Was this all necessary?

As I was reading this story about the lost phone all I could think was: "This is ridiculous." When I got to how they received the phone all I thought was "Was that necessary?" I understood the phone had some value as the phone and information on it was important to Ivanna, but did it have to be taken to the point that a 16 year old kid needed to be called out the way she was? As I was reading I couldn't help but think that Evan was a jerk... she was just a kid that found a phone in a cab.

1. She probably didn't have one or if she did have one it was probably crappy and could understand why she wouldn't want to give it up since it was lying around.
2.  He really didn't consider her family's perspective, who did say rude things, but he's a grown middle aged man harassing a sixteen year-old teen mom. How else did you expect them to respond?
3. Vilifying her through the use of social media to garner attention was messed up and could have been handled better. Was all the effort put into this endeavor worth getting the phone?

If you managed to attract a huge audience is vilifying her for something that happened by chance the way to utilize the attention?

I can't help but be on Sasha's side, I don't think Evan really considered that he was dealing with a 16 year old girl, she didn't steal the phone, and even though Ivanna asked for it back and wasn't returned, from Sasha's point of view she did nothing morally wrong.

Shirky had a point when it came to recognizing how little management was needed to assemble a group of people together, it's pretty scary if you're the one being targeted by the group. Evan blogged what he was doing and all his followers did was amplify or echo it across the internet.The attention he had was the only thing that made what he was doing seem important. In Sasha's case she not only had to deal with the internet, but also, other forms of media: newspapers and news outlets. It demonstrates how the mob mentality against Sasha was then reflected into the "real world."

If this situation didn't gather as much attention as it did would anyone really have cared? It was obvious the NYPD didn't until there was a article in the New York Times. Evan didn't necessarily have to go out and meet with these people to spread it onto other platforms when the internet already laid out a trail to him.

It seems as though Sasha wasn't really given a voice or have anyone speak out for her besides her family and boyfriend. It goes to show that it's easy to spread the dominant point of view in a situation centered around the internet as long as you have a tidal wave of people backing it up.