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How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life

nytimes.com

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Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life

#131

Post by vertex-four »

Amezarak wrote: post #95
spikexxx wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over-reaction or not, freedom of speech does not guarantee a receptive audience.

> Over-reaction or not, freedom of speech does not guarantee a receptive audience. That's so. But if society frequently inflicts severe extralegal punishment for unpopular speech, then you don't really have free speech. You just have First Amendment rights. They aren't the same thing. As a thought experiment, imagine Person X said something deemed offensive and society responded in a uniform manner - by constant publ…

> As a thought experiment, imagine Person X said something deemed offensive and society responded in a uniform manner - by constant public humiliation, refusing to do business with them, refusing to even speak to them, etc.

I will note that until relatively recently, those who we consider "conservatives" today did exactly that towards "progressives". You try and dare being publicly against segregation and the mistreatment of black people in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s - Juliette Morgan did, and promptly got fired and ostracised. I'm sure you can find similar examples for supporters of gay rights, right up to today.

It's not exactly a new, nor a partisan thing.

Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life

#132

Post by Kenji »

Stuff like that is analogous to threatening or killing cartoonists who mock Muhammad (that is, insanely extreme reactions to relatively innocuous actions). We just happen to agree with these cartoons, therefore we take the side of the cartoonists. The mindset described in this article (social justice bullying) is as much a hinderance to free speech as islamic extremism. But we are blind to it.

Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life

#133

Post by ashark »

steven2012 wrote: post #61

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.

I do think it's a bit odd it's considered obvious that children should avoid putting any information online that could reveal their real identity/location/et c., but when people turn 18 it's suddenly not eyebrow-raising for them to have a bunch of social media accounts and such under their real names.

Mind you, such caution used to be common sense behavior for everyone. Then Facebook[1] happened. The second Eternal September.

It also seems to have become common for professionals to promote themselves under their real names without keeping separate, anonymous accounts for non-business activities.

When it goes well they're growth-hacking (puke) their careers, using all their twitter followers and likes and GitHub projects or whatever to market themselves and/or their services and/or products they're paid to sell. When it goes poorly we get stories like this. Live by the sword, die by the sword. (I don't know that that applies in this case, but it has in others)

The situation in the article is really shitty, of course, and I don't mean to minimize that. I'm just puzzled that throwing your real name on every corner of the Internet stopped drawing derision and advice to cut it out, at some point. It's why the calls for reducing online anonymity to end online harassment by strangers strike me as such a strange approach—the absolutely undisputed solution used to be more anonymity! It's a major cultural shift from the very recent past, but I don't see it brought up very often.

[1] Not just Facebook, obviously, but the timing fits.

Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life

#134

Post by mcphage »

vertex-four wrote: post #131
Amezarak wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Over-reaction or not, freedom of speech does not guarantee a receptive audience. That's so. But if society frequently inflicts severe extralegal punishment for unpopular speech, then you don't really have free speech. You just have First Amendment rights. They aren't the same thing. As a thought experiment, imagine Person X said something deemed offensive and society responded in a uniform manner - by constant publ…

> As a thought experiment, imagine Person X said something deemed offensive and society responded in a uniform manner - by constant public humiliation, refusing to do business with them, refusing to even speak to them, etc. I will note that until relatively recently, those who we consider "conservatives" today did exactly that towards "progressives". You try and dare being publicly against segregation and the mistrea…

> I will note that until relatively recently, those who we consider "conservatives" today did exactly that towards "progressives".

And we agree that's bad, right? I thought we had all agreed that was bad. 'Cause it really seems like here you're advocating "well they did it to us, so it's okay if we do it to them."

Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life

#135

Post by chris_wot »

taylorwc wrote: post #93
theorique wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about, "one ironic joke, and then a long flight where she could not communicate that she was being ironic, cost Justine Sacco a lot". She wasn't being racist, she was lampooning American insularity. Unfortunately, a lot of people didn't get that it was a joke, and/or didn't get the joke, and she paid the price.

Even if one were to give her the benefit of the doubt on whether or not her tweets express racist sentiment, there's still a stupendous lack of judgment on her part. She's saying things publicly, associated with her name. Anyone who expresses something in that fashion should be fully prepared to deal with backlash. She should have the right to express her views, even if they are unpopular--and she should be willing t…

Well, I think she knows that now. I guess you aren't the sort of person to ever make a bad judgement call in public. Like not even a single occasion.

Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life

#136

Post by matthewmacleod »

Kenji wrote: post #132

Stuff like that is analogous to threatening or killing cartoonists who mock Muhammad (that is, insanely extreme reactions to relatively innocuous actions). We just happen to agree with these cartoons, therefore we take the side of the cartoonists. The mindset described in this article (social justice bullying) is as much a hinderance to free speech as islamic extremism. But we are blind to it.

I find it difficult to believe you actually think that – it's not really a self-consistent viewpoint, given that what you describe as 'social justice bullying' is absolutely free speech.

Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life

#138

Post by DanielBMarkham »

Let's build an Internet. People can connect. They can share their feelings. It'll make the world better place.

Had no one seen what mobs of angry people do?

This is getting worse, not better. We will see this kind of anger junkie mob mentality explode into real violence. And then the violence will escalate.

Good news. We are seeing the end of the nation state. Just like they said. It is being replaced with niche mobs of worldwide scope.

Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life

#139

Post by ptaipale »

paganel wrote: post #42
tjic wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

> By mistake my skin is white (so I've never been the victim of racist jokes/looks ...

Are you serious?

That white people couldn't be victims of racism? That only white people can be racist? You've never met even just funny looks? Then you haven't been out to the world too much.

I'm a big, white European, and when I was in China, I could hear myself being referred to as "laowai" "or dabizi". I could have gotten mad, because yes indeed by nose is big by Chinese standards and this is a reference to my racial features, but I chose to carry on. The people mostly meant nothing bad. Even the ones that actually maybe thought bad of me - possibly associating me with Western colonialism, of which I or my country were quite innocent - did nothing bad to me, so I let it be.

When our family went to the zoo, we were looking at the pandas, and a hundred people were looking at us (Look! Three white kids!). Very slow looks. It may be a bit awkward, but needs to be tolerated. I was just as much in awe when I saw the first black person in my life.

But perhaps I can do this because there was nothing I could gain by acquiring a victim identity. I'll leave getting mad to a time when someone actually tries to insult me.

Re: How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life

#140

Post by mcphage »

jstalin wrote: post #84
steven2012 wrote: post #61

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.

Same here. I rotate my online username on forums and online comment systems every few months: https://fakena.me .

> I rotate my online username on forums and online comment systems every few months

You might want to rotate your current one a little sooner ;-)

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