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Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

esquire.co.uk

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Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#371

Post by avn2109 »

interpol_p wrote: post #127
bobcostas55 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is threatening about that joke?

That's exactly it. We find it so hard to understand how that joke is threatening. It's almost impossible to imagine. It just sounds like a dumb joke. But look at how Adria describes her feelings in the article: “Have you ever had an altercation at school and you could feel the hairs rise up on your back?” she asked me. “You felt fear?” I asked. “Danger,” she said. “Clearly my body was telling me, ‘You are unsafe.’” I…

@interpol_p: As a thought experiment, what if the joke had been, "Where does the king keep his armies? Up his sleevies!" ie. entirely innocuous and commonly told in third grade classrooms. If all parties had behaved identically and this same controversy had blown up as a result of that joke, would you still be taking the same position that you do in your comment here?

I'm asking if you acknowledge the existence of some norm in our society for the reasonableness of being offended. Is there a point beyond which we as a society say, "No reasonable person would ever be offended by that, so we're sorry you're experiencing negative emotions and rising hair on your neck, and we're sorry you feel like murder is imminent, but this is not actually a problem and there is a negligible probability of you being killed based on a joke about the king's sleeves."

Note that a consequence of denying such a norm is that we must frequently reorganize our society to please myriad extremists of many stripes, many of whom have mutually exclusive demands.

Conversely, if you admit the existence of such a norm, is this controversy just a discussion about how to construct an algorithm for calibrating it? I'm genuinely asking these things, not being snarky.

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#372

Post by eropple »

cookiecaper wrote: post #200
edw519 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why you should never use your real name with your online identity in any way I believe exactly the opposite. People say horrible things hiding behind anonymity. Those of us who freely identify ourselves actually attempt (albeit sometimes feebly) to talk to others as if we were in person. If we just treated each other on-line like we did in person, most of this shit would never happen. - Proud self-identified member o…

This works up until the point when some belief you expressed years ago becomes outmoded. Look at Brendan Eich; a political donation from 7 years prior, of which he made no public note and was only attached to him because of legal reporting requirements, was trudged up and used against him. I know this isn't an example of an online anonymity issue, but it shows the very dark path of intolerance we're going down, and t…

I have real trouble squaring "public mores change" and "that dude donated money to a thing that is dedicated exclusively to hurting people." Sure, that thing he likes that was dedicated exclusively to hurting people is no longer in vogue. Does that make his decision to help a thing that was dedicated exclusively to hurting people less bad because more other people were okay with it then than are now? Eich backed something that was always wrong, and yes, should be held to account for it. If Strom Thurmond was still alive you can bet I'd say the same thing about his efforts against, you know, the Civil Rights Act.

Now here's the real thing: not only did Eich back those reprehensible politics, he by all indications continues to do so. Heck, I'm probably one of the more vocally left-wing posters here, and I was a proud libertarian nutter ten years ago. My politics have wildly shifted and I am personally embarrassed by some of the idiotic beliefs I once held--but I'm not ashamed of the journey I took to get here and I own the whole damn thing. "I believed it then, with the best information I had, and when I got better information, I changed my mind." If Eich had been a neutral actor, had mildly believed something and shifted with those public mores instead of financially supporting them, had said "you know, I believed that then, I've grown as a person, and because of X and Y I no longer believe it"? Nobody would have had a beef. But he'd supported it concretely, and apparently picked that hill to die on in his moral calculus. So he, metaphorically, did.

There is a lesson of the Internet to be learned here, though: you will be viewed through the lens of history and you will probably be viewed through it during your lifetime. You don't have to be uncontroversial. But you do have to be just, be generous, and be good in your dealings. Or you will be judged harshly, and I'm honestly pretty okay with that.

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#373

Post by TeMPOraL »

throwaway283719 wrote: post #349
TeMPOraL wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> his inability to realise how vulnerable she felt simply attending a conference because she was in the minority Aren't we granting too much power to minorities? Let me tell you a story that happened to me. I once went to a Java developers meetup. I'm a Lisper, probably the only one that was attending, so I was a clear minority (that was 3 years ago, back before everyone jumped onto functional programming bandwagon a…

The situation is different because there isn't a 2000+ year history of Java developers discriminating against Lisp developers.

If, howewer, there was such a history, would me making fuss over the situation in the story above make my behaviour justified?

The point is, there is always a minority to be found and a member of such can always find a reason to feel offended - but this by itself does not justify being aggressive. I used a clearly absurd example to separate the issues from sexual themes, because those get people emotional and irrational.

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#374

Post by TeMPOraL »

gregd wrote: post #343
TeMPOraL wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> his inability to realise how vulnerable she felt simply attending a conference because she was in the minority Aren't we granting too much power to minorities? Let me tell you a story that happened to me. I once went to a Java developers meetup. I'm a Lisper, probably the only one that was attending, so I was a clear minority (that was 3 years ago, back before everyone jumped onto functional programming bandwagon a…

Did you just seriously compare being a Lisper to being a minority? So, if I try to understand your choice of comparisons, do you live with oppression because you're a Lisper?

> So, if I try to understand your choice of comparisons, do you live with oppression because you're a Lisper?

If you call my peers laughing at me for "learning this weird thing" for the past 3 years, then yes, I live with oppression.

But more seriously, the reason I chose a clearly absurd example is to separate the issue from the emotional weight people give to topics about sex. I see this emotional attitude as a reason people get so irrational about the topic.

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#375

Post by mantas »

juliangregorian wrote: post #319
mantas wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about other EU countries, but mine grants a small amount of free lawyer hours to every resident. Those free lawyers are not AAA-grade for sure, but they take care of the formalities. Some people (low income, unions etc) are eligible for more hours and/or better free lawyers. So in case of a simple case, it might end up being free.

Why do people consistently say "my country" when it's just as easy to say "Denmark" or "Croatia" or what have you.

As @throwawayaway mentioned, some people may be worried about privacy. Many European countries are truly that small.

I myself have my location in my profile, so obviously this is not the case :) By saying that it's my country, I don't have to add if I just heard about it from my colleague, friend, read on a blog or have first-hands experience. I could say "my country (name-of-the-country)" to make it more clear though. But in this case the exact country doesn't matter much. Thus I put in the necessary information only.

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#376

Post by imjoshholloway »

tbrownaw wrote: post #240
imjoshholloway wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes me laugh is where she says she's not to blame for what happened to Hank yet she then blames HIM for what happened to her. If she didn't send the tweet, he wouldn't have got fired. If he didn't get fired, he wouldn't have posted on HN about being fired. If he didn't post on HN then none of this would've happened. Basically it all stems from her original tweet.. I'm not condoning any of the behaviour but it…

so he could actually apologised to her and none of this would've happened "I'm sorry you're irrationally afraid of overheard immature jokes"?

If it was me I'd have said something like "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it to offend you, I didn't mean it to".

But yeah, your one works too ;)

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#377

Post by msandford »

skywhopper wrote: post #254
byuu wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> jokes that make me feel threatened I really don't see how hearing two guys in a crowd of 800+ people talk about big dongles would make one feel threatened enough for a comment like, "Have you ever heard that thing, men are afraid that women will laugh at them and women are afraid that men will kill them?" She feared for her life over tasteless toilet humor in a crowded conference? Bullshit. Her Victorian sensibilit…

> You talk to a woman on an elevator... and > everyone assumes you're a sexual predator > because penis. A woman's fear of unwanted sexual advances, assault, or rape from an unknown male when she's in a vulnerable position is entirely reasonable. Many women receive unwelcome sexual advances on a regular basis. Most men have basically no point of personal reference for this fear, but we should try to be aware of how t…

An article recently made it onto HN about how rape is seriously underreported by men, and that the real rates of rape or sexual assault are nearly equal. This of course is a controversial finding, but not obviously flawed either. According to this study, it's roughly 1:2 men to women, not 1:10 as the CDC reports.

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/04/male_...

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#378

Post by tedunangst »

skywhopper wrote: post #254
byuu wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> jokes that make me feel threatened I really don't see how hearing two guys in a crowd of 800+ people talk about big dongles would make one feel threatened enough for a comment like, "Have you ever heard that thing, men are afraid that women will laugh at them and women are afraid that men will kill them?" She feared for her life over tasteless toilet humor in a crowded conference? Bullshit. Her Victorian sensibilit…

> You talk to a woman on an elevator... and > everyone assumes you're a sexual predator > because penis. A woman's fear of unwanted sexual advances, assault, or rape from an unknown male when she's in a vulnerable position is entirely reasonable. Many women receive unwelcome sexual advances on a regular basis. Most men have basically no point of personal reference for this fear, but we should try to be aware of how t…

Replace "men" and "women" with "blacks" and "whites". Is it reasonable for white people to feel a need for caution talking to black people in an elevator?

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#379

Post by jrochkind1 »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #334
jrochkind1 wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's odd her opinion in the interview didn't seem to match that public HN comment, which I remembered too (thanks for finding it). I'd guess the article author didn't notice/find the HN comment, or he would have asked her about it, I'm curious what she would say (she never meant it, she was just trying to save her own job? She changed her mind? She has complicated feelings?)

To be honest, I'm a little bit skeptical of the honesty of the interviewer. Even if she said the things in this article, it's possible many of those statements were taken out of context. Someone here linked to this blog post [1] from someone apparently close to Richards, where the writer is classified as being manipulative and duplicitous in order to obtain 'the first interview' with Adria Richards. [1] http://www.sh…

Hm, you/they think the interviewer intentionally made Richards look as bad as they could, or something? I don't really know.

The article you link to is worth reading -- it's critiquing a different article by Ronson in the NYTimes Magazine, not the OP by the the same author in Esquire. Obviously he used the same research for both though, and the critique might apply to both. The NYTimes one indeed reduced Richards to 'an anecdote', it was not focused just on this case, like the Esquire one was, and the Esquire one is a lot more clear about the consequences Richards faced. I think he did a somewhat better job of depicting the fucked up stuff that happened to Richards in the more recent Esquire one, but perhaps it's still not fair.

Obviously Richards has actually suffered way worse 'retribution' than 'Hank', and it is indeed illustrative.

But I'm struck by Richards comment in the article you link to:

"This has been my M.O. for several years, and it's how most people who run blogs operate: You experience something that generates strong feelings; you wrote a blog post. Pretty straightforward."

Yet she blames 'Hank' for tweeting about his own strong feelings about getting fired.

I have no idea if he was wrong to tell the joke or not; I am absolutely sure she was right to complain to conference if she felt threatened by it. I think the conf hosts did the right thing -- they didn't kick him out, they just told him, hey, cool it.

It's fucked up that he got fired; and it's even more fucked up that Richards got fired, and harassed and threatened by a mob, and had her career ruined way more than 'Hank'. What happened to Richards is definitely instructive, and that women in tech _know_ that there's an internet mob of misogynists waiting to try and ruin their lives... provides some context explaining where she's coming from, for sure. I'll admit I don't think she was or is responding compassionately or entirely rationally... but I understand why.

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