Who Really Profits When Public Shame Goes Viral?

Dr. Eleanor Vance · 2026-10-11

Shame has become a business model. Every day, someone gets dragged online, and somewhere, an algorithm gets a little richer. But here's the uncomfortable part: we're not just watching it happen. We're clicking, sharing, and buying into it. ### The Machinery of Online Humiliation Social media platforms don't just host outrage. They engineer it. A controversial post gets more engagement than a thoughtful one, so the system learns to push more of the same. It's not personal. It's math. But the result feels deeply personal to whoever's on the receiving end. Cathy O'Neil, author of *Weapons of Math Destruction*, sat down with host Jack Russell Weinstein on *Why? Philosophical Discussions About Everyday Life* to unpack this. Her argument? The same algorithms that shape what we see also shape what we feel, and they're optimized for profit, not for human well-being. ### When Insecurity Becomes Inventory Think about the last ad you saw that made you feel slightly worse about yourself. Maybe it was about your skin, your weight, your bank account. That's not an accident. Advertisers have long understood that insecurity sells. The difference now is the scale and precision. - Platforms track your pauses, your scrolls, your late-night searches - Advertisers bid on your attention during your most vulnerable moments - The cycle repeats because engagement equals revenue > "Shame is a feature, not a bug, of the attention economy." — a sentiment echoed in O'Neil's work That quote stings because it's true. We've built systems that reward exposure and punish privacy. And the people who suffer most are often those with the least power to fight back. ### The Ethics We Keep Avoiding Weinstein pushes the conversation into philosophical territory: if we know this is happening, are we complicit? Is it immoral to profit from shame? And more importantly, is it immoral to participate in it, even passively? These aren't easy questions. But they're worth sitting with. Because the moment we shrug and say "that's just how the internet works," we've handed over our moral agency to a server farm. ### What Can We Actually Do? You don't have to delete every app or move to a cabin in the woods. But you can: - Pause before you share a post that's designed to humiliate someone - Support platforms and creators who prioritize dignity over clicks - Talk about this stuff out loud, with friends, at dinner, in your community The world is profiting from shame. The question is whether we're okay with that. And if we're not, what are we willing to do about it? Maybe the first step is simply noticing. The next step is choosing differently.