8 ms·

Another for your list: Jordanian-American woman gets her publishing deal canceled for tweeting about a rude DC Metro employee, because the Metro employee was bl

Another for your list: Jordanian-American woman gets her publishing deal canceled for tweeting about a rude DC Metro employee, because the Metro employee was black. https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2019/05/11/dc-pundit-shamed-metro-worker-eating-train-now-her-book-deal-is-jeopardy/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2019/05/11/dc-...

filmgirlcw 6y ago
I’m very much against people being fired for their social media posts (unless we’re crossing way over a line that delves into calls for violence or is doing something illegal), but that situation was a bit more complicated. That author, who was PR professional and verified on Twitter, was using her account and her blue-checkmark to shame a worker on a train for eating on her break. She literally tried to get that employee fired and put their face all over the internet. So forgive me if I don’t weep for someone being snitched on on social media when they were snitching themselves and using their position (brands and places like the transit authority take complaints from people with blue checks much more seriously and blue checks absolutely know this) to try to get someone fired for daring to break a rule of eating on a train. Come on now. Her losing her book contract with a publisher no one has ever heard of seems almost fitting. ETA: Since then, she’s also been able to leverage that experience into redemption/victimhood profiles on Good Morning America and an article in Elle UK. Both opportunities I guarantee she never would have had with her debut novel, so she’s fine.
- neartheplain 6y ago
  You’ve gone and assumed the worst. “Trying to get that employee fired?” I just don’t see it. Anyway, the Metro employees union would never go for it. The no-eating rule is a fairly big deal on Metro. A twelve-year-old girl was famously arrested for eating a single French fry [0], in a case (Hedgepeth v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority) that went all the way to the U.S. Court of Appeals, where the arrest was upheld. A teenager was arrested in 2016 for carrying chips and snacks into a Metro station [1]. If I saw an employee flouting this rule, I’d be indignant too. I wouldn’t have posted a photo of the person, but the kind of vitriol, racism, and naked hate this novelist faced in response to her tweet was totally unwarranted. The potential for negative consequences on the part of the Metro employee was greatly exaggerated. [0] https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=94999&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=94999&page=1 [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/metro-transit-police-arrest-teenager-for-carrying-chips-and-lollipop-into-station/2016/10/19/1360a014-9627-11e6-bb29-bf2701dbe0a3_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/met...
  - nilkn 6y ago
    As someone who's never been on the DC metro, my first reaction to this story was that it's pretty unreasonable to post an employee's photo to Twitter just because they ate on the train. While we can't say for sure that they wanted to get the employee fired, their intent was clearly for them to be held accountable in some way by their employer for this infraction. That said, if it's true that metro passengers have effectively been harassed and abused and arrested for years over this no-eating rule, then I can see how it would be more offensive to see an employee breaking it publicly, and this person's reaction makes more sense to me.
    - jobigoud 6y ago
      I've seen this interesting behavior in other contexts. There is a stupid rule that nobody likes. People make an effort to follow it despite hating it. When they see someone breaking the rule they feel that it's very unfair because of the effort they are making, so they report it to make it fairer. Either everyone should follow the rule or it shouldn't exist. But in doing so they have become what they hated. They are now actively helping maintain and rooting for the stupid rule instead of fighting against it.
      - roenxi 6y ago
        We all follow rules we don't agree with; that is part of the social contract. Selective enforcement of rules is one of the biggest threats to those who behave lawfully. I see no compromise of principle in people who maintain and enforce stupid rules they disagree with. The most honest response is to argue for and support sensible rules, not to turn a blind eye. I'm not saying that I think it is a good idea to follow bad rules - but people who disagree with rules and follow them anyway on solid moral footing and should reasonably expect others to do the same.
        bryanrasmussen 6y ago
        >We all follow rules we don't agree with; that is part of the social contract it's been my experience that people generally don't follow rules they disagree with, unless they are afraid of the consequences. As such, seeing someone breaking the rule who is also someone in power over them with ability to enforce the rule can be especially galling.
- dguaraglia 6y ago
  Oh, get out of here with your nuanced and fair analysis! Don't you realize we just want reasons to be outraged about the <waves hand vaguely> 'cancel culture'?
  - neartheplain 6y ago
    The author and her family received death threats over this. She briefly left the US for her own safety, and was harassed and bullied “to the brink of suicide.” Flippant dismissal of the Internet hate mob is all well and good until it comes for you. The Metro employee faced no disciplinary action. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tasneemnashrulla/dc-metro-writer-tweet-eating-train-book-sue-publisher https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tasneemnashrulla/dc-met...
    - dguaraglia 6y ago
      I fail to see how the author's plight at the hands of the internet mob makes the situation less nuanced. Flippant dismissal of facts isn't going to help things get better either.
      - filmgirlcw 6y ago
        This. For the record, I’m not saying she should have been harassed. I’m not even arguing she should have lost work or had her book distributor who didn’t have a contract with her say they didn’t want to distribute her book. I find the outcome fitting given the circumstances, but I’m not rallying for that outcome. What I am arguing is that framing her as a victim of cancel ignores a much bigger part of the story and as dguaragalia says, dismissing the facts and eschewing the nuance for optimum outrage is extremely unhelpful.
        dguaraglia 6y ago
        Thanks for formulating this in much more understandable terms than my comment!
      - jariel 6y ago
- iso1631 6y ago
  Thanks for this, it's this reason why I find it hard to believe people's summaries as they rarely tell the complete picture, and that itself is dangerous. In this case, the original post didn't pass the sniff test to me. If I tweeted: "Hey $operator, the person manning the gate at the station at James Street this morning was really rude, yelling at people and telling them to f-off" I can't see any situation where the skin color of that person would come into it, so how would it be possible to get someone fired "because they're black" when that information isn't even made available.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    While I agree with your logic, I am open to the point of view that some people would preferentially report someone’s behavior depending on the race of the person involved. Perhaps a black employee is more likely to get a complaint about rudeness. If so, the race wasn’t made available but still changed the interaction.
    - iso1631 6y ago
      I'm sure that's the case, and it will be up to the managers to be aware of unconcious bias on these types of reports and judge them respectively, but that's not going to raise a storm on twitter about a single person complaining about bad behaviour, or link that single complaint to an evidenced based dismissal later down the line.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  It not okay to libelously lie about people like this. Please stop.

filmgirlcw 6y ago

I’m very much against people being fired for their social media posts (unless we’re crossing way over a line that delves into calls for violence or is doing something illegal), but that situation was a bit more complicated. That author, who was PR professional and verified on Twitter, was using her account and her blue-checkmark to shame a worker on a train for eating on her break. She literally tried to get that employee fired and put their face all over the internet. So forgive me if I don’t weep for someone being snitched on on social media when they were snitching themselves and using their position (brands and places like the transit authority take complaints from people with blue checks much more seriously and blue checks absolutely know this) to try to get someone fired for daring to break a rule of eating on a train. Come on now. Her losing her book contract with a publisher no one has ever heard of seems almost fitting. ETA: Since then, she’s also been able to leverage that experience into redemption/victimhood profiles on Good Morning America and an article in Elle UK. Both opportunities I guarantee she never would have had with her debut novel, so she’s fine.

neartheplain 6y ago
You’ve gone and assumed the worst. “Trying to get that employee fired?” I just don’t see it. Anyway, the Metro employees union would never go for it. The no-eating rule is a fairly big deal on Metro. A twelve-year-old girl was famously arrested for eating a single French fry [0], in a case (Hedgepeth v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority) that went all the way to the U.S. Court of Appeals, where the arrest was upheld. A teenager was arrested in 2016 for carrying chips and snacks into a Metro station [1]. If I saw an employee flouting this rule, I’d be indignant too. I wouldn’t have posted a photo of the person, but the kind of vitriol, racism, and naked hate this novelist faced in response to her tweet was totally unwarranted. The potential for negative consequences on the part of the Metro employee was greatly exaggerated. [0] https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=94999&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=94999&page=1 [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/metro-transit-police-arrest-teenager-for-carrying-chips-and-lollipop-into-station/2016/10/19/1360a014-9627-11e6-bb29-bf2701dbe0a3_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/met...
- nilkn 6y ago
  As someone who's never been on the DC metro, my first reaction to this story was that it's pretty unreasonable to post an employee's photo to Twitter just because they ate on the train. While we can't say for sure that they wanted to get the employee fired, their intent was clearly for them to be held accountable in some way by their employer for this infraction. That said, if it's true that metro passengers have effectively been harassed and abused and arrested for years over this no-eating rule, then I can see how it would be more offensive to see an employee breaking it publicly, and this person's reaction makes more sense to me.
  - jobigoud 6y ago
    I've seen this interesting behavior in other contexts. There is a stupid rule that nobody likes. People make an effort to follow it despite hating it. When they see someone breaking the rule they feel that it's very unfair because of the effort they are making, so they report it to make it fairer. Either everyone should follow the rule or it shouldn't exist. But in doing so they have become what they hated. They are now actively helping maintain and rooting for the stupid rule instead of fighting against it.
    - roenxi 6y ago
      We all follow rules we don't agree with; that is part of the social contract. Selective enforcement of rules is one of the biggest threats to those who behave lawfully. I see no compromise of principle in people who maintain and enforce stupid rules they disagree with. The most honest response is to argue for and support sensible rules, not to turn a blind eye. I'm not saying that I think it is a good idea to follow bad rules - but people who disagree with rules and follow them anyway on solid moral footing and should reasonably expect others to do the same.
      - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
        >We all follow rules we don't agree with; that is part of the social contract it's been my experience that people generally don't follow rules they disagree with, unless they are afraid of the consequences. As such, seeing someone breaking the rule who is also someone in power over them with ability to enforce the rule can be especially galling.
dguaraglia 6y ago
Oh, get out of here with your nuanced and fair analysis! Don't you realize we just want reasons to be outraged about the <waves hand vaguely> 'cancel culture'?
- neartheplain 6y ago
  The author and her family received death threats over this. She briefly left the US for her own safety, and was harassed and bullied “to the brink of suicide.” Flippant dismissal of the Internet hate mob is all well and good until it comes for you. The Metro employee faced no disciplinary action. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tasneemnashrulla/dc-metro-writer-tweet-eating-train-book-sue-publisher https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tasneemnashrulla/dc-met...
  - dguaraglia 6y ago
    I fail to see how the author's plight at the hands of the internet mob makes the situation less nuanced. Flippant dismissal of facts isn't going to help things get better either.
    - filmgirlcw 6y ago
      This. For the record, I’m not saying she should have been harassed. I’m not even arguing she should have lost work or had her book distributor who didn’t have a contract with her say they didn’t want to distribute her book. I find the outcome fitting given the circumstances, but I’m not rallying for that outcome. What I am arguing is that framing her as a victim of cancel ignores a much bigger part of the story and as dguaragalia says, dismissing the facts and eschewing the nuance for optimum outrage is extremely unhelpful.
      - dguaraglia 6y ago
        Thanks for formulating this in much more understandable terms than my comment!
    - jariel 6y ago
iso1631 6y ago
Thanks for this, it's this reason why I find it hard to believe people's summaries as they rarely tell the complete picture, and that itself is dangerous. In this case, the original post didn't pass the sniff test to me. If I tweeted: "Hey $operator, the person manning the gate at the station at James Street this morning was really rude, yelling at people and telling them to f-off" I can't see any situation where the skin color of that person would come into it, so how would it be possible to get someone fired "because they're black" when that information isn't even made available.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  While I agree with your logic, I am open to the point of view that some people would preferentially report someone’s behavior depending on the race of the person involved. Perhaps a black employee is more likely to get a complaint about rudeness. If so, the race wasn’t made available but still changed the interaction.
  - iso1631 6y ago
    I'm sure that's the case, and it will be up to the managers to be aware of unconcious bias on these types of reports and judge them respectively, but that's not going to raise a storm on twitter about a single person complaining about bad behaviour, or link that single complaint to an evidenced based dismissal later down the line.
srtjstjsj 6y ago
It not okay to libelously lie about people like this. Please stop.