By now, you’ve heard of the Jian Ghomeshi scandal. The former host of Q has been accused of assaulting about ten people. The tide has turned against him, despite an attempt to control the conversation through a 1,600 word Facebook post.
The Ghomeshi scandal has played out primarily on the page. Comments from both sides – both Ghomeshi’s and the alleged victims’ – have been raw and unscripted. Instead of providing evidence through official documents and rehearsed statements, the whole situation seems very close and very real, with social media statements and first person accounts. Twitter is great for interacting with your favourite stars, but the rise of social media means that matters of guilt or innocence are played out in the court of public opinion instead of an actual court. Whether this is a positive or negative development is up to you.
The beginning of the scandal can be traced back to Jian Ghomeshi’s statement about his firing from the CBC to his fans. It was clearly calculated so that he could get in the first word and steer the conversation. He talked about a vengeful ex-girlfriend who was angry about being rejected – things that people understand. People don’t want to believe their favourite stars hit people. An angry, hysterical woman makes more sense. Instead of putting out an official release or calling for a press conference, Ghomeshi chose to address his fans on Facebook in a conversational post. It made him seem calm, friendly, rational, accessible. It made him seem like your friend going through a hard time and until the allegations started piling up, people believed him and felt sorry for him.
Prior to the storm, none of the women allegedly assaulted by Ghomeshi went to the police. Their words and allegations weren’t filtered for an audience by an official body. Now they are emerging, one by one, and we’re getting their stories right from them – in a sense.
The initial four anonymous sources were quoted in the Toronto Star and so, by necessity, their story was told through someone else. But the first two women to attach their names to the story – Lucy DeCoutere and Reva Seth – haven’t been filtered; DeCoutere in a broadcast interview and Reva Seth in a personal essay that went up on Huffington Post. We, the people, are getting testimony straight from the alleged victims. We, the people, are getting an explanation straight from the alleged predator. Because of social media, we have the ability to hear all the evidence as it happens and make our own decisions. And make no mistake – though Ghomeshi hasn’t been charged with anything, his career has taken a nosedive. He’s been fired and thousands of people across the country have turned against him. While his initial Facebook post garnered a lot of supportive comments and Facebook likes (as of this writing, almost 105,000), as more and more people spoke up, Ghomeshi started losing Facebook fans at a rate of about 500 an hour. Social media is now an accurate barometer of how much a celebrity is liked: there was a spike in Facebook likes after his initial post, but that has dropped dramatically since.
So is this a good or bad thing? After all, the accused should be treated fairly in the legal system instead of being punished before anything is proven. But there are two sides to that. Social media and the ease of communication with each other makes it less and less likely that a serial predator – which many, many people say Ghomeshi is – can get away with hurting people.
Take the case of Jimmy Savile. The famous British DJ and television host died in 2011, and a year later a criminal investigation into his alleged sexual abuse of an estimated (and staggering) 450 victims was launched. Victims ranged in age from children to adults. The abuse occurred over a period of about 40 years. It seems inconceivable now that so many victims stayed silent and never banded together to try to get him arrested.
Of course, Ghomeshi’s alleged crimes aren’t nearly as extensive. And many other things have made this situation explode while Savile’s didn’t until after his death, such as different attitudes toward sexual assault now as opposed to the 1970s. But if Twitter and Facebook didn’t exist, the conversation around this wouldn’t be as extensive and Jian Ghomeshi wouldn’t be as thoroughly pilloried as he is now.
And in my opinion, anything that makes it easier to catch a serial predator can only be positive.
