5 ms·

But is it really only jerks? I've seen attempts to get people cancelled for what they've posted on social media over 10 years ago. Sometimes cancellation happen

by iczero 5y ago

But is it really only jerks? I've seen attempts to get people cancelled for what they've posted on social media over 10 years ago. Sometimes cancellation happens over allegations that are later proven to be false. There was a TED talk once about a woman who found out she was fired after getting off an airplane because she posted an insensitive joke. Was she wrong for doing that? Probably. Should she have been fired on the spot without even having any form of communication with her employer? What if Twitter one day decided that something you happened to say, perhaps in the past, disagreed with some social "norm" that you weren't even aware of? Would you be happy to be fired? Or can you confidently say that you will never have any opinion different from that of the "social norm"?

sellyme 5y ago
> Was she wrong for doing that? Probably. You're being somewhat generous here.
- iczero 5y ago
  Am I though? She posted a joke on Twitter mocking the idea that white people couldn't get AIDS. It's only unfortunate that her statement was immediately interpreted as racist.
  - sellyme 5y ago
    > Am I though? Yes. > She posted a joke on Twitter mocking the idea that white people couldn't get AIDS. Even if you believe the subsequent backtracking, that's still a profoundly stupid thing to be doing in that circumstance, and it shows a complete lack of any critical thought as to how your actions and words are perceived.
    - iczero 5y ago
      > Even if you believe the subsequent backtracking Of course I believe the subsequent backtracking. Have you read the New York Times article? Most people aren't racists. > ... a complete lack of critical thought as to how your actions and words are perceived. A lot of people have times when they don't think about how their words will be perceived. I sure have, and I'm sure you have too. However, I do not believe such minor stupidity should result in immediate loss of job, without warning.
eastWestMath 5y ago
> Should she have been fired on the spot without even having any form of communication with her employer? Too be honest, that depends entirely on the joke and her role, doesn’t it?
eagsalazar2 5y ago
Yes these things happen, humans are judgmental and leery of being associated with people who are undesirable in the eyes their peer group and the specific biases of that group - so it isn't always fair. That is life and has always been true. However, the term "canceled" itself is more typically about a specific and recent set of peers and biases - people on the right who are angry that people on the left are telling them to stop using the f-g or n-word, etc or angry that guys are getting outed for doing exactly the rape-y crap they themselves did and normalized and probably celebrated when they were in college. Now, I honestly don't know if Louis CK should have had his career ended because he was pervy (pulled his junk out a lot, right? I get these stories confused), but that is more a function of social media being a huge, new megaphone for ostracizing people, not that the left is on some spectacular cancel rampage as it is normally characterized. We do need to grapple with how to deal with this new megaphone, I agree. However, again, mostly this angst is not about a genuine desire to be good citizens and calling out dangerous corner cases. If it were, we'd be having a very different and much more constructive conversation. Most of this angst is really about the right wanting to keep being the right and going back to good old days, defensively dismissing the way the good old days were actually pretty terrible for a lot of people and we've learned a lot about how to be better humans. Of course there are cherry picked examples (in a population of 7B you can probably found thousands). But those examples don't change the underlying dynamics and motivations of what is going on here on average*.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- iczero 5y ago
  I'm not defending the "right" in any means at all. For me, the term "cancel" means any attempt to ruin anyone's livelihood for saying or doing something considered "wrong", sometimes as a baseless accusation. It doesn't matter what political opinion they hold. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be of the opinion that the political "right" is the only group capable of being "cancelled". I disagree. If I see something I disagree with on the Internet, maybe a joke gone wrong, I do not necessarily have to like it. But I will, nonetheless, celebrate that they are able to post what they have without facing potentially career-ending repercussions from the other side.
Frondo 5y ago
For those not familiar with the lady he's referring to, her name is Justine Sacco. She was a senior director of corporate communications, and this (among several tweets making fun of people or places) is the one that presumably got her fires: “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” Source: 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...
- nonameiguess 5y ago
  I recognized who the parent comment was talking about immediately. Note that this woman is now the Chief Communications Officer of the Match group. Goes to show the fear that everyone shows about this topic is almost always overblown. Assuming you aren't actually Harvey Weinstein and didn't do anything criminal, the worst that happens in every other case is you get the same job or even better for a different company a few years later. Brendan Eich and Mel Gibson still have no trouble finding work. Cancellation doesn't ever seem to be a life sentence. James Damore seems to be doing fine, just not at Google: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-damore-b277b62b/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-damore-b277b62b/ (interesting that he doesn't name the startup, though).
  - iczero 5y ago
    > Cancellation doesn't ever seem to be a life sentence. I don't believe "they'll recover eventually" is in any way an excuse for "let's ruin this person's life [temporarily] for fun". They got fired and are likely unable to have a stable life for a year. I sure wouldn't like to get fired and have the paparazzi in front of my house for the next month. > Goes to show that the fear everyone shows about this topic is almost always overblown. Sounds like the right amount of fear to me. Some people don't have the privilege to go without a job for a year. Some people don't have the mental fortitude to deal with the crap that ensues. People shouldn't need to worry about getting fired because the people of social media didn't agree with what they said.
- iczero 5y ago
  In case it isn't obvious, she's making a joke on racist stereotypes. Edit: definitely read the article, it's quite good.

by iczero 5y ago

sellyme 5y ago

> Was she wrong for doing that? Probably. You're being somewhat generous here.

iczero 5y ago
Am I though? She posted a joke on Twitter mocking the idea that white people couldn't get AIDS. It's only unfortunate that her statement was immediately interpreted as racist.
- sellyme 5y ago
  > Am I though? Yes. > She posted a joke on Twitter mocking the idea that white people couldn't get AIDS. Even if you believe the subsequent backtracking, that's still a profoundly stupid thing to be doing in that circumstance, and it shows a complete lack of any critical thought as to how your actions and words are perceived.
  - iczero 5y ago
    > Even if you believe the subsequent backtracking Of course I believe the subsequent backtracking. Have you read the New York Times article? Most people aren't racists. > ... a complete lack of critical thought as to how your actions and words are perceived. A lot of people have times when they don't think about how their words will be perceived. I sure have, and I'm sure you have too. However, I do not believe such minor stupidity should result in immediate loss of job, without warning.

eastWestMath 5y ago

> Should she have been fired on the spot without even having any form of communication with her employer? Too be honest, that depends entirely on the joke and her role, doesn’t it?

eagsalazar2 5y ago

Yes these things happen, humans are judgmental and leery of being associated with people who are undesirable in the eyes their peer group and the specific biases of that group - so it isn't always fair. That is life and has always been true. However, the term "canceled" itself is more typically about a specific and recent set of peers and biases - people on the right who are angry that people on the left are telling them to stop using the f-g or n-word, etc or angry that guys are getting outed for doing exactly the rape-y crap they themselves did and normalized and probably celebrated when they were in college. Now, I honestly don't know if Louis CK should have had his career ended because he was pervy (pulled his junk out a lot, right? I get these stories confused), but that is more a function of social media being a huge, new megaphone for ostracizing people, not that the left is on some spectacular cancel rampage as it is normally characterized. We do need to grapple with how to deal with this new megaphone, I agree. However, again, mostly this angst is not about a genuine desire to be good citizens and calling out dangerous corner cases. If it were, we'd be having a very different and much more constructive conversation. Most of this angst is really about the right wanting to keep being the right and going back to good old days, defensively dismissing the way the good old days were actually pretty terrible for a lot of people and we've learned a lot about how to be better humans. Of course there are cherry picked examples (in a population of 7B you can probably found thousands). But those examples don't change the underlying dynamics and motivations of what is going on here on average*.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
iczero 5y ago
I'm not defending the "right" in any means at all. For me, the term "cancel" means any attempt to ruin anyone's livelihood for saying or doing something considered "wrong", sometimes as a baseless accusation. It doesn't matter what political opinion they hold. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be of the opinion that the political "right" is the only group capable of being "cancelled". I disagree. If I see something I disagree with on the Internet, maybe a joke gone wrong, I do not necessarily have to like it. But I will, nonetheless, celebrate that they are able to post what they have without facing potentially career-ending repercussions from the other side.

Frondo 5y ago

For those not familiar with the lady he's referring to, her name is Justine Sacco. She was a senior director of corporate communications, and this (among several tweets making fun of people or places) is the one that presumably got her fires: “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” Source: 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...

nonameiguess 5y ago
I recognized who the parent comment was talking about immediately. Note that this woman is now the Chief Communications Officer of the Match group. Goes to show the fear that everyone shows about this topic is almost always overblown. Assuming you aren't actually Harvey Weinstein and didn't do anything criminal, the worst that happens in every other case is you get the same job or even better for a different company a few years later. Brendan Eich and Mel Gibson still have no trouble finding work. Cancellation doesn't ever seem to be a life sentence. James Damore seems to be doing fine, just not at Google: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-damore-b277b62b/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-damore-b277b62b/ (interesting that he doesn't name the startup, though).
- iczero 5y ago
  > Cancellation doesn't ever seem to be a life sentence. I don't believe "they'll recover eventually" is in any way an excuse for "let's ruin this person's life [temporarily] for fun". They got fired and are likely unable to have a stable life for a year. I sure wouldn't like to get fired and have the paparazzi in front of my house for the next month. > Goes to show that the fear everyone shows about this topic is almost always overblown. Sounds like the right amount of fear to me. Some people don't have the privilege to go without a job for a year. Some people don't have the mental fortitude to deal with the crap that ensues. People shouldn't need to worry about getting fired because the people of social media didn't agree with what they said.
iczero 5y ago
In case it isn't obvious, she's making a joke on racist stereotypes. Edit: definitely read the article, it's quite good.