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Someone at a state school would have the same thing happen to them if they pulled stuff like this. No reason why they should be treated with kid gloves because they got into Harvard.
I think the concern here is that it was private.
Putting hate speech in the internet doesn't make it magically more private.
Someone at a state school would have the same thing happen to them if they pulled stuff like this. No reason why they should be treated with kid gloves because they got into Harvard.
I think the concern here is that it was private.
Both the main and offshoot were technically private chats, but the people in the main chat didn't sign up for that kind of behavior.
It's the difference between playing Cards Against Humanity with a few people and walking around school telling other students your most obscene card combos as jokes.
Someone at a state school would have the same thing happen to them if they pulled stuff like this. No reason why they should be treated with kid gloves because they got into Harvard.
This kind of filtering probably goes on all the time, but it's hard to connect the admission decision to particular conduct by the student. Here, it's not difficult, because Harvard isn't bound by the First Amendment like a state school.
ed: Here's a case that seems wrongly decided, but shows that the case is merely decent, not a slam dunk: How much free-speech protection does a college applicant have? This federal court says: Zero.[1]
[0](http://www.splc.org/blog/splc/2015/03/maryland-court-removes...)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The students in the spinoff group exchanged memes and images “mocking sexual assault, the Holocaust and the deaths of children,” sometimes directing jokes at specific ethnic or racial groups, the Crimson reported. One message “called the hypothetical hanging of a Mexican child ‘piñata time’” while other messages quipped that “abusing children was sexually arousing,” according to images of the chat described by the…
I don't care what they said. If it's against the law, let the law deal with it. If it's covered under freedom of speech, let them speak.
For such apparently intelligent people, such dimwitted use of a centrally managed communications. Not to mention bad taste, it seems.
People go to the toilet to get the crap out. Same for many online forums.
I'm so conflicted right now. On the one hand, yeah, that shit is offensive and I'm not too keen on elevating a person who makes jokes about sexual assault or violence against minorities. On the other hand I'm terrified at the creeping surveillance society that has institutions examining all of our utterances for "wrong speech", which is much too close for comfort to "wrong think", which is much too close for comfort…
Racist shit is "wrong speech". If I have friends who start uttering racist shit, and I can't talk them out of it, they are no longer my friends. (This has happened precisely once, no regrets. Thanks, Fox News, for poisoning an old man's mind.)
Posting racist memes is wrong, saying racist things is wrong, thinking racist thoughts is wrong. How did we get here, that racism falls under the scare-quotes version of "wrong speech" and not actually wrong speech??
another example why shenanigans shouldn't be done on Facebook. if you wanna $#!K around do it on a platform that isn't personal how is this so hard to understand ? (mind you this does seem excessive from what they are reporting)
What platform isn't personal? Sure, you don't use your real-name here or there, but it can and will be linked to you in the future. Any online and offline activity has a real chance of being linked to you at some point in the future.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The students in the spinoff group exchanged memes and images “mocking sexual assault, the Holocaust and the deaths of children,” sometimes directing jokes at specific ethnic or racial groups, the Crimson reported. One message “called the hypothetical hanging of a Mexican child ‘piñata time’” while other messages quipped that “abusing children was sexually arousing,” according to images of the chat described by the…
I don't care what they said. If it's against the law, let the law deal with it. If it's covered under freedom of speech, let them speak.
Someone at a state school would have the same thing happen to them if they pulled stuff like this. No reason why they should be treated with kid gloves because they got into Harvard.
I think the concern here is that it was private.
I think that people are mistaken when they believe that they can have private electronic conversations. Even in-person conversations are mildly suspect. If you're a part of a social media group where you don't know every single person in the group, or you are not certain whether newly invited members of the group can see old messages, you should assume this content will get published by a news agency. "How would it look to my boss, my parents and all my friends and family if they were to read what I'm about to write?"
We can mull about technical solutions to this problem and social solutions too. But as frustrating as it is, I believe that this is a net benefit to society. We've rooted out a lot of corrupt individuals with this same sea of audio/video sensors. We must now adjust to the reality that our electronic conversations have a very high likelihood of being leaked.