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Whatever you think of what Viola posted, if she is fired, Benton should definitely also be fired for doxxing her. Disqus should also revoke Nieman Lab's account

Whatever you think of what Viola posted, if she is fired, Benton should definitely also be fired for doxxing her. Disqus should also revoke Nieman Lab's account (but I bet they won't). I don't agree with Viola, but if she's able to live under the radar then more power to her. Frankly, people on the "fake news" side of US politics usually can't keep quiet, so let's maybe even commend her for her discretion. But Benton's acts were worse, WAY worse. Not worse than being a fake-news Republican, but worse than simply being a shithead on Twitter.

lhorie 5y ago
> if she is fired, Benton should definitely also be fired for doxxing her Isn't that anchoring bias? For starters, why equate firing with punishment? Firing an employee is a discretion of an employer meant to be used if they deem that the employee did not fulfill duties adequately, it's not really supposed to be a vehicle for mob appeasement. More generally, I take issue with this idea that doing something bad ought to result in career ruin. Like, is the undertext that they ought to gtfo of their field of expertise and go flip burgers or something instead? I feel like there ought to be better ways to address conduct issues that doesn't involve messing w/ people's livelihoods (twitter lynching is not any better, to be clear) IMHO, it'd be more conducive to a healthy society if we defaulted to talking about remediation strategies in the workplace, like three-strike systems, clearer public comm policies etc than defaulting to tearing people down.
dntrkv 5y ago
Benton's acts were worse? In what way? Viola "anonymously" called Muslim people scum (not really anonymous because she used her work email and exposed info about her location / job). He called her out, in a very public way. Kinda hard to feel sorry for her, to be honest.
- rhizome 5y ago
  And he violated Disqus' TOS to do it, not to mention basic responsibility not to abuse information access. Ah but maybe you've never had to protect sensitive information before, such that the responsibility itself is foreign.

lhorie 5y ago

> if she is fired, Benton should definitely also be fired for doxxing her Isn't that anchoring bias? For starters, why equate firing with punishment? Firing an employee is a discretion of an employer meant to be used if they deem that the employee did not fulfill duties adequately, it's not really supposed to be a vehicle for mob appeasement. More generally, I take issue with this idea that doing something bad ought to result in career ruin. Like, is the undertext that they ought to gtfo of their field of expertise and go flip burgers or something instead? I feel like there ought to be better ways to address conduct issues that doesn't involve messing w/ people's livelihoods (twitter lynching is not any better, to be clear) IMHO, it'd be more conducive to a healthy society if we defaulted to talking about remediation strategies in the workplace, like three-strike systems, clearer public comm policies etc than defaulting to tearing people down.

dntrkv 5y ago

Benton's acts were worse? In what way? Viola "anonymously" called Muslim people scum (not really anonymous because she used her work email and exposed info about her location / job). He called her out, in a very public way. Kinda hard to feel sorry for her, to be honest.

rhizome 5y ago
And he violated Disqus' TOS to do it, not to mention basic responsibility not to abuse information access. Ah but maybe you've never had to protect sensitive information before, such that the responsibility itself is foreign.