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Before we were voicing everything on the Internet there was both a separation between professional lives and private lives and far more localized communities th

by mfer 7y ago

Before we were voicing everything on the Internet there was both a separation between professional lives and private lives and far more localized communities that had lower interaction with each other. With the way many are using the Internet is blurs or removes the lines between private and public along with removing regional group barriers. So, I used to be able to run my mouth locally on some topic and have no work or global repercussions. Now, you do that on the Internet, it could be seen be people thousands of miles away, and it could impact ones career. It's not just technology but how we choose to use it and guide others to do so as well.

ghaff 7y ago
In practice, most people can still enjoy a degree of separation unless they're in a relatively public role and/or haven't tried to separate their personal and professional personas on, e.g., Twitter. That said, the walls between personal and professional can break down in a big hurry if some ill-considered (or just unconventional) remark/action/etc. goes viral. Companies will cut their connections with most individuals very quickly if that's the easiest and least embarrassing response to an online mob.
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  We need to be a bit more accurate though so that we can concentrate minds on solving the real problem. From what I can see, companies are not "embarrassed", they are "afraid". They don't care about online mobs, they care about the drop in revenue that will come from lost business. Reputations that take years to recover impact revenues for each of those years. That's the issue. If we could think of a way to insulate companies from lost revenue, the problem could be solved. To date, there have only been clumsy, amateurish attempts to do this. Actions like, telling everyone, "Hey, go spend your money with this company!" Which for a lot of reasons rarely, if ever, works. We have to come up with something that would provide decision makers at these firms more certainty.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    I'm not sure how you even go about "insulating companies from lost revenue" though. The online mob may not be responding rationally (or in a way you agree with) but groups of people certainly have the right to publicly denounce and call for boycotts of a company. Which, as you say can be damaging to their brand and ultimately their revenue, ability to hire people, etc. The fact is that the path of least resistance to mitigate and close out the damaging outcry as quickly as possible is often to apologize, fire someone, make some harmless concession, etc.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
ecf 7y ago
I feel a whole lot of repression is going to happen as people learn they can’t even be themselves in their personal life without somehow hurting the feelings of someone they haven’t even spoke to who has the power to get them terminated.
- mfer 7y ago
  Well, there is private and public then there is personal and professional. It's like a matrix. Things you do publicly have long had the ability to affect your personal and professional life. Public just now has the ability to go global and not be forgotten which is something new. If you post it on Twitter for everyone to see it's not your private life. It's public. This is now paired with a change in attitude. There used to be a tone of forgiveness and to help people. Now when people screw up there are groups looking to destroy them. And, the definitions of what's wrong or a screw up are changing among different groups which complicates things. "Strange game. The only way to win is not to play." -- Joshua / WOPR (War Games)
  - ghaff 7y ago
    It would be interesting to look back at how this is playing out from the vantage of 10 or 15 years. I could see an attitude like: - Sure, people do dumb things on social media especially when they're in college etc. No one cares. I could also see: - Those fools. Who is so stupid as to associate their real identity with social media accounts? (Of course, since you can't keep other people from posting, it's a little hard to see this happening.)
- ghaff 7y ago
  As a counterpoint, I'm not sure things have materially changed in the past five years or so. But I would think that people today tend to have a better handle on the limits of discourse under their True Name. OTOH, there's probably more outrage in the culture generally and probably more people who can rally a supporting crowd for hurt feelings and other arguably trivial rationales.

by mfer 7y ago

ghaff 7y ago

In practice, most people can still enjoy a degree of separation unless they're in a relatively public role and/or haven't tried to separate their personal and professional personas on, e.g., Twitter. That said, the walls between personal and professional can break down in a big hurry if some ill-considered (or just unconventional) remark/action/etc. goes viral. Companies will cut their connections with most individuals very quickly if that's the easiest and least embarrassing response to an online mob.

bilbo0s 7y ago
We need to be a bit more accurate though so that we can concentrate minds on solving the real problem. From what I can see, companies are not "embarrassed", they are "afraid". They don't care about online mobs, they care about the drop in revenue that will come from lost business. Reputations that take years to recover impact revenues for each of those years. That's the issue. If we could think of a way to insulate companies from lost revenue, the problem could be solved. To date, there have only been clumsy, amateurish attempts to do this. Actions like, telling everyone, "Hey, go spend your money with this company!" Which for a lot of reasons rarely, if ever, works. We have to come up with something that would provide decision makers at these firms more certainty.
- ghaff 7y ago
  I'm not sure how you even go about "insulating companies from lost revenue" though. The online mob may not be responding rationally (or in a way you agree with) but groups of people certainly have the right to publicly denounce and call for boycotts of a company. Which, as you say can be damaging to their brand and ultimately their revenue, ability to hire people, etc. The fact is that the path of least resistance to mitigate and close out the damaging outcry as quickly as possible is often to apologize, fire someone, make some harmless concession, etc.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

ecf 7y ago

I feel a whole lot of repression is going to happen as people learn they can’t even be themselves in their personal life without somehow hurting the feelings of someone they haven’t even spoke to who has the power to get them terminated.

mfer 7y ago
Well, there is private and public then there is personal and professional. It's like a matrix. Things you do publicly have long had the ability to affect your personal and professional life. Public just now has the ability to go global and not be forgotten which is something new. If you post it on Twitter for everyone to see it's not your private life. It's public. This is now paired with a change in attitude. There used to be a tone of forgiveness and to help people. Now when people screw up there are groups looking to destroy them. And, the definitions of what's wrong or a screw up are changing among different groups which complicates things. "Strange game. The only way to win is not to play." -- Joshua / WOPR (War Games)
- ghaff 7y ago
  It would be interesting to look back at how this is playing out from the vantage of 10 or 15 years. I could see an attitude like: - Sure, people do dumb things on social media especially when they're in college etc. No one cares. I could also see: - Those fools. Who is so stupid as to associate their real identity with social media accounts? (Of course, since you can't keep other people from posting, it's a little hard to see this happening.)
ghaff 7y ago
As a counterpoint, I'm not sure things have materially changed in the past five years or so. But I would think that people today tend to have a better handle on the limits of discourse under their True Name. OTOH, there's probably more outrage in the culture generally and probably more people who can rally a supporting crowd for hurt feelings and other arguably trivial rationales.