‘We turn people into avatars’: The human toll of social media pile-ons
Clare Stephens is the host of a new weekly podcast, The Pile-On
As the former editor-in-chief of Mamamia, Clare Stephens has witnessed first-hand the cruel nature of internet pile-ons when an angry crowd doesn’t agree with an online opinion.
While researching her debut novel over the past few years, she spoke to numerous high-profile people who have weathered the storm of online outrage. She was stunned by the callous nature of it — and the lasting scars to the humans who are targeted and then discarded when the news cycle moves along.
This led to the development of The Pile-On, a weekly podcast series launching today on Acast, that examines the human fall-out when the collective rage of an internet community concentrates on an unsuspecting individual.
