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The case of Justine Sacco. A magical combination of a single bad joke and outrage culture. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ru

The case of Justine Sacco. A magical combination of a single bad joke and outrage culture. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-t... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2955322/Justine-Sacco-reveals-destroyed-life-racist-tweet-trip-Africa.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2955322/Justine-Sa...

FussyZeus 9y ago
Right. Now whether the reaction was too much or not enough is up to the reader, but what is clear is that simply sending a tweet like that can have ramifications for the literal remainder of your life, she's never going to be completely decoupled from telling that stupid joke as long as she lives and probably a decent time after that, too. I find it disturbing that so many people seem to think Twitter and Facebook and the rest are just places to dump whatever thought runs through your brains as though nobody but the people you want to see it will ever see it. But again, that's what things like Facebook advertise as, and that's the type of content Twitter encourages.
- zeroer 9y ago
  Wow. I've made jokes 10x worse in meatspace. I'm thankful I grew up before the social media craze.
AlexandrB 9y ago
> outrage culture I think that's a little simplistic. Social media like Twitter and Facebook collapse the context and expand the audience of a joke/meme [1] until it's almost sure to reach someone who will find it genuinely offensive. In real life, a joke (good or bad) normally reaches a small number of people at a time. If it's good it may spread and if it's bad it will eventually meet with disapproval that will limit its spread. The online space inverts this dynamic completely by making the spread of someone else's mistake a performative act. Now a bad/offensive joke will spread like wildfire because those spreading it get to stick someone else's name on it and say: "look how bad of a joke this person made". [1] http://hlwiki.slais.ubc.ca/index.php/Context_collapse_in_social_media http://hlwiki.slais.ubc.ca/index.php/Context_collapse_in_soc...

FussyZeus 9y ago

Right. Now whether the reaction was too much or not enough is up to the reader, but what is clear is that simply sending a tweet like that can have ramifications for the literal remainder of your life, she's never going to be completely decoupled from telling that stupid joke as long as she lives and probably a decent time after that, too. I find it disturbing that so many people seem to think Twitter and Facebook and the rest are just places to dump whatever thought runs through your brains as though nobody but the people you want to see it will ever see it. But again, that's what things like Facebook advertise as, and that's the type of content Twitter encourages.

zeroer 9y ago
Wow. I've made jokes 10x worse in meatspace. I'm thankful I grew up before the social media craze.

AlexandrB 9y ago

> outrage culture I think that's a little simplistic. Social media like Twitter and Facebook collapse the context and expand the audience of a joke/meme [1] until it's almost sure to reach someone who will find it genuinely offensive. In real life, a joke (good or bad) normally reaches a small number of people at a time. If it's good it may spread and if it's bad it will eventually meet with disapproval that will limit its spread. The online space inverts this dynamic completely by making the spread of someone else's mistake a performative act. Now a bad/offensive joke will spread like wildfire because those spreading it get to stick someone else's name on it and say: "look how bad of a joke this person made". [1] http://hlwiki.slais.ubc.ca/index.php/Context_collapse_in_social_media http://hlwiki.slais.ubc.ca/index.php/Context_collapse_in_soc...