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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

#581

Post by taco_emoji »

ripdog wrote: post #435
taco_emoji wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She gave death threats?

She dog-whistled the mob, no doubt that mob gave death threats. People lose their shit when anonymous trolls send death threats to prominent women, but typically completely ignore the same happening to men. Perhaps women get more because they react more? Perhaps people shouldn't feed the trolls? Please don't reply to this with a pithy feel-good response like "nobody should send death threats!". It's like saying "ther…

> dog-whistled

You seem to be confused about what "dog whistle" means. She wasn't using secret SJW shibboleths.

> no doubt that mob gave death threats

"No doubt"! What a convenient way to assert that something happened without having to provide evidence for it.

> typically completely ignore the same happening to men

No doubt you have evidence of this, too. No doubt you have evidence that this happens to as many men as women, and as often, so as to warrant equivalent reactions.

> but there is no way to achieve without use of totalitarian control over the world/internet

You need to have a very limited imagination and near-total ignorance of history to think that positive change only comes about via totalitarian means.

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

#582

Post by wutbrodo »

swang wrote: post #576
stolio wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Whether or not you agree with Eich getting fired (stepping down) over it is another thing, but donating to a cause whose sole purpose is to prevent a group's right to get married (and reap the tax benefits!) seems pretty hateful. You can get into semantics about what was or wasn't written in religious texts, whatever, still doesn't make it right. What CamperBob2 said was probably inflammatory but probably also right.…

Note to hopefully avoid unproductive tangents: all the views I use as examples here say nothing about how I feel about these issues, they're just examples of how _society_ feels and may feel about certain things (which is what is relevant).

> If you're against same-sex marriage you're probably on the wrong side of history.

The problem I have with this is that it condemns the vast majority of society, throughout the vast majority of history. Understanding someone's views while stripping the context of society's views at the time is foolish. In 2015, being religious (e.g.) isn't a good excuse for opposing gay marriage in 2008 (when a majority of society was in opposition to gay mariage, btw). Hypothetically, in 2025, maybe support for Israel's actions vis-a-vis Palestine will be widely considered the new apartheid. Similarly, what if in 10 years, we decide that a robust social welfare system in the US is a moral imperative (there are many who already feel that the way poverty is treated in this country is a huge moral failing)?

Does that mean all of my friends in 2015 who donate to and participate in organizations and rallies in support of Israel should be forever blacklisted from public positions? Should all the people you know who in 2015 are opposed to robust welfare/basic income and the accompanying tax increases be forbidden forever from rising to certain positions of authority in entirely-unrelated fields?

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

#583

Post by josephgrossberg »

stolio wrote: post #514
mcantelon wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given his past contributions to the web, it's unsurprising that he still participates and people listen to him.

The people who fought for Eich's departure like to downplay just how much knowledge he carries around in his head. I think deep down they're afraid to admit just how much damage they did to Mozilla, Firefox and the entire open source community. They still think they did a good thing.

What's something concrete that you think the entire open source community lost as a result of Eich no longer heading Mozilla?

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

#584

Post by knodi123 »

kefs wrote: post #157
knodi123 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once created a server-side app that would monitor where certain search terms showed up in google rankings, so you could monitor change over time. The biggest challenge we faced was that google dramatically changes your search results based on who you are, and where you are. My point is - Justine Sacco isn't even on the first page of Justines for me. Maybe google just thinks Sacco is the best Justine for you, but it…

If you add pws=0 to your querystring, it'll search without personalization. Actually, there are other factors at play too [1], but that alone should work well enough. 1: http://moz.com/blog/face-off-4-ways-to-de-personalize-google

yeah, but the goal was to track how your ranking would appear to individual users. not to a hypothetical completely unpersonalized user with no geographic location.

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

#585

Post by stolio »

josephgrossberg wrote: post #583
stolio wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who fought for Eich's departure like to downplay just how much knowledge he carries around in his head. I think deep down they're afraid to admit just how much damage they did to Mozilla, Firefox and the entire open source community. They still think they did a good thing.

What's something concrete that you think the entire open source community lost as a result of Eich no longer heading Mozilla?

Losing one of the most important people at one of the most important open source projects is a loss in and of itself. That was twenty years of experience and technical knowledge that walked out the door.

Losing one of the only people in a position to fight against DRM who had the will to do so is another blow. The end result as I see it is the social justice community gets a "victory", religious people at Mozilla learn they're not to take part in our political process, and those who were left gave up the fight against DRM. Not that they had a choice, how do you ride into battle short a CEO and a CTO, and while licking your wounds from a vicious boycott/smear campaign?

Firefox circa Eich on DRM: https://brendaneich.com/2013/10/the-bridge-of-khazad-drm/

Firefox post boycott on DRM: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/05/14/drm-and-the-challen...

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

#586

Post by stolio »

swang wrote: post #576
stolio wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Whether or not you agree with Eich getting fired (stepping down) over it is another thing, but donating to a cause whose sole purpose is to prevent a group's right to get married (and reap the tax benefits!) seems pretty hateful. You can get into semantics about what was or wasn't written in religious texts, whatever, still doesn't make it right. What CamperBob2 said was probably inflammatory but probably also right.…

Calling it hateful is just a political smear.

Living in a democracy I'm uneasy when I see large-scale mobs form to punish and intimidate people for participating in our political process in "the wrong way." Take note that I've been a long-time supporter of same-sex marriage, but seeing Eich get forced out by the group I always supported because they were so innocent and powerless made me reconsider some things.

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

#587

Post by fletom »

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"?

The undisputed face of the MRM is Paul Elam who runs the hugely popular "A Voice for Men" website. He is a great example of a bitter misogynist MRA asshole: http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2013/10/18/paul-elam-of-a-voic...

There are lots of good reasons to talk about issues affecting men, but sadly the bad parts of the MRM far outweigh the good at this point. I'd say it's 85% bashing feminism, complaining about women's sexual power (e.g. The Friendzone), denying and minimizing rape as a social problem, etc. and only 15% talking about fathers' custody rights and boys' education issues.

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

#588

Post by tomjen3 »

DanBC wrote: post #562
BrainInAJar wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?"

You see he has donated to a hateful cause. You then tell him that this action has triggered extra scrutiny of his actions at work. You the. Scrutinise everything he has done at work, and all interactions in the workplace. As soon as he discriminates againt gay people in the workplace you fire him.

But he has already discriminated against them by donating to a party that wants to take away their rights. How can he then claim to take diversity seriously?

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

#589

Post by swang »

wutbrodo wrote: post #582
swang wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not you agree with Eich getting fired (stepping down) over it is another thing, but donating to a cause whose sole purpose is to prevent a group's right to get married (and reap the tax benefits!) seems pretty hateful. You can get into semantics about what was or wasn't written in religious texts, whatever, still doesn't make it right. What CamperBob2 said was probably inflammatory but probably also right.…

Note to hopefully avoid unproductive tangents: all the views I use as examples here say nothing about how I feel about these issues, they're just examples of how _society_ feels and may feel about certain things (which is what is relevant). > If you're against same-sex marriage you're probably on the wrong side of history. The problem I have with this is that it condemns the vast majority of society, throughout the v…

I don't necessarily really agree with your statement that a majority of society was opposed to gay marriage in 2008. But I think it is a valid point to say that what happened near 6-7 years ago should not necessarily count against you in the present.

_BUT_ (and I'm largely paraphrasing) when asked about this issue and same-sex marriage, Eich pretty much sidestepped the question and refused to answer it, citing how he has never discriminating against anyone. And to a lot of people that wasn't good enough of a response coming from a CEO of a company that prides itself on its diversity, especially when they also have gay employees.

Anyways my actual point about this originally was that Eich's situation doesn't really parallel the situation Sacco went through. For one, Eich's situation was pretty enclosed to the tech world, whereas Sacco was a worldwide trending topic that brought her a lot of unwanted attention. I also doubt Eich got called a whore, bitch, slut, etc much. And to say Eich was "bullied" in the way Sacco was bullied is laughable (Not saying you said it, although I think one of the ancestor posts mentioned it).

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

#590

Post by tomjen3 »

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…

It just goes to show that even in an article against bullying it is okay to bully and make fun of nerds _and the nerds accept this_.
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