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Justine Sacco didn't suffer a "devastating online lynching". She got a ton of nasty tweets and emails, and she got fired from her job. She found a new job (one

by gizmo 11y ago

Justine Sacco didn't suffer a "devastating online lynching". She got a ton of nasty tweets and emails, and she got fired from her job. She found a new job (one she likes) and the internet fury eventually blew over. Unpleasant? Certainly. A lynching? Heck no. There are people who do get beaten or killed for who they are. Transgender people regularly fear for their physical safety. Minorities get abused and even killed by the police on a daily basis. So when people protest this sort of injustice online or in real life you'd expect the author to be supportive of this. Except no, she apparently considers this horrifying mob-like behavior of social justice warriors. It's the lazy stance where she supports social justice activism in theory, but when it comes down to actually protesting abuses of power (which can include rioting and other mob-like behavior) she considers it unacceptable. Never mind that historically speaking large scale public protests (= mobs) have often brought meaningful social progress. I wonder if democracy can even function without it, because people must have a way to make their voices heard when the official channels are closed to them. Don't get me wrong. Mobs are blunt instruments and without question scary. However, they're not uniquely or especially scary. So when I hear something like "[mobs] are the thing that frighten me most in the world" I have to roll my eyes. Other political issues are scarier by several orders of magnitude. Nuclear war. Global warming. NSA spying. Democracy getting hijacked. Perpetual war. Not on this list: Internet rage directed at Sacco.

tomhoward 11y ago
Sacco was home-bound for a year and now carries a stain on her character that will be with her for her entire life. All for a badly executed joke that was liberal in its intent. Sure, plenty of people have it worse in this world, but that does not mean what happened to her was "fine" and that she was/is totally "fine". Nuclear war. Global warming. NSA spying. Democracy getting hijacked. Perpetual war. All these issues depend on level-headed, reasoned debate. Mass hysteria will only make it more likely that we succumb to these threats.
- puredemo 11y ago
  It was actually a well-executed joke. Quite acerbic. Unfortunately many click-bait "journalists" were simply too thick to understand the satire.
- gizmo 11y ago
  What happened to Sacco was without question unjust. And nowhere did I suggest it was fine. Mobs are a morally neutral instrument that can be used for good or evil. If people just wanted to make the point that it's unacceptable to attack an unknown person based on a single tweet (regardless of how bad the tweet is), then that's fine. Except people extrapolate from the Sacco incident to make sweeping claims about political correctness and mob behavior. Level-headed debate is just one part of the puzzle. There's no point in having a debate if the outcome of the debate doesn't matter because the people who are having the debate are disenfranchised. At that point protests are needed. This isn't "mass hysteria". People protest because it works.
  - tomhoward 11y ago
    No-one disputes that protests like those seen in the Indian independence movement, the Civil Rights movement, the Iraq War opposition, the Arab Spring, the gay rights movement etc are extremely valuable and necessary. Where people object is where justifiable protest switches to ugly mob behaviour, including things like looting of innocent business operators, indiscriminate violence and vandalism, etc , just like what happened in Tottenham. Mob behaviour, by definition, is where people stop thinking critically about issues and blindly follow whatever their peers are doing. This can never be beneficial. Independent, critical thought is essential for positive change to be effected. The problem with the modern Social Justice Warrior movement is that it is counter to the interests of true social justice, as the people who need the most protection are the smallest minorities, and these are the people who lose out the most when everyone is banding together in mobs and deliberately shutting silencing debate and individual expression. Meanwhile, the "social justice warriors" are far too busy focusing on how moral they seem rather than how much real social justice they're achieving. If your response is - as I would hope - that true campaigners for social justice are not like this, then that's ok - they're not the ones being criticised.
    - gizmo 11y ago
      Looting and rioting is critical component of a public protest, and it's morally justified. I draw the line at hurting people, which is never justified. I'm not outraged at property damage when people protest racism or police brutality, because I value people more than I value things. As for your claim that rioting and the like can never be beneficial, that's plainly wrong. Take for instance the Curaçao uprising in 1969 [1]. Workers protested wage discrimination and it turned into a mob that burned down 43 businesses and 10 other buildings, primarily those owned by white people. Guess what? The protest was a complete success, they got the wage they asked for and they got new democratic elections to boot. I reiterate: people protest and riot because it works. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_Cura%C3%A7ao_uprising https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_Cura%C3%A7ao_uprising
shrewduser 11y ago
"Justine Sacco didn't suffer a "devastating online lynching". She got a ton of nasty tweets and emails, and she got fired from her job. " you can't be serious. clearly the term lynching was not literal, and that seems as close to a description of an "online lynching" as something can be.
- gizmo 11y ago
  It's funny how the tweets directed at Sacco constitute a lynching, but the killing of Mark Duggan, a person of color, by the police in the next sentence is whitewashed in morally neutral terms as "the death of a young man in Tottenham". The protest that followed is condemned as "looting and destruction", the racial aspect not even deserving a mention. Tweets directed at a white woman: Lynching. Killing of a person of color: "death of a young man".
  - tomhoward 11y ago
    The point is that if the primary concern of all the protestors was about the killing of the young man, the targets of the protest would have been confined to the police and the government. Such a protest could have been conducted in such a way that united all people in protest against the injustice. Instead, thanks to the mob instinct, the killing was used to justify indiscriminate violence, theft and destruction. Thus the real issue - the killing of the young man - was diminished in importance thanks to the mob behaviour, and the opportunity for that incident to be a catalyst for real social change was lost.
venomsnake 11y ago
> and she got fired from her job. Can I fire anyone with tweets I disagree with? Lets say SJW-s? Losing a job over speech done outside of the employment is wrong. The fact that it was caused by "our" guys - in two years when the pendulum has swung back - they will be the ones that will be victims of the mob.
- CM30 11y ago
  Yeah, the way some people target people's employers to get people fired is a horrible thing. As is how a lot of said employers will happily kick someone to the curb because their 'reputation' apparently matters more than being fair to their employees. Still, it can get even worse than that. I've seen cases where people have basically been blacklisted from an industry based on what they said online or their political views. It's horrible, likely illegal in many places, but there's definitely a crowd that wishes they can block people with 'unpopular' political opinions from various industries.

by gizmo 11y ago

tomhoward 11y ago

Sacco was home-bound for a year and now carries a stain on her character that will be with her for her entire life. All for a badly executed joke that was liberal in its intent. Sure, plenty of people have it worse in this world, but that does not mean what happened to her was "fine" and that she was/is totally "fine". Nuclear war. Global warming. NSA spying. Democracy getting hijacked. Perpetual war. All these issues depend on level-headed, reasoned debate. Mass hysteria will only make it more likely that we succumb to these threats.

puredemo 11y ago
It was actually a well-executed joke. Quite acerbic. Unfortunately many click-bait "journalists" were simply too thick to understand the satire.
gizmo 11y ago
What happened to Sacco was without question unjust. And nowhere did I suggest it was fine. Mobs are a morally neutral instrument that can be used for good or evil. If people just wanted to make the point that it's unacceptable to attack an unknown person based on a single tweet (regardless of how bad the tweet is), then that's fine. Except people extrapolate from the Sacco incident to make sweeping claims about political correctness and mob behavior. Level-headed debate is just one part of the puzzle. There's no point in having a debate if the outcome of the debate doesn't matter because the people who are having the debate are disenfranchised. At that point protests are needed. This isn't "mass hysteria". People protest because it works.
- tomhoward 11y ago
  No-one disputes that protests like those seen in the Indian independence movement, the Civil Rights movement, the Iraq War opposition, the Arab Spring, the gay rights movement etc are extremely valuable and necessary. Where people object is where justifiable protest switches to ugly mob behaviour, including things like looting of innocent business operators, indiscriminate violence and vandalism, etc , just like what happened in Tottenham. Mob behaviour, by definition, is where people stop thinking critically about issues and blindly follow whatever their peers are doing. This can never be beneficial. Independent, critical thought is essential for positive change to be effected. The problem with the modern Social Justice Warrior movement is that it is counter to the interests of true social justice, as the people who need the most protection are the smallest minorities, and these are the people who lose out the most when everyone is banding together in mobs and deliberately shutting silencing debate and individual expression. Meanwhile, the "social justice warriors" are far too busy focusing on how moral they seem rather than how much real social justice they're achieving. If your response is - as I would hope - that true campaigners for social justice are not like this, then that's ok - they're not the ones being criticised.
  - gizmo 11y ago
    Looting and rioting is critical component of a public protest, and it's morally justified. I draw the line at hurting people, which is never justified. I'm not outraged at property damage when people protest racism or police brutality, because I value people more than I value things. As for your claim that rioting and the like can never be beneficial, that's plainly wrong. Take for instance the Curaçao uprising in 1969 [1]. Workers protested wage discrimination and it turned into a mob that burned down 43 businesses and 10 other buildings, primarily those owned by white people. Guess what? The protest was a complete success, they got the wage they asked for and they got new democratic elections to boot. I reiterate: people protest and riot because it works. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_Cura%C3%A7ao_uprising https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_Cura%C3%A7ao_uprising

shrewduser 11y ago

"Justine Sacco didn't suffer a "devastating online lynching". She got a ton of nasty tweets and emails, and she got fired from her job. " you can't be serious. clearly the term lynching was not literal, and that seems as close to a description of an "online lynching" as something can be.

gizmo 11y ago
It's funny how the tweets directed at Sacco constitute a lynching, but the killing of Mark Duggan, a person of color, by the police in the next sentence is whitewashed in morally neutral terms as "the death of a young man in Tottenham". The protest that followed is condemned as "looting and destruction", the racial aspect not even deserving a mention. Tweets directed at a white woman: Lynching. Killing of a person of color: "death of a young man".
- tomhoward 11y ago
  The point is that if the primary concern of all the protestors was about the killing of the young man, the targets of the protest would have been confined to the police and the government. Such a protest could have been conducted in such a way that united all people in protest against the injustice. Instead, thanks to the mob instinct, the killing was used to justify indiscriminate violence, theft and destruction. Thus the real issue - the killing of the young man - was diminished in importance thanks to the mob behaviour, and the opportunity for that incident to be a catalyst for real social change was lost.

venomsnake 11y ago

> and she got fired from her job. Can I fire anyone with tweets I disagree with? Lets say SJW-s? Losing a job over speech done outside of the employment is wrong. The fact that it was caused by "our" guys - in two years when the pendulum has swung back - they will be the ones that will be victims of the mob.

CM30 11y ago
Yeah, the way some people target people's employers to get people fired is a horrible thing. As is how a lot of said employers will happily kick someone to the curb because their 'reputation' apparently matters more than being fair to their employees. Still, it can get even worse than that. I've seen cases where people have basically been blacklisted from an industry based on what they said online or their political views. It's horrible, likely illegal in many places, but there's definitely a crowd that wishes they can block people with 'unpopular' political opinions from various industries.