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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

#331

Post by MichaelGG »

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.

He explains his viewpoint:

"Still, in those early days, the collective fury felt righteous, powerful and effective. It felt as if hierarchies were being dismantled, as if justice were being democratized."

This is delusional slacktivism. Overthrowing power structures and hierarchies by retweeting. How more delusional can you get?

OTOH, if you've got a PR job or a shitty position where you'd get fired for saying such stuff, you really ought to be ever so careful. Why are people posting this stuff with their real names attached? Unless you've got FU money or are in a career track that's mostly immune to this kind of harassment, just use a separate personal account. FFS, does anyone think the general public wants your tweets?

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

#332

Post by throwaway49873 »

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, taking a position on the issue.

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

#333

Post by jakejake »

gnopgnip wrote: post #302
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…

Would society really be any better off if people aren't held accountable for what they say?

I kinda agree, a PR person of all people should be held accountable for making a terrible joke that comes off as racist.

The problem is just the reaction of a mob of arm chair vigilantes thinking they are each delivering some unique tiny bit of justice with their comments, emails or calls. It's a death by a thousand cuts, not to mention the nut-cases who send horrible threats of violence and worse.

It's obviously something ingrained in our DNA, it reminds me of nature documentaries - watching a group of apes attack one of their own who they perceive as weak.

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

#334

Post by venomsnake »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #325
venomsnake wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Actually yes. Internet is not real and is the place where everyone overreacts.

As long as she is above the hot/crazy line, she won't be turned down dating for such a petty "offence"

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

#335

Post by cstross »

timr wrote: post #257
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…

Twitter, in particular, is awful. There's no context and very little thought possible in 140 characters. So you either get marketing from corporations, jokes/memes, or full-frontal assaults by the pitchfork-weilding mob, with no effective defense possible in the medium. At least on Facebook you can elucidate your thoughts, defend your opinions, and otherwise make an effort too look like a person who appreciates nuanc…

Twitter seems pretty much designed to function as an emotional amplifier.

It's not dissimilar to traditional news media in that respect -- "if it bleeds, it leads" and all that. Humans like to pay attention to other humans, and are fascinated by bad behaviour and messy accidents. Newspapers and TV channels are always after something that provokes their readers and gets them emotionally engaged at a fight/flight level. And twitter and other social media that permit unrestricted engagement play to this -- that's precisely why they've grown so big.

(Facebook is in no way an improvement unless you lock it down to friends-only. After all, the difference between 4000 characters and 140 isn't that great, when you're trying to discuss complex issues, especially if you're not very articulate or thoughtful in the first place.)

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

#336

Post by EdiX »

rebootthesystem wrote: post #192

Legal liability would put an end to this. Imagine this: Someone says something unfortunate or offensive at a crowded street corner. Another person hears it and launches into a righteous indignation frenzy. I'll call him the Lead Bully. He stirrs up others. Very soon this turns into a physical attack and the speaker ends up in the hospital with serious injuries. In this case anyone would easily conclude that the Lead…

> in Justine Sacco's case the Lead Bully was Sam Biddle

You'd be surprised to find out just how many times the Lead Bully turns out to be Sam Biddle.

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

#337

Post by tjradcliffe »

gnopgnip wrote: post #302
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…

Would society really be any better off if people aren't held accountable for what they say?

I would certainly like the people who mobbed and bullied Justine Sacco to be held accountable for what they said, which unlike her innocent, easily-misunderstood comment was full of willful malice.

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

#338

Post by orbitur »

timr wrote: post #257
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…

Twitter, in particular, is awful. There's no context and very little thought possible in 140 characters. So you either get marketing from corporations, jokes/memes, or full-frontal assaults by the pitchfork-weilding mob, with no effective defense possible in the medium. At least on Facebook you can elucidate your thoughts, defend your opinions, and otherwise make an effort too look like a person who appreciates nuanc…

That's what has been so frustrating about watching the GamerGate stuff in a subcircle of the people I follow. Or any argument/outrage-of-the-day I've seen pop up.

There are people on both sides of an issue who are genuinely, mistakenly trying to have conversations. On Twitter, where the UI is designed to strip context away.

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

#339

Post by mcantelon »

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…

While FOSS developers share political beliefs relating to the benefits of sharing software, FOSS traditionally had a culture of putting unrelated politics to the side. Strategically, FOSS couldn't afford to be seen as partisan given that it already encountered resistance from people who viewed it as a suspicious, vaguely communist, movement.

Now that FOSS is established, and there are developers that have grown up with FOSS existing unchallenged in society, political agnosticism isn't seen as important.

In contemporary Western culture, ideology seems to be taking the place of religion in terms of regulating morality. Social media has been instrumental in this transition. We're now seeing the emergence of global, ideological tribes that can communicate in realtime. Those who have power within these tribes are largely untouchable within the sphere of social media: they have the power to direct followers to lobby against others for perceived abuses, yet the power they wield intimidates many who would criticize them for abuse of power.

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

#340

Post by monksy »

fit2rule wrote: post #250
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)…

Well, in Europe the tradition of mobbing is a serious problem, and its definitely something that occurs on a regular basis in the real world, and not just on the Internet. In Germany, people have been fired for instigating the mob - not necessarily for saying things that offend others, but rather for rabble-rousing and trying to get the pitchfork brigade riled up. I think Europe has a keener sense of the history of t…

> In Germany, people have been fired for instigating the mob - not necessarily for saying things that offend others, but rather for rabble-rousing and trying to get the pitchfork brigade riled up.

One of the reasons I love Germany and Germans. They like to solve the root problem rather than trying to pretend to.

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