Except for Facebook and LinkedIn, I haven't used my real name and any personally identifiable information on the Internet in 20 years, since I realized that everything I wrote on Usenet would be there forever. There is no value with having the things I say potentially used against me for the rest of my life.
How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life
61–70 of 596 posts
Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life
#62I think they article would more aptly have been titled, "How One Thoughtless Public Expression of Justine Sacco's Lack of Judgment and Racism Had Consequences." Really hard to feel sympathy for her.
Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life
#63I like to think of self-righteousness as a drug. A subtle but lingering high. I know I get off on it from time to time.
Post anything online and there's a chance you'll be someone's next fix.
Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
She's a victim because the consequences were completely out of proportion to her transgression.
Really? She mocked a whole nation, and used a disease that has killed over a million people as a joke in a public forum.
The joke was supposed to be on her ignorant statement not on the nation, the disease or the victims. Unfortunately, no one got the joke.
Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life
#65So far, what I see is: "Don't use Twitter." And on the smaller side is "Don't upload shit to social media."
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.
I missed no such point. If you want to be a racist, sexist, or anything else potentially covered by *-ist, do so locally and quietly. If you don't, the mob of internet injustices will hit and will kill your livelihood.
Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please elaborate on the harm caused by her tweet. Edit: Maybe I'm not being clear. What I mean is can you point to any harm done by her tweet besides hurt feelings?
Being publicly racist harms people towards which said racism is directed at. I honestly thought that was an established truth.
Except she wasn't being racist, she was being sarcastic about racism.
And in any case, no crime deserves the horrific public shaming she got.
Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life
#67Two things: Don't be too clever. People trip over themselves to feel offended. Two, you really don't have freedom of speech when you can get mugged by being obnoxious online. Not being malicious -just obnoxious. Yes all the tweets quoted in the article were obnoxious and leveraged stereotypes but I don't think people should be flogged for being like that. I remember all the obnoxious Polish jokes growing up. They wer…
Over-reaction or not, freedom of speech does not guarantee a receptive audience.
Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life
#68Aren't all these Twitter sh*tstorms over within a few days, or in the worst case, weeks? People should just sit them out and not panic / call their lives ruined. Seems to work even for politicians.
HR has the ability to use Google before they hire you, as do clients. So while you and I might not remember this person's name, it's still infamous.
Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life
#69I'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…
Poe's Law: Without a blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of extremism or fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing.
Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
There's nothing accidental about being in public when you're at a table at the mall, either, and yet we accept that people make communications in such spaces, which because of the medium carry beyond their party, that were really only meant for their group. In the same sense that voices carry in a public space, Tweets can be seen by a larger group than was intended.
It's a sad state of affairs if our only option for having semi-open communications on the internet - things that friends of friends can see without having to sign up to a walled garden - is if we only say things that are acceptable to everyone possible, for fear of mobs semi-randomly forming, or worse, forming at the behest of a for-profit company driving the mob in a frenzy to get ad revenue (which is the case for times companies like Gawker have stirred the mob up).