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Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

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271–280 of 597 posts

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#271
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea if they're false. It's a phoned-in article about a series of tweets. I wrote a comment about "Newsweek", not about the particulars of the post. "Newsweek" is essentially an SEO scam, is the point I'm making, the same way we'd point it out if a scraped blog post was blogspam.

Purchasing a brand is hardly a scam. You might not like who bought it but it's quite common to buy brands. To be honest I have no idea who Newsweek were or are and if they stopped being the original group 7-8 years ago it hardly seems like you could maintain any brand loyalty if you were eroding it with wrong doing over that whole time.

If you buy a brand and quietly change what it stands for, I'd say it is scammy. Consumers to think they're getting one thing, but you give them another.

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#272

I thought it was going to turn out that the employee was making bad posts, but from the quote by De Chiara, it's simply because the agent was even on those platforms at all. My surprise lessened after I Googled the name of the agency. It seems like De Chiara has been flippant with her business partners in the past: https://www.deangoodman.com/jennifer-de-chiara/

The email exchange is surreal.

Goodman: [...] If you could represent our interests “enthusiastically,” per our deal – and honestly – that would be appreciated. We’ve all worked too hard to see this fall apart now. Dean Goodman.

De Chiara: [...] I don’t appreciate your attitude. I don’t deserve it... Just read your email again–now you’re calling me dishonest? Go to hell.

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true, although obviously it applies to the both sides. In fact, BLM protests were caused by exactly the same mechanism you're describing - liberal media was creating false narratives about police brutality towards black people. "Transgender murder epidemic" is an even better example, it was completely made up by the media. Look up the numbers and compare them with the general population.

Sorry that goes against the every-day experience of black people in the USA; one of the reasons so many people got on the streets.

Cite?

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was a very vocal loony subset, but that is the Internet for you. No. This attitude has to stop. Having nazis and far-right extremists being vocal on your site is not "the internet for you". It is a deliberate choice by whoever runs the site to be a welcoming home for the vilest voices.

For me, this is the Internet. It is an unwelcome, but arguably useful X-ray of the society. I believe that erasing such people from a worldwide forum veers dangerously close to covering an alarm signal on your car's dashboard with black tape because it is annoying and life feels better without worrying about what might be happening under the hood. I prefer living my life without illusions about the rest of humanity,…

No. Letting hate like this fester is more like not treating a disease even when you see the symptoms, and arguing that it is better to know the disease is there. It makes no sense.

This kind of hate SPREADS. Letting it be normalises it, and lets it spread. The antidote to this kind of thing is for the rest of society to loudly and clearly reject it, and make it very obvious it is not acceptable.

Letting people keep spreading their hate does the exact opposite.

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#275

At this point, companies might as well just have an explicit policy of not hiring anyone registered as a Republican. Party affiliation is not a protected class, after all.

At least in California, you cannot be fired for your political view. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...

Tell that to James Damore.

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#276
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These platforms are seen as far right and extremist by a lot of people. Whether or not that assessment is accurate, it will distress a lot of people who do agree with that assessment. Depending on the demographics of the authors they represent, it may well be a significant negative for their business to be associated with those platforms.

A lot of people being the media in the US that pushes the narrative to the extreme. You could make the argument ( perhaps weakly for Parler now) that they are right leaning social platforms that contain extremes. The same way Twitter is left leaning and contains left and right extremes. Companies in the states appear to wear their political allegiances as a badge of honour eliciting an us-or-them reaction. Left and R…

> It's worrying and baffling that someone's source of income can be severed when there has been no evidence of misconduct.

Indeed workers rights in the US are among the weakest in the developed world. As shocked as I was at the weak protections in the UK when I moved here, even the UK is magnitudes better in this respect.

Yet this kind of worker hostile environment is what US voters keeps voting for.

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#277

This new wave of McCarthyism is really exciting from a historical perspective. And, you know, perversely, my long-standing belief that so many "historical" victims are eager to strap on the jackboots themselves gets yet another data point.

that's because victim/oppressor is a false dichotomy. the true dichotomy is friend/enemy

um, in-group/out-group ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_and_out-group

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#278
post #15

Reminds me of Dawn Frederick, a literary agent who was "cancelled" for calling 911 on looters who rammed a van into the gas station on her apartment block: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/p... This happened during the BLM protests this summer in St. Loius. The looters she reported were blocks away from any BLM protest, and other looting bands were setting fires on nearby blocks. Frederick w…

I honestly don't know why people use "post what you're thinking" style social media at all at this point. With employers being so sensitive, how can the cost/benefit analysis ever really result in a determination that it's a good idea to be active on Twitter/Facebook (or Gab, Parler, TheDonald.win, etc.)? Maybe that's part of what makes things get so extreme on those sites. The most reasonable people know enough not…

> I honestly don't know why people use "post what you're thinking" style social media at all at this point.

See also: https://www.socialcooling.com/

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#279
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had no idea what it meant and actually guessed it was some kind of slur (in line with PoS) until I learnt recently. Weird term. Doesn't work unabbreviated as an adjective, an adjectival formation ('coloured') is long out of politically-correct favour (at least it is in the UK), and why, is 'of colour' different/better/at all a good description of someone anyway? I'm, er, 'without colour', so it's hardly for me to o…

> why is 'of colour' different/better/at all a good description of someone anyway? It's different in that it's a different phrase. It's better because it's different; terminology in this area is driven purely by fashion. https://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/1988/08/28

When I was in primary school, handicapped was going out of fashion in favour of disabled (wikipedia tells me we were 10-15 years later than the US on that one, culture wasn't so instantly global then). A large part of this was that handicapped had been repurposed as an insult so there was a need for disabled (as happened for the previous terminology for mental disability, also). Of course even "disabled [person/people]" is heading into the "maybe don't use that" territory these days

It's clear why this happens, having difficulties is viewed as undesirable, most people would choose not to have them if they could (I'm aware some people with disabilities have felt it made them who they are and wouldn't change it, but they aren't the people to start using terms in a pejorative manner). As long as there are real negative attitudes against black people and real negative effects on black people, this is likely to be the same for terms used there also.

I feel the only reason person centered language like "people of color" and "person with disabilities" has lasted so long as the acceptable phrasing is simply because the more wordy phrases are harder to turn into a playground insult/drunk jeering/etc.

Re: Agent fired from literary agency for using Parler and Gab

#280
post #63

Just a reminder that Newsweek ceased publication back in 2013, and the rights to its brand were purchased by an odd Christian sect, somewhat along the lines of The Washington Times and the Reunification Church. The new "Newsweek" capitalizes on the brand reputation of the old one, but has no connections to it; a good thing to do with Newsweek pieces is to check the byline and look up what their background is.

Honest question - it's obvious how you identify politically by all your posts here, but what has your comment got to do with the story? If it's a false story, say it. If it's not - what exactly are you saying with your comment?

Because the left-leaning orthodoxy of the moment is that you should under no circumstances read or watch any conservative media.
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