How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life

Post by rihegher » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 7:07 AM UTC

mintplant wrote: post #532

a3_nm wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French guy here as well, and this was exactly my reaction. It seemed very exotic, this notion that an employer was allowed to fire you just because a bunch of people on the Internet have started disliking you in a vocal way because of something you said (as an individual, not reflecting your employer's opinion, not illegal). This feels like the main issue here. Barring substantial improvements in everyone's maturity,…

You might not be fired, but you can be arrested for expressing an inappropriate opinion in France. See the string of recent arrests over comments people made about the Charlie Hebdo shootings.

Post by dredmorbius » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 7:41 AM UTC

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…

Post by chris_wot » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 7:55 AM UTC

chris_wot wrote: post #533

scljstcwombat wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care how much anyone dislikes Cantrill, but standing up for Ben about this is a mark of shame. > You took no time to talk to Ben about his position and to talk him around to making an apology and reversing his decision. Whereas just above: > it's that when he was overruled by Isaac some hours later, he unilaterally reverted Isaac's commit. (And, it must be said, sent a very nasty private note to make clear th…

You're right - I didn't see the private correspondence - Bryan certainly never mentioned it before now. I certainly don't feel ashamed about calling out the bullying behaviour of Joyent. It's never ok to call someone an arsehole on a company blog about a competitor's employee, let alone call on his sacking. And who knows what the content of that nasty note was - perhaps he called Bryan an arsehole, perhaps he said th…

Post by jbrooksuk » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 8:16 AM UTC

chris_wot wrote: post #493

jbrooksuk wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were you not in a position to edit his signature, or get it edited? You jumped the gun.

That's not an unreasonable question. But no, that's wasn't an admin function at the time, and I still don't think it is.

Post by zimbu668 » Fri, Feb 13, 2015, 8:34 AM UTC

interknot wrote: post #9

For whatever reason, the following snippet prompted me to see who the author was: Amid the hundreds of congratulatory messages I received, one stuck out: “Were you a bully at school?” As it turns out, the author is Jon Ronson. He's well worth checking out. I've particularly enjoyed The Men Who Stare at Goats (the book), The Secret Rulers of the World , and The Psychopath Test .