
An internet mob falsely painted a Chipotle employee as racist - curtis
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/25/us/false-racism-internet-mob-chipotle-video/index.html
======
rdiddly
Ha - they offered to hire her back and she declined. Gotta agree there. Who
wants to work for a company that outsources its hire/fire decisions to a vote
among random Twitter users?

The question now though is, are there any employers left that don't do that?

~~~
barberousse
I think it'd be naive to suppose that there's some company out there that's
gonna stand up to the mob. A company is first and foremost attempting to make
money. The mob isn't ever going to _review_ the history and actions of the
company either in the moment or even after the fact, groupthink isn't
complicated enough for that, so company's will likely default to what Chipotle
did.

~~~
atomical
Corporations can signal their values through acting morally and with regard to
the health and safety of society. Check out Patagonia. They donated $10
million saved in tax cuts to environmental groups.

Tyler Cowen covers other instances in his new book: Big Business: A Love
Letter to an American Anti-Hero.

~~~
rdiddly
So the public exposure of ordinary folks (a.k.a. "social media") has led to an
intrusion of PR into HR. Anybody in America tempted to look with scorn on
China's new social credit system would do well to notice the similarities. And
the differences aren't that surprising either - China's is controlled by the
government; ours is controlled by corporations.

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bdcravens
I remember when the news about Jussie Smollet broke, the usual SJWs on Twitter
erupted in a tweet storm like they always do. (I follow a lot of great
programmers who have a wide array of opinions and ideologies outside of their
technical expertise) As what many have come to accept as the truth came out,
no one ever retracted.

These are smart people, some of which have very high feedback here on HN. It
seems to me however that their highly tuned critical thinking skills take a
backseat to a desire to be mad about the state of the world, with little
regard or accountability to what their words can mean.

~~~
LeoPanthera
Please don't normalise the use of the term "SJW". It's use as a pejorative has
far-right origins that attempts to shame social progressivism. Those accused
of being one should be proud of promoting feminism, civil rights, and
multiculturalism. It is _not_ a bad thing.

~~~
Veen
Is everyone who doesn’t agree with “social progressivism” considered far right
now? What you’re doing is language policing, which is one of the reasons many
find SJWs offensive.

~~~
unimpressive
It is generally adversarial to call people labels they wouldn't use
themselves. Sometimes that adversarial tone is warranted. On Hacker News, in a
top level comment that's starting off the conversation is probably not one of
those places.

~~~
Veen
Adversarial in the same way as referring to anyone who isn’t a progressive as
far right?

~~~
unimpressive
Yes. Exactly like that.

------
jamesrcole
On the topic of internet mobs, the term "lapidation" was recently suggested as
a word to describe "what happens when a group of people, outraged by some real
or imagined transgression, responds in a way that is disproportionate to the
occasion, thus ruining the transgressor’s day, month, year or life."

[https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-05-23/harvar...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-05-23/harvard-
professor-falls-victim-to-group-outrage)

~~~
umanwizard
Which is the normal word for stoning in French and I assume other Latin-based
languages. Repurposing it for something else in English could get confusing.

~~~
ErikVandeWater
The suggested additional definition makes sense; it would be hard to imagine a
situation where someone would get confused and imagine a Chipotle employee was
_literally_ stoned to death.

------
blfr
Journos did the same to Nick Sandmann and IIRC CNN's people were in on it.
It's not just random tweeters, the priests of facts and truth are no better.

~~~
makomk
Journalists helped do the same to her too, apparently. It gets one sentence's
mention in the article: "The incident was covered by media organizations such
as ABC News and Fox News."

~~~
tzs
Here's the ABC News coverage [1]. Here's the Fox News coverage [2]. Both seem
reasonable. They report the accusation against her, that it went viral, that
she was fired, and that after that Tweets were found from showing that one of
the people who was refused service did apparently have a history of stealing
from restaurants.

[1] [https://abc7.com/society/chipotle-manager-fired-after-
refusi...](https://abc7.com/society/chipotle-manager-fired-after-refusing-to-
serve-customers-in-viral-video/4713130/)

[2] [https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/chipotle-fires-manager-
wh...](https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/chipotle-fires-manager-who-refused-
to-serve-black-customers-but-restaurant-admits-they-might-have-failed-to-pay-
for-meals-before)

------
liquidify
Seems like Chipotle should have to pony up for wrongful termination.

~~~
rhexs
Seems like a pretty easy settlement. Hope she gets a lot for this.

~~~
astura
My entire working life (>20 years) I've always been forced to sign an
agreement that I was an employee "at will" and either myself or the company
could terminate employment at any time for any reason or no reason at all.

Absent membership in a union, I assume she signed a similar agreement, because
it's totally standard in the US.

------
Grollicus
Another "feels" article about a problem that can only improve with more
rationality. Now for the other direction. It's good to get the word out there,
but if discussion culture stays like this it's just a question of time before
the same happens to the next victim

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wikigrrrrl
Most videos like this one are obviously attempts at demonizing innocent people
and most people who see these can easily spot such a video. It all really
depends on what the viewer chooses to believe. Sadly, there are millions of
people who will either accept the bogus claim of racism without thinking or
even watching the video or they'll simply pretend that it's the real deal and
slam the accused just to be mean.

~~~
thosakwe
> Most videos like this one are obviously attempts at demonizing innocent
> people

"Most"? Be honest.

What do you think of the other incidents mentioned in this very article, all
of which were real? Not to mention the countless other times this has
happened.

This situation is pretty clearly an anomaly - it's easy to see.

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eecc
Love the stock photo, a punk photoshop of a classic TiBook keyboard.

Sorry for the detour (wow, hold off the downvotes for a second and appreciate
this design, it’s such a pinnacle of the ‘90s and the photo edit captures it
so well. Odd that it ended up on this article... a random picture of birds
ruffling feathers would have been more apt.)

~~~
eecc
Anyway, article is an unreadable breakbeat... could be a twitter thread

Bah

