People who support online public shaming and digital vigilantism may be motivated not only by a desire for justice, but also by the satisfaction of seeing perceived wrongdoers suffer and the wish to enhance their own moral standing. These findings come from a survey published in Computers in Human Behavior.
Online vigilantism involves groups of internet users exposing, criticizing or punishing people they believe have violated social rules, outside formal legal systems. Actions can include public shaming, coordinated harassment and doxing—the publication of private or identifying information without consent. The researchers noted that digital platforms can help these punishments spread quickly and remain accessible, potentially causing severe and lasting harm to targets.
Criminologists Dosun Kim and Yeon Soo Kim of Dongguk University in Seoul studied the psychological factors associated with support for online vigilantism. Their research focused on schadenfreude, the pleasure derived from another person’s misfortune, and moral grandstanding, or the use of moral claims to improve one’s social image or influence.
The researchers divided moral grandstanding into prestige-seeking and dominance-seeking forms. Prestige-seeking involves wanting to be viewed as morally good or sensitive, while dominance-seeking involves asserting authority, influencing others or shaming people who disagree.
The study surveyed a representative sample of 1,000 adults in South Korea. Participants reported their experiences with online vigilantism, their feelings of schadenfreude and their tendencies toward both forms of moral grandstanding. They also assessed how effective they believed internet vigilantism was at achieving social justice, discouraging misconduct and compensating for limitations in the legal system.
Participants were classified as non-participants, passive participants or active participants. Non-participants had no experience with online vigilantism. Passive participants had viewed or searched for material criticizing alleged rule-breakers, while active participants had taken direct action, such as sharing personal information, posting accusations or creating critical content.
Active participants reported higher levels of schadenfreude, prestige-seeking grandstanding and belief in the effectiveness of online vigilantism than the other groups. Among both active and passive participants, stronger schadenfreude and prestige-seeking tendencies were associated with a greater belief that online vigilantism was effective.
For non-participants, schadenfreude was also linked to perceptions of effectiveness. However, dominance-seeking grandstanding, rather than prestige-seeking, was associated with support for online vigilantism in this group. The researchers suggested that some people may approve of digital punishment from a distance because it symbolically penalizes rule-breakers while reinforcing their own sense of moral authority.
The overall interaction between the groups was not statistically significant. A more specific analysis indicated that the relationship between dominance-seeking grandstanding and support for online vigilantism may be stronger among non-participants, but the researchers described this result as exploratory and said it requires further study.
The findings do not establish cause and effect. Because the research used self-reported data collected at one point in time, participation in online vigilantism could influence schadenfreude rather than the reverse. Participants may also have altered their responses to appear more socially acceptable.
In addition, perceived effectiveness measured personal opinions rather than whether online vigilantism actually deters crime or produces justice. The sample consisted only of adults in South Korea, so the results may not apply in the same way to other cultures, legal systems or platforms. The researchers said future studies could track online behavior over time or use experiments to examine these relationships more closely.
The study, titled “Perceived effectiveness of online vigilantism: The role of schadenfreude and moral grandstanding,” was authored by Dosun Kim and Yeon Soo Kim.
Sources: PsyPost.