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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

#481

Post by coldpie »

mcantelon wrote: post #475
xyzzyz wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 sociopathic. Forcing someone to apologize for something that is not universally considered to be wrong is a good example of bullying. As is calling publicly his behaviour "sociopathic". > He was clearly working against his employees' best interest. This is hardly conside…

Made me think of this tweet I saw the other day: "Everyone who questions my obviously compassionate and righteous cause is a dangerous sociopath" — Many sociopaths

Go on, tell us why gay marriage shouldn't be legal.

To elaborate, you're implying there's a different, valid side to this argument. I'm curious to hear it.

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

#482

Post by coldpie »

latestrevision wrote: post #436
coldpie wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know that we need to go that far. In the US we take the stance that people should be free to do what they want unless what they want to do interferes with other people doing what they want. Where people conflict in their desires is where the law comes in to settle the matter. Whether that system is good or not is an open question, I guess, but it's what we have. Using that as a rulestick, no one will be negat…

Sure, keeping in mind that I don't disagree with any of that -- is this a stance that we've just adopted within the last ten(ish) years -- because if the issue of gay marriage were really that simple, wouldn't it have always been legal?

I would argue yes, it should have been. Just like women and minorities should always have had the vote and slavery was always immoral. But they all required periods of strife, and now anyone who argues against those positions is rightly shunned.

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

#483

Post by coldpie »

mcantelon wrote: post #430
coldpie wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point, what other forms of hate should we allow him to express without consequences? :)

What would you recommend the consequences should be for Barack Obama, given he publicly held the view that Eich privately held?

I'd argue anyone against gay marriage is unfit for holding office. It's one of several reasons I never voted for Obama.

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

#484

Post by wutbrodo »

cstross wrote: post #335
timr wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Facebook is in no way an improvement unless you lock it down to friends-only.

This is definitely not true. As lunatic as they may seem, many of the people in these online mobs are at least somewhat reasonable, and if they were able to see context (for example, a comment or edit on the original post) it would pretty seriously attenuate the virality of stuff like this. Twitter is drive-by conversation: there's practically no possibility for context, for clarification, etc. Hell half the time I'm exposed to Twitter, I end up looking at fragments of conversation whose context is pretty damn painful to nail down. A shitty interface like that is a hell of a lot more efficient at instigating mobs over misunderstandings.

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

#485

Post by coldpie »

mcphage wrote: post #473
coldpie wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think campaigning to ensure a group of people don't have certain fundamental rights that others do, for no reason other than your own personal animosity, doesn't qualify as sociopathic? I do.

> for no reason other than your own personal animosity If that's your understanding of people who vote against gay marriage, then you really have no idea what's going on in this country.

Please enlighten me.

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

#486

Post by stolio »

BrainInAJar wrote: post #407
DanBC wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The coorect response to what most of these people said is for someone to pull them to one side and say "stop being a dick, especially if you're using the company social media account". Threats of violence, loss of job, weeks long campaigns -- none of that is an appropriate response.

in for example Eich's case how do you pull him aside and say "stop being a dick by donating to hate, and then trying to run a diverse company?"

Just because somebody's idea of diversity is different from yours doesn't make them hateful, it just makes them different.

It's ironic that this is lost on people who argue the most loudly for inclusiveness.

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

#487

Post by gearoidoc »

celticninja wrote: post #450
gearoidoc wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because of people like you ^Thats quite an assumption to make, no? For the record, I've never done any of the above.

I think you understand what I mean but are perhaps being dense for the sake of argument. There are people who hold simile views to yourself and these people take it up on themselves to bring people's employers into arguments that they have no part of or perhaps would be otherwise unaware of. That's not to say the employer cannot have a response to comments and posts of this nature but they are not allowed to deal wit…

Nope, not being intentionally dense - I'm already unintentionally dense without adding to it! - but your comment felt like you were saying that I did those things, when in fact I never have.

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

#488

Post by coldpie »

EdSharkey wrote: post #457
coldpie wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think campaigning to ensure a group of people don't have certain fundamental rights that others do, for no reason other than your own personal animosity, doesn't qualify as sociopathic? I do.

This matter you are concerned with has always had more to do with recognition and acceptance in society than rights and equality. You seem sharp set to demonize Eich and otherwise be combative with others in all these comments. Have you ever considered that your attitude would harden peoples' hearts against you rather than warming them? Do you think you will you ever be able to drop this victim act and heal and move…

Are you really suggesting that outrage directed at those intentionally harming other people for no reason at all is an act?

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

#489

Post by mc32 »

dsp1234 wrote: post #169
mc32 wrote: post #26

Two things: Don't be too clever. People trip over themselves to feel offended. Two, you really don't have freedom of speech when you can get mugged by being obnoxious online. Not being malicious -just obnoxious. Yes all the tweets quoted in the article were obnoxious and leveraged stereotypes but I don't think people should be flogged for being like that. I remember all the obnoxious Polish jokes growing up. They wer…

you really don't have freedom of speech when you can get mugged by being obnoxious online. Ken White has quite a few posts about freedom of speech vs the Internet. I think this quote is apropos to that type of comment. Speech Is Not Censorship: Put another way, as we often say here, speech is not tyranny. Freedom of speech does not (and cannot, under any coherent legal or philosophical approach) involve freedom from…

To me the unresolved problem here is that this approach leads to online coercion, bullying, and suppressing dissent and steers opinion to the center. Korea has many examples of people being harassed and some leading to suicides due to online castigation.

And, as others have noted. On the past these idiotic social indiscretions and letting off of steam were for the most part quickly forgotten, people went on with life. People say all kinds of idiotic things in ordinary speech for many reasons. Few of those reasons are malicious.

For cornering people's though like this is not productive. It's like whack-a-mole. People will let steam out some other way. You can't change society and its mores by force of on-line bullying. Many many times those calling offense don't understand the context.

It's like one day calling out people who when they have sex have a disposition to say nasty things. I can see it rationalized right now. Don't say b c* d* etc. Even as re playing as that unconsciously has an effect on people....

No. Fuvk no. I've come to the conclusion that only allowing the ugliness to surface can we call ourselves free. Anything else is a sanitized life. The thing is who decides what is healthy?

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

#490

Post by mc32 »

mcantelon wrote: post #339
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 wi…

While Foss should be to some degree apolitical, individual contributors should be allowed to express their political views. The politics and the software itself should be treated differently.
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