With the exception of political figures (who you can and should hold accountable, because they are holding power directly on your behalf), we are not accountable to strangers? 

You’re supposed to be accountable TO someone. We are accountable to those we have relationships with: family, friends, partners, acquaintances, coworkers etc. We are accountable under the law. 

We are not accountable to random internet strangers. We are (rightfully) beginning to have conversations about how public figures don’t owe us anything (beyond what they chose to give of themselves in the form of their work). This is generally used in terms of owing us access to their personal lives but they similarly don’t owe us accountability (literal definition: required or expected to justify actions or decisions).

What we do always owe one another, strangers or not, is human decency.

You can always amplify the voices of victims and share their stories. You can always show empathy and sympathy. You can always choose to disengage from the work of someone who’s actions you find distasteful.

But these online campaigns never stop there. They always turn into something so incredibly dark, something that is so clearly driven by a weird moral superiority and a kind of sick glee that comes with taking someone down, with being "right about them all along." With dragging in things that are not even remotely related, until it snowballs out of control, and then the posts and retweets and videos become yet another form of consumable entertainment. 

I think we have truly not even scratched the surface of understanding the scale at which this all takes place. Our minds (evolved to deal with 200 people at most) literally cannot fathom it. You are just one person but when we all think that way we fail to realize that we are making up thousands, hundreds of thousands and millions of instances of unnecessary cruelty. Yes even if it's jokes, yes even if it's "not that serious." There is weight in what you say. It’s something that’s obvious when we think about it for more than two seconds but we rarely do. 

I don’t even know why I’m writing this at all because we see this play out over and over again and nothing changes. We see something like this happen, we have a moment of “reckoning” and then a few months later it’s more of the same, only this time you join in because it’s not someone you have any personal attachment to. But someone does. Everyone is someone’s family member or friend or loved one. Everyone is a human being.

I actually find it insulting to my intelligence and to our collective humanity that that people keep rushing to add all these disclaimers about accountability or loving who he was, not who he is now. Obviously whenever you mourn anyone you are mourning a whole human being, an entire life, not any specific bad actions.