Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed

From the New York Times-bestselling author of The 57 Bus comes Accountable, a propulsive and thought-provoking true story about the revelation of a racist social media account that changes everything for a group of high school students and begs the question: What does it mean to be held accountable for harm that takes place behind a screen? A YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Finalist When a high school student started a private Instagram account that used racist and sexist memes to make his friends laugh, he thought of it as edgy humor. Over time, the edge got sharper. Then a few other kids found out about the account. Pretty soon, everyone knew. Ultimately no one in the small town of Albany, California, was safe from the repercussions of the accounts discovery. Not the girls targeted by the posts. Not the boy who created the account. Not the group of kids who followed it. Not the adultseducators and parentswhose attempts to fix things too often made them worse. In the end, no one was laughing. And everyone was left asking: Where does accountability end for online speech that harms? And what does accountability even mean? Award-winning and New York Timesbestselling author Dashka Slater has written a must-read book for our era that explores the real-world consequences of online choices.