Public humiliation

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Public humiliation or public shaming is a form of punishment whose main feature is dishonoring or disgracing a person, usually an offender or a prisoner, especially in a public place. It was regularly used as a form of judicially sanctioned punishment in previous centuries, and is still practiced by different means (e.g. schools) in the modern era.

In the United States, it was a common punishment from the beginning of European colonization through the 19th century. It fell out of common use in the 20th century, though it has seen a revival starting in the 1990s.^[1] With the rise of social media, public shaming moved to the digital sphere, exposing and humiliating people daily, sometimes without their knowledge.^[2]