ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 draws on the worldwide phenomena of cyber shaming and social-network bullying of the last two decades to illuminate how these forms of virtual slander inform the suicide media-events of public figures and teenagers alike. As their “good name” and personal integrity are fatally affected, such cases of “social death” preceding physical death leave no doubt as to the appropriateness of “social murder” instead of “self-murder.” In Israel, such public debates include outrage regarding the anonymous yet unregulated arena of social media. But in comparison to other countries, it also encompasses emotional outcries for the protection of ethnonational responsibility, individual rights, and dignity against the effects and affect of the collective terror of faceless lynching and slander.
