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CSUSB professor comments on ‘callout’ culture on social mediaWIREDDec. 12, 2018Brian Levin, director of Cal State San Bernardino's Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism was interviewed for an article about using social media to call out people on apparent racist, offensive rants. While the incidents captured on video are disturbing, they also can be taken out of context, the article says. “Those other ranters, the concern goes, could also be drunk or mentally unstable or having the worst day of their lives,” the article says, and they end up with a label. “We may end up losing an opportunity to rehabilitate somebody because they’ll forever have ‘bigot’ on their forehead,” says Levin. “It could also be used to further advance tribalism.” He added further in the article: “Documenting the horrible violence against elderly voters in Selma, Alabama helped bring about the Voting Rights Act, but so did Martin Luther King’s speeches putting that violence into context. … These videos become shock-value entertainment, we’re losing the opportunity to connect them to an ideal.” Read the complete article at “The case of viral ‘callout’ culture.’”
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