'15 Minutes of Shame' looks at public shaming with 'patient zero' Monica Lewinsky

With Monica Lewinsky as producer, narrator and self-proclaimed "patient zero" for its premise, "15 Minutes of Shame" is a thought-provoking if slightly scattered documentary, one that looks at the nastiness of online culture, its tendency toward snap judgments and the havoc that can wreak on lives of ordinary people.

Author Jon Ronson, who wrote the book "So You've Been Publicly Shamed," speaks of "social media justice," and the way the net has become what Lewinsky dubs "a breeding ground for outrage and ridicule."

Director Max Joseph then proceeds to illustrate the dangers of that -- and knee-jerk responses that shame people, sometimes based on flimsy or incomplete evidence -- designed to feed digital platforms built around algorithms that favor hostility and amplify the loudest and harshest voices.