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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

#291

Post by andybak »

bkcooper wrote: post #215
andreasvc wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wonder if there's a distinction that needs to be made between offending people and hurting people.

From my self-confessed but unavoidable smug vantage point of white privilege I wonder if being offended is something that needs to be disregarded. I'm trying to remember how it felt to be 'offended' myself and whether anyone other than me should have cared. Is it actually a form of power when one can choose to be offended and know that you can affect the actions of others by doing so?

Genuinely hurting people (emotionally) on the other hand is something different and I'd need to think a lot more deeply about that.

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

#292

Post by DanielBMarkham »

lurcio wrote: post #171
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #138

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…

The internet has always put me in mind of Dostoievskys under-appreciated story Bobok. "It may be so, but think of putting it so bluntly into print. In print everything ought to be decorous; there ought to be ideals, while instead of that... Say it indirectly, at least; that's what you have style for. But no, he doesn't care to do it indirectly. Nowadays humour and a fine style have disappeared, and abuse is accepted…

The state, by definition, is the group that has the monopoly on the use of force. If I see a crime taking place, after deciding whether it is appropriate or not for me to intervene, my next step is to contact the state. I trust the state to take corrective measures: arresting the person, perhaps imprisoning them, perhaps killing them. I also trust them to use force (sometimes lethal force) in maintaining social order.

But on the net, I am only limited by my degree of outrage. Somebody does something stupid -- then each additional commenter takes it on themselves to "up the ante" and make the stupid person pay.

Right now we're just ruining people's lives (!). But as we start seeing these lynch mobs physically start acting out, then the state will no longer have the monopoly on force. Whether or not that's an existential question depends on your comfort level with chaos, I imagine. Whatever your personal view, the state as we know it in many cases will no longer exist.

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

#293

Post by 1123581321 »

toothbrush wrote: post #33

"The woman who took the photograph, Adria Richards, soon felt the wrath of the crowd herself. The man responsible for the dongle joke had posted about losing his job on Hacker News, an online forum popular with developers. This led to a backlash from the other end of the political spectrum. So-called men’s rights activists and anonymous trolls bombarded Richards with death threats on Twitter and Facebook." Wow, this…

I was surprised at the lapse in thorough reporting at that point in the article. It was because a few women in the tech community wrote about her history of passive-aggressive bullying. This made clear that it was not a men-vs-women issue and gave the backlash the legitimacy that led to Richards' dismissal.

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

#294

Post by cheald »

ForHackernews wrote: post #252
cheald wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you take that tweet in isolation and read it as a comparison of female developers to unicorns, then sure, I can see how you arrive at that conclusion. I think it's a faulty conclusion, and I think that its faultiness is further illustrated by his response to the whole drama, in which he explicitly clarified his stance of female developers. My reading of it is based on what I know of him, which does not consist sol…

> illustrated by his response to the whole drama, in which he explicitly clarified his stance of female developers. I mean, obviously he's going to say that. I'm not sure how much stock you want to put into after-the-fact PR damage control. I think actions speak louder than words, and I'd reserve judgment before hearing from some of the women developers who he's hired (he has hired women, right?) about how he was to…

Well, there are both of these, in which the women who worked with him defend him (Julie Sommerville in particular):

http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/11/ladyboss/

http://www.amyvernon.net/glimpse/why-ive-joined-glimpse-labs...

If you didn't think that Dickinson was being a racist, misogynistic, victim-blaming rape apologist, why those tweets in particular? This whole discussion is happening in the implict context of the Valleywag article that touched this whole thing off, where those explicit accusations were made with those tweets as evidence - we aren't discussing this issue in a vacuum here. They're certainly in bad taste, but bad taste doesn't deserve the accusations that he's had thrown at him. You listed multiple implications of the tweet, but then called it "the worst" of a lot that include jokes with racial slurs about rape of a venerated religious figure, so it's pretty safe to infer that you aren't giving it any of the charitable readings; if you were, it wouldn't be anything worth mentioning!

My point in all of this, relevant to the original article, is that these sorts of accusations can have a profound and disproportionate impact on those affected, even if the truth is something else entirely. I think it's unfortunate that Dickinson was fired from BI because they couldn't afford to have the accusations against him associated with their brand (and note that it was the baggage that was the issue, not him actually being a misogynist to his employees or whatnot), but I don't think it's an unreasonable response - he made a bad choice in what he said, and he suffered the consequences of it. I do think it's unreasonable that he remains effectively unemployable because of the bogeyman that has been constructed around his name in which those tweets are trotted out with accusations of racism and sexism every time someone mentions him.

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

#295

Post by Kalium »

potatolicious wrote: post #194
dragonwriter wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> HN isn't completely made up of MRA types, but if you've been noticing there are a lot of them here (along with your more typical "SJWs out to get us" types). This much is true. > HN is in general no longer held with the same regard it was a couple of years ago. This may be true in some circles, but I don't think its generally true. Its probably true that HN is seen by some who participated in it earlier as less of…

> "Such as...?" Ahah, not about to name names - the trouble with openly naming people who are opposed to MRAs/anti-SJWs is that the demographic is also very, very adept at launching internet lynch mobs. Sadly the events of the past half-year or so have succeeded in silencing some people who would otherwise speak, for fear of being doxxed, swatted, or otherwise harassed (where harassment goes above and beyond receivin…

> Yeah, this is where idealism and values run head-first into the brick wall of reality, and no one really knows how to fix it.

That's the thing. We do know how to fix it. We just don't know how to fix it in a way that preserves social mechanisms such as public shaming of people you disagree with.

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

#296

Post by mercurial »

Someone1234 wrote: post #201
ripdog wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A taste of her own medicine. It shouldn't have happened, but at least she only got what she gave.

She tried, very intentionally, to use the social media "machine" to punish what she deemed deviant behaviour, the fact that that same machine turned on her is both unsurprising if you're paying attention, but also a little deserved. While the original joke was childish, I cannot think of one adult working in any industry who's never said something in a similar vein (or pointing out someone else's phasing might have a…

I can't really blame SendGrid for thinking that a tech evangelist who deliberately publicly shamed a couple of developers over an unfunny private joke is maybe not a good fit. This doesn't justify all the abuse that followed, though.

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

#297

Post by Brakenshire »

valgaze wrote: post #187
gumby wrote: post #126

On a tangental meta point: this is a good, solid piece of reportage [1] which is increasingly uncommon. The author talked to a number of people over a long period of time and uncovered subtleties that typically are ignored these days. A particularly nice touch was to use of a relatively recent historical reference from the mid 18th century. Mob justice and public shaming go back millennia and it would have been easy…

It's b/c it's the NYTimes-- they actually do reporting & journalism. There's seems to be a lot of piggybacking/freeloading off of original reporting. I was involved with a project that got a big splashy NYTimes write up and it was astonishing in the coming days to see how many joker press outlets basically crimped off the Times' original reporting. They'd include a link and all that but they'd lift the juciest quotes…

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churnalism:

> In his book Flat Earth News,[3] the British journalist Nick Davies reported a study at Cardiff University by Professor Justin Lewis and a team of researchers[4] which found that 80% of the stories in Britain's quality press were not original and that only 12% of stories were generated by reporters.[1]

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

#298

Post by brandonwamboldt »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #238
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.

I do the same thing, I use my real name as my username on all social media sites including Reddit. I always think to myself, is this something I want permanently associated with my real identity?

It could obviously backfire. You say something that you think is fine, someone else gets offended, and they know exactly who you are. But generally, I think using your real name makes people more accountable for what they say online.

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

#299

Post by vonmoltke »

anon4 wrote: post #277
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…

Which is why you keep different online identities that don't point to each other. So you can say the stupid jokes on your "sgt.lonelyheart97" twitter while posting on your prim&proper official account once or twice a year. Someone who really wants to will probably be able to connect the dots after enough digging... somehow. But at that point it's someone with vendetta against you specifically. Or just go and post on…

Two of the women mentioned in this article were doing just that. They posted pictures that the wrong people found offensive, got doxxed, bullied, and fired.

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

#300

Post by ll123 »

coldpie wrote: post #255
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…

> The ex-Mozilla CEO knows this well. An online bullying campaign was launched against him and he was forced to quit. Hahahahahahaha no. Eich paid money to political campaigns to ensure that some of his own employees and fellow citizens would not have basic human rights. Then, he refused to apologize for it and dodged the question when asked if he would do it again. That's not "expressing an opinion," that's nearly s…

Do you think people should get fired and ostracized for donating to Planned Parenthood? They literally murder babies. What kind of person thinks murder is ok, and would donate money to help an organization systematically murder? This kind of person does not belong in a position of power, full stop.
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