The price of shame: Monica Lewinsky called to fight cyberbullying on TED2015

Monica Livinski started her speech on stage at TED2015: “At 22, I fell in love with my boss. At 24, I learned the devastating consequences.” And she continued: “Who hasn’t made a mistake at 22? ... Not a day goes by that I don’t remember my mistake, which I deeply regret.”

In 1998, her love affair with former president Bill Clinton became public and millions of people in their own world learned the most intimate details of her life. Now Monica Lewinsky 41. After years of silence and leaving for London, where she studied social psychology, Lewinsky became a social activist and began the fight against harassment online.

Lewinsky's speech is called “The Price of Shame” and is dedicated to fighting online harassment or cyberbullying. “Like me in 22 of the year, some of you might also have made a wrong move by falling in love with the wrong person. Perhaps even in your boss. Although, unlike me, your boss was hardly the president of the United States, ”noted Lewinsky.

As the intern at the White House confessed, she instantly turned from an absolutely private figure into an object of public humiliation. Today, Lewinsky noted, the Internet has made the harassment even more common and merciless, and a “cultural revolution” is needed to solve the problem.

To fight online trolling and rethinking my own experience Lewinsky pushed the tragedy of Tyler Clementi. In 2010, the first year of Rutgers University, in the process of romantic communication with another guy, was filmed on a webcam by a neighbor in a hostel. Clementi did not survive the shame and killed himself, jumped off the bridge. Lewinsky also admitted that she was thinking about suicide.