A woman wrangled the internet to find her missing husband. Has TikTok sleuthing gone too far?
A Facebook user recently had an interesting request: Track down her husband so she can divorce him.
"Last year, when I was pregnant with our youngest baby he decided being a husband and a dad wasn't the lifestyle he wanted anymore and he ghosted, like gone without a trace," Ashley McGuire wrote of her MIA spouse, sharing his name. "He's moved somewhere out of state and changed his phone number."
The people of the internet indeed rallied, rolled up their sleeves and wrangled him per her request – to the tune of hundreds of messages in her inbox – but some took it further than she likely intended.
"Please know I truly do not wish him any type of ill will," McGuire added. "I sincerely appreciate all of your support, but please do not make threats, spread hate or try to go out and locate him."
Add this incident to a trend surfacing on social media, where internet sleuths are going out of their way to find strangers they deem deserving of a public shaming. Some on TikTok are accusing their airplane seat mates of cheating on their spouse; Others post detailed accounts of meeting men on their bachelor parties to alert their fiancées they are being unfaithful. "Are We Dating the Same Guy" Facebook groups alert women to allegedly toxic men.
Though much of this seems well-intentioned, experts say becoming an amateur social media detective isn't the greatest idea, as you might wind up causing more harm than good.
"They justify violating the privacy of the alleged offender because they have accepted the story as true and, thus, prematurely judged the individual as guilty and undeserving of privacy rights," says psychologist Reneé Carr.
'What happens in Vegas no longer stays in Vegas'
Family problems used to stay inside a house. Secrets used to stay secret. But "in our digital world, the rules have changed," says Brad Fulton, associate professor of management and social policy at the Indiana University – Bloomington. "What happens in Vegas no longer stays in Vegas." And who could exactly blame people for loving some drama that's not their own?
"We love to partake in other's messy lives," says Erica Chito-Childs, senior associate dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at Hunter College, "partly because it makes us feel better about our own lives and/or it resonates with what we are adamantly for or against, thanks to the ever more accurate algorithms."
The quick snap of a camera or even observing someone opening an app is fodder for nosy observers to gain a few details about someone's life. Nothing stops them from posting about it – and people are quick to add to the discourse, trying to right supposed wrongs.
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The 'gotcha' mentality
Yes, everyone loves a black-and-white narrative. The good guys, the bad guys. But those narratives are rarely true, and most situations fall into a gray area. Today's era of cancel culture doesn't always allow for that.
"With the birth of cancel culture and an increase in self-entitlement, a large part of society has adopted a 'gotcha' mentality as well as a hypersensitivity to offense and any perceptions of injustice," adds Carr. "For the social media audience, this is even more so."
That's why average people and celebrities alike often fall victim to social media mobs at the mere hint of a scandal. People with nothing better to do will easily earn some satisfaction by achieving something within their control.
"When a jilted lover or victim of extreme racism puts out a call for social media sleuths to find the offending individual, this gives the sleuth an opportunity to fulfill self-esteem and human connection needs, and an exciting distraction from their everyday life," Carr says. "They see this as both an opportunity to feel a sense of belonging to a group as well as experience a sense of purpose – to help bring about justice."
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Don't 'be so eager to bandwagon'
A heads up, though: Sleuthing can lead to negative consequences. "Sharing sensitive information that a person intended to keep private can adversely impact that person’s mental health and it can put them at risk of being harassed, bullied or harmed physically," Fulton adds. Just because we have the tools to find people faster – i.e., we're not stuck going door-to-door or rifling through phonebooks, and instead dashing off to perform quick Google searches – doesn't mean we should.
"I highly caution others to not be so eager to bandwagon, pick sides and jump to conclusions when presented with limited information," says Chase Cassine, licensed clinical social worker, "because you maybe presented with a flawed, biased and one-sided perspective where pertinent information has been concealed or omitted."
So the next time you think about joining a social media mob, think about if you were the one on the receiving end of ridicule. Even if you were guilty in some way, would you need that pile-on to feel horrible?
Probably not.