
How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life - veeti
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html?_r=0
======
chris_wot
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 bu Shi da Yu account to say what I'd done and explain the impact it
was likely to have.

It was a bad, bad judgement call. I got such a massive lynching that I
seriously regretted what I'd done - but there was no way of undoing it.
Eventually, I started getting depressed - I mean, my entire reputation was in
tatters. None of the work I'd done - not the hours and hours of fighting
trolls, extensive article writing, innovative strategies for dealing with
referencing or organizing the admins via the board, nor the work on featured
article candidates, peer review, articles for deletion, vandalism fighting,
meeting up with Sydney people interested in Wikipedia, made any difference at
all.

I left the project and asked to be desysopped. About a year or so later, I
created an account Tbsdy lives and tried again. I managed to get my admin
status re established (I readily admitted it was a bad judgement call), but
still I was told I'd left "under a cloud", by none other than Brad Fitzpatrick
- their legal counsel.

What's the moral of this? Online communities suck. If you make even one minor
error in judgment, be prepared to be lynched. If you get depressed, just exit
at this point and don't look back. It's not worth it. It doesn't matter how
much time you put into a project - you're going to get judged, and you'll
never make your way back.

If you don't think it can't happen, then ask Ben Noordrius how he felt when
Bryan Cantrell called him an arsehole and said he should have been fired
because he reverted a personal pronoun. That did the Node.js community a _lot_
of good now, didn't it?

~~~
geofft
I just want to say, I remember the account name "Ta bu shi da yu" from when I
was active on Wikipedia (it's been about 10 years) and you seemed cool. I
missed whatever drama this was, but my only association with that name is that
it was someone who was active on Wikipedia and doing useful things.

Regarding Bryan Cantrill, never forget this post (a one-line reply at the
bottom):

[http://cryptnet.net/mirrors/texts/kissedagirl.html](http://cryptnet.net/mirrors/texts/kissedagirl.html)

Which I link not to shame him for what he wrote as a recent college grad 20
years ago, but to say that _everyone_ does dumb, borderline offensive things
sometimes, and what matters is that you are not obstinate in your dumbness.

Maybe Bryan would have fired the person he was then; that's fine. We need both
effective, meaningful punishment, and also effective rehabilitation. It should
be possible to go from Bryan Cantrill in Sun to Bryan Cantrill in Joyent. It
should be possible to go from Ben Noordhuis in Node to Ben Noordhuis in io, or
Justine Sacco in IAC to Justine Sacco wherever she is now, or Sam Biddle to
chastened empathetic Sam Biddle, or whatever.

~~~
Torgo
Provided without comment, here's Cantrill on Twitter relatively recently
criticizing Linus Torvalds' "idiocy" in a usenet post from 2000:

[https://twitter.com/bcantrill/status/456540342649487361](https://twitter.com/bcantrill/status/456540342649487361)

~~~
geofft
He acknowledges that in the replies, but this particular "idiocy" is not one
of tone, behavior, or offense. It is about bad technical policy in the pursuit
of ego, which is something that Linus has done several times since.

(And he's a brilliant enough kernel hacker that he can work around his own bad
policy and still come up with a system that works well, but that doesn't mean
it's not bad technical policy. I feel bad begrudging him for making a worse
product when it's so good due exactly to his skill, but still, the product
could have been better if he avoided making these sorts of decisions.)

Anyway, I do kind of wish Bryan would issue a clearer apology for what he said
20 years ago. But I also kind of wish we lived in a world where he didn't have
to, and it's obvious he's grown up in the last 20 years.

~~~
bcantrill
It's funny you should mention that, as that episode from nearly 20 years ago
(!!) has come up much more in the last year than it did in the two decades
prior. Of course, the reason is not an accident; it's a direct result of those
who vehemently disagree with my handling of the Noordhuis pronoun incident.

Anyway, your request is entirely fair, and let me be clear that I (obviously?)
regret the have-you-ever-kissed-a-girl response (which was actually an obscure
Saturday Night Live reference). I was young, and it was stupid -- and I
regretted it shortly thereafter, for whatever it's worth. I have never
actually met David in person, but if I did, the first thing I would do would
be to look him in the eye and apologize.

That said, I do think that this is contrast to the Noordhuis incident. I know
that this position is not popular here (and that I will be downvoted into
oblivion), and that it's likely foolish to revisit this, but just to make
clear my position: I am understanding (very understanding, given my own
history) of gaffes made on the internet. The Noordhuis issue, however, was not
a gaffe: it's not that he rejected the pull request (that's arguably a gaffe),
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 that this was no accident.) This transcended gaffe, and it
became an issue of principle -- one that I feel strongly about. So what I
wrote at the time was entirely honest, and it is something that I absolutely
stand by -- more than ever, actually.

The inarguably contrast is this: I regretted the have-you-ever-kissed-a-girl
response; I do not and will not regret my handling of the Noordhuis incident
-- and any company that would not employ me over this is a company that I
would not want to work for.

~~~
sintaxi
Its fruitful to reflect on such past behavior both professional and personal.
I have my share of regrets as well. None of us are without fault, just some of
us have our mistakes more amplified than others. It important to learn from
such things.

In interest of personal edification (since you seem to be open to feedback)
the one criticism I have about the Noordhuis incident is that in my opinion if
you felt as strongly as you did about publicly chastising Noordhuis it should
have been done from your personal blog and not from the Joyent blog. I feel
this was slight abuse of power and influence of the Joyent brand, specifically
because you mention the intent on terminating his employment if it was within
your power. I don't think that belongs there as permanent public record. That
said, I think your desire was to make it clear to the community that gender
biases were not going to be tolerated and to me that intent (for the most
part) came through.

I do think its plausible that Noordhuis wasn't quite represented properly and
that he had strong opinions about process and how commits are merged but those
strong opinions were interpreted as an intent to have gender bias. But I don't
have enough information to know for sure, that's just how it looks to me.

In the end regret is an entirely personal thing and we all get to decide what
kind of person we are going to be. I would also like to suggest that regret
isn't black and white there are always ways we can conduct or communicate more
effectively and perhaps this could be a take away for you. Could there have
been a way to achieve your goals equally/more effectively with less of a
direct expense to Ben??

As someone who has worked directly under (and along side) you I have a deep
respect for the way you conduct yourself professionally. I see you as someone
with integrity, which is probably why you feel comfortable bringing up
incidences you have been criticized for (this something far too rare). I offer
my perspective as a friend so take it for what its worth to you.

~~~
bcantrill
I appreciate (as always) your thoughtful candor. And I (certainly) appreciate
your kind words with respect to my personal integrity; the sentiment is very
much mutual!

In this case, we may have to agree to disagree: I felt (and feel) that a
message from Joyent -- not a message from me -- was called for: members of the
node.js community were calling Joyent to task for Ben's behavior, and I (we)
felt that it was Joyent that needed to respond. That said, I appreciate your
willingness to speak your mind and to earnestly engage on this issue!

------
danso
I'd like to think that as the world gets more saturated in constant social
media and sharing, that we'd have a higher tolerance for things...in this
case, a joke that if a person told it to you, with the right tone of voice,
it'd be funny...imagine Louis CK making that quip. But no, I doubt it...I
think it's more a physical limitation of our brains...we just don't have the
brain system designed to adequately consider all the context of all the
messages we might consume in day...It's just easier to assume that a
140-character message really is an adequate reflection of someone who we have
never met, and who we would have never been exposed to before the Internet.
And it feels good to pat yourself on the back as you think, "Jeez, I can't
believe such racist people still exist"

To paraphrase the famous comic from the New Yorker, "On the Internet, no one
knows that you have nuance"

~~~
andreasvc
I think it is a mistake to think that most people were _actually_ offended and
didn't get the joke. There are definitely much more offensive things out on
the internet than the examples in the article.

I think it's much more likely that people revel in seeing someone go down; the
article clearly alluded to this sadistic aspect I think. As soon as there is
enough critical mass for a public shaming, people will jump on the bandwagon.

What needs to change is that this kind of public shaming on the internet
should be looked down upon in the future, just at is now in real life. The
first step is for employers not to be so spineless to immediately fire an
employee that is talked about.

~~~
bkcooper
_I think it 's much more likely that people revel in seeing someone go down;
the article clearly alluded to this sadistic aspect I think._

This is possible. But I think it's less about this and more about status
marking. Joining the pile on is often a quick, cheap way to demonstrate that
you care about the right things.

~~~
andybak
I wonder if there's a distinction that needs to be made between offending
people and hurting people.

From my self-confessed but unavoidable smug vantage point of white privilege I
wonder if being offended is something that needs to be disregarded. I'm trying
to remember how it felt to be 'offended' myself and whether anyone other than
me should have cared. Is it actually a form of power when one can choose to be
offended and know that you can affect the actions of others by doing so?

Genuinely hurting people (emotionally) on the other hand is something
different and I'd need to think a lot more deeply about that.

------
mc32
Two things: Don't be too clever. People trip over themselves to feel offended.
Two, you really don't have freedom of speech when you can get mugged by being
obnoxious online. Not being malicious -just obnoxious.

Yes all the tweets quoted in the article were obnoxious and leveraged
stereotypes but I don't think people should be flogged for being like that.

I remember all the obnoxious Polish jokes growing up. They were terrible. But
I don't agree that they should be censored. Demanding this mind of self
censorship is a sign that a society is fragile rather than robust. A robust
society can take the jokes.

It's like with friendships. With good friends you can nettle them; say
terrible things and we know that's it's all in good fun, a ritual of sorts.
With so so friends you don't make bad jokes because the friendship is too
fragile. It's a sign of an immature or fragile society when bad jokes upset
the cart.

Edit. An irony is that many of the people calling offense don't realize their
own transgression in becoming part of a self-righteous mob meting out
punishment at the speed of thought.

~~~
spikexxx
Over-reaction or not, freedom of speech does not guarantee a receptive
audience.

~~~
Amezarak
> Over-reaction or not, freedom of speech does not guarantee a receptive
> audience.

That's so. But if society frequently inflicts severe extralegal punishment for
unpopular speech, then you don't really have free speech. You just have First
Amendment rights. They aren't the same thing.

As a thought experiment, imagine Person X said something deemed offensive and
society responded in a uniform manner - by constant public humiliation,
refusing to do business with them, refusing to even speak to them, etc. All
this is well within our legal rights (with maybe some exceptions) but life for
such a person would be very difficult, if not impossible - they'd probably end
up starving in the streets. That's not a very free society even if there are
no legal consequences whatsoever for any speech.

I think it's very important to affirm that even if someone says something
offensive that the response should be measured.

~~~
vertex-four
> As a thought experiment, imagine Person X said something deemed offensive
> and society responded in a uniform manner - by constant public humiliation,
> refusing to do business with them, refusing to even speak to them, etc.

I will note that until relatively recently, those who we consider
"conservatives" today did exactly that towards "progressives". You try and
dare being publicly against segregation and the mistreatment of black people
in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s - Juliette Morgan did, and promptly got fired and
ostracised. I'm sure you can find similar examples for supporters of gay
rights, right up to today.

It's not exactly a new, nor a partisan thing.

~~~
nickff
I would just like to point out that the progressives were the ones who pushed
to disenfranchise African-Americans for decades.[1] The conservatives were on
the other side, pushing for equal rights; as an example, President Coolidge
said "[As president, I am] one who feels a responsibility for living up to the
traditions and maintaining the principles of the Republican Party. Our
Constitution guarantees equal rights to all our citizens, without
discrimination on account of race or color. I have taken my oath to support
that Constitution. It is the source of your rights and my rights. I propose to
regard it, and administer it, as the source of the rights of all the people,
whatever their belief or race.".[2]

The progressive movement has a horrific history, and I find it puzzling as to
why someone would self identify with a movement so steeped in racism and
eugenics.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism_in_the_United_Sta...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism_in_the_United_States#Democracy)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Coolidge](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Coolidge)

~~~
vertex-four
Mainly because "progressivism" as the term is used today has little to do with
what it was about in the past? Most movements have had huge changes over the
past hundred years.

It wasn't exactly conservatism which brought us back to the point we're at now
from there, was it? It seems as if it were a different movement entirely from
the late 1800s progressives and the conservative movement.

------
rihegher
French guy here. This article only speak about employees in american company
getting fired about some data shared on the web. But I would be curious to
know what happened to people who faced the same situation working in
continental european companies. It would be surprising if people would lost
their jobs so easily. Either because I think it's culturally better accepted
for private people (I mean not public figures) to have unappropriate
expressions publicly, plus the law don't allow companies (at least in France)
to fire someone on a basis of only one unappropriate expression not even
targeting another employee or customer of this company.

~~~
fit2rule
Well, in Europe the tradition of mobbing is a serious problem, and its
definitely something that occurs on a regular basis in the real world, and not
just on the Internet. In Germany, people have been fired for instigating the
mob - not necessarily for saying things that offend others, but rather for
rabble-rousing and trying to get the pitchfork brigade riled up.

I think Europe has a keener sense of the history of this activity, because the
artifacts of prior historical mobbing are abundant. You only have to take a
walk through Prague, Budapest, Berlin to see just how this is reflected in
European sensibilities - whereas in the US, its a less overt historical fact.
Americans are very loud about things, Europeans often very reserved and
conservative, but there is fundamentally no difference between the cultures:
both are capable of succumbing to cannibalistic, collective-reactive urges. I
witnessed this factor countless times in my experience living in the US (I'm
not American), most severely during the Rodney King riots. People form a kind
of super-being in a mob, a near God-like entity, which can perform powerful
acts - go to the moon, solve humanitarian crises, and so on. But it can also
turn vicious and heinous as well, and there seems to be some sort of scale
upon which the tone of activity can be plotted. I don't think there is a
difference in scales for European versus American societies; just that the
fact of observation of the energy of the mob is louder in some cultures that
have evolved to profit from that loudness - America, in this case.
Celebrity/Entertainment culture being what it is in the US, I think its just a
brighter shade of pale than, for example, the French may be used to - but its
the same basic color.

~~~
rihegher
My english is not perfect and reading you answer I thing I was misunderstood.

This kind of mobbing and over reaction do happens in France as well and I
don't deny that. Recently 3 millions get down the street because 18 peoples
has been killed. So I acknowledge that over-reaction is not just an american
thing. It's more on the employer side that I'm surprised. If an employer is
not stupid why would he fire someone on these bases?

~~~
fit2rule
I believe its because more often than not, the employer is profiting direction
from the mobs own ignorance of itself. A classic case is where employees are
not allowed to discuss their wages, as this of course allows the 'owner' of
the organization to make bargains and deals, and so on. So the function of
leadership, expressed as control over the crowd, has its own degrees of +/-'ve
reality. In an open group, where everyone knows everything, its quite
difficult to rile people up and get them to pick on an individual member; the
dark line that forms around mysteries, lies, deceit and intrigue, is precisely
the abyss into which any individual may fall. And it is always 'others' who
push them into it.

------
ll123
Regardless of your political orientation, you should think twice before
cheerleading mob justice. If you think mob justice is good and if you think
"freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" then you're just
saying unpopular speech is always bad and wrong. Once the mob turns against
your political beliefs then one day you might be the one getting attacked and
fired.

~~~
spb
Pretty sure there's a pg essay on this. "Unpopular speech is not necessarily
bad and wrong" is pretty much, like, the Official Opinion of Hacker News.

------
interknot
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_.

~~~
TheHippo
According to his wikipedia article he also is releasing a book called "So
You've Been Publicly Shamed" on March 2015.

~~~
hullo
It also mentions that at the end of the linked article. This is an adapted
excerpt from the book (unsurprisingly).

------
klenwell
I like to think of self-righteousness as a drug. A subtle but lingering high.
I know I get off on it from time to time.

Post anything online and there's a chance you'll be someone's next fix.

~~~
metaphorm
I think this is very well stated and I'd like to see this idea presented more
frequently in dialogue surrounding internet zealotry.

Simply put, a great deal of what drives the extremist behavior on the internet
is straight up narcissism. The people participating in pile-on internet
bullying campaigns feel good about themselves when they do so, and receive
praise (from the internet mob that they have aligned with) for doing so.

------
mootothemax
As dislikable as the tweet's content is, it's truly frightening how quickly an
incredibly large pitchforks-and-torches mob can come to life via the internet.

~~~
maaaats
> _As dislikable as the tweet 's content is_

Did you read the article? By thinking for a few seconds, the point of the
tweet is obviously not racist. Not a smart tweet, in retrospect, but. Here's
her explanation from the article:

> _I thought there was no way that anyone could possibly think it was literal.
> (...) Living in America puts us in a bit of a bubble when it comes to what
> is going on in the third world. I was making fun of that bubble._

~~~
mcphage
> Did you read the article? By thinking for a few seconds, the point of the
> tweet is obviously not racist.

Honestly, does it even matter? Say it was a racist tweet, and she was a
racist. Does that mean she deserved what happened to her? Definitely not.

~~~
sofal
It matters because making an offhand joke parodying a stupid person is
something that we've all done. This example shows that if you make a little
parody joke like that in the wrong medium, your life could permanently pivot
180 degrees for the worst.

~~~
mcphage
> This example shows that if you make a little parody joke like that in the
> wrong medium, your life could permanently pivot 180 degrees for the worst.

Definitely. But my point was, whether it was racist or not, her life pivoted
for the worse—and whether it was racist or not, she didn't deserve what
happened to her.

------
steven2012
Except for Facebook and LinkedIn, I haven't used my real name and any
personally identifiable information on the Internet in 20 years, since I
realized that everything I wrote on Usenet would be there forever. There is no
value with having the things I say potentially used against me for the rest of
my life.

~~~
forrestthewoods
I'm the opposite. I use my real name, or real enough, everywhere. It makes me
think twice before hitting enter. Anything I say I'm backing up, for better or
worse, with my identity. I may someday regret this decision. So far so good.

~~~
brandonwamboldt
I do the same thing, I use my real name as my username on all social media
sites including Reddit. I always think to myself, is this something I want
permanently associated with my real identity?

It could obviously backfire. You say something that you think is fine, someone
else gets offended, and they know exactly who you are. But generally, I think
using your real name makes people more accountable for what they say online.

~~~
throwaway09332
The problem with this approach is you have no idea what will become wrongthink
in the future. In 2008, opposing gay marriage was a relatively mainstream
idea. In 2014 someone was fired for donating to an anti-gay marriage campaign.
In 2015 it might be acceptable for one to express wariness of expanding the
H-1B visa program, but in 2020 will it be so?

------
golemotron
I think that public shaming can be laid directly at the feet of Social
Justice. It would be great if people who want to make things better for
minorities chose a different tactic - private communication rather than public
ostracism.

~~~
geofft
SJW here. Private communication works well if the problem is specific people
behaving badly in private, and public ostracism is, in fact, inappropriate.
But usually the goal is to establish a changed social norm, and to combat an
existing one, which needs to be done in public; ostracizing an individual is
not the goal (and, to be clear, isn't a good thing!).

Someone brought up the example of Ben Noordhuis and node.js elsewhere in this
thread. Assuming for the sake of argument that Ben's behavior was something
that you didn't want in the world, it's not enough to message him in private
and say "Hey, this was wrong for these reasons." That gets you change within
the node community (well, provided it's Ben acting), but not anywhere else.
Meanwhile, if you object in public and write a blog post about it... do you
think io.js is going to risk rejecting a pull request about gendered pronouns
now? Or any other equally large, somewhat-overlapping language community?

I would definitely agree with the criticism that the blog post should have
tried harder not to look like an attack on Ben as a person. But it reads to me
like it wasn't the intention; it was an attack on _anyone_ who acts in the
same way.

~~~
golemotron
Essentially, your argument is that the ends justify the means, right? Or, that
the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? The issue is that we now
know that things blow up in social media so we should adjust our behavior to
be ethical.

The case of dongle-gate at PyCon is a good example to talk about. We should
now understand that attempting local solutions outside of social media is far
preferable. Individuals (on either side of an issue) should not be cannon
fodder for social causes. Inviting/creating that sort of public ostracism is
extremely irresponsible. I hope that we (collectively) are learning that
lesson.

Maybe protecting individuals from social media attacks can be seen as a social
justice cause? The most vulnerable minority is the minority of one.

~~~
geofft
No, absolutely not, and I'm sad that anyone would think I'm advocating that,
because it means I wrote unclearly. My argument is that distasteful but not
_disallowable_ means should not scare us off from meaningful ends.
Disallowable means are, as always, disallowable.

Here's an example of a disallowable means: come up with trumped-up excuses
using forged evidence to fire all the powerful white men on the grounds that
once you get rid of them, the people who'll fill in will be (probably) less
oppressive. You can probably even come up with data backing that. But it would
be completely inappropriate. (Not to mention strategically wrong because it
legitimizes a harmful strategy, but it's also inherently wrong even if it
weren't strategically wrong.)

My worry is that we'll look at a possible side effect of a means as a threat,
as you're portraying things "blowing up", and that will be a chilling effect
on change. Whatever the problems are with social media, to use that as an
excuse is just that—an excuse, to prop up the current, bad systems.

~~~
celticninja
but really what we see with these crusades by SJW's is just an opportunity for
bullying, usually by people who were once bullied and now want to get their
own back. A lot of it is bandwagon jumping by the majority of people, who may
or may not have a dog int he fight, but just want to cause a fuss. It is these
people that call the employers, DDOS employers websites etc and then everyone
lumps them all together as SJW's, giving everyone a bad rep.

Doing things quietly would bring about better change, not chnage through fear
(as it is now) but change through education. Explain to eople why they are
wrong, get them to conciously change their behaviour as opposed to reactively
change it to protect themselves and not because of an understanding of where
they went wrong.

Reasd the article and everyone involved still thinks that what they said was a
joke and was blown out of all proportion. No minds were changed here, people
just batten down the hatches to protect themselves and their families.

~~~
geofft
That would be extremely nice, if it worked. Then the entire question about
distasteful means wouldn't come up, which would be better for everyone,
because distasteful means are still distasteful.

Unfortunately, that's not how changing minds works, in practice.

[http://www.contralbum.com/blog/2015/2/5/political-
correctnes...](http://www.contralbum.com/blog/2015/2/5/political-correctness-
is-more-reasonable-than-jonathan-chait)

See the section starting "The second great flaw...." (And yes, I get the irony
of trying to convince you of this by cordially linking you to some random blog
post that lists research.)

~~~
celticninja
So your go to alternative is bullying. Well I would prefer to effect no change
than to have to force it through with threats and intimidation.

SJW is more of a pejorative term these days, I don't know anyone who uses it
in a positive way and you are perhaps the first person I have seen that
indicates they themselves are an SJW. My experience of those who the term
applies to is generally negative and I cannot think of one positive action
that has come from these SJW's.

I won't even wish you luck as I think it is a retarded idea that they preach.
Yes I disagree with sexism, racism, homophones etc, I consider myself a
bleeding heart liberal but there seems to be no redeeming qualities to the SJW
movement it is juts bullying, hatred and damaging their own agenda (on the
rare occasions when that agenda can be loosely agreed upon).

~~~
geofft
What would you do about George Wallace in 1963?

Leave aside the question of whether social justice today is comparable to the
anti-segregation fight 50 years ago (reasonable people can disagree), and
let's just think about segregation. The governor of Alabama literally says in
his inauguration speech, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation
forever."

You have the option of going to Congress and passing a federal law, going over
the governor's head, that makes segregation _illegal_. As a federal law,
backed by the federal law-enforcement apparatus, this is the very incarnation
of threats and intimidation. And Alabama certainly isn't about to integrate
voluntarily.

Does your conscience bother you?

~~~
celticninja
If the government making laws is "the very incarnation of threats and
intimidation" then you have never really been subjected to threats and
intimidation.

I hate to burst your bubble but not everyone is from the states, so it is
difficult for me to comment knowledgeably on your reply. From what I can see
George Wallace was a politician, if you don't like what a politician says you
vote against them. I would not condone shooting him or terrorising his family
to force a change when there is a legitimate route to address the problem.

Why would my conscience bother me?

~~~
geofft
Sorry, that last line was from a song, "Sweet Home Alabama," that briefly
mentions Gov. Wallace. It's decently well-known in the US, but my mistake in
expecting everyone would recognize it. :)

Anyway, nobody's talking about shooting or terrorizing anyone. But the Civil
Rights Act in the US compelled private business owners not to discriminate in
their clientele, and that compulsion was behind the (implicit) threat of
police response, as with just about all government compulsion. That is _way_
more of a response than anyone's discussing in this thread; the worst that's
happening is people losing their jobs and livelihoods, which is pretty bad,
but not nearly as bad. But it's not a particularly common belief today that
the Civil Rights Act was evil, or that its ends did not justify the means of
government compulsion. (It was a somewhat common belief then, and some US
politicians did oppose it on those grounds, though who can say if they also
privately objected to its substance.)

------
jonifico
I actually thought it was funny. If you get offended by a thing that's so over
the top it just can't be taken seriously, you sir are an absolute moron. Hate
how people are just looking to get excuses to get offended and show off their
'righteousness' at the expense of other people.

Point is: It's a joke. Learn the difference.

~~~
MichaelGG
He explains his viewpoint:

"Still, in those early days, the collective fury felt righteous, powerful and
effective. It felt as if hierarchies were being dismantled, as if justice were
being democratized."

This is delusional slacktivism. Overthrowing power structures and hierarchies
by retweeting. How more delusional can you get?

OTOH, if you've got a PR job or a shitty position where you'd get fired for
saying such stuff, you really ought to be ever so careful. Why are people
posting this stuff with their real names attached? Unless you've got FU money
or are in a career track that's mostly immune to this kind of harassment, just
use a separate personal account. FFS, does anyone think the general public
wants your tweets?

------
toothbrush
"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 almost makes it sound as if HN is a bunch of MRA losers :( A pity
it's so sloppily worded (unless it's true, in which case, ugh).

~~~
potatolicious
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).

HN is in general no longer held with the same regard it was a couple of years
ago. Note the number of progressive, well-respected regulars who've left this
place behind.

There are other avenues to discuss tech and tech issues without ancaps, MRAs,
and anti-SJW crusaders trying to internet-fight you at every turn.

~~~
ripdog
If you're internet-dogpiling people or taking creepshots and getting people
fired for jokes not even directed at you, I will happily internet-fight you
for being an awful person.

It's amazing how self-described "progressives" can come in here and happily
defend this kind of behaviour. I hope you find a nice new website and never
have your views challenged again.

~~~
potatolicious
I... what? Hold your horses, there's an awful lot of projection here.

I haven't come in here to defend internet lynch mobs - there's literally not a
word in my post condoning it.

The bulk of tech progressive aren't the ones spoiling for a Twitter fight,
they're the silent majority that's reading posts on HN, rolling their eyes,
maybe sighing a little bit, and moving along with their lives. They're not
orchestrating backlashes, brigades, or downvote chains, or any such devices.
The most they're doing is emailing a link to some comment to their friends
with a "sigh, HN again" quip - and I've received many such messages.

Heck, I know people who read HN - but only the links - knowing what a cesspool
the comments are going to be. Heck, this is me on most days.

These are the people I'm talking about - the ones who've largely left this
place behind because the tone of the community has shifted to one where any
talk of race, gender, or even age (or in fact _any_ talk of institutional
problems in the industry) is automatically the work of professional victims
(and a largely fictional narrative of a "social justice warrior") out to
oppress techies. The general tenor of the community here now has a very
distinctly reactionary twist, which has caused people to bail for greener
pastures.

~~~
ripdog
I'm sorry, I was overreaching. Your reply seemed to support the OPs idea that
Adria Richards was harassed for no reason by "MRA losers".

>These are the people I'm talking about - the ones who've largely left this
place behind because the tone of the community has shifted to one where any
talk of race, gender, or even age (or in fact any talk of institutional
problems in the industry) is automatically the work of professional victims
(and a largely fictional narrative of a "social justice warrior") out to
oppress techies.

I won't deny that the MRA side is often reactionary, but you must admit that
the "social justice" side is just as bad. The internet of today is designed
for reactionism, makes it so easy to react and so easy to find controversial
conversations.

This is something I've noticed a lot - both sides are as bad as each other.
Both claim to be better people, but both are so mired in faeces that they
haven't even noticed they're throwing it themselves. (I've been up for 36
hours that's the best I can come up with).

> (and a largely fictional narrative of a "social justice warrior")

That's a very opinionated statement. Unfortunately, few agree on the
definition of SJW, so everyone makes up their own. Pretending that there isn't
a clique of 'progressives' in the tech world doing their best to cause trouble
is just fantasy. Look at Adria's creepshot/dog whistling, the elevatorgate
thing, that time Ben Noordhuis was forced out of the Node community because of
a SJW hate mob enraged over a pronoun, or this thing:
[http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/32778.html](http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/32778.html).
SJWs exist, and have done plenty of damage to the industry.

They've also no doubt scared many young women away from STEM careers through
their wild stories about misogyny and dudebro cultures in the tech world.
Would you, as (possibly) a woman, want to work in an industry frequently
proclaimed to be an unaccepting boys club? Funnily enough, the proclaimers of
such always seem to benefit personally from such attacks, landing cushy
"developer relations" jobs and hefty sums on patreon. That's where the
"professional victim" label comes from.

~~~
spb
> that time Ben Noordhuis was forced out of the Node community because of a
> SJW hate mob enraged over a pronoun

bcantrill commented on this above, with more authority than I could address
this with:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9041086](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9041086)

Also, it's worth noting Ben Noordhuis wasn't forced out of the Node
_community_ \- just the core contribution team (although I do believe he chose
to take a break afterward). His company, StrongLoop, would go on to be the
owners of the Express repo, and Ben Noordhuis is one of the contributors to
IO.js.

------
waylandsmithers
The sad thing is the history of America is sprinkled with a few stories of
angry armed mobs of people storming jails, overpowering the guards, and
physically freeing people whom the public believed had been wrongfully
imprisoned. That took balls. Now, mob justice is used to tear people down for
writing some quip in poor taste. What a shame.

I've actually given a lot of thought to things like this, having worked with
someone whom I despised due to a complete lack of tact and decorum. Despite
the fact that I would never ever want to work with or be associated with this
person again in any way, he still has the right to earn a living and
contribute his skills to society. In fact, I would argue that most if not all
the people he has offended over the years would not actually feel good about
"justice" being served if he were fired and/or out of work.

This is also why I've never had twitter, never will, and only use facebook
passively. There is no upside; anything you say can and will be used against
you.

If you're a band announcing a tour date, or a food truck sharing your
location, sure, but if you are trying to be a commentator or funny guy to gain
a following, it will probably just blow up in your face like this eventually.

The good news is that you don't have to use twitter. This is only a problem if
you allow it to be one for you. There are plenty of other effective means of
communication.

------
DanielBMarkham
Let's build an Internet. People can connect. They can share their feelings.
It'll make the world better place.

Had no one seen what mobs of angry people do?

This is getting worse, not better. We will see this kind of anger junkie mob
mentality explode into real violence. And then the violence will escalate.

Good news. We are seeing the end of the nation state. Just like they said. It
is being replaced with niche mobs of worldwide scope.

~~~
lurcio
The internet has always put me in mind of Dostoievskys under-appreciated story
Bobok.

"It may be so, but think of putting it so bluntly into print. In print
everything ought to be decorous; there ought to be ideals, while instead of
that...

Say it indirectly, at least; that's what you have style for. But no, he
doesn't care to do it indirectly. Nowadays humour and a fine style have
disappeared, and abuse is accepted as wit. I do not resent it: but God knows I
am not enough of a literary man to go out of my mind..."

btw I guess it was a throwaway comment, but.."We are seeing the end of the
nation state" Where do you see that? (I see multi-level governance.)

~~~
DanielBMarkham
The state, by definition, is the group that has the monopoly on the use of
force. If I see a crime taking place, after deciding whether it is appropriate
or not for me to intervene, my next step is to contact the state. I trust the
state to take corrective measures: arresting the person, perhaps imprisoning
them, perhaps killing them. I also trust them to use force (sometimes lethal
force) in maintaining social order.

But on the net, I am only limited by my degree of outrage. Somebody does
something stupid -- then each additional commenter takes it on themselves to
"up the ante" and make the stupid person pay.

Right now we're just ruining people's lives (!). But as we start seeing these
lynch mobs physically start acting out, then the state will no longer have the
monopoly on force. Whether or not that's an existential question depends on
your comfort level with chaos, I imagine. Whatever your personal view, the
state as we know it in many cases will no longer exist.

------
gear54rus
That may sound hateful or angry or whatever, but here goes...

> I was among the first people to alert social media. (This was because Gill
> always gave my television documentaries bad reviews, so I tended to keep a
> vigilant eye on things he could be got for.) Within minutes, it was
> everywhere.

Is this really what we've come to? We have all this technological progress so
you could stalk someone you're butthurt over and try to get at them?

> Amid the hundreds of congratulatory messages I received

So that others who have nothing better to do could pile on this?

> Still, in those early days, the collective fury felt righteous, powerful and
> effective. It felt as if hierarchies were being dismantled, as if justice
> were being democratized.

Wake up! Who ever gave a damn about some tweet? Be it corrupt mega-corp or a
media figure.

> I didn’t want people looking at me

Well, now that's a cool story you better tell everyone on twitter :)

> The woman had, in fact, overheard the joke. She considered it to be
> emblematic of the gender imbalance

Ah, nothing like snooping in on the conversation that isn't meant for your
damn ears and then getting all butthurt about it.

> <Story about people who can't take the, admittedly, offensive joke, a person
> who's not smart enough to not crack that joke on the net>

It's not the tweet that is stupid, it's people using the platform in such ways
and maybe even the platform itself. Come on, we can do better than that after
all this time.

 _TL;DR_ She got exactly what she deserved in this context, but that doesn't
mean that community is some righteous force - quite the contrary, it's simply
poisonous.

~~~
protomyth
"justice were being democratized" = mob rule

same as it ever was, now with a lot less effort from the mob

~~~
gear54rus
I'd say for a mob it may even be understandable (if you decided to roll with
us, you're in for a full trip), we are talking about deeds after all, not
empty words.

Here, it's just ridiculous.

~~~
protomyth
But the empty words now result in people being fired and blacklisted, with as
little effort as writing a sentence or a retweet. The mob doesn't even have to
be in the same ballpark as truth. The worse thing is these things are picked
up by newspapers trying to tap into social and making them "the official
record".

------
Mithaldu
As a german i have to ask: Why do people get fired over things like this? Are
american worker employee protection laws so weak that there is no recourse
whatsoever for them?

~~~
ashark
Here's how worker protection laws work in the U.S.

1) For any given case, yeah, there's probably no protection. This is because
we love freedom. No, really. Well, if you can get an honest answer from
politicians and CEOs that's not the reason, but to the average "man on the
street" who's against stronger worker protections, that's the reason. That or
unemployment scaremongering. Really.

2) On the off chance that there is a law, _and_ you know there is, can you
afford to be without work and to pay lawyers long enough to fight to have it
enforced? Do you even know where to begin? If not, nothing happens. (think
minimum wage workers)

3) Is it worth even a small risk of a _de facto_ blacklisting in your
industry, permanently limiting your future employment options (and therefore
how much you earn)? If not, nothing happens. This is related to the "everyone
Googles you these days" thing mentioned in the article. (professionals,
skilled trades)

In the end it's riskier for to individuals, on average, to fight these things
than it is for businesses to break the law, so little is ever done. That's
assuming there was even a law to be broken.

Collective action (class action lawsuits, for example) can help but is nearly
impossible to organize effectively without unions, which we've been
successfully convinced to hate on principle. Every so often there's a lawsuit,
businesses are slapped with fine that's a rounding error in their account
books, everything goes on as normal.

------
rebootthesystem
Legal liability would put an end to this.

Imagine this: Someone says something unfortunate or offensive at a crowded
street corner. Another person hears it and launches into a righteous
indignation frenzy. I'll call him the Lead Bully. He stirrs up others. Very
soon this turns into a physical attack and the speaker ends up in the hospital
with serious injuries.

In this case anyone would easily conclude that the Lead Bully and a number of
others should be brought to justice and suffer financial damage for their
transgressions.

Well, a lot of these online attacks are not far from my hypothetical scenario.
They are launched and stoked by a Lead Bully and stoked by them and perhaps a
small group of friends and followers. These attacks result in serious and
significant damage spanning from physical and emotional to financial.

According to the article, in Justine Sacco's case the Lead Bully was Sam
Biddle, editor of Valleywag. This person single-handedly unleashed the hordes
on Sacco. Given his position and following it is impossible to imagine he did
not understand the potential consequences of his actions. He ruined this
woman's life and quite possibly scarred her for a long time, if not for life.

Much like the street corner beating scenario, he ought to be liable for his
decision to affect someone's life. He had at least two choices in front of
him. He took the one he knew would stirr-up a hornet's nest.

The case of the guys at the tech conference is similar. Adria Richards decided
to be the Lead Bully and, as a consequence, cost a father of three kids his
job and caused much pain. I happen to also have three kids. If you are single
you have no idea what that man felt at that moment. You can guess, but you
can't know. It's horrible.

Did these people say stupid things? Probably. The way to deal with them isn't
to ruin their lives. In most cases at a street corner they would be ignored.

When I was younger a mentor said something to me that stuck. He said: Having
freedom and being free does not mean having freadom or being free from the
responsibility for your actions or what you say.

This cuts both ways. The person who utters or tweets a potentially insensitive
remark deserves to be responsible for what they said IN PROPORTION to the
nature, degree and context of the statements. The people choosing to
eviscerate them using social media ought to also be responsible in proportion
to the consequences of their actions. That would be just and fair all around.

Think before you act.

~~~
EdiX
> in Justine Sacco's case the Lead Bully was Sam Biddle

You'd be surprised to find out just how many times the Lead Bully turns out to
be Sam Biddle.

~~~
Khaine
No I wouldn't. There are no words to describe how big of an arsehole he is.

------
Kalium
This is call-out culture at work. There is no room for error, no tolerance for
people who do not agree with you 110%. To make any mistake or disagree with
The Group is cause for expulsion and lynching.

------
darkmighty
The core problem here is ironically the effectiveness of online media to
broadcast personal opinions. An "offensive"/"revolting" message can be spread
exponentially quickly with only a small effort by each participant. Add to
that the statistical tendency of a small group of people to be _extremely
offended_ by certain innocuous messages without the opposing effect: people
are usually either offended or simply don't care -- guess what effect always
prevails!

To illustrate, if your message randomly spread to cause a response to 100k
people, and on average each person dedicates 1 minute on it due to
offense/indignation/etc, collectively ~1600 hours or 70 days will be spent on
it. If a single person is the target of this effort, it can be disastrous.

I don't think we're going to have any less effective social media in the
future (nor should we); neither do I believe in the near term people will be
much more enlightened as to collectively avoid strong reactions directed at
individuals.

So the only way to be strongly opinionated in public online is through
anonymity (or through being a "brand" \-- a celebrity, a comic, etc, but not
the case for the average person). Major companies (facebook,google,...) fail
to see this fundamental aspect of the internet: anonimity is a basic tool. We
need the hierarchy where our personal communications are more transparent and
the more public they become the more anonymous we can be.

------
sharkweek
I wonder about this a lot - in 15-20 years, political candidates / public
figures will have hundreds of things they have said online embarrassing their
campaigns/images. Do we all just become more accepting of sarcasm, racism, bad
jokes, etc? Is it a step backwards or is it a step forward?

I can tell you for a fact I'm sure things on my Twitter account could likely
be taken out of context as I can sometimes be a bit of a "Larry David" with my
public observations that I can't help but share.

~~~
danielweber
A lot of the people planning to be politicians are purposefully keeping their
current digital life clean.

CJ John Roberts knew from a young age he wanted to be Chief Justice.
(Overachiever, but lots of us on HN are overachievers.) He kept his record
_very_ clean. He never even got a speeding ticket.

And I totally see understand why: he was aware of how the media pick apart
people, and who knows what one tiny thing might spiral out of control.

But it means the CJ, when making ruling about police stops, has never actually
experienced something the majority of Americans have, and the Court loses some
bit of useful perspective.

------
will_brown
In addition to the _research_ of 18-19th century public shaming, it would have
been insightful to look at Court Opinions from early Freedom of Speech cases.

Believe it or not this mob response is exactly what is meant to keep speech in
check, of course the Court's verbiage is not mob rule, rather "the market
place of ideas." The law only cares about the Government not prohibiting
speech, otherwise the Court's generally expect the speech itself to be
accepted/promoted or rejected in the market place of ideas.

One example of accounting for ones words which didn't rise to the level of
Court Ordered public shaming, is Lincoln's ridiculing local politicians
through anonymous letters. On one occasion when Lincoln's true identity was
found out, Lincoln was challenged to a dual. Lincoln himself did not want to
dual, and was lucky enough that on the day of the dual the dual was cancelled.
From that point forward Lincoln never wrote a critical letter of anyone, and
made it a point never to criticize anyone for anything. This is a story that
is more fully described in How to Win Friends and Influence People.

------
infinite8s
I believe people are fundamentally unable to comprehend the impact of having
anything they do or say available to anybody in the world to witness and
critique (probably a reflection of Dunbar's number - as social primates, we've
been limited to small social non-anonymous circles for the majority of our
evolution).

The issue is that up until the development of the internet (and particularly
the social internet), most people weren't subject to this degree of anonynous
public exposure. Before twitter and facebook, news outlets were the only
exposure, and because of scalability issues, they typically only targeted
'noteworthy' individuals to catch them off guard. So those people learned to
hide behind PR individuals, and carefully guard their words and actions when
in the public eye.

------
ChikkaChiChi
The article cites the destruction of self-respect as being in some ways worse
than a punishment of death. I could argue that those that participate in this
sort of public shaming have a lack of self-respect and seek the thrill of
dragging everyone else down to their level.

Sadly, there will never be a lack of self-confidence, which means that there
will never be a shortage of these sorts of things happening.

I wish humanity was better than this.

~~~
spb
> I could argue that those that participate in this sort of public shaming
> have a lack of self-respect and seek the thrill of dragging everyone else
> down to their level.

I think this idea is well-reflected in the movie _Precious_ , when Precious's
mother is put on the spot for abusing Precious and is forced to confront her
motivations:

> Mary Lee Johnston: But, those... those things she told you I did to her?
> Who... who... who else was going to love me? Who else was going to touch me?
> Who else was going to make me feel good about myself?

------
ffn
Social media has taken the power formerly belonging only to politicians and
famous actors and distributed it statistically over the masses. For normal
people suddenly getting famous over something is a lot like electrons in a
lower orbit jumping to a higher one - it's completely based on chance
(incidentally, there is also a sort of uncertainty principle for social media:
if you know what you're saying, then you don't know how famous you are
becoming, and if you know how famous you're becoming, you don't know what
you're saying). So anytime you say something on social media, you run the risk
of getting infamous over something really dumb. This is all the more reason to
learn to talk to one's friends using email, phone, real-life communication, or
other "defunct" methods of interaction such as AIM, and use social media only
professionally.

If you think about it, this rather makes sense. Why should centralized
agencies like Facebook, Twitter, or Google determine how I interact with my
personal friends?

------
facepalm
I feel a bit more relaxed now that I have received many rejections to job
applications. Since people won't hire me anyway, might as well be outspoken
about my opinions.

Before I really struggled with the issue. It goes against my values to shut
up, but I know it is probably wiser to do so.

------
S_A_P
The only people that can get away with a tweet like that are stand up
comedians. The tweet in the article sounds almost verbatim what a comedian
like Amy Schumer would say on stage.I guess it is a reality of social media. I
dont know that I have ever felt compelled to police social media. Sure it
takes so little investment to involve yourself in some drama that in real life
would require more work, and most peoples sense of shame prevents them from
partaking in.

I almost wonder if the best way to handle a scenario like this is to go FULL
TROLL MODE and up the ante. Blow out your own credibility so that people
realize they are wasting their energy on nonsense.

------
doughj3
Another relevant instance from last Summer:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7869644](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7869644)

------
swatow
I see a lot of hypocrisy from the left on this issue. When their mobs attack
someone, they say that if you express an opinion, other people have the right
to criticize you for it. But when the left are attacked by mobs, they describe
the actions of the mobs as harassment, and either get the law involved, eg
through restraining orders, or lobby for more laws. The ambiguous nature of
these laws, both existing and proposed, encourage this double standard.

------
jstalin
If I say something stupid to a group of friends, usually they'll tell me it's
stupid or I said something wrong, and everyone moves on. If I say something
stupid on twitter, it's literally archived forever. Another reason I'm glad
I've disconnected from all social media. I'll keep my stupid, non-politically
correct jokes in my own head.

~~~
celticninja
set up a twitter account and dont link it to your real name. sign up through a
vpn, say waht you want and dont worry about it. unless what you say is
actually illegal no one can really track you down without getting your login
IP address from twitter. People get tracked down because they link it to their
PSN/XBOX/FB account or reuse usernames between twitter and somewhere else they
have left personal details.

I have a twitter accout that I set up through TOR and a VPN. I use a username
I have never used elsewhere. I dont post anything controversial but I would be
pretty happy that I could not be traced without someone obtaining a court
order requiring twitter to hand over my IP address, even then it would point
to a VPN that (supposedly) does not keep logs.

~~~
Nicholas_C
Do you not interact with friends on Twitter? Not having that takes a lot of
the fun out of Twitter.

~~~
celticninja
Nope. I interact with them on WhatsApp, text message, email, phone and in
person. Twitter is like a crappy version of text messaging on a feature phone
for chatting with friends.

------
gadders
I think some people don't feel fully validated or had a complete day unless
they have found something online to be outraged about.

~~~
to3m
This has long been the raison d'etre of downmarket UK newspapers The Daily
Mail and The Daily Express.

~~~
gadders
A fair point. Also Comment is Free in the Guardian.

------
mkhalil
I don't wish to comment on how sensitive people get. The masses have spoken,
and there is nothing she could of done except face that fact and deal with it
responsibly.

I do have a problem with one getting fired over a joke - debatable how "funny"
it is - on a personal Twitter account. Would a tenured professor be fired over
it? Nah....

------
jqm
"As Sacco’s flight traversed the length of Africa, a hashtag began to trend
worldwide: #HasJustineLandedYet. “Seriously. I just want to go home to go to
bed, but everyone at the bar is SO into #HasJustineLandedYet."

Who are these people? Really nothing better to do than that? I just don't
understand.

------
kefka
So far, what I see is:

"Don't use Twitter."

And on the smaller side is "Don't upload shit to social media."

~~~
fennecfoxen
You missed the bigger point, then: Mob justice is a barbaric and ugly thing;
stop patting yourself on the back and thinking you're a good person for being
a part of it.

~~~
paganel
This is not about justice, it's about a bad human being getting what she
deserved. When you're an open racist you are a bad human being.

~~~
fennecfoxen
> This is not about _justice_ , it's about a bad human being _getting what she
> deserved_.

... I'm sorry, I thought we were using the English language here and that we
had a seven-letter Latin-derived word that we generally used to describe the
situation of "[person] getting what [he/she] deserved". Perhaps I erred.
_Entschuldigung; tut mir leid._

But regardless, even accepting the (modestly tendentious) assertion that this
is about a Bad Human Being, angry mobs following the Outrage Of The Moment and
out for blood are hideous and disgusting phenomena themselves at the best of
times. The modern justice system was largely invented to counter these
barbarous shortcomings, which is why we have nice things like presumption of
innocence, rights of the accused, impartial trials, the notion of the
_finitude_ of one's debt to society, et cetera.

------
6stringmerc
_Instead, she said, she just felt personally humiliated._

Well, if I'm wearing a Nike hat, Nike t-shirt, Nike running pants, Nike shoes,
and a Nike employee badge and make a joke in poor taste at a bar / mall /
airport / etc, and the crowd turns to look at me with contempt for the humor
in poor taste, it might reflect bad on Nike. The personal humiliation part is
being called out in public on making a bad joke. She wasn't just personally
humiliated, she was professionally humiliated. Job in PR = maybe know about
PR...at least the "Do's and Don'ts" for survival.

It happens, which is why I suppose my Dad taught me early on that if I make a
joke at the expense of somebody who is bigger, stronger, and angrier at the
world than me, they might punch me out. Can happen in a bar, a grocery store,
a parking lot, a motel lobby...it's life. That seems to apply to the internet
as well, albeit with some caveats...never let your private thoughts wave
around a company banner...

------
marcusgarvey
The term "public shaming" doesn't feel quite right for describing a response
to what someone chose to do in public, of their own free will, in forums that
are meant for dialogue. "Negative reaction" or "backlash" or might be better.

------
goblin89
“This American penchant for absolution via irony is foreign to them.”

(Late D. F. Wallace, Infinite Jest)

------
ElComradio
I would encourage anyone against these lynch mob driven decisions to
investigate the companies IAC owns and if possible cease doing business with
them, and to let them know why. In particular, OKCupid is in their portfolio.

~~~
jgh
Care to elaborate?

------
stevebot
weird to think about, but what if the scenario had been different and her
account was hacked? How would it have gone, would there have been any
vindication or recovery or would she have ended up in the same boat?

------
hashberry
Ever notice how most "Social Justice Warriors" are women who love to stir up
drama? As the NYTimes article states, this incident was highly entertaining to
many people.

------
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.

------
swamp40
Cool scrolling visual effect with those birds in the top illustration. Wonder
if it was intentional?

------
keepkalm
It seems like more than just one stupid tweet.

------
gumby
On a tangental meta point: this is a good, solid piece of _reportage_ [1]
which is increasingly uncommon. The author talked to a number of people over a
long period of time and uncovered subtleties that typically are ignored these
days. A particularly nice touch was to use of a relatively recent historical
reference from the mid 18th century. Mob justice and public shaming go back
millennia and it would have been easy to pull out a roman or biblical
reference. But he found one that actually focussed on the victimhood of the
transgressor. Lovely.

(Sorry to use a French term; I'm not intending to be pretentious, it's just
that the term "journalism" has been debased to the point where it is now
casually used to refer to advertising).

~~~
valgaze
It's b/c it's the NYTimes-- they actually do reporting & journalism.

There's seems to be a lot of piggybacking/freeloading off of original
reporting. I was involved with a project that got a big splashy NYTimes write
up and it was astonishing in the coming days to see how many joker press
outlets basically crimped off the Times' original reporting. They'd include a
link and all that but they'd lift the juciest quotes/content and the only
thing they'd contribute was some usually sassy commentary.

Here's a really vivid example-- great write up about Target detecting a
pregnancy from purchase data:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-
habits.h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-
habits.html?pagewanted=all)

It's a great little news nugget- provocative, interesting, yadda yadda.

And then before you know it, all these "summary"/"reaction" stories get
published which didn't exactly contribute much or move the ball down the
field:

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-
targe...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-
figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/)

[http://techland.time.com/2012/02/17/how-target-knew-a-
high-s...](http://techland.time.com/2012/02/17/how-target-knew-a-high-school-
girl-was-pregnant-before-her-parents/)

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2102859/How-
Target-k...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2102859/How-Target-knows-
shoppers-pregnant--figured-teen-father-did.html)

[http://www.businessinsider.com/the-incredible-story-of-
how-t...](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-incredible-story-of-how-target-
exposed-a-teen-girls-pregnancy-2012-2)

I'm not sure if this is a real problem or not, but it seems kind of lame that
those other groups get to sit on their cans and pontificate while others get
out of their offices.

~~~
Brakenshire
See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churnalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churnalism):

> In his book Flat Earth News,[3] the British journalist Nick Davies reported
> a study at Cardiff University by Professor Justin Lewis and a team of
> researchers[4] which found that 80% of the stories in Britain's quality
> press were not original and that only 12% of stories were generated by
> reporters.[1]

------
paulhauggis
This is the reality of social media. If you offend the wrong person, you will
most likely get fired from your job and or get unwanted attention in other
parts of your life..all for just expressing an opinion.

It's essentially online bullying by people that want to silence you for having
an opinion that is different than their own.

The ex-Mozilla CEO knows this well. An online bullying campaign was launched
against him and he was forced to quit.

I see this especially in many of the open source and tech communities, which
is why I no longer contribute.

I also don't post anything political on my Facebook account. A future employer
may look at this and judge me before I'm even hired..and decide not to hire
me. Just looking at my list of friends, most people don't seem to realize that
this may be a problem.

The same power that gives special interest groups and individuals the ability
to launch campaigns to get people fired gives companies the power to not hire
you based on your lifestyle or personal beliefs.

~~~
gnopgnip
Would society really be any better off if people aren't held accountable for
what they say?

~~~
jakejake
I kinda agree, a PR person of all people should be held accountable for making
a terrible joke that comes off as racist.

The problem is just the reaction of a mob of arm chair vigilantes thinking
they are each delivering some unique tiny bit of justice with their comments,
emails or calls. It's a death by a thousand cuts, not to mention the nut-cases
who send horrible threats of violence and worse.

It's obviously something ingrained in our DNA, it reminds me of nature
documentaries - watching a group of apes attack one of their own who they
perceive as weak.

~~~
spb
[McMurphy:] "Is this the usual pro-cedure for these Group Ther'py shindigs?
Bunch of chickens at a peckin' party?"

[…]

[Harding:]"A 'pecking party'? I fear your quaint down-home speech is wasted on
me, my friend. I have not the slightest inclination what you're talking
about."

"Why then, I'll just explain it to you." McMurphy raises his voice; though he
doesn't look at the other Acutes listening behind him, it's them he's talking
to. "The flock gets sight of a spot of blood on some chicken and they all go
to peckin' at it, see, till they rip the chicken to shreds, blood and bones
and feathers. But usually a couple of the flock gets spotted in the fracas,
then it's their turn. And a few more gets spots and gets pecked to death, and
more and more. Oh, a peckin' party can wipe out the whole flock in a matter of
a few hours, buddy, I seen it. A mighty awesome sight. The only way to prevent
it-with chickens-is to clip blinders on them. So's they can't see."

~~~
jakejake
great quote from a great movie. It's bizarre how much animal behavior we have
in us when you look closely.

~~~
spb
This is actually from the book, which is worth reading (also required reading,
in some American high schools).

------
Kenji
Stuff like that is analogous to threatening or killing cartoonists who mock
Muhammad (that is, insanely extreme reactions to relatively innocuous
actions). We just happen to agree with these cartoons, therefore we take the
side of the cartoonists. The mindset described in this article (social justice
bullying) is as much a hinderance to free speech as islamic extremism. But we
are blind to it.

~~~
matthewmacleod
I find it difficult to believe you actually think that – it's not really a
self-consistent viewpoint, given that what you describe as 'social justice
bullying' is _absolutely_ free speech.

~~~
Kenji
What is a hinderance to freedom of speech is not the bullying itself, but the
mindset behind it. If you can't make a foolish joke without having your entire
life ruined and getting fired, then yes that is the very definition of lack of
freedom of speech. Getting fired for a joke, come on? Action and reaction are
completely disproportionate. But worry not, I will absorb the downvotes like a
sponge for I know that my common sense has not gone missing yet.

~~~
matthewmacleod
I do agree that having one's life ruined over this sort of thing is
disproportionate, and that's something worth talking about. But we've got to
be careful not to overreact to this sort of thing, which just results in
shouting matches.

Let's remember that it's one thing to 'make a foolish joke', and it's another
thing to 'make a foolish joke in front of millions of people.' One of the
issues here is the lack of understand that people have about the act of
publishing, and I think we'd be better focusing on that.

------
freeasinfree
Comedians say much worse on a daily basis and rarely catch any flack. Are
regular people not allowed to make jokes?

~~~
bhayden
That is my issue with this. Daniel Tosh makes sexist, racist, and rape jokes
on a daily basis and people at large aren't up in arms threatening to strike
if he visits their workplace. To me this says these psuedo-activists care more
about picking on an easy target than actually preventing hurtful speech. Not
to mention the hypocrisy of many of those tweets when they call her a bitch,
or send her death threats.

~~~
icebraining
I'll let another comedian, George Carlin, explain:

 _There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of those words in and of
themselves. They’re only words. It’s the context that counts. It’s the user.
It’s the intention behind the words that makes them good or bad. The words are
completely neutral. The words are innocent. I get tired of people talking
about bad words and bad language._

 _Bullshit! It’s the context that makes them good or bad. The context. That
makes them good or bad. For instance, you take the word “Nigger.” There is
absolutely nothing wrong with the word “Nigger” in and of itself. It’s the
racist asshole who’s using it that you ought to be concerned about. We don’t
care when Richard Pryor or Eddie Murphy say it._

 _Why? Because we know they’re not racist. They’re Niggers! Context. Context._

 _We don’t mind their context because we know they’re black._

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pksx_IAHDE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pksx_IAHDE)

In this case, people know the context of Daniel Tosh's words, therefore they
don't mind. They minded here, because a Tweet has no context.

------
joesmo
Our culture, or lack thereof, is just unbelievable. If a comedian had made
that joke, it likely would have been no problem for him (there would still
have been some outrage no doubt), but people assume everything is so serious,
even when there is no logical reason to assume so. What infuriates me is that
the masses let idiots deny climate change and talk about how vaccines will
give you autism without shaming them, yet they destroy people's lives for
posting, let's face it, a funny joke. If you want to shame someone for being a
scumbag, there are plenty of targets but no one is doing it. If you want to
shame someone because you failed to understand the meaning of her statement,
however, that seems to be the zeitgeist. Why go after a real target when there
are innocent people out there who really cannot defend themselves and whose
misery you can really revel in? The irony of the story of the woman who took
the picture of the guy telling the joke and then got shamed herself is quite
delicious in many ways.

Posting anything on the Internet, whether it's public or not (or rather, you
think it's public or not) that you wouldn't feel comfortable sharing with the
whole world is just stupid. Maybe people will realize this at some point.
Hell, I'm worried about my home NAS that's not connected to the outside world,
is behind two firewalls, and is encrypted. Of course, if it's that sensitive,
it doesn't belong in any digital form.

------
devopsproject
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool
than to open it and remove all doubt - mark twain

~~~
profinger
+1

------
spain
Interesting article, though I wonder why the title here on Hacker News is "How
One Stupid Tweet Ruined Justine Sacco's Life" whereas the title on the actual
article is "How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life."

~~~
dang
NYT likes to tinker with titles. They don't change the urls as often, so if
you look at the url you'll sometimes see the original title.

------
FD3SA
Humans are sexually dimorphic primates. Primates form status hierarchies
spontaneously. Status is zero sum. Higher status males mate with the majority
of females. Low status males do not reproduce at all.

We are descendants of 40% of males and 80% of females. As religious and
legally enforced monogamy decline across all societies, we will see
increasingly vicious status wars across all human societies.

This writer is double dipping for his status points, as not only did he
specialize in attacking the status of others, but is now acting as the
merciful lord who has chosen to forgive those sinful peasants. Clever.

Monogamy was an aberration and an affront to nature, because it forced average
females to mate with average males, robbing them of their desire for the
highest status male's genetic material. In the past, male resource
provisioning was important, but the state has nullified that variable by
providing for all.

Status reigns supreme. Defend yours at all costs. Oh, and the best defense is
a great offense. Ah homo sapiens...such a fascinating species.

~~~
SafariDevelop
Uhh, what is the connection here? And how are you so sure that status wars did
not happen as much, if only in different forms, during the days of "enforced
monogamy"?

~~~
FD3SA
My mistake, I should have been more clear. The current "political correctness"
paradigm along with all of its associated hate mobs is a ferocious status
competition as a result of the unmet sexual and pair-bonding needs of singles.

Single males and females are different, in that females hold out for the
absolute highest status man for as long as possible, whereas males try to
poach any female who meets their minimum fertility requirements. Both end up
frustrated as dimorphic sexes have different sexual optimization strategies
which are impossible to satisfy simultaneously.

What's important to note is the psychological state of singleness, and its
resulting anxiety, is far more damaging than the actual lack of intercourse.
In the past, religious and social institutions attempted to prevent this by
encouraging early marriage and enforcing it with strict penalties. In the past
few decades, all of this has changed rapidly along with the development of
effective contraception.

This confluence of factors has thus lead to fiercer competition for each sex
as they double down on their strategies, both of which involve status as the
main currency. Males attempt to hoard status, and females attempt to attract
it. As such, we see far more ruthless status posturing and attacking, of which
this article lists many examples.

I did not believe my comments to be controversial, as any cursory glance of
the relevant scientific literature will reveal the mundane facts I've stated.
However, it appears my statements trigger an immune response in a group of HN
readers, for reasons that I can only guess involve discomfort with the
somewhat disturbing reality of man's evolutionary origins and predispositions.

I commend you for asking a question rather than reflexively recoiling in
disgust. I do believe we will have to confront our natures eventually. Running
from the mirror rarely works long term.

~~~
SafariDevelop
I did find your original comment interesting, but wasn't sure about its
relevance to this article. This comment is more clarifying, thanks.

I agree with your evopsych explanation. Political correctness is to do with
status, as noted by Kristian at [http://www.iea.org.uk/blog/the-economics-of-
political-correc...](http://www.iea.org.uk/blog/the-economics-of-political-
correctness) but even he doesn't go so far as to connect it to sexual
competition. Sexual competition, especially without enforced 1-on-1 pairings
(e.g.: marriage of the past), does lead to conflict. Cases like that of Elliot
Rodgers come to my mind.

However I'm not convinced that enforced monogamy has seen less conflict than
modern times. Can you back this argument with statistics? For example, did
crime rate increase? My feeling is that even in the good old days where 1-on-1
marriage was the norm, high-status males still surreptitiously poached females
paired with lower-status males. Per certain writers even the Victorian Era was
not immune to it.

Pinker suggests that violence has in fact declined over time:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature)

~~~
FD3SA
There is a widely observed empirical correlation between out of wedlock births
and poor outcomes for children, who grow to be dysfunctional adults. This is
was the first article from google when I searched the terms [1]. An excerpt:

"However, results of the study conclude that compared with "traditional
families," parents of fragile families are more likely to have become parents
in their teens, more likely to have had children with other partners, more
likely to be poor, suffer from depression, struggle with substance abuse, and
to have been incarcerated."

Aggregate crime may have decreased, but it is because we are still in the
unraveling phase of widespread monogamy. Once its vestiges have fully eroded,
then we will see the results.

1\. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lavar-young/children-out-of-
we...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lavar-young/children-out-of-
wedlock_b_868193.html)

------
malkia
Wondering why no one came up with "I'm Justine Sacco"

------
karangoeluw
How is she is victim here? How is Twitter bad here?

She made two racist comments in 1 tweet on her own will. That is not something
that should be taken lightly, no matter what the platform.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm not commenting on whether firing her was fair or
not, but rather how her completely intentional tweets makes Twitter the bad
guy.

~~~
paganel
Exactly. You get to pay for your very stupid mistakes, especially those that
affect other people (like this lady's tweet did).

~~~
tjic
How, exactly, did her tweet affect people?

...unless you standard for "affect" covers all communication. In which case,
you're saying "People should pay for the sin of expressing an opinion or
making a joke".

...and perhaps you are.

~~~
paganel
> How, exactly, did her tweet affect people?

Have you ever been the victim or racism? If not, let's say you're in an open
group, you're of a certain nationality (let's call it X), and some other
member of that group starts making racist or xenophobic jokes about your
race/nationality.

By mistake my skin is white (so I've never been the victim of racist
jokes/looks, even though my brother, whose skin is browner, has been a victim
of said racist jokes), but being from a not-so-important-East-European country
I've been the victim of xenophobic remarks/jokes coming from people "with the
best intentions". They always, I mean always, hurt. It also hurts me why I
have to explain on HN why racist jokes hurt people. I've been in this
community for lots of years and never thought I'd see this day.

~~~
ptaipale
> By mistake my skin is white (so I've never been the victim of racist
> jokes/looks ...

Are you serious?

That white people couldn't be victims of racism? That only white people can be
racist? You've never met even just funny looks? Then you haven't been out to
the world too much.

I'm a big, white European, and when I was in China, I could hear myself being
referred to as "laowai" "or dabizi". I could have gotten mad, because yes
indeed by nose is big by Chinese standards and this is a reference to my
racial features, but I chose to carry on. The people mostly meant nothing bad.
Even the ones that actually maybe thought bad of me - possibly associating me
with Western colonialism, of which I or my country were quite innocent - did
nothing bad to me, so I let it be.

When our family went to the zoo, we were looking at the pandas, and a hundred
people were looking at us (Look! Three white kids!). Very slow looks. It may
be a bit awkward, but needs to be tolerated. I was just as much in awe when I
saw the first black person in my life.

But perhaps I can do this because there was nothing I could gain by acquiring
a victim identity. I'll leave getting mad to a time when someone actually
_tries_ to insult me.

------
lazyjones
Aren't all these Twitter sh*tstorms over within a few days, or in the worst
case, weeks? People should just sit them out and not panic / call their lives
ruined. Seems to work even for politicians.

~~~
tjic
Pax Dickinson is still unemployed a year later.

People's names become toxic. Note that the Donglegate guy wouldn't let his
name be used, and another woman in the article wouldn't do a followup
interview.

~~~
ForHackernews
To be fair, Pax Dickinson wasn't _one_ stupid tweet, it was a pattern of awful
shit over years. At some point, it's not a careless lapse anymore, you're just
a d-bag. A few examples:

"In The Passion Of The Christ 2, Jesus gets raped by a pack of niggers. It's
his own fault for dressing like a whore though."

"aw, you can't feed your family on minimum wage? well who told you to start a
fucking family when your skills are only worth minimum wage?"

"Who has more dedication, ambition, and drive? Kobe only raped one girl,
Lebron raped an entire city. +1 for Lebron."

And arguably the worst, for a freaking CTO:

"Tech managers spend as much time worrying about how to hire talented female
developers as they do worrying about how to hire a unicorn."

Would _you_ hire that guy to represent your company?

~~~
cheald
The first tweet, which seems to be the one that people reacted most strongly
to, is pretty clearly a lampooning of Mel Gibson. I suspect most people missed
that, though. It's distasteful, but it's not exactly Dickinson himself
expressing racist, victim-blaming sentiments; it's a mockery of them.

The second is a pretty standard libertarian talking-point (which is more
"personal responsibility rah rah rah" than "yay, starving poor people!"). The
third I don't really get (but I don't really follow basketball), and the
fourth I suspect you're misinterpreting as "Tech managers don't want to hire
women", when I think it's more "Tech managers don't care about the gender of
their developers"; the truth of the statement is debatable, but I do think it
takes some willful effort to read that and be offended by it.

I think Dickinson made unwise choices in how he chose to tweet, but I also
think the backlash he's suffered has been orders of magnitude worse than the
offense. He has been made _persona non grata_ to the point of being
unemployable over a handful of ill-considered tweets - he's unemployable now
because of the extent to which people have gone to associate him and anyone
associated with him with racism, rape, and sexism - regardless of the reality
of his actions.

On one hand, he's suffering the consequences of his decisions (see tweet #2
for some schadenfreude). On the other, because the internet loves a shitstorm,
it seems that the magnitude of the consequences are way out of line with the
original offense.

~~~
ForHackernews
> the fourth I suspect you're misinterpreting as "Tech managers don't want to
> hire women", when I think it's more "Tech managers don't care about the
> gender of their developers"

You're giving that the most contorted, charitable reading possible. In your
reading, the reference to a "unicorn" is nonsensical. I would argue the
accurate reading is: "Tech managers don't spend time worrying about hiring
talented women because [like unicorns] they are mythical and don't exist."

Now, the further implications behind that statement might be:

a) Talented female developers _are_ rare--we need to make serious efforts to
improve the educational pipeline and get more young girls interested in
programming.

b) Talented female developers are rare, but it's not the tech industry's job
to worry or care about that.

c) Talented female developers aren't rare, but [usually male] hiring managers
are too blinded by sexism to recognize them.

> regardless of the reality of his actions.

That's the thing. We don't know the reality of his actions. Based only on his
tweets (I don't know him personally), he certainly sounds like he _might_ be
the kind of guy who would discriminate in his hiring. He might not even do it
consciously, he'd just think "Well, I only hire the best" and in his mind,
"the best" does not include women.

~~~
cheald
If you take that tweet in isolation and read it as a comparison of female
developers to unicorns, then sure, I can see how you arrive at that
conclusion. I think it's a faulty conclusion, and I think that its faultiness
is further illustrated by his response to the whole drama, in which he
explicitly clarified his stance of female developers. My reading of it is
based on what I know of him, which does not consist solely of a Valleywag
article and four tweets.

You're exemplifying the worst of the Twitter lynchmob problem here; you took a
tweet, extrapolated it into a full sum of a person, and then don't bother to
establish any further context and have decided that the author is a racist,
sexist psychopath based on a context-free reading of a one-sentence statement.
That's great for feeling superior to people, but it's pretty awful for useful
dialog.

~~~
ForHackernews
> illustrated by his response to the whole drama, in which he explicitly
> clarified his stance of female developers.

I mean, obviously he's going to say that. I'm not sure how much stock you want
to put into after-the-fact PR damage control. I think actions speak louder
than words, and I'd reserve judgment before hearing from some of the women
developers who he's hired (he has hired women, right?) about how he was to
work under, what he was like as a boss (not as a co-founder).

You accuse me of "exemplifying the worst of the Twitter lynchmob problem" but
I'm trying hard to be as neutral and generous as possible. I listed three
possible implications of that tweet, only one of which is explicitly negative,
and you claim I've "decided that the author is a racist, sexist psychopath".
If anyone is guilty of twitter-like hyperbole in this conversation, it's you.

~~~
cheald
Well, there are both of these, in which the women who worked with him defend
him (Julie Sommerville in particular):

[http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/11/ladyboss/](http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/11/ladyboss/)

[http://www.amyvernon.net/glimpse/why-ive-joined-glimpse-
labs...](http://www.amyvernon.net/glimpse/why-ive-joined-glimpse-labs/)

If you _didn 't_ think that Dickinson was being a racist, misogynistic,
victim-blaming rape apologist, why those tweets in particular? This whole
discussion is happening in the implict context of the Valleywag article that
touched this whole thing off, where those explicit accusations were made with
those tweets as evidence - we aren't discussing this issue in a vacuum here.
They're certainly in bad taste, but bad taste doesn't deserve the accusations
that he's had thrown at him. You listed multiple implications of the tweet,
but then called it "the worst" of a lot that include jokes with racial slurs
about rape of a venerated religious figure, so it's pretty safe to infer that
you aren't giving it any of the charitable readings; if you were, it wouldn't
be anything worth mentioning!

My point in all of this, relevant to the original article, is that these sorts
of accusations can have a profound and disproportionate impact on those
affected, even if the truth is something else entirely. I think it's
unfortunate that Dickinson was fired from BI because they couldn't afford to
have the accusations against him associated with their brand (and note that it
was the baggage that was the issue, not him _actually being_ a misogynist to
his employees or whatnot), but I don't think it's an unreasonable response -
he made a bad choice in what he said, and he suffered the consequences of it.
I do think it's unreasonable that he remains effectively unemployable because
of the bogeyman that has been constructed around his name in which those
tweets are trotted out with accusations of racism and sexism every time
someone mentions him.

~~~
ForHackernews
> why those tweets in particular?

Because those are the tweets that got him fired. Obviously!

Fine, let's say Pax Dickinson is a completely wonderful guy without a bigoted
bone in his body.

He still showed _monumentally_ bad judgment. I don't buy your premise that
losing your C-level position (and being unable to find another one) after
carrying on for years the way he did is such a "profound and disproportionate
impact". He demonstrated repeatedly that he's not willing to comport himself
in a professional way in public. I also dispute that he is "effectively
unemployable". He can certainly go get a job at McDonalds, because he's
demonstrated that he's unqualified to be a corporate executive.

Edit: After reading the links you sent, it seems like the women he's worked
with don't have a problem with him. So maybe he's not an asshole, he just
plays one on twitter.

Still, you've really shot your own argument in the foot here:

> Shevinsky told me just the other day that she was still a bit uncertain
> about Dickinson after returning to Glimpse. “I was hoping he wouldn’t blow
> _his second chance_ , because a third chance would be a challenge.” _Now
> he’s co-founder of a company_ with a strong female CEO and a strong female
> advisor

Tell me again about how he's "effectively unemployable" and has
disproportionately had his career destroyed forever?

~~~
cheald
Yeah, he showed bad judgement. I'm not sure I agree that it was "monumentally
bad". The fact of the matter is that he lost his job and has baggage that
follows him around because people continue to perpetuate the Valleywag-
constructed outrage, not because of actual behavioral sexism or racism (the
accusations of which pretty rapidly evaporate upon closer inspection). It's
not something that will blow over in a couple of weeks, because it's an
enormous straw man that has taken on a life of its own at this point.

Regarding employability, you'll note that article is from Dec 2013. He's now
gone from Glimpse.

> I also knew that I was holding Elissa back. I know my baggage was hurting
> the company. We were asked to insert clauses that would strip my equity if I
> “embarrassed” the company and it’s reasonable to assume that my presence as
> co-founder made other VCs shy away from us, which is heartbreaking to me
> because Elissa is fucking amazing and deserves better than that.

He further writes:

> My career has been irretrievably damaged. I’ll always have trouble finding a
> job. It used to be easy for me but even a year later I find that recruiters
> shy away and applications to jobs I’m well qualified for don’t result in a
> call back. I’m not worried, I know that with enough time I’ll find someone
> who doesn’t mind my notoriety given my skills, but I’ll always pay a very
> real price for this whole incident.

If he says it's still following him around, I'm inclined to believe him,
because...well, he'd be the one to know.

------
taylorwc
I think they article would more aptly have been titled, "How One Thoughtless
Public Expression of Justine Sacco's Lack of Judgment and Racism Had
Consequences." Really hard to feel sympathy for her.

~~~
theorique
How about, "one ironic joke, and then a long flight where she could not
communicate that she was being ironic, cost Justine Sacco a lot".

She wasn't being racist, she was lampooning American insularity.
Unfortunately, a lot of people didn't get that it was a joke, and/or didn't
get the joke, and she paid the price.

~~~
taylorwc
Even if one were to give her the benefit of the doubt on whether or not her
tweets express racist sentiment, there's still a stupendous lack of judgment
on her part. She's saying things publicly, associated with her name. Anyone
who expresses something in that fashion should be fully prepared to deal with
backlash. She should have the right to express her views, even if they are
unpopular--and she should be willing to handle the consequences.

~~~
theorique
Perhaps, but in this case, the consequences were really disproportionate to
the "crime".

Here's what "should" have happened:

<sacco>: <original tweet>

<public>: Hey, that's really racist.

<sacco>: Oh, I didn't mean it that way - I'm making fun of American
insularity.

<public>: OK, I still don't like it, but I get what you meant now.

~~~
taylorwc
I agree with you that there was an overreaction. But that's a risk each of us
runs when we publish something via a public medium. Any time I want to publish
something, whether it's a private SMS, a tweet, a comment on HN, or something
else, I'm obliged to consider its content, and make a judgment call on whether
it's appropriate. If I'm wrong, I have to deal with it.

------
lbarrow
How was her life ruined? She lost her job, then got a new one. Her life seems
fine.

~~~
mynameisvlad
Did you even read the article?

\- She _was_ jobless for a period of time, and there's a lot of stress that
comes with that.

\- Her family seemed to be set on disowning her for tarnishing their name.

\- She can't date without someone Googling her and most likely being turned
off by what they find.

~~~
venomsnake
Turned off by what? A tweet ... unless for couple of million participants in
the oppression olympics, for the sane people having said or done something
offensive is not a big deal.

~~~
mynameisvlad
If so many people were offended on the internet, is it _that_ big of a stretch
that people in real life might be turned off too? Just because you or I don't
think it's a big deal does not mean that others might share the same opinion.
I could _easily_ see how someone might be turned off, especially before
actually meeting the person.

~~~
venomsnake
Actually yes. Internet is not real and is the place where everyone overreacts.

As long as she is above the hot/crazy line, she won't be turned down dating
for such a petty "offence"

~~~
mynameisvlad
You do realize that a concept in HIMYM does not accurately apply in real life,
right?

------
moron4hire
Was it really just _one_ stupid tweet? It looks like a lot more than one to
me.

------
steven777400
Articles like this lend credence to the occasionally heard wisdom "Don't post
anything personal on the internet, ever." I tell people I think that society
is moving beyond digging into people's lives for little infractions, since
with so much social media, everyone is guilty, but apparently that's not true.
Or at least, not true yet.

------
jim_greco
1) It's an offensive tweet. Whether you intend something to be offensive or
not doesn't make it any less offensive.

2) It's very easy to pass off casual racism as a joke or a misunderstanding of
the medium after it blows up in your face.

~~~
wallyhs
You can't control what other people find offensive, and you can't avoid
offending other people. You can control your own reaction to what you find
offensive.

~~~
jim_greco
That's a very simple way to look at human interactions and it doesn't give you
a licensce to go around saying whatever you want.

------
q2
A bit off-topic but following similarity is noteworthy:

From this article:

>>> They were both to be “whipped at the public whipping post 20 stripes
each.”

 __This was year 1742. __

From the web ([http://www.news.com.au/world/middle-east/raif-badawi-to-
be-p...](http://www.news.com.au/world/middle-east/raif-badawi-to-be-publicly-
flogged-every-week-for-months-after-insulting-islam/story-
fnh81ifq-1227185842850))

>>>HE IS brought before the crowd and whipped relentlessly 50 times with a
long, hard cane.

 __This is year 2015. __

But you can notice the similarity in punishments.

We need to understand that society in every country evolves over time at its
__own pace __. This evolution can take centuries of time in some cases because
societies has to understand and readjust peacefully as much as they can.

I guess American political leadership needs to understand and remember these
parts of their history before pointing out and shaming/preaching other
countries on human rights,intolerance...etc.

