Hell, it wasn't even that many decades ago that lynchings were commonplace. And that's a much worse form of mob justice than outraged tweet brigades that occasionally get someone fired.
This is a problem.
And even if it was less of a problem than it was a decade ago -- and I don't think it is -- we should still look for ways to fix it.
James Damore is gainfully employed. Steve Hsu is still a tenured professor, Justine Sacco had a new job within a month, George Zimmerman is able to make a better living than most by selling murder memorabilia.
Read this whole thread.
He has been defamed as a pedophile by a stalker, and has been denied several six figure paying jobs 3-4 interviews into the hiring process explicitly because one guy decided to cancel him. The stalker says he monitors court records to prevent Josh from restarting his career by changing his name. Josh is now unemployable and living in Serbia.
Bio on the stalker:
Samuel Collingwood Smith is a yellow journalist who specializes in defamation and stalking. After a brief stint as a British council member, he publicly embarrassed himself by claiming his political enemies were sexual abusers of children. Without a job, he indulged in an obsession with Evanescence and attempted to become ring leader of Internet fan clubs about Amy Lee. In his quest to become her #1 fan, he would bully, harass, and stalk underage girls who held forum moderator positions above him. More than five years later, he threatens them legally if they speak on what abuse he submitted them to. After a falling out with Evanescence staff, he accused the band of being child pornographers and was forced into a permanent contract which requires he never speak of Amy Lee or Evanescence again. Despite parliamentary petitions to invalidate the non-disclosure agreement, he is legally bound to this day.
Since then, Samuel Collingwood Smith has trailblazed the Internet leaving behind countless smear campaigns purporting anyone he does not like to be involved in child pornography somehow. An emotionally unstable adult-child who focuses much of his time on GamerGate and relevant topics, he is well known as a public menace to local constables and courts. Writing under multiple pen names, including Vordrak and Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General, he romanticizes the English witch hunter by the same name. He hides behind this intimidating Internet persona and openly calls himself a terrorist. His mission statement is "to expose corruption and terrorise the guilty without worrying too much about due process."
> The targets of threads are often subject to doxing and other forms of organized group trolling such as ongoing harassment and stalking, including real-life harassment by users
And he thinks that a stalker is why he gets dropped at the background check phase?
Among the lies, is a quote attributed to Josh that someone added to his Encyclopedia Dramatica page, which the person later removed with the reason: ""sorry, I made this up".
Are you arguing that the central claim: that kiwi farms doxxes and harasses people is untrue?
http://www.kiwifarmswiki.com/index.php?title=Joshua_Conner_M...
This is the self-referential page created by the stalker in order to defame Josh. I am not referring to the Wikipedia page on Kiwi Farms.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/oceania/owner-of-christchurch-s...
Josh moon built a site that actively encourages harassment of innocent people online. That's unquestionably true. It's no wonder people don't want to employ him. He continues to work to improve the site and associate with it and actively engage in the harassment in some cases.
I cannot believe people are defending him.
It's a site which hosts a bunch of stalkers, doxxers and people whose sole purpose is to harass and ruin the lives of others. Anyone defending it is massively suspect to say the least. He wasn't 'cancelled' for wrongthink, he's been ostracized because he actively involves himself in making others people's lives worse.
In my opinion, you have to present at least a minimum level of decency towards society in order to take part in society, of which being employable is one facet. By running Kiwi Farms, Mr Moon simply doesn't reach this level imho.
It claims Josh is an anti-semite. What does it cite to back this up? It cites a picture of a tweet hosted on the website on Mathew Hopkins, Moon's stalker.
http://matthewhopkinsnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Moo...
I used to follow Josh on twitter before he got banned, and that wasn't even his twitter account.
Other folks have gotten the same treatment as well. The stories come up from time to time if you pay attention.
Most cases never make it that far. You have just enough that if any employer Googles someone before hiring, they don't get the job. If you have a half-dozen angry blog posts, or a local newspaper article or two, or a bunch of Twitter posts accusing you of something nasty, that's enough.
You're hiring someone for your team. If you have a choice between two job candidates, one where you see a half-dozen articles claiming they're racist, and one without, whom do you pick?
I know the choice I'd make. I don't want to deal with potential management problems.
Heck, even if you've sued a former employer (with good and legitimate reasons), why would someone pick you, knowing you're the sort of person who sues? Especially given I have no way to evaluate if the law suit was reasonable? Or if you've been involved in some conflict. Do I really want to sort out that mess? Or do I just give your resume a yellow flag, and pick someone without any yellow flags, if available.
In an up economy, where labor is scarce, you'll do fine. In a down economy where jobs are scarce, if you've got bad things about you on the internet, or even potentially yellow flags (e.g. some visible law suit or conflict), you've got a problem.
And yes, I can think of a couple of cases off the top of my head who have been through this, but I don't want to go Streisand Effect on people who'd much rather have normal, private lives.
What a "so". There's simultaneously so much confidence and so much innumeracy packed into it.
It's impressive how much a mere two letters can communicate.