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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

#211

Post by sejje »

marcusgarvey wrote: post #112
theorique wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She was being ironic - making fun of herself by pretending to be a ditzy, entitled white girl who though that she could never get AIDS. Unfortunately, in her absence, people took her literally and assumed she was serious.

She has plenty of reason to now explain it as being ironic, but we'll never know if that was her original intent, will we? Her other tweets from the same period strike me immature and mean-spirited.

So you choose to believe she meant she literally cannot get AIDS?

Come on.

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

#212

Post by pervycreeper »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #50
lbarrow wrote: post #21

How 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.

>After that, she left New York, going as far away as she could, to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She flew there alone and got a volunteer job doing P.R. for an NGO working to reduce maternal-mortality rates.

Anyone for whom something even remotely resembling this can be said certainly has had a thick mat of privilege to land on, even if the experience were difficult, as it seems to have been.

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

#213

Post by vertex-four »

belorn wrote: post #200
vertex-four wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you really don't have freedom of speech when you can get mugged by being obnoxious online If you published something similarly obnoxious in a newspaper before the Internet, I'm sure you'd get a similarly angry response from some people, and quite possibly have someone harass you in person if they knew where to find you. If you stood on top of a soap box and shouted offensive crap at the public, you might have stuff…

One of the cited cases was a person whispering to a friend during a conference, and a stranger who listened in felt offended. Not only is it easier to publish things, it is also easier to attack people. The only thing needed to begin a shaming, is a large list of followers and the ability to tell a narrative.

I'm not certain if you realise this, but that was part of a much broader discussion on sexism in tech - there's plenty of discussion on the topic of women feeling threatened by the male-dominated atmosphere at some tech conferences.

It's not good, however, that these two got singled out when I have no doubt that there was much worse said at that conference alone.

Anyway, the point of my post was the last line - if free speech doesn't work when the masses have a voice, has it ever actually been a good ideal to work towards?

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

#214

Post by ianamartin »

jim_greco wrote: post #105

1) It's an offensive tweet. Whether you intend something to be offensive or not doesn't make it any less offensive. 2) It's very easy to pass off casual racism as a joke or a misunderstanding of the medium after it blows up in your face.

In my experience, the people who find these things the most offensive are the people the barb is pointed at. Privileged white people--who have nothing better to do than run around worrying about what other people are thinking out loud, trying hard to make sure that the whole world is protected from harmful speech, but who do nothing about actually solving things like the AIDs problem in Africa--are exactly the target of these kinds of comments.

These comments call out and critique the people who only care about Africans when someone says something that can possibly be interpreted to be offensive to them. Of course, privileged white people then use the alleged racism as a shield to hide their own hypocrisy behind and make blanket statements to the effect that there is some universal, writ-in-stone definition of what's offensive.

Now that the mob has doled out justice and protected all the Africans from a menace like Saccio, they go back to Whole Foods after their yoga classes and continue right on not giving a damn about how shitty things are in Africa.

If you find that tweet offensive, perhaps you should pause for a moment and consider that maybe, just maybe, it feels that way to you because you were the intended target.

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

#215

Post by bkcooper »

andreasvc wrote: post #196
danso wrote: post #17

I'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…

I think it is a mistake to think that most people were actually offended and didn't get the joke. There are definitely much more offensive things out on the internet than the examples in the article. I think it's much more likely that people revel in seeing someone go down; the article clearly alluded to this sadistic aspect I think. As soon as there is enough critical mass for a public shaming, people will jump on t…

I think it's much more likely that people revel in seeing someone go down; the article clearly alluded to this sadistic aspect I think.

This is possible. But I think it's less about this and more about status marking. Joining the pile on is often a quick, cheap way to demonstrate that you care about the right things.

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

#216

Post by venomsnake »

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…

As a fellow Eastern European ... man up. Really. Taking offense is the stupidest thing to do.

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

#218

Post by vertex-four »

j2kun wrote: post #184
vertex-four wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you really don't have freedom of speech when you can get mugged by being obnoxious online If you published something similarly obnoxious in a newspaper before the Internet, I'm sure you'd get a similarly angry response from some people, and quite possibly have someone harass you in person if they knew where to find you. If you stood on top of a soap box and shouted offensive crap at the public, you might have stuff…

But it's still niche media manipulating the voice and attention of the masses, as illustrated by the article. There is so much bigotry and racism that goes unnoticed in the depths of comment boards and bad blogs. Why aren't the masses also voicing about any of this? Because they aren't speaking briefly enough to be easily criticizable.

> There is so much bigotry and racism that goes unnoticed in the depths of comment boards and bad blogs. Why aren't the masses also voicing about any of this?

They do. Constantly. It's just that most of the time, they're talking about or rather than individual people.

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

#219

Post by paulhauggis »

This is the reality of social media. If you offend the wrong person, you will most likely get fired from your job and or get unwanted attention in other parts of your life..all for just expressing an opinion.

It's essentially online bullying by people that want to silence you for having an opinion that is different than their own.

The ex-Mozilla CEO knows this well. An online bullying campaign was launched against him and he was forced to quit.

I see this especially in many of the open source and tech communities, which is why I no longer contribute.

I also don't post anything political on my Facebook account. A future employer may look at this and judge me before I'm even hired..and decide not to hire me. Just looking at my list of friends, most people don't seem to realize that this may be a problem.

The same power that gives special interest groups and individuals the ability to launch campaigns to get people fired gives companies the power to not hire you based on your lifestyle or personal beliefs.

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

#220

Post by lfam »

Mithaldu wrote: post #207

As a german i have to ask: Why do people get fired over things like this? Are american worker employee protection laws so weak that there is no recourse whatsoever for them?

You're correct, there are basically no worker protections in America. The euphemistic term is "right-to-work", which means that you can be fired for any reason whatsoever.
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