In your example the hammer is controlled by yourself, while there are always other people behind public humiliation. When somebody hits you with the hammer (humiliates you in public), is this your own fault? You really blame the victims here. You say it's their own fault for being picked on, but this is simply not the case. They had a bad day, that does not justify anything. The state is for punishment. Do you blame rape victims for being attractive and for wearing "risky" clothes?

Well, I'll explain my thinking and maybe you can tell me where you think I got it wrong without resorting to bad analogies involving rape.

Public shaming requires two elements: a shameful act, and an audience.

The shameful act is usually provided by the person in question. I say "usually" because there are cases where people are shamed for rumors or outright lies. I think we can both agree that, in this case, the person provided it themselves.

The audience, in acts usually considered to be "public shaming", is provided by a second party. That is, the shameful act would have been private, but then another party brought it to light by providing an audience.

In this case, the audience was already there by virtue of the environment in which the person carried out their shameful act. The tweeters enlarged this audience, but they did not provide it as might have been the case if they had been tweeting a private conversation. Even without them, these people would have still shown their shame to a couple hundred other people.

Note that I am not saying they "deserved" this treatment or anything like that, I'm just saying that they made it happen themselves. The people everybody is getting angry at for posting the events weren't even necessary for it.

In the case of the couple who talk about their relationship on their balcony, there is no audience they realize and no shameful act. Just a private conversation _made_ public. Like somebody photographing you (just you) pissing on a tree without your knowledge. When the photographer publishes this photo in a newspaper it is illegal and unethical.

  I'm just saying that they made it happen themselves.
  The people everybody is getting angry at for posting
  the events weren't even necessary for it.

This is were I disagree. Diane behaved badly, but she didn't pick a fight with the whole world. The people who publicize the events are necessary for it. They are essential for the public shaming. Without them it would be just a short story some passengers would have told their families and friends. Something Diane would probably be ok with. By tweeting this, it is like Diane has acted in front of a dozen journalists who take photos while laughing at her. It's a malicious act, like a hidden camera to make everybody laugh at her.

Shouting on a balcony is not something a reasonable person thinks cannot be overheard by huge numbers of surrounding people.

As for the rest, I guess that's that. You see a qualitative difference between embarrassing yourself in a crowd and embarrassing yourself in a crowd and online, while I only see a quantitative difference.

@Shouting on a balcony: They even thought about this possibility loudly (see the article). It is pretty unethical to not say anything when you know they don't want you to hear them, especially when it's about private stuff and you are planning to post it on twitter.

@Quality of shame: I think it's more about the audience you as a person expect. Everybody would behave differently when we know we might be watched by the whole internet. Did you ever watch "The Truman Show"?

Another thing I don't get: how is it possible to "know they don't want you to hear them" when they're shouting in public? The very act indicates that they don't care about being heard. If they didn't want you to hear them, they would have gone inside.

From #roofbreakup:

"I don't think we need to talk about this up here with some random guy over there." -guy (uh oh, I'm that guy over here)

"He's just sitting on his fucking phone he doesn't care (talking about me). Answer my question." -girl

But he does care, he sneakily extends the audience to such an extent, both persons obviously wouldn't agree with. He is one reason why it will be more and more uncomfortable to have conversations in spaces, that are originally meant for people and their human needs.

see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6827715 & https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6827592