Another relevant instance from last Summer:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7869644
How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life
41–50 of 596 posts
Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. You get to pay for your very stupid mistakes, especially those that affect other people (like this lady's tweet did).
How, exactly, did her tweet affect people? ...unless you standard for "affect" covers all communication. In which case, you're saying "People should pay for the sin of expressing an opinion or making a joke". ...and perhaps you are.
> How, exactly, did her tweet affect people?
Have you ever been the victim or racism? If not, let's say you're in an open group, you're of a certain nationality (let's call it X), and some other member of that group starts making racist or xenophobic jokes about your race/nationality.
By mistake my skin is white (so I've never been the victim of racist jokes/looks, even though my brother, whose skin is browner, has been a victim of said racist jokes), but being from a not-so-important-East-European country I've been the victim of xenophobic remarks/jokes coming from people "with the best intentions". They always, I mean always, hurt. It also hurts me why I have to explain on HN why racist jokes hurt people. I've been in this community for lots of years and never thought I'd see this day.
Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
You missed the bigger point, then: Mob justice is a barbaric and ugly thing; stop patting yourself on the back and thinking you're a good person for being a part of it.
This is not about justice, it's about a bad human being getting what she deserved. When you're an open racist you are a bad human being.
> This is not about justice, it's about a bad human being getting what she deserved.
... I'm sorry, I thought we were using the English language here and that we had a seven-letter Latin-derived word that we generally used to describe the situation of "[person] getting what [he/she] deserved". Perhaps I erred. Entschuldigung; tut mir leid.
But regardless, even accepting the (modestly tendentious) assertion that this is about a Bad Human Being, angry mobs following the Outrage Of The Moment and out for blood are hideous and disgusting phenomena themselves at the best of times. The modern justice system was largely invented to counter these barbarous shortcomings, which is why we have nice things like presumption of innocence, rights of the accused, impartial trials, the notion of the finitude of one's debt to society, et cetera.
Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
You missed the bigger point, then: Mob justice is a barbaric and ugly thing; stop patting yourself on the back and thinking you're a good person for being a part of it.
This is not about justice, it's about a bad human being getting what she deserved. When you're an open racist you are a bad human being.
I think that people who meet the following criteria:
- Are judgmental or annoying.
- Feel the need to interject their unsolicited opinion.
- Are not me.
Will be categorized as "bad" people. Bad people should have their livelihoods taken away from them and be subject to public shaming.
Please report to HR.
Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life
#45How is she is victim here? How is Twitter bad here? She made two racist comments in 1 tweet on her own will. That is not something that should be taken lightly, no matter what the platform. EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm not commenting on whether firing her was fair or not, but rather how her completely intentional tweets makes Twitter the bad guy.
I don't like the extremism behind the idea that we should fire someone from their job over a off-color joke which is intended for a small audience, but may be overheard accidentally by others. That sort of absolutism of policing thought just doesn't end well, ever. To translate it away from Twitter: imagine you're at a public space, such as a mall, and you happen to be walking by a table of people leaning together ju…
I'm not saying firing her was fair or unfair - the company has to respond to public reaction too. I'm saying how is Twitter the bad guy here.
> but may be overheard accidentally by others
There is nothing accidental about tweeting in public. If she wanted to limit the exposure, she could have used the "protected tweets" feature.
Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
You missed the bigger point, then: Mob justice is a barbaric and ugly thing; stop patting yourself on the back and thinking you're a good person for being a part of it.
This is not about justice, it's about a bad human being getting what she deserved. When you're an open racist you are a bad human being.
So, if a person is racist, but doesn't say a thing, than they're good?
Sorry, can't see any logic in your statement there.
Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
You missed the bigger point, then: Mob justice is a barbaric and ugly thing; stop patting yourself on the back and thinking you're a good person for being a part of it.
This is not about justice, it's about a bad human being getting what she deserved. When you're an open racist you are a bad human being.
I don't think someone is a "bad human being" even if he or she thoughtlessly makes a bad joke.
Moreover, lynch mob can hit someone wasn't bad at all. Someone just mishears or misunderstands, is mightily offended and the twitter storm starts. Like that guy who joked about dongles. It is not inconceivable that someone might make a half-tone joke that is completely harmless, and someone mishears and thinks it was racist or sexist.
There is no way to defend against that. "I didn't say that (in that context)" is not going to work.
Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life
#48I'd like to think that as the world gets more saturated in constant social media and sharing, that we'd have a higher tolerance for things...in this case, a joke that if a person told it to you, with the right tone of voice, it'd be funny...imagine Louis CK making that quip. But no, I doubt it...I think it's more a physical limitation of our brains...we just don't have the brain system designed to adequately consider…
The problem is compounded in that not only are people easily offended, savvy organizations (cough Gawker) have monetized being offended. So not only are our limited monkey brains quick to be insulted, there are now people whose job it is to find the Maximally Offensive Tweets of the day, which only compounds the problem.
Plus, for some reasonably large percentage of the populace, being righteously outraged is a pleasurable experience. In 1984, the inhabitants of Airstrip One needed nagging from the telescreen to do their morning calisthenics, but even Winston could get worked up for the Two Minute Hate.
Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life
#49How is she is victim here? How is Twitter bad here? She made two racist comments in 1 tweet on her own will. That is not something that should be taken lightly, no matter what the platform. EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm not commenting on whether firing her was fair or not, but rather how her completely intentional tweets makes Twitter the bad guy.
If everyone was treated equally, no matter the platform, I might agree with you.
But, don't you think it's interesting that out of all the countless racist and sexist comments on twitter, that those who are chosen for pillory fit an obvious demographic pattern.
Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life
#50How was her life ruined? She lost her job, then got a new one. Her life seems fine.
Did you even read the article?
- She was jobless for a period of time, and there's a lot of stress that comes with that.
- Her family seemed to be set on disowning her for tarnishing their name.
- She can't date without someone Googling her and most likely being turned off by what they find.