6 ms·

How is she is victim here? How is Twitter bad here? She made two racist comments in 1 tweet on her own will. That is not something that should be taken lightly

How is she is victim here? How is Twitter bad here? She made two racist comments in 1 tweet on her own will. That is not something that should be taken lightly, no matter what the platform. EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm not commenting on whether firing her was fair or not, but rather how her completely intentional tweets makes Twitter the bad guy.

dominotw 12y ago
It looked like a harmless joke to me. wtf is wrong with ppl.
- paganel 12y ago
  Racist jokes are never harmless.
  - Pinatubo 12y ago
    Please elaborate on the harm caused by her tweet. Edit: Maybe I'm not being clear. What I mean is can you point to any harm done by her tweet besides hurt feelings?
    - paganel 12y ago
      Being publicly racist harms people towards which said racism is directed at. I honestly thought that was an established truth.
      - efaref 12y ago
        Except she wasn't being racist, she was being sarcastic about racism. And in any case, no crime deserves the horrific public shaming she got.
  - rblstr 12y ago
    Please point out the racism in her satire-laden joke about how america perceives the rest of the world? Am I the only one that "got" what she was saying?
  - Spooky23 12y ago
    In an open and democratic society, free speech is a value that is foundationally the core value that underpins everything. Free speech is there to protect the offensive and inappropriate... not civil discourse. Supporting an environment where it's acceptable to respond to some perceived slight (which changes over time) with an crazy overreacting mob isn't OK in an open society ever. You're very sensitive to racist statements... how do you feel 10 years from when the "offensive statement of the day" is an anti-war statement? Or a statement offensive to a particular religious doctrine? History is littered with people who do awful things while believing that they are righteous. Nobody in colonial Massachusetts was pro-witch. Nobody in 1950 America was pro-communist.
  - dominotw 12y ago
    Isn't taking about them freely(Joking included) the first step to addressing the issue?
    - danielweber 12y ago
      Don't say Jehovah.
- dethstar 12y ago
  People get offended, you might think that's right, wrong or whatever but it happens. And you certainly wouldn't make that joke outside of your close circle of friends. Mob justice mentality certainly sucks though, imagine someone simply inspects one of your tweets, rewrites it and posts it somewhere and says "hey this person's racist, call their employer #{employer-number}".
paganel 12y ago
Exactly. You get to pay for your very stupid mistakes, especially those that affect other people (like this lady's tweet did).
- Delmania 12y ago
  Outside of offending people, how exactly did her tweet impact anyone else?
  - karangoeluw 12y ago
    Offending people who might have lost a close family member to AIDS you mean?
    - paganel 12y ago
      There's no use in trying to explain. I'm being downvoted to hell for trying to explain why racist jokes are not ok, with replies like "this is just an off-color joke" or "do you know what racism means?" . I'm pretty dissapointed in this community, been here for lots of years and thought that generally speaking people in here would be more open-minded. But the minute you start to explain why making jokes about one's race or incurable disease is not ok you realize you're in the wrong group.
      - ripdog 12y ago
        It's a weird, weird world when "open minded" means "likes to participate in mob justice". And if you understand the tweet, you'd understand the she was making fun of ditzy white girls who naively assume that white people can't get AIDS. It's a caricature of racism, not racism itself.
      - tomp 12y ago
        In all honesty, you did a really poor job explaining why racist jokes are bad. You're being downvoted because (1) you assume that her joke was racist, and (2) you assume that racist jokes are bad (without showing understanding or "open-mindedness" about people who think otherwise). Personally, I disagree on both counts. I like offensive jokes of all kinds (I mean, if they're actually funny). Coming from a very homogeneous Central European country, I have never been on either side of oppression (other than being bullied in school for being weak, small, smart geek), so I definitely don't have your experience of being "hurt" by jokes, but your experience doesn't translate into a universally-applicable moral/rational argument that racist jokes are bad. However, even if I agreed with you and would personally dislike racist jokes, I would still strongly oppose restrictions or censorship on racist/offensive jokes, to avoid situations like the recent Charlie Hebdo attack.
Pinatubo 12y ago
She's a victim because the consequences were completely out of proportion to her transgression.
- karangoeluw 12y ago
  Really? She mocked a whole nation, and used a disease that has killed over a million people as a joke in a public forum.
  - sliverstorm 12y ago
    You're right, she should probably be executed for that joke. /s
  - mynameisvlad 12y ago
    Yes, exactly, as a joke. The amount of backlash she got is far greater than the atrocity of making a bad joke.
  - subdane 12y ago
    The joke was supposed to be on her ignorant statement not on the nation, the disease or the victims. Unfortunately, no one got the joke.
  - goostavos 12y ago
    You should, in general, stay away from the internet -- especially twitter -- people make these joke things about "serious" stuff all the time. Gotta thicken up that skin, friend.
  - theorique 12y ago
    She was being ironic - making fun of herself by pretending to be a ditzy, entitled white girl who though that she could never get AIDS. Unfortunately, in her absence, people took her literally and assumed she was serious.
    - marcusgarvey 12y ago
      She has plenty of reason to now explain it as being ironic, but we'll never know if that was her original intent, will we? Her other tweets from the same period strike me immature and mean-spirited.
nailer 12y ago
She was mocking racism, people confused it for racism. The reactionaries remind me of the people who wrecked this Banksy: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/01/banksy-mural-clacton-racist http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/01/banksy-m...
- efaref 12y ago
  Exactly. I thought hacker news was a relatively smart crowd, but it seems there are people in this thread that don't even get that. "Stop the planet. I want to get off."
ObviousScience 12y ago
I don't like the extremism behind the idea that we should fire someone from their job over a off-color joke which is intended for a small audience, but may be overheard accidentally by others. That sort of absolutism of policing thought just doesn't end well, ever. To translate it away from Twitter: imagine you're at a public space, such as a mall, and you happen to be walking by a table of people leaning together just as one makes a racist joke. Is your response a) give them a sort of disgusted look and go on about your day or b) call everyone you know and repeat the joke to them, along with the location of the table in hopes you can whip up a mob of people to shout obscenities at them, continuing to follow them around for the day, and eventually form a mob outside of their office building, continuing to shout at them until their employer fires them? Most of us would go with 'a' and not 'b', because we realize that what happened doesn't really fit the extreme response. It's interesting to me that people feel that more extreme response is okay, as long as they don't feel personally too involved with it (eg, they can shout remotely).
- karangoeluw 12y ago
  I'm not saying firing her was fair or unfair - the company has to respond to public reaction too. I'm saying how is Twitter the bad guy here. > but may be overheard accidentally by others There is nothing accidental about tweeting in public. If she wanted to limit the exposure, she could have used the "protected tweets" feature.
  - ObviousScience 12y ago
    There's nothing accidental about being in public when you're at a table at the mall, either, and yet we accept that people make communications in such spaces, which because of the medium carry beyond their party, that were really only meant for their group. In the same sense that voices carry in a public space, Tweets can be seen by a larger group than was intended. It's a sad state of affairs if our only option for having semi-open communications on the internet - things that friends of friends can see without having to sign up to a walled garden - is if we only say things that are acceptable to everyone possible, for fear of mobs semi-randomly forming, or worse, forming at the behest of a for-profit company driving the mob in a frenzy to get ad revenue (which is the case for times companies like Gawker have stirred the mob up).
542458 12y ago
I think the issue is that the response is disproportionate to the sin. Littering is socially undesirable but randomly executing 1 out of every 10,000 people who litter is probably excessive. In the same way, racist tweets are undesirable, but lynching randomly people who make them seems unproductive and does nothing more than fill people's want for something to self-righteous about.
learnstats2 12y ago
If everyone was treated equally, no matter the platform, I might agree with you. But, don't you think it's interesting that out of all the countless racist and sexist comments on twitter, that those who are chosen for pillory fit an obvious demographic pattern.
nemothekid 12y ago
Eighth Amendment - and secondly, I can't say the "social media lynching" is right either. This has gone far & above reprimanding someone for racial language to full on schadenfreude and mob punishment, and I can't agree thats an appropriate response to anything.

dominotw 12y ago

It looked like a harmless joke to me. wtf is wrong with ppl.

paganel 12y ago
Racist jokes are never harmless.
- Pinatubo 12y ago
  Please elaborate on the harm caused by her tweet. Edit: Maybe I'm not being clear. What I mean is can you point to any harm done by her tweet besides hurt feelings?
  - paganel 12y ago
    Being publicly racist harms people towards which said racism is directed at. I honestly thought that was an established truth.
    - efaref 12y ago
      Except she wasn't being racist, she was being sarcastic about racism. And in any case, no crime deserves the horrific public shaming she got.
- rblstr 12y ago
  Please point out the racism in her satire-laden joke about how america perceives the rest of the world? Am I the only one that "got" what she was saying?
- Spooky23 12y ago
  In an open and democratic society, free speech is a value that is foundationally the core value that underpins everything. Free speech is there to protect the offensive and inappropriate... not civil discourse. Supporting an environment where it's acceptable to respond to some perceived slight (which changes over time) with an crazy overreacting mob isn't OK in an open society ever. You're very sensitive to racist statements... how do you feel 10 years from when the "offensive statement of the day" is an anti-war statement? Or a statement offensive to a particular religious doctrine? History is littered with people who do awful things while believing that they are righteous. Nobody in colonial Massachusetts was pro-witch. Nobody in 1950 America was pro-communist.
- dominotw 12y ago
  Isn't taking about them freely(Joking included) the first step to addressing the issue?
  - danielweber 12y ago
    Don't say Jehovah.
dethstar 12y ago
People get offended, you might think that's right, wrong or whatever but it happens. And you certainly wouldn't make that joke outside of your close circle of friends. Mob justice mentality certainly sucks though, imagine someone simply inspects one of your tweets, rewrites it and posts it somewhere and says "hey this person's racist, call their employer #{employer-number}".

paganel 12y ago

Exactly. You get to pay for your very stupid mistakes, especially those that affect other people (like this lady's tweet did).

Delmania 12y ago
Outside of offending people, how exactly did her tweet impact anyone else?
- karangoeluw 12y ago
  Offending people who might have lost a close family member to AIDS you mean?
  - paganel 12y ago
    There's no use in trying to explain. I'm being downvoted to hell for trying to explain why racist jokes are not ok, with replies like "this is just an off-color joke" or "do you know what racism means?" . I'm pretty dissapointed in this community, been here for lots of years and thought that generally speaking people in here would be more open-minded. But the minute you start to explain why making jokes about one's race or incurable disease is not ok you realize you're in the wrong group.
    - ripdog 12y ago
      It's a weird, weird world when "open minded" means "likes to participate in mob justice". And if you understand the tweet, you'd understand the she was making fun of ditzy white girls who naively assume that white people can't get AIDS. It's a caricature of racism, not racism itself.
    - tomp 12y ago
      In all honesty, you did a really poor job explaining why racist jokes are bad. You're being downvoted because (1) you assume that her joke was racist, and (2) you assume that racist jokes are bad (without showing understanding or "open-mindedness" about people who think otherwise). Personally, I disagree on both counts. I like offensive jokes of all kinds (I mean, if they're actually funny). Coming from a very homogeneous Central European country, I have never been on either side of oppression (other than being bullied in school for being weak, small, smart geek), so I definitely don't have your experience of being "hurt" by jokes, but your experience doesn't translate into a universally-applicable moral/rational argument that racist jokes are bad. However, even if I agreed with you and would personally dislike racist jokes, I would still strongly oppose restrictions or censorship on racist/offensive jokes, to avoid situations like the recent Charlie Hebdo attack.

Pinatubo 12y ago

She's a victim because the consequences were completely out of proportion to her transgression.

karangoeluw 12y ago
Really? She mocked a whole nation, and used a disease that has killed over a million people as a joke in a public forum.
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  You're right, she should probably be executed for that joke. /s
- mynameisvlad 12y ago
  Yes, exactly, as a joke. The amount of backlash she got is far greater than the atrocity of making a bad joke.
- subdane 12y ago
  The joke was supposed to be on her ignorant statement not on the nation, the disease or the victims. Unfortunately, no one got the joke.
- goostavos 12y ago
  You should, in general, stay away from the internet -- especially twitter -- people make these joke things about "serious" stuff all the time. Gotta thicken up that skin, friend.
- theorique 12y ago
  She was being ironic - making fun of herself by pretending to be a ditzy, entitled white girl who though that she could never get AIDS. Unfortunately, in her absence, people took her literally and assumed she was serious.
  - marcusgarvey 12y ago
    She has plenty of reason to now explain it as being ironic, but we'll never know if that was her original intent, will we? Her other tweets from the same period strike me immature and mean-spirited.

nailer 12y ago

She was mocking racism, people confused it for racism. The reactionaries remind me of the people who wrecked this Banksy: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/01/banksy-mural-clacton-racist http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/01/banksy-m...

efaref 12y ago
Exactly. I thought hacker news was a relatively smart crowd, but it seems there are people in this thread that don't even get that. "Stop the planet. I want to get off."

ObviousScience 12y ago

I don't like the extremism behind the idea that we should fire someone from their job over a off-color joke which is intended for a small audience, but may be overheard accidentally by others. That sort of absolutism of policing thought just doesn't end well, ever. To translate it away from Twitter: imagine you're at a public space, such as a mall, and you happen to be walking by a table of people leaning together just as one makes a racist joke. Is your response a) give them a sort of disgusted look and go on about your day or b) call everyone you know and repeat the joke to them, along with the location of the table in hopes you can whip up a mob of people to shout obscenities at them, continuing to follow them around for the day, and eventually form a mob outside of their office building, continuing to shout at them until their employer fires them? Most of us would go with 'a' and not 'b', because we realize that what happened doesn't really fit the extreme response. It's interesting to me that people feel that more extreme response is okay, as long as they don't feel personally too involved with it (eg, they can shout remotely).

karangoeluw 12y ago
I'm not saying firing her was fair or unfair - the company has to respond to public reaction too. I'm saying how is Twitter the bad guy here. > but may be overheard accidentally by others There is nothing accidental about tweeting in public. If she wanted to limit the exposure, she could have used the "protected tweets" feature.
- ObviousScience 12y ago
  There's nothing accidental about being in public when you're at a table at the mall, either, and yet we accept that people make communications in such spaces, which because of the medium carry beyond their party, that were really only meant for their group. In the same sense that voices carry in a public space, Tweets can be seen by a larger group than was intended. It's a sad state of affairs if our only option for having semi-open communications on the internet - things that friends of friends can see without having to sign up to a walled garden - is if we only say things that are acceptable to everyone possible, for fear of mobs semi-randomly forming, or worse, forming at the behest of a for-profit company driving the mob in a frenzy to get ad revenue (which is the case for times companies like Gawker have stirred the mob up).

542458 12y ago

I think the issue is that the response is disproportionate to the sin. Littering is socially undesirable but randomly executing 1 out of every 10,000 people who litter is probably excessive. In the same way, racist tweets are undesirable, but lynching randomly people who make them seems unproductive and does nothing more than fill people's want for something to self-righteous about.

learnstats2 12y ago

If everyone was treated equally, no matter the platform, I might agree with you. But, don't you think it's interesting that out of all the countless racist and sexist comments on twitter, that those who are chosen for pillory fit an obvious demographic pattern.

nemothekid 12y ago

Eighth Amendment - and secondly, I can't say the "social media lynching" is right either. This has gone far & above reprimanding someone for racial language to full on schadenfreude and mob punishment, and I can't agree thats an appropriate response to anything.