NYT article about the fallout from public shaming..

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

I think you're on to something. In the article, it tells us her previous tweet to the problematic one - something rude and snarky about a smelly German. She didn't set herself up to be likable, kwim ? 

 

A better article would have been one where she told us what she'd learned from her experiences. 

 

I don't think the article was about drumming up pity for Sacco, though. It was about the insanely disproportionate reaction to one really stupid joke and the increasing trend toward gleeful public recrimination to the point where people are getting death threats and their family members are in danger. Sacco was just one recent and particularly glaring example. 

 

People (maybe you, Sadie, I can't remember right now) keep mentioning the sexist joke at work. I don't think we know exactly what the guy said, though, do we? He says he made a joke about a piece of equipment and a large dongle. IMO, that's not automatically a sexist joke. 

[LucyStoner]

A recent This American Life has Lindy West interviewing her most vicious troll, who realized he was off the deep end.

 

Interesting piece.

 

http://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/545/if-you-dont-have-anything-nice-to-say-say-it-in-all-caps?act=1#act-1

[LucyStoner]

And by vicious, I mean this man took it on himself to create a twitter account with the name and picture of Lindy's father who had recently died from cancer and then used that account to attack her. As her dead dad. That's dialing it way up.

 

I think that the main problem with the internet is that it makes it too easy to forget that we are all human beings. He didn't see Lindy as a person and conversely, we lose sight of the fact that he's a person. I respected that she didn't dox him.

[kiwik]

The guy with the sexist joke thing could go a number of ways, the woman could have been at the end of her tether working in an environment with men telling sexist jokes either openly or behind her back (I worked with guys who joked about rape once), or she was massively over reacting maybe due to something else that had happened.

[Tsuga]

Oh, I think they understand it about the same as they understand driving safety and the risks of unprotected sex. They get it. They can repeat it all back to us. But will that translate into 100% good decisions? I sure hope so!

 

She was a 30-year-old PR professional with a degree from a top university. She was being paid six figures to know this exact thing and behave accordingly.

 

I cannot emphasize enough that my lack of sympathy for Sacco comes very much from her position of power.

 

Not to say she deserves the eternal public shaming that has ensued. She doesn't. But my sympathy is more directed at people on POWM or the young people whose friends post their stupidity online. 

 

 

 

As SWB pointed out on FB, though, the most terrifying part is the guy who made the private joke to a friend at the conference. Now we can't even speak our thoughts during a quiet moment with a friend without being vilified across the world?

 

He was being paid for that. He was there for work. It wasn't a quiet moment with a friend. It just so happened that his boss finally (maybe... maybe he just doing what he thought he had to though he'd known all along) was able to see the culture that was going on in his company and how this might affect what they were doing.

 

This was a work situation and reflected work culture. It affected how his corporation was perceived.

 

I don't agree with the woman who called him out publicly without initially standing up for herself and talking if necessary to his supervisor. I call people out at work. I have done so. So I agree she did the wrong thing but not because she interrupted his non-private moment in which she called him out for creating a negative corporate culture. That was not the problem. The problem was specifically how she addressed the issue, in which he did not have a chance to feel remorse and change his behavior based on what she said. He didn't have the chance to be a better person.

 

But for the men who make secret jokes creating a culture in which women don't feel comfortable working after-hours, or working in IT? Uh, gosh, poor them that they can't speak their thoughts at "quiet moments with friends"?

 

Zero sympathy for that.

[hornblower]

If you don't want to get called out for being a d**k then don't be a d**k.

I though the woman who posted about the joke at the conference handled it appropriately. I don't think it was really about standing up for herself & it's not up to her to give him an opportunity to be a better person.  The joke wasn't addressed to her IIRC and she was highlighting an issue endemic in the industry.

I still think much of social media is just like living in a small village again. Everyone knows you, they know if you cheat or lie or drink too much on Friday nights. That might affect the jobs you get & whether you can get a date. This is not really new to anyone who has lived in a small town or community.  If you don't like living in a small town, I think you have to be anonymous on the web or stay off it altogether.

[Word Nerd]

I though the woman who posted about the joke at the conference handled it appropriately.

 

This boggles my mind. This is the appropriate way to handle it?

She tweeted the picture to her 9,209 followers with the caption: “Not cool. Jokes about . . . ‘big’ dongles right behind me.â€

[hornblower]

This boggles my mind. This is the appropriate way to handle it?

She tweeted the picture to her 9,209 followers with the caption: “Not cool. Jokes about . . . ‘big’ dongles right behind me.â€

 

Yes. I know. 

 

I'm still at "If you don't want to get called out for being a d**k then don't be a d**k."  Calling people out publicly, esp when it's at a professional event (we're not talking about strangers at a sporting event for ex) is imo an acceptable strategy. 

 

When people are being racist, sexist, if they're making jokes about disabilities etc, I have no problem with name & shame.

[Murphy101]

Yes. I know.

 

I'm still at "If you don't want to get called out for being a d**k then don't be a d**k." Calling people out publicly, esp when it's at a professional event (we're not talking about strangers at a sporting event for ex) is imo an acceptable strategy.

 

When people are being racist, sexist, if they're making jokes about disabilities etc, I have no problem with name & shame.

I do. But if that's your view then I suppose reciprocity is fair play? If so, I don't like it, but I'm okay with what goes around came back to bite her in the bum. She lost her job for her stupid FB reaction to eavesdropping on someone else's conversation. I had a very hard time dredging sympathy for her when that happened.

[Alicia64]

My .02 about public shaming of average people who aren't politicians, celebs etc: it's fine for us to say, "We don't like what you wrote on Twitter." What bugs the heck out of me is that these people must be punished. They must lose their jobs and have their reputations ground into a pulp.

 

They must be punished.

 

I think it's ridiculous. Did the main subject of the article say something stupid? Of course. Have we all said stupid things (especially after a glass of something)? If we all had our lives decimated for saying stupid things from time to time -- every one of us would have a decimated life.

 

Alley