NYT: "Well-meaning people, in a crowd, often take punishment too far."

[zoogs]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html?_r=1&module=ArrowsNav&contentCollection=Magazine&action=keypress&region=FixedLeft&pgtype=article

 

This came up from Kelly Mosier's twitter (he is Director of Digital Media for the Huskers and was recently featured in an article spotlighting Nebraska's top-class social media efforts).

 

This is a pretty fascinating read, as it follows some people whose lives have been disrupted by one unfortunate social mistake. Sometimes they were mistakes of their own making -- a person who had a theme of "disregarding instructions of signs" photos, how could they not realize how disrespectful it would look to do that in Arlington cemetery?)...

 

Others, well, there was one guy at a tech conference who whispered a joke to his friend about the word "dongles". A woman in front of him snapped a picture of him and framed him as emblematic of sexist culture in technology. He got fired after he was raked over the coals for it. Then she got fired after she was, too, taken the task by the Internet Crowd Justice Machine.

 

Just an interesting read. Nebraska's perhaps no stranger to this, with Tapegates I & II (which I'd argue came with quite deserved backlash) and the DE who posted about a dead raccoon.

[NUinID]

For me it is just another example of our world becoming way too PC about everything. Maybe I am just an old white guy, but it really bothers me how so many get so uptight about some things that are pretty insignificant.

 

Sorry, I guess I like to hear dirty jokes and think it is a little silly to get too upset about it.

 

I myself was reprimanded as a teacher for having some inappropriate jokes stored on my work computer at school. I taught at our JR High, but most of the jokes came from our HS staff. This included the HS principle, HS athletic director and our Head FB coach.

[zoogs]

I think people are scandal chasers, perhaps to a greater case than in the past, or maybe it's just facilitated by how much easier it is to accomplish nowadays. And it can be quite appealing, especially when there are results. It leads to people trying to drum one up even when there isn't a really legitimate case for it. And while some of those attempts fail...some others succeed.

 

There's probably some interesting psychology behind it as well. People get a real kick out of delineating themselves as different or superior to the bad examples set by the object of their shame-posting. We all kinda do it, and I think that's probably a contributor in how these things catch fire. Especially on Twitter, where things like context are thrown aside because come on, not enough room!

[ColoNoCoHusker]

Agree it's nothing new & people love a scandal. Just easier/faster/more visible/longer lasting with current technology. There is a lot of sociological & psychological research on this area since at least the 1950s. I think society & people's behavior has fallen WAY behind technology (or at least on the wrong side of technology)... It may just be the same old problem society has always had with "common sense".

 

I can think of 5+ cases I have been involved with in recent years where social media/new technology cost someone their job & sometimes their career. I've always been fortunated to be on the "non-affected" side. I feel for those folks & in some cases the punishment was worse than the offense. However, it always started with one person's poor decision or lack of common sense. Lots of good advice around this