#MeToo is little more than mob rule // vs // #MeToo is a legitimate form of social justice

Abstract

This Shortcuts section engages the debate on whether the #MeToo movement is best understood as a form of social justice, bringing heinous acts often shrouded in decades of silence into the public domain, or as mob rule, foregoing official legal channels to summarily shame individuals through unmoderated character assassination. The four contributors offer diverse views on the efficacy of the #MeToo movement to bring forth structural change. They consider the relationship between #MeToo and other longer-running civil rights initiatives, the role of new communication technologies in producing collective suffering, and the need to better contextualize the production of shame. They address questions of how love and desire might fit into twenty-first-century biopolitics, and critically assess the relationship between hashtag movements and institutionalized law.