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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

#501

Post by wyager »

mcguire wrote: post #385
wyager wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Either because I think it's culturally better accepted for private people (I mean not public figures) to have unappropriate expressions publicly Based on my (admittedly very limited) experience with French culture, this is definitely the most important difference. America has become extremely politically correct. People in France are much more relaxed about saying things Americans might construe as offensive. In par…

" Based on my (admittedly very limited) experience with French culture, this is definitely the most important difference. " Unless they are saying something conceivably pro-Nazi?

In fact, saying something pro-Nazi is criminal in many EU countries.

In France, there are fewer social proscriptions on speech.

In the US, there are fewer legal proscriptions on speech.

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

#502

Post by narrowrail »

potatolicious wrote: post #194
dragonwriter wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> HN isn't completely made up of MRA types, but if you've been noticing there are a lot of them here (along with your more typical "SJWs out to get us" types). This much is true. > HN is in general no longer held with the same regard it was a couple of years ago. This may be true in some circles, but I don't think its generally true. Its probably true that HN is seen by some who participated in it earlier as less of…

> "Such as...?" Ahah, not about to name names - the trouble with openly naming people who are opposed to MRAs/anti-SJWs is that the demographic is also very, very adept at launching internet lynch mobs. Sadly the events of the past half-year or so have succeeded in silencing some people who would otherwise speak, for fear of being doxxed, swatted, or otherwise harassed (where harassment goes above and beyond receivin…

I believe many of the active people who have supposedly left are actually still participating under pseudonyms (or even ephemeral throwaway accounts).

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

#503

Post by snowwrestler »

gearoidoc wrote: post #374
21echoes wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if the joke had come out of Louis CK's mouth, its intention would have been obvious. given that, as she said in the article, "only an insane person would think that white people can't get AIDS", and the phrasing is obviously comic (dour opening, sudden & glib reversal, edgy punchline), I literally cannot read the tweet as bigoted or racist. Is the joke off-color? yes. Is it obviously self-deprecating, and aware of th…

if the joke had come out of Louis CK's mouth, its intention would have been obvious. ^Agreed but Louis CK is a world famous comedian. When he speaks I know to take most of what he says in jest. Theres a context I can apply when he speaks. A counterpoint to this would be that she had a small following on Twitter, most of whom she may know in real life, who likely know that she was joking. They can apply a similar cont…

I think there's something to be said for the idea that when people don't have context, they should slow their roll on the pitchforks, not make the worst assumption.

That's why I'm happy to see post-mob coverage of stories like this one, and some of the Reddit mob-justice-gone-wrong situations.

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

#504

Post by coldpie »

DanBC wrote: post #496
coldpie wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you'd be okay with, say, banning bacon because Jews don't eat it? I'm not arguing against a religious belief. I'm arguing against a religious belief being enforced by the government. This isn't a disagreement over optimal taxation rates. There are people committing suicide because they've been demonized by people like those Eich paid money to support. There is real harm being done.

The alternative side to this argument is that if Eich discriminates against anyone at work he loses his job, but that inclusiveness includes including people we don't like - and that means Christians with weird but semi-private views about gay marriage. The only reason anyone knows about his ciews is because political donations are public, not because of anything he did at work.

Yeah, sure, if you're privately a bigot, how is anyone to know?

But this was the CEO of a company unapologetically supporting a hate group aimed at many of his own employees. Then people have the balls to claim he was "bullied" out of his position as head of a major Internet company?

This isn't crazy programmer Ed going on about some conspiracy theory, this is the CEO of your company supporting hate directed at you and your friends. You can just wave Ed away. This guy is going after your fundamental rights. Screw that.

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

#505

Post by chris_wot »

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.

It's been a long time since I participated. But admins, at the time, weren't meant to be anything more that editors with some special tools. Those tools require good judgement, unfortunately good judgement is not something any of exhibit 100% of the time, especially if you need to show it every day.

Not sure what the status of admins are now.

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

#506

Post by chris_wot »

GhotiFish wrote: post #363
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…

You'll have to forgive me, because even after you explained it, I still don't understand. If someone has a link in their signature pointing to an unassigned user name, then grabbing that username could also be interpreted at plugging a security hole as a stop gap measure while the problem is being discussed. I don't see how it's outrageous. I don't see how you overstepped your bounds. It's not clear to me what happen…

I think the context is important (it's hard to dig up the edit history for so long ago). I actually was in the wrong about the way I went about things - it was being debated and I really did try to prove a point (though it never occurred to me that I was being disruptive).

The editor in question quite possibly had good intentions, or didn't see anything wrong with what they did. Whilst I was not a malicious actor, there was debate about the situation and I think people objected more to the way I went about proving the point I was making (which I maintain was valid). That's a fair cop, and I accept my action was rash.

But yes, it wasn't outrageous.

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

#507

Post by mcantelon »

coldpie wrote: post #504
DanBC wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative side to this argument is that if Eich discriminates against anyone at work he loses his job, but that inclusiveness includes including people we don't like - and that means Christians with weird but semi-private views about gay marriage. The only reason anyone knows about his ciews is because political donations are public, not because of anything he did at work.

Yeah, sure, if you're privately a bigot, how is anyone to know? But this was the CEO of a company unapologetically supporting a hate group aimed at many of his own employees. Then people have the balls to claim he was "bullied" out of his position as head of a major Internet company? This isn't crazy programmer Ed going on about some conspiracy theory, this is the CEO of your company supporting hate directed at you a…

>But this was the CEO of a company unapologetically supporting a hate group aimed at many of his own employees.

There likely wouldn't have been a Mozilla corp or org if he hadn't founded the company and as Mozilla grew he did nothing to hamper its growth into a highly diversity-friendly company. Privately he had issues, likely religious, about the definition of marriage and this was, culturally, a mainstream view at the time.

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

#508

Post by chris_wot »

pariya wrote: post #395
chris_wot wrote: post #108

When I was on Wikipedia as an admin, someone modified their signature to point to a user who didn't exist. I was pretty pissed off about this, and so I went to the admins noticeboard I'd setup not really that long ago to ask someone to resolve the issue. This is where I did something particularly dumb. I created the account to the non-existent user and posted a few comments on it - then quickly switched back to my Ta…

You are not your mistakes, and there is a natural human margin of error. Mistakes make us human and it's what every single one of us has in common. You seem to be a super bright guy who experienced a momentary lapse in judgement fuelled by emotion. We all do this, it's just not always public. Also- I don't know how old you were at the time this story occurred but according to neuroscience, the frontal lobe doesn't de…

Thanks - I've tried :-)

I've been pretty open in that situations probably get exacerbated for me because I have a mental illness - anxiety, depression and adult ADD (I refuse to call it ADHD, I'm not hyperactive!). I manage these better now, but it still leaks into my life. I'm extremely lucky I have a supportive wife and two small children who keep my mind off things and let me focus on what's important :-)

I really appreciate your kind words, btw.

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

#509

Post by chris_wot »

iagooar wrote: post #301
chris_wot wrote: post #108

When I was on Wikipedia as an admin, someone modified their signature to point to a user who didn't exist. I was pretty pissed off about this, and so I went to the admins noticeboard I'd setup not really that long ago to ask someone to resolve the issue. This is where I did something particularly dumb. I created the account to the non-existent user and posted a few comments on it - then quickly switched back to my Ta…

I must honestly say, I don't get why you'd be pissed off about something like this, nor why would the community lynch you for creating an account. Seems a bit like sect behavior to me (arbitrary rules and punishments).

Yup, that was definitely silly of me. Like I say, it was a bad judgement call.

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

#510

Post by hyperion2010 »

The funny thing is that taken literally the tweet is actually incredibly damning of the inequality between access to treatment for blacks and whites. White people DONT get fully blown AIDS because they have access to therapy. The fact that the twitter community can't even distinguish between HIV and AIDS is revealing of how hard they are projecting when they react to 140 characters or less. The reaction reveals a thousand times more about the ignorance and hate of online communities than anything about the individual they are responding to.
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