PyCon has no prohibitions on taking photographs, and neither does the venue. Taking pictures in public without consent is legal, with only a small set of exceptions. PyCon by default inherits those rules, so I don't see how it's illegal. Perhaps have some moral code in mind?
Here is a picture of people at PyCon 2013. http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianly/8583308663/ . Do you think the photographer got permission from each of the people to take the picture?
Here is a picture of Michael Foord and Guido van Rossum, where Foord's name tag is clearly visible. http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianly/8583315245/ . Here's one of Shane Grigsby http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianly/8584459432/ , with name tag clearly visible. Do you think the respective photographers asked for permission to take the photo first? I doubt it, but it might be possible for those specific cases.
I have taken many photographs at PyCon over the years, without asking for permission. Many photographs were taken of me, including this one http://www.flickr.com/photos/uhop/400449848/ while I was speaking. I never granted Uhop permission to take the photograph. Under what basis do I have for complaining that it was illegal, immoral, or unjust for that photograph to be taken and published to flickr?
I agree with "is really not minor" only if by that you mean "perfectly acceptable." However, I don't think that's what you mean. You imply that it's a serious ethical transgression. I don't understand how, so I request enlightenment.
It's a public place. Do you really think you live in a bubble where no one can take pictures of you without your consent?
"posting said photograph to Twitter"
When did that stop anyone? We see photoshopped images of politicians make the rounds and sometimes show up on Hannity (Fox News television show)
"enlist an army against someone"
It's far from clear that she wanted to enlist an army against them. And she was clear in her apology that she didn't want this to end with the other people getting fired.
" It's full scale bullying."
You should probably steer clear of politics and success in general. Worse stuff happens to less notable people on a regular basis. Doesn't make it good or bad, but this is the nature of social media discourse.
"The idea that these companies just randomly happened to fire these people coincident with high-profile, contentious events (for unrelated reasons) is actually absurd."
It's doubtful in PlayHaven's case, considering that they kept one of the people in the circumstance, that the other person was fired just because of the comment. It was probably the straw that broke the camel's back.
I agree that death threats, DoS attacks, and general witch-hunts are not minor. I also think that the issue would have died down if playhaven had not fired mr-hank, but we have no details regarding what actually happened.
She publicly shamed the wrong guy! How is what she did ok?
She apologized and expressed remorse for the fact that he was fired. That's why I concluded that she wasn't trying to screw the guy over but rather wanted to draw attention to the general practice:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5399047
"I'm sorry to hear your employer deciding to not to work with you on this and I hope they reconsider, bring you back on and dealing with it constructively."
It seems to me that public shaming can be used for good. If a speaker at a conference says something racist, and from the audience you immediately call it out, causing that speaker to feel shameful, apologize, and carry on, then that seems like a good use of shaming. If a speaker should make overt and blatant lies in order to use the public stage in order to defame someone else's character, then surely a massive outcry of booing is morally justifiable, and the speaker should not be able to use "I was shamed" as a justifiable way to retaliate against those who booed.
The PyCon procedures even say that the organizers may cut a presentation short and throw the speaker out, should that person's presentation be against the Code of Conduct. If public shaming is prohibited, and if the speaker feels shamed by the staff response, then can't the speaker rightly exclaim "you are shaming me in public and you must stop!"? Why should the staff be allowed to shame someone in public?
However, you seem to think that any form of public shaming should be prohibited. What are your opinions about the scenarios I listed above? Can you describe the moral reasoning you used to help decide which forms of public shaming are appropriate and which are inappropriate?
Otherwise, I don't see how saying that "She publicly shamed the wrong guy!" is, by itself, enough information to tell if what she did was okay or not. Also, under the US law that applies to workplaces (PyCon is not a workplace), all honestly made statements concerning possible civil rights violations are given protected status. If PyCon were a workplace, then this public complaint would be completely okay, and both legally and morally justifiable.
Because I cannot come up with a good moral reasoning ("don't do things that cause others to feel bad" is not a good moral reasoning) for saying that this is anything other than ok, I conclude that it was ok.
Do you have any context as to what is going on here?
The guy in the middle of the picture that's smiling at the camera is not the perp. Most people who just saw the picture, without reading everything that everyone else wrote, think that he is the perp.
Where did I write that I disagree with all forms of public shaming, and that they all need to be prohibited? However, posting up pictures of many men, with one of them clearly staring at the camera, and saying "he jokes about dongles" is wrong when the guy that is at the center of the photo and is staring at the camera is not the guy that joked about dongles. That's defamation. Case closed.
The tweet said "right behind me", which is the right guy according to you.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5434005 https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/313417655879102464
Edit: I added "according to you" and link to comment since it was pointed out below that this might also be the wrong guy, which would make the comment even worse of course.
http://glpiggy.net/2013/03/20/identity-of-dongle-micro-aggre...
This source, much like the rest of the Internet, initially blamed Alex Reid, the man in the middle of the picture. Then this source decided that the guy to be blamed is the guy in the grey shirt. I made my comment following this source.
Then someone else, somewhere (no clue what the original source of that statement is anymore, but you are right, there are certainly comments to that extent floating around, and your post had that comment as well until it was deleted), stated that the reason why the guy at fault was fired from PlayHaven was because he was wearing his company's t-shirt, and thus was publicly representing the company, which in some way makes sense. The only guy in that shirt that was wearing a PlayHaven t-shirt and not the guy in the middle is sitting way far out, and not "right behind her" by any definition of that phrase.
My point is that someone who just saw that photo, without reading the extensive commentary around it, still thinks it's the man grinning at the camera - "right behind me" or not. Who is the right guy? I really thought it was the guy in the grey shirt, but even that is now under doubt.
Are the statements of this source more or less defamatory than the original source? That is, in the original image+text it was (and remains) ambiguous about who made the sexual jokes. While this source specifically named one person, and then named another.
If defamation is a relevant concept to this discussion, then you should be complaining most strongly about the defamation done by this source, no?
I still think arguments which use the term "public shaming" are uselessly vague. If you mean defamation, then just say defamation.
Defamation has a reasonably well-defined meaning in law and ethics, though the details vary widely depending on the jurisdiction. As this took place in the US, I do not see how there's a valid legal claim for defamation under US/California law.
I suspect though that you're talking about morals and ethics, and not just the law. The neat thing I've learned about the law is that it provides useful insights for how at least judges think about the ethics and morality behind the law, and those views can help understand the issue.
For example, SMITH v. MALDONADO is a California court case which addressed "Can a defamatory innuendo be created by the act of "highlighting" or visibly emphasizing certain selected passages in a concededly truthful and accurate newspaper article? May an action for defamation lie against persons who copy and disseminate such a truthful newspaper article, after having themselves highlighted one portion of the article that mentions other individuals in a context or manner that inferentially associates those individuals with alleged criminal activity? The issue is apparently one of first impression."
I think the concept of "first impression" is quite appropriate to this context, even if the details are different. The court decided that "first impression" could not be used as the basis for defamation, saying:
"Any other result would have a deleterious impact on all forms of written and oral speech. If we were to accept appellants' contention, the unavoidable effect would be to discourage the dissemination of accurate news reports. This result would raise obvious First Amendment concerns. We need not confine our consideration to the republication of newspaper articles, moreover. Writers and public speakers in general would have to take care they did not place the "wrong" emphasis on truthful, accurate statements of fact. The resulting chilling effect on the free flow of ideas and information would be substantial."
"Moreover, if a plaintiff could plead defamation based on an alleged innuendo derived solely from highlighting a true statement of fact, the door would be open to all kinds of subjective considerations of what does or does not constitute undue emphasis. Thus, in any defamation case the court would be forced to consider the particular type of emphasis used, and its effect on the person or persons to whom the material was published. Courts in libel cases would have to consider the distinctive effects of underlining, italicization, typeface, and the size, style or color of print used; courts in slander cases would be compelled to analyze the effects of variations in vocal tone, inflection, timbre, volume and pitch. If highlighting or emphasis alone could be found to create a defamatory innuendo as a matter of law, courts would also have to analyze the subjective intent of the person doing the highlighting. Otherwise, the highlighter could be liable if a person to whom the highlighted material was published misinterpreted it by giving the highlighting a falsely defamatory meaning, even if the highlighter had no such defamatory intent. What was he or she trying to communicate by highlighting or emphasizing and then publishing the material? If the added emphasis simply communicates "importance," how or why was the emphasized material "important"? The substantive and procedural difficulties posed to courts and litigants by such subjective analysis would be daunting. Even without considering the manifest constitutional ramifications of expanding the tort of defamation to include emphasis or highlighting of otherwise truthful material, strong considerations of public policy would preclude such an outcome."
While that case was about someone redistributing text from a newspaper, with parts they highlighted themselves, I think you can see how the underlying concept of "first impression" applies to image composition of a tweet.
I agree with the court's view here. If this incident is viewed as "defamation", then "the door would be open to all kinds of subjective considerations of what does or does not constitute undue emphasis." Which is exactly what's happened. And that's why the discussions have gone nowhere.
Morally and ethically speaking, I believe that saying this photograph+text is defamation is a bad idea, as doing so puts a "substantial" "chilling effect on the free flow of ideas and information".
It's not at all, really. Especially Adria, who called herself an "evangelist" at SendGrid. If your job is to evangelize something in a positive way and instead you piss off a bunch of people (fairly or unfairly), you're not really doing your job.
Both of these people, Mr. Dongle and Adria, will land on their feet -- trust me. This is simply the sort of story that has just enough detail to push people's buttons and just enough lack of detail so we can fill in the blanks with our own fantasies and prejudices about who the people involved are and what actually happened.
She cannot legally be fired because of what happened. Since she was fired, this means that she could take her case to court, and the courts will almost certainly find in her favor.
While I can and have talked about this elsewhere, it's best that you read what a lawyer says about this topic:
http://www.rmlawyers.com/blog/2013/03/sendgrids-unlawful-and...
https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/314452708549603328
If I have an employee who accuses an innocent co-worker of sexual harassment publicly and goes on to state that I support her accusation, when in fact I don't, can I not fire the employee?
It depends on several factors. A company cannot use a legitimate reason for firing someone as a pretext for an illegal reason to fire someone. The courts will ask questions like: Does the company have a policy that if an employee makes an incorrect statement like this then that person can be fired? Are there examples of other employees who made an incorrect statement but did not get fired? Here's the actual EEOC statement:
> The anti-retaliation provisions make it unlawful to discriminate against any individual because s/he has made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner in an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or litigation under Title VII ...
> The anti-discrimination statutes do not limit or condition in any way the protection against retaliation for participating in the charge process. While the opposition clause applies only to those who protest practices that they reasonably and in good faith believe are unlawful, the participation clause applies to all individuals who participate in the statutory complaint process. Thus, courts have consistently held that a respondent is liable for retaliating against an individual for filing an EEOC charge regardless of the validity or reasonableness of the charge\26. To permit an employer to retaliate against a charging party based on its unilateral determination that the charge was unreasonable or otherwise unjustified would chill the rights of all individuals protected by the anti-discrimination statutes.
> Typically, pretext is proved through evidence that the respondent treated the complainant differently from similarly situated employees or that the respondent's explanation for the adverse action is not believable. Pretext can also be shown if the respondent subjected the charging party's work performance to heightened scrutiny after she engaged in protected activity.
"If I have an employee who ..."
The law gives broad anti-retaliatory protections to someone who made a complaint. As I quoted above, the courts protect a claim made in good faith. "To permit an employer to retaliate against a charging party based on its unilateral determination that the charge was unreasonable or otherwise unjustified would chill the rights of all individuals protected by the anti-discrimination statutes."
"Good faith" is given a very broad interpretation. It's not expected that an employee will know the Title VII laws, nor know if a certain practice is actually prohibited under the law. However, if it was not made in good faith (the wording is something like "no reasonable person would agree"), then that complaint does not have Title VII protections.
Also, the employee may not make unreasonable forms of complaint. The EEOC writes: "[C]ourts have found that the following activities were not reasonable and thus not protected: searching and photocopying confidential documents relating to alleged ADEA discrimination and showing them to co-workers\17; making an overwhelming number of complaints based on unsupported allegations and bypassing the chain of command in bringing the complaints\18; and badgering a subordinate employee to give a witness statement in support of an EEOC charge and attempting to coerce her to change her statement.\19 Similarly, unlawful activities, such as acts or threats of violence to life or property, are not protected. ... If an employee's protests against allegedly discriminatory employment practices interfere with job performance to the extent that they render him or her ineffective in the job, the retaliation provisions do not immunize the worker from appropriate discipline or discharge."
That tweet can be parsed in many ways. Does "support me" mean that the company agrees that hearing unwanted dirty jokes while at the workplace is a valid reason to complain? Does "support me" mean that the company supports her legitimate use of Title VII protections? Does "support me" mean that her supervisor told her she was supported by the company, but upper-level management later decided that she wasn't?
Given that a company is supposed to support an employee's Title VII civil rights, I think that there is a reasonable person (the law says 'a reasonable person' not 'every reasonable person') who would say that tweet is nowhere near the bounds of what is impermissible in a Title VII action.