When I was very young I lived with my Mother in Las Vegas (specifically North Vegas just to give props).  During that time her best friend would babysit me on days when there was no school (as a professional gambler she didn’t work days).  One day we went on a “field trip” to an office building where she wanted me to help her put pre-folded flyers on each car in the parking lot.

Now I don’t remember how old I was.  Somewhere between not tall enough to reach the windshield wipers and tall enough to get there with a small leap.  But even at that age I knew something was up.  First she wasn’t the type of person to volunteer and she didn’t have a real job so why are we passing out flyers?  Second, when I opened the flyers, there was a picture of a man with the words “child molester” in big black print on top.  I’m not even sure I knew what a child molester was at that age but I knew it was a bad thing.  So I remember thinking we were doing something good even if I didn’t know what was going on.

Well…some time later I found out a few things.  One, the man on the flyer was my babysitter’s ex-boyfriend.  Two, the office building was where he worked and three he was in fact not a child molester.  His sin had been nothing more than breaking up with a woman who knew where he worked (I never learned why they broke up but it couldn’t have been too bad since she crashed his birthday party and tried to get back together with him no more than 6 months later)

I thought of that story when reading this article from the Wall Street Journal entitled “The Dark Side of ‘Webtribution’”

Imagine this scenario: Every person you know—each family member, friend, co-worker and casual acquaintance—receives an anonymous email from a stranger making terrible accusations about you.

How would you feel?

Renee Holder knows: "Devastated."

Several years ago, Ms. Holder discovered that dozens of her MySpace friends had received an anonymous email calling her a tramp and a home-wrecker.

For weeks, she tried to counter the allegations, which she says came from her new boyfriend's former girlfriend.

Now there are a couple issues here. Does social technology make it easier for people to spread rumors about you and does that make them more inclined to do it?

On the first point I present the story that started this post.  People were perfectly capable of spreading nasty rumors well before Facebook and Myspace came along.  Those social networks might make it slightly easier to do but only slightly and even that is arguable.

(My babysitter in the story didn’t need anyone’s password to plaster a parking lot with flyers)

On the second point here’s the thing:  Technology makes it much easier for people to blow up their ex-lovers cars too (the materials are readily available online as are instructions on how to use them).  But ex-lovers generally don’t do that because property damage on that level is a pretty serious crime. 

So even if technology makes something easier to do people won’t do it if society frowns upon it.  The reason “Webtribution” is becoming so common is because society doesn’t seem to be taking a strong stance against it.  Take the next example in the WSJ  article…

"It's perfect for public humiliation," says Jacquelyn Eschbach, an editor at a university in Philadelphia.

She should know. When she found out her husband was cheating on her last March, she logged onto his Facebook account, deleted all his privacy settings—allowing anyone to see his page—and created a new status update for him: "Moving back to my mom's because my wife caught me cheating with a woman from work."

Almost immediately, her husband's friends began sending questions, which Ms. Eschbach answered, acting as him. She named the other woman and explained that the affair had been going on for four years and had been carried on over lunch, sometimes at the woman's house, sometimes in a car. She asked if anyone had a room for rent. Finally, she disparaged his physical attributes, adding that "I am surprised Jackie stayed with me for so long."

"I wanted everyone to know what a jerk he was, and this was the easiest way to do it without saying it to each person's face," says Ms. Eschbach, 39 years old.

And what did her husband do?

When her husband found out about it, he immediately changed his Facebook password. But he says he understood why she wanted revenge. (He also begged her forgiveness.) Now the couple is trying to work things out. Ms. Eschbach says she doesn't regret her online outburst, but sometimes feels embarrassed when she runs into people she knows and wonders if they are aware of her husband's affair.

Even after they’ve gotten back together she doesn’t regret it?  That’s your problem right there.  Society has made this woman feel so justified in doing whatever she wants when she’s angry that she doesn’t feel bad even after the anger has passed.

People behave in the ways that society allows them to behave.  That’s been true since the horse and buggy days.  It has nothing to do with technology.  Our society has stopped valuing personal integrity and in doing so has allowed people to feel justified in doing whatever they feel like.

But technology only empowers people to do what they already could have done using low tech means.  It does not cause them to do it and doesn’t deserve to be blamed for it.