One Stupid Tweet - (Was “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!”)

I can say, professionally, that this is one of those events that will be used in lesson plans and presentations for several years to come. (I know several educators who are already building it into presentations for this winter.) So far it is another "how fast things can go bad" online lesson. With the apology, and the mature level of it, I'm hoping we're seeing the start of the "How to recover" lesson. It's going to take time. But then, that's not a digital only phenomena. The clothes in the washer take a couple of seconds to get soaked. It takes an hour or more in the dryer to make it back in the drawer.

Vince524 said:

If she was going on a flight, maybe she downed a few to help with the nerves.

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I have absolutely no sympathy for people who get drunk and do dumb shit.

I agree about the freedom of speech miss targeting, it is really about discrimination.

In Phil's case he is being punished for his beliefs, in this event she is on the hook for pure stupid.

Regards,
Kevin

blacbird said:

Oh, but wait: Connecting to the Phil Robertson calamity, isn't this yet another "freedom of speech" violation?

CAWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

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I think her apology was kind of crap. It's easy to be cavalier about AIDS - er, okie. What about the oh, SLIGHTLY RACIST bit there, chickadee? She just seems to have either glossed over that or presumed that everyone would understand that or, I dunno, something?

I don't understand anything about this weirdo and firing her seems the absolute obvious response. You can't keep someone who not only says that but says it that way, in your corporate communications dept. There were also, from what I understand, other, let's say, questionable comments on her social media.

Kevans said:

I agree about the freedom of speech miss targeting, it is really about discrimination.

In Phil's case he is being punished for his beliefs, in this event she is on the hook for pure stupid.

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I don't get it. How is what he said less stupid? Because he believes it? That makes him smarter than her?

Kevans said:

I agree about the freedom of speech miss targeting, it is really about discrimination.

In Phil's case he is being punished for his beliefs, in this event she is on the hook for pure stupid.

Regards,
Kevin

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The situations were also different. Phil was asked a question about sin and he answered it in a way that offended a lot of people. The lady who sent the tweet was being ridiculously offensive without provacation or any logical reasoning.

hahahahaha

I love a good old fashioned internet witch hunt.

No, just kidding, it annoys the crap out of me.

I don't get why so many people get so fired up when someone says something stupid on social media.

Don't people have anything better to obbess about? Yeah, she was in PR, she should have known better, she shoud've thought before she spoke.

I just can't believe that people actually went to the airport to take pictures of her when she landed and posted it to Twitter they were that swept up in this story.

There are so many more important things going on in the world right now to be angry about like Tony Abbott wanting to destory a section of the Great Barrier Reef. I couldn't give a toss about some blonde who likes to crack racist jokes on twitter.

Kevans said:

In Phil's case he is being punished for his beliefs,

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Not exactly. He's being punished, BY HIS EMPLOYER, because he said something IN A PUBLIC FORUM that embarrassed the employer. His employer has every right to discipline him for violating an implicit agreement of his employment, specifically, NOT to do something that reflects badly on the employer.

There's a very strong likelihood that had A&E known about Phil Robertson's homophobic beliefs and previous statements he had made of such nature, they would not have hired him, or his family. They probably don't want to be known as the homophobophile network.

A&E has the right to do what they did. Phil Robertson has the right to continue believing what he believes, and speaking about it. He DOES NOT have the right to demand that A&E tolerate his speech and continue to employ him. *

caw

* In which statement I misspoke slightly, and it's worth leaving it in there to make this correction. Phil Robertson does have the right to demand that A&E tolerate his speech and continue to employ him. He can demand anything he wants to demand. What he doesn't have the right to is to force A&E to comply with his demand, unless there's an explicit clause in his employment contract that says he can say any shit he wants and they can't do anything about it. That seems unlikely.

Atlantis said:

I couldn't give a toss about some blonde who likes to crack racist jokes on twitter.

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You might want to go post in a different thread, then.

Atlantis said:

I love a good old fashioned internet witch hunt.

No, just kidding, it annoys the crap out of me.

I don't get why so many people get so fired up when someone says something stupid on social media.

Don't people have anything better to obbess about? Yeah, she was in PR, she should have known better, she shoud've thought before she spoke.

I just can't believe that people actually went to the airport to take pictures of her when she landed and posted it to Twitter they were that swept up in this story.

There are so many more important things going on in the world right now to be angry about like Tony Abbott wanting to destory a section of the Great Barrier Reef. I couldn't give a toss about some blonde who likes to crack racist jokes on twitter.

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With apologies to XKCD.

Kevans said:

I agree about the freedom of speech miss targeting, it is really about discrimination.

In Phil's case he is being punished for his beliefs, in this event she is on the hook for pure stupid.

Regards,
Kevin

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Nah, Phil's beliefs are held by nearly 50% of the american public (of homosexuality as a sin). The problem was him daring to say it out loud.

In this case I almost think firing gives the illusion of the way we'd like the world to be. Which isn't entirely a bad thing.

Don said:

With apologies to XKCD.

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I think suggesting only black people get AIDs is more than just "politically incorrect".

veinglory said:

I think suggesting only black people get AIDs is more than just "politically incorrect".

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"politically correct" is actually just a politically correct way to say "racist."

Kevans said:

I agree about the freedom of speech miss targeting, it is really about discrimination.

In Phil's case he is being punished for his beliefs, in this event she is on the hook for pure stupid.

Regards,
Kevin

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Let's set aside what Phil said about gays and sin.

What Phil said about race was at least as stupid as what she said about race. And he wasn't joking.

ULTRAGOTHA said:

I don't think her account was suspended. I think she deleted all her on-line presence when she logged back onto the internet in Cape Town last night.

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That sounds much more likely. I'm not aware of this person, or their twitter account, but you'd be able to see a "This account has been suspended" notice if it had been suspended. Twitter does at least most of it's suspending via bot, not real staff members.

Well, she made a seriously stupid move.

But, to her credit, she owned it, and apologized for it. Not "I was just joking," or "mistakes were made," or "if some found it offensive," or other non-apology, victim blaming and buck-passing.

I can accept that apology. I can see why she would lose this job, but it shouldn't be a career killer. A lot of people could learn the right way to apologize and move on from someone like her.

From the NY Times - A story about Justine Sacco, a year later. And more, including maybe a bit about the psychopathy involved in public shaming.

Social media is so perfectly designed to manipulate our desire for approval, and that is what led to her undoing. Her tormentors were instantly congratulated as they took Sacco down, bit by bit, and so they continued to do so. Their motivation was much the same as Sacco’s own — a bid for the attention of strangers — as she milled about Heathrow, hoping to amuse people she couldn’t see.

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It's also yet another reminder that context matters.

Jesus. Stuff like this terrifies me.

I mean, I remember how much middle-school shaming hurt. The sheer psychopathy that the anonymity of an instant internet shame bandwagon provides can lead to cataclysmic, world-wide levels of shame dumped on someone who - not twenty-four hours previously - was a nobody.

I mean, I'm a nobody. Some of my best friends are nobodies.

Yeah, while I think criticizing people for bad stuff they do online is reasonable, it has to be proportionate. And in cases like this, it's often not.

Even when individual responses are reasonable, there can come a point where it just snowballs and there's really no value in one more person expressing criticism or outrage. But the internet makes it easy for everyone to voice their thoughts, and a lot of people don't stop to think whether voicing their thoughts will do any good.

On the bright side, I think Ms Sacco's been thoroughly cured of her Twitterrhoea. So public shaming has its utility, to a point.

One stupid tweet

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html

As she made the long journey from New York to South Africa, to visit family during the holidays in 2013, Justine Sacco, 30 years old and the senior director of corporate communications at IAC, began tweeting acerbic little jokes about the indignities of travel. There was one about a fellow passenger on the flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport:

“ ‘Weird German Dude: You’re in First Class. It’s 2014. Get some deodorant.’ — Inner monologue as I inhale BO. Thank God for pharmaceuticals.”

Then, during her layover at Heathrow:

“Chilly — cucumber sandwiches — bad teeth. Back in London!”

And on Dec. 20, before the final leg of her trip to Cape Town:

“Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!”

She chuckled to herself as she pressed send on this last one, then wandered around Heathrow’s international terminal for half an hour, sporadically checking her phone. No one replied, which didn’t surprise her. She had only 170 Twitter followers.

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And we know what happened next - essentially, her life was destroyed by a massive public backlash.

The story got me thinking about times in my life where I had said something stupid, usually without thinking, because my brain goes about a half a sentence slower than my mouth. Every single person in the world has had that moment - often, once a week.

Obviously, we say stupid things while talking with friends - verbally - not on the most public platform imaginable. In a way, the 150 character limit has its own way of enforcing thoughtlessness. Brevity is the soul of wit, but we're not all fucking Shakespeare. We're not ALL able to cram meaning and nuance into 150 words.

The modern shame-party, to me, exemplifies why justice can't be found in mobs. Everything about the response to Sacco's tweet is rooted in justice - discussions of privilege, racism, economic disparity, and so on - but because it is a response in the mob, we lose two vital things: Nuance and moderation.

The question is...in this world of democratized response and social media...how the hell can we get nuance and moderation back?

How can we pursue justice without stooping to cruelty?

I don't know.

Beyond, of course, don't be a dick, think about what other people feel before you do something, and don't be a dick.