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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

#231

Post by wyager »

rihegher wrote: post #209

French guy here. This article only speak about employees in american company getting fired about some data shared on the web. But I would be curious to know what happened to people who faced the same situation working in continental european companies. It would be surprising if people would lost their jobs so easily. Either because I think it's culturally better accepted for private people (I mean not public figures)…

>Either because I think it's culturally better accepted for private people (I mean not public figures) to have unappropriate expressions publicly

Based on my (admittedly very limited) experience with French culture, this is definitely the most important difference.

America has become extremely politically correct. People in France are much more relaxed about saying things Americans might construe as offensive. In particular, Americans tend to be much more wary of speaking about perceived victim groups (certain racial groups, homosexuals, etc.).

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

#232

Post by Nicholas_C »

celticninja wrote: post #193
jstalin wrote: post #22

If I say something stupid to a group of friends, usually they'll tell me it's stupid or I said something wrong, and everyone moves on. If I say something stupid on twitter, it's literally archived forever. Another reason I'm glad I've disconnected from all social media. I'll keep my stupid, non-politically correct jokes in my own head.

set up a twitter account and dont link it to your real name. sign up through a vpn, say waht you want and dont worry about it. unless what you say is actually illegal no one can really track you down without getting your login IP address from twitter. People get tracked down because they link it to their PSN/XBOX/FB account or reuse usernames between twitter and somewhere else they have left personal details. I have…

Do you not interact with friends on Twitter? Not having that takes a lot of the fun out of Twitter.

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

#233

Post by steven2012 »

ashark wrote: post #133
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…

The reason why Google, Facebook, Twitter, NSA, etc, want to reduce online anonymity is so that they can do a better job in tracking your behavior and advertise to you. They are simply packaging it as an anti-harrassment reason, when in fact that's a complete lie. As you said, the only solution is complete anonymity.

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

#234

Post by Futurebot »

potatolicious wrote: post #168
ripdog wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're internet-dogpiling people or taking creepshots and getting people fired for jokes not even directed at you, I will happily internet-fight you for being an awful person. It's amazing how self-described "progressives" can come in here and happily defend this kind of behaviour. I hope you find a nice new website and never have your views challenged again.

I... what? Hold your horses, there's an awful lot of projection here. I haven't come in here to defend internet lynch mobs - there's literally not a word in my post condoning it. The bulk of tech progressive aren't the ones spoiling for a Twitter fight, they're the silent majority that's reading posts on HN, rolling their eyes, maybe sighing a little bit, and moving along with their lives. They're not orchestrating b…

I see a lot of what you're saying happening, and subjectively, it has gotten worse. One interesting thing is that I see this popping up in comment sections and forums far removed from HN - neo-monarchists, redpillers, neo-objectivists, and their loosely related ideological ilk have spread far and wide. At the same time, the ILM does seem out of control, both on the SJW and anti-SJW sides. The Internet has become an excellent hate amplifier.

Another interesting thing is that the same thing happens on the other side. For many others (like myself) who are on the liberal / progressive / pro social justice side who couldn't take the influx of inchoate, unfocused rage (along with all the other fun stuff like oppression olympics, tone policing/anti-tone policing, fights over trigger warnings, slugfests over performativity, implosions over minor transgressions causing a space space to turn into an unsafe one and all the rest) that has become prevalent in various online SJ communities - they also left, looking for said greener pastures (or just hang around and don't comment - that's generally what I do in those spaces.) Michelle Goldberg wrote a good article on this a while back:

http://www.thenation.com/article/178140/feminisms-toxic-twit...

Anyway, if you know of any places for technology discussion with a good signal-to-noise ratio and low on hate and warriors/conspiracy theorists from either side (and a liberal bent would be even better), I'd appreciate hearing about it. I saw Slashdot rise and fall. Sad to think it could be happening to HN, too. Where do we go next?

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

#235

Post by carlyahood »

jonifico wrote: post #94

I actually thought it was funny. If you get offended by a thing that's so over the top it just can't be taken seriously, you sir are an absolute moron. Hate how people are just looking to get excuses to get offended and show off their 'righteousness' at the expense of other people. Point is: It's a joke. Learn the difference.

"It's a prank bro! It's just a prank! Calm down!"

Offensive people who do offensive things and then defend them saying 'it was just a joke, bro!'

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

#236

Post by protomyth »

gear54rus wrote: post #221

That may sound hateful or angry or whatever, but here goes... > I was among the first people to alert social media. (This was because Gill always gave my television documentaries bad reviews, so I tended to keep a vigilant eye on things he could be got for.) Within minutes, it was everywhere. Is this really what we've come to? We have all this technological progress so you could stalk someone you're butthurt over and…

"justice were being democratized" = mob rule

same as it ever was, now with a lot less effort from the mob

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

#237

Post by kristofferR »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #229
lambda wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say that HN "is" a bunch of MRA losers; HN is a big place, and there are a lot of different types of people on it. But there are a bunch of MRA losers on HN. How many, it's hard to tell; maybe a few that are very vocal, maybe a few with many sockpuppets, maybe a lot. If you ever get involved in a thread about any issue about women in technology, programs for encouraging women in technology, or the like, yo…

What's an "MRA loser"?

"MRA is short for Men's Rights Activist. MRAs argue that, as human beings, men should have human rights, due process in legal matters, and should not be subject to "reverse discrimination" in favor of other groups.

MRAs typically point to men's lower life expectancy in almost every country, higher rates of incarceration, more severe penalties for similar offenses, lower rates of health care spending and health research spending on men, higher suicide rates, higher rates of being subject to violence and murder including by women and when they are children, higher rates of genital mutilation, liability to conscription, higher rates of death at work, various disadvantages in divorce and child support, and higher school and college dropout rates, as reasons why men's rights should be on the agenda."

A lot of people feel that since men are privileged in so many areas, no effort should be expended on men's issues until every women's problem is entirely resolved. Due to that scapegoating Men's Rights Activists as people who hate women is popular.

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

#238

Post by forrestthewoods »

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'm the opposite. I use my real name, or real enough, everywhere. It makes me think twice before hitting enter. Anything I say I'm backing up, for better or worse, with my identity. I may someday regret this decision. So far so good.

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

#239

Post by gear54rus »

paulhauggis wrote: post #219

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 hi…

This and many other problems are instantly rectified when one stops using shit like twitter or fb.

Communicating with friends? fine, perfectly acceptable, PM or share with some reduced circle.

Trying to be funny in the world where someone could get butthurt over a joke that was snooped from the conversation not intended for their ears? You're asking for it (for the lack of better wording).

And yes I do realize the irony about this comment, feel free to downvote for 'victim blaming' if you don't understand the message.

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

#240

Post by russelluresti »

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 feel like most people realized the tweet was a joke. But a "HAHA isn't racism funny?" joke by a white person just isn't socially acceptable anymore. Personally, I'm in the camp where I believe that you should be able to joke about anything, but I know I'm in the minority. As a society, we have judged that certain things can't be joked about. This list includes "racist jokes made by white people".

Personally, this just shows that maybe people shouldn't be broadcasting their every thought out to the entire world. If you're not comfortable with it being on the front page of the New York Times, don't tweet it.

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