Cathy O’Neil: ‘Big tech makes use of shame to profit from our interactions’

Neil is a writer, a mathematician and author of the book Weapons of Math Destruction. Her newest book is The Shame Machine: Who Profits in the New Age of Humiliation, which looks at the ways shame is manufactured and exploited in a range of industries, including prisons, welfare systems and social media, for coercive and commercial purposes. She believes that a common intention is to shift responsibility for social problems from institutions to individuals.

This book is very different from your previous one. I first became interested in shame while researching Weapons of Math Destruction. I talked to teachers who had been evaluated. They were sometimes fired or denied tenure. When I asked if someone had explained the formula to them, they said they didn't understand. They were silenced by that. It was a shame.

If you’re shaming somebody who cannot conform to the norm, that’s bullying. That’s punching-down shame

By your own understanding, what constitutes shame? It is universal. Shame always happens with respect to a norm. It isn't necessarily universal. Shame is a social thing that happens when you feel like you're not appreciated by your community. Sex is one of the ways to get shamed if you do it wrong. You can shame someone if they behave well with respect to a norm. When does that work and when is it appropriate?

You talk about shame in terms of commercial exploitation. I think they have a lot to do with shame, but is it different to exploitation of other emotions? Insecurity is a feeling that is contingently acceptable. The threat of shame is what it is. The first third of the book talks about traditional shame machines, like cosmetics for women, because they're ashamed of looking old. Big tech is using shame to make money from our interactions. I think that is a new development that relies on the ability to hijack our pre-rational, triggered reactions and the threat that shame represents to our psyche.

I think that the service that will arouse us the most will be the one that is designed to target shame. We perform shame when we outrag us. In our filter bubble, our in-group, the algorithm serves to us the most outrageous thing that some other filter bubble has managed to arrive at, so we have the opportunity to be righteous and shame on to that other group.

There are things that are beneficial and things that are harmful. I think the answer is yes. Suggestions were put forth for how to think about that. I'm willing to be corrected, but the basic idea is that if you're shaming someone who can't conform to the norm, or who has no voice, that's inappropriate and cruel. That is punching-down shame. If you are shaming someone for something they have chosen to do against the norm you share with them, then that is appropriate, or at least it is. That doesn't mean it will work.

You acknowledge that you could be accused of punching down if you highlight certain individuals in the book. I'm doing it in the hopes that we can all learn from it. I changed a lot of people's names in order to prevent that extra shame from falling on them. I agree with you. A lot of people think of it as setting an example rather than being punitive. I don't think jumping on a shame train of the latest Karen video sets an example that we need to see.

used to do a blog 10 years ago and I really experimented with ideas. It would be harder to do that now

You think that someone punching down because they are powerful is an example of a woman who has been threatened and called appalling things. It is a great example of where it is a grey area. I don't like how much attention we give to things that don't matter. The fact that I know what the author thinks is a waste of time. I want to write a better book about shame.

George Wallace, the racist governor of Alabama, who was shot and paralysed, asked for forgiveness for his previous segregationist views, in the section on the author. I don't know if that's an appropriate context to discuss the death threats that have been received by the author. I didn't mean to suggest that she would get shot.

I don't see how an aggressive racist politician who was shot, and recanted, bears any resemblance to a person like Rowling. Wallace saw the error of his ways when he was visited in the hospital by a black congresswoman. She was recognised by him as her humanity. It was a great example of a person who really thought about his past actions and apologized in a really honest way.

Cancel culture is discussed in your book. Many people think that it doesn't exist. I think it's real. When you hear people complain, they are probably the people who have the fakest examples because they have a chance to defend themselves. Cancel culture is more common because people fear speaking out and being wrong. 10 years ago, I used to do a blog and I was experimenting with ideas. I felt like my readers were giving me the benefit of the doubt back then, so it would be harder to do that now. I think people who are not well known can be easily destroyed.

If there was one change that you could make that would affect the shame machine, what would it be? I would want every institution, including social media companies, to analyse the extent to which they have embedded punching-down shame in their policies and practices.