How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life • Hacker News Board

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

#321

Post by tjradcliffe » Thu, Feb 12, 2015, 7:09 PM UTC

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #178

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 A particularly nice touch was to use of a relatively recent historical reference from the mid 18th century.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…

> reportage [1] Not to worry: put the emphasis on the second syllable and it's an English term as well.

Every word is an English word.

"Pukka sushi compadre" is an English sentence. Even my spell-checker mostly agrees. The word origins are Hindi, Japanese and Spanish, respectively.

England gave up her empire, but kept all the words.

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

#322

Post by sillysaurus3 » Thu, Feb 12, 2015, 7:09 PM UTC

logfromblammo wrote: post #310

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how does any of that make you a loser? What's going on in this thread? As far as I can tell it's nothing more than a similar type of bullying the article is itself is talking about, which I didn't ever expect to see on HN, let alone tolerated. At what point can you no longer express controversial opinions without being called a loser?

On the Internet, someone is already calling you a loser, possibly without your knowledge. It's best to worry more about the folks who have greater power to destroy your social standing than just simple name-calling. And to provide a sentinel value for the previous search space, I'll just say it. You, and everyone else who may be wondering if someone on the network is calling them a loser, are all losers. Now that's t…

The reason you'll get banned for such behavior, and the whole reason why such behavior is against the rules, is because personal attacks are counterproductive to logical discussions. When HN degenerates into a group of people who go around calling other groups of people losers, that does not bode well.

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

#323

Post by marcusgarvey » Thu, Feb 12, 2015, 7:09 PM UTC

The term "public shaming" doesn't feel quite right for describing a response to what someone chose to do in public, of their own free will, in forums that are meant for dialogue. "Negative reaction" or "backlash" or might be better.

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

#324

Post by DanBC » Thu, Feb 12, 2015, 7:10 PM UTC

dukky wrote: post #198

chris_wot wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comments weren't awful. It was really a bad judgement call because it violated the principle "don't be disruptive to make a point", which I really didn't consider very clearly before doing it. The reason I was annoyed about it was because signatures are the way you see who is saying something in a conversation thread. Back then you'd click on the person's username and get easy access to their pages, talk page, bl…

Are 'admins' on wikipedia more like 'moderators' than actual admins? The word admin to me makes me think of someone who runs something and makes the rules, not always being held to them themselves.

Meta-Wikipedia is where the toxic parts are. Admins are an easy target and sometimes people get swept up in bashing. Read ANI today and you can see similar things occasionally.

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

#325

Post by mynameisvlad » Thu, Feb 12, 2015, 7:10 PM UTC

venomsnake wrote: post #203

mynameisvlad wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Turned off by what? A tweet ... unless for couple of million participants in the oppression olympics, for the sane people having said or done something offensive is not a big deal.

If so many people were offended on the internet, is it that big of a stretch that people in real life might be turned off too? Just because you or I don't think it's a big deal does not mean that others might share the same opinion. I could easily see how someone might be turned off, especially before actually meeting the person.

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

#326

Post by gearoidoc » Thu, Feb 12, 2015, 7:11 PM UTC

tjradcliffe wrote: post #309

gearoidoc wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A tweet is not part of a private conversation and the user in question should have known that - particularly considering their profession. Twitter & FB aren't the problem. A lack of awareness and judgement is.

You're right that lack of awareness and judgement is the problem. Lack of awareness of the fundamental error of attribution, and rushing to judgement based on far too little information. Anyone who thinks they can reasonably judge anyone based on any single post, much less 140 characters, is not doing a great job of being a citizen in the 21st century. Everything we say can be misunderstood, and if you can't imagine…

I'm not judging the woman. I'm judging the action she chose to take, in the given context.

I'm saying she did something really stupid. I don't know anything else about the woman bar the fact that she seems to have a very nice taste in New York social spots.

Anyone who thinks they can reasonably judge anyone based on any single post, much less 140 characters, is not doing a great job of being a citizen in the 21st century.

^ If you're referring to me, as I said, I'm not judging her. But it's great that you see fit to lay down a marker for what constitutes being a good citizen.

What we can or cannot imagine has absolutely nothing to do with what is real. This is the lesson of three hundred years of science. This is why ideas must be publicly tested by systematic observation, controlled experiment and Bayesian inference to be counted as knowledge.

^wat

This is not to say we must never judge, but that judgement is far more difficult than most people realize, and they are far too quick to do it based on far too little information and far too much imagination.

^ Agreed, but unfortunately thats a symptom a lot of the internet suffers (arguably, feeds) from.

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

#327

Post by coldpie » Thu, Feb 12, 2015, 7:12 PM UTC

ll123 wrote: post #313

coldpie wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define "baby"?

The young offspring of a human

At what point does a set of reproducing cells become an "offspring"? It's a hard question to answer and there's no bright line. I understand the opposition's argument, and I don't feel nearly as much animosity towards them.

There is no legitimate argument against gay marriage.

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

#328

Post by throwaway49873 » Thu, Feb 12, 2015, 7:12 PM UTC

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)…

When it's easy to fire someone, like in the US, keeping them on becomes, in the minds of people, a position on the issue.

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

#329

Post by CamperBob2 » Thu, Feb 12, 2015, 7:12 PM UTC

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…

An online bullying campaign was launched against him and he was forced to quit.

Maybe he shouldn't have participated in an offline bullying campaign against an entire segment of the population.

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

#330

Post by ossreality » Thu, Feb 12, 2015, 7:12 PM UTC

ryguytilidie wrote: post #264

coldpie wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Just curious why this is getting downvoted. Are people actually buying the whole "Eich is a victim because as a white multimillionaire he lost his job because he cared deeply about taking away the rights of others"...?

> Are people actually buying the whole "Eich is a victim because as a white multimillionaire he lost his job because he cared deeply about taking away the rights of others"...?

Yes, categorically they are. All over HN.