VANCOUVER, Canada — If anyone knows what it means to be publicly humiliated, it's Monica Lewinsky.

In one of very few major media appearances in more than a decade, Monica Lewinsky took the TED stage on Thursday to champion online compassion. In the years since arguably the biggest sex scandal of our time, Lewinsky has turned her attention to activism, namely the fight against cyberbullying and public shame.

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“At the age of 22, I fell in love with my boss. At the age of 24, I learned the devastating consequences," she said.

Her affair with then-President of the United States Bill Clinton, and its aftermath, coincided with the Internet communication boom of the late 1990s.

“This scandal was brought to you by the digital revolution," she said. Never before had information spread so quickly; never before had strangers' voices been so amplified. And as a vulnerable young woman, she heard them all too loudly. The scandal fanned the embers of social media into flames. And the flames burned Lewinsky badly.

"The public humiliation was excruciating. Life was almost unbearable," she said. Media leaks of her private phone calls with Linda Tripp revealed some of the most agonizing moments of her life, a young woman heartbroken and distraught over a man she couldn't be with.

Image: James Duncan Davidson/TED

But that was nothing compared with the subsequent firestorm of attacks not only from the media, but from complete strangers ready to tear her down. "I was branded as a tramp, tart, slut, whore, bimbo and of course 'that woman.' I was seen by many, but known by few," she said. And social media made it so easy.

Lewinsky sunk into the first of many dark, lonely years. Her mother feared Lewinsky would be "humiliated to death," and made her shower with the door open. As she spoke, she paused as her eyes misted.

While today's social media connects more people than ever, it's proven that people are hungrier than ever for salacious gossip — now, it's just easier to access. Lewinsky pointed to the iCloud hacking that exposed private nude photos of celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence. A certain gossip site got more than 5 million hits from that story alone, she said. The Sony hacks surfaced hundreds of private, humiliating emails. An app that stores Snapchat stories was hacked and thousands of people's private communications leaked.

She repeated the word "private" over and over.

Lewinsky sees a media landscape unconcerned with the real people behind these stories, a too-fast, greedy network hungry only for traffic.

"Public humiliation is a commodity and shame is an industry," she said. "And what is the currency? Clicks."

"Public humiliation is a commodity and shame is an industry. And what is the currency? Clicks." @MonicaLewinsky on Internet shame. #TED2015 — Stephanie Buck (@StephMBuck) March 19, 2015

The answer to combat Internet humiliation, shaming and bullying starts with something simple, but it isn't easy, she said. Lewinsky urges people to become Internet "upstanders," rather than bystanders, when they witness emotional violence and privacy breaches online. Report them and become proactively compassionate toward the victims.

What saved Lewinsky from dark days was that very compassion — from family, friends and even complete strangers. Sometimes all it takes is empathy from one person to save another, she said.

Today, she is lighthearted and warm, poised and ready to start a new conversation, while winking to the one that made her world famous.

Most women over 40 would give anything to return to age 22, she joked. "I am not one of those women."

Lewinsky declined to speak with press after her TED talk.