:13:22,942 --> 00:13:25,529
and put you in a public stockade.

213
00:13:27,415 --> 00:13:32,160
There is a very personal price
to public humiliation,

214
00:13:33,239 --> 00:13:37,017
and the growth of the internet
has jacked up that price.

215
00:13:40,045 --> 00:13:41,954
For nearly two decades now,

216
00:13:41,978 --> 00:13:46,734
we have slowly been sowing the seeds
of shame and public humiliation

217
00:13:46,758 --> 00:13:50,592
in our cultural soil,
both on- and offline.

218
00:13:51,968 --> 00:13:56,962
Gossip websites, paparazzi,
reality programming, politics,

219
00:13:56,986 --> 00:14:00,084
news outlets and sometimes hackers

220
00:14:00,108 --> 00:14:02,375
all traffic in shame.

221
00:14:02,837 --> 00:14:07,371
It's led to desensitization
and a permissive environment online,

222
00:14:07,395 --> 00:14:12,119
which lends itself to trolling,
invasion of privacy and cyberbullying.

223
00:14:13,217 --> 00:14:17,282
This shift has created
what Professor Nicolaus Mills calls

224
00:14:17,306 --> 00:14:19,750
"a culture of humiliation."

225
00:14:20,836 --> 00:14:25,161
Consider a few prominent examples
just from the past six months alone.

226
00:14:26,015 --> 00:14:31,076
Snapchat, the service which is used
mainly by younger generations

227
00:14:31,100 --> 00:14:35,650
and claims that its messages
only have the life span of a few seconds.

228
00:14:35,674 --> 00:14:38,434
You can imagine the range
of content that that gets.

229
00:14:39,026 --> 00:14:44,626
A third-party app which Snapchatters use
to preserve the life span of the messages

230
00:14:44,650 --> 00:14:46,143
was hacked,

231
00:14:46,167 --> 00:14:52,693
and 100,000 personal conversations,
photos and videos were leaked online,

232
00:14:52,717 --> 00:14:55,915
to now have a life span of forever.

233
00:14:56,983 --> 00:15:01,171
Jennifer Lawrence and several other actors
had their iCloud accounts hacked,

234
00:15:01,195 --> 00:15:05,119
and private, intimate, nude photos
were plastered across the internet

235
00:15:05,143 --> 00:15:06,844
without their permission.

236
00:15:06,868 --> 00:15:11,306
One gossip website
had over five million hits

237
00:15:11,330 --> 00:15:12,913
for this one story.

238
00:15:14,360 --> 00:15:17,369
And what about
the Sony Pictures cyberhacking?

239
00:15:18,422 --> 00:15:21,499
The documents which received
the most attention

240
00:15:21,523 --> 00:15:26,131
were private e-mails that had
maximum public embarrassment value.

241
00:15:28,146 --> 00:15:30,502
But in this culture of humiliation,

242
00:15:30,526 --> 00:15:34,586
there is another kind of price tag
attached to public shaming.

243
00:15:35,400 --> 00:15:38,563
The price does not measure
the cost to the victim,

244
00:15:38,587 --> 00:15:40,930
which Tyler and too many others --

245
00:15:40,954 --> 00:15:45,888
notably, women, minorities
and members of the LGBTQ community --

246
00:15:45,912 --> 00:15:47,079
have paid,

247
00:15:47,103 --> 00:15:51,659
but the price measures the profit
of those who prey on them.

248
00:15:53,196 --> 00:15:56,662
This invasion of others is a raw material,

249
00:15:56,686 --> 00:16:02,630
efficiently and ruthlessly mined,
packaged and sold at a profit.

250
00:16:03,479 --> 00:16:09,096
A marketplace has emerged
where public humiliation is a commodity,

251
00:16:09,120 --> 00:16:11,356
and shame is an industry.

252
00:16:13,189 --> 00:16:14,706
How is the money made?

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Clicks.

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The more shame, the more clicks.

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The more clicks,
the more advertising dollars.

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We're in a dangerous cycle.

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The more we click on this kind of gossip,

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the more numb we get
to the human lives behind it.

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And the more numb we get,
the more we click.

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All the while,

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someone is making money off of the back
of someone else's suffering.

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With every click, we make a choice.

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The more we saturate our culture
with public shaming,

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the more accepted it is,

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the more we will see behavior
like cyberbullying, trolling,

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some forms of hacking

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and online harassment.

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Why? Because they all have
humiliation at their cores.

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This behavior is a symptom
of the culture we've created.

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Just think about it.

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Changing behavior begins
with evolving beliefs.

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We've seen that to be true
with racism, homophobia

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and plenty of other biases,

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today and in the past.

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As we've changed beliefs
about same-sex marriage,

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more people have been offered
equal freedoms.

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When we began valuing sustainability,

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more people began to recycle.

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So as far as our culture
of humiliation goes,

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what we need is a cultural revolution.

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Public shaming
as a blood sport has to stop,

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and it's time for an intervention
on the internet and in our culture.

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The shift begins with something simple,

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but it's not easy.

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We need to return to a long-held
value of compassion,

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compassion and empathy.

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Online, we've got a compassion deficit,

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an empathy crisis.

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Researcher Brené Brown said, and I quote,

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"Shame can't survive empathy."

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Shame cannot survive empathy.

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I've seen some very dark days in my life.

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It was the compassion and empathy
from my family, friends, professionals

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and sometimes even strangers

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that saved me.

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Even empathy from one person
can make a difference.

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The theory of minority influence,

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proposed by social psychologist
Serge Moscovici,

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says that even in small numbers,

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when there's consistency over time,

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change can happen.

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In the online world,
we can foster minority influence

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by becoming upstanders.

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To become an upstander means
instead of bystander apathy,

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we can post a positive comment for someone
or report a bullying situation.

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Trust me, compassionate comments
help abate the negativity.

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We can also counteract the culture
by supporting organizations

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that deal with these kinds of issues,

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like the Tyler Clementi
Foundation in the US;

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in the UK, there's Anti-Bullying Pro;

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and in Australia, there's PROJECT ROCKIT.

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We talk a lot about our right
to freedom of expression.

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But we need to talk more
about our responsibility

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to freedom of expression.

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We all want to be heard,

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but let's acknowledge the difference
between speaking up with intention

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and speaking up for attention.

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The internet is
the superhighway for the id.

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But online, showing empathy
to others benefits us all

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and helps create a safer and better world.

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We need to communicate
online with compassion,

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consume news with compassion

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and click with compassion.

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Just imagine walking a mile
in someone else's headline.

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I'd like to end on a personal note.

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In the past nine months,

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the question I've been
asked the most is "Why?"

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Why now?

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Why was I sticking my head
above the parapet?

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You can read between the lines
in those questions,

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and the answer has nothing
to do with politics.

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The top-note answer was and is
"Because it's time."

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Time to stop tiptoeing around my past,

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time to stop living a life of opprobrium

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and time to take back my narrative.

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It's also not just about saving myself.

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Anyone who is suffering from shame
and public humiliation

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needs to know one thing:

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You can survive it.

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I know it's hard.

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It may not be painless, quick or easy,

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but you can insist
on a different ending to your story.

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Have compassion for yourself.

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We all deserve compassion

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and to live both online and off
in a more compassionate world.

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Thank you for listening.

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(Applause and cheers)