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Comment by paulhauggis | Hacker News Reader

This is the reality of social media. If you offend the wrong person, you will most likely get fired from your job and or get unwanted attention in other parts of your life..all for just expressing an opinion.

It's essentially online bullying by people that want to silence you for having an opinion that is different than their own.

The ex-Mozilla CEO knows this well. An online bullying campaign was launched against him and he was forced to quit.

I see this especially in many of the open source and tech communities, which is why I no longer contribute.

I also don't post anything political on my Facebook account. A future employer may look at this and judge me before I'm even hired..and decide not to hire me. Just looking at my list of friends, most people don't seem to realize that this may be a problem.

The same power that gives special interest groups and individuals the ability to launch campaigns to get people fired gives companies the power to not hire you based on your lifestyle or personal beliefs.

View on HN

While FOSS developers share political beliefs relating to the benefits of sharing software, FOSS traditionally had a culture of putting unrelated politics to the side. Strategically, FOSS couldn't afford to be seen as partisan given that it already encountered resistance from people who viewed it as a suspicious, vaguely communist, movement.

Now that FOSS is established, and there are developers that have grown up with FOSS existing unchallenged in society, political agnosticism isn't seen as important.

In contemporary Western culture, ideology seems to be taking the place of religion in terms of regulating morality. Social media has been instrumental in this transition. We're now seeing the emergence of global, ideological tribes that can communicate in realtime. Those who have power within these tribes are largely untouchable within the sphere of social media: they have the power to direct followers to lobby against others for perceived abuses, yet the power they wield intimidates many who would criticize them for abuse of power.

While Foss should be to some degree apolitical, individual contributors should be allowed to express their political views. The politics and the software itself should be treated differently.

I argued politics with a lot of FOSS developers on Usenet in the early 90s. They weren't apolitical. And the internal politics in FOSS were often very highly charged and often bitter. The splits that created OpenBSD and DragonflyBSD, Stallman's politics with FSF and GNU bleeding over into endless licensing flamewars on the LKML mailing list, etc.

You are either highly naive about FOSS or you've just defined all the vicious politics in FOSS as being just and righteous -- and that is exactly the justifications that the lynchmobs and their leaders in this article hold towards their victims as well.

Twitter, in particular, is awful. There's no context and very little thought possible in 140 characters. So you either get marketing from corporations, jokes/memes, or full-frontal assaults by the pitchfork-weilding mob, with no effective defense possible in the medium.

At least on Facebook you can elucidate your thoughts, defend your opinions, and otherwise make an effort too look like a person who appreciates nuance, rather than someone whose entire intellectual capacity is captured in 140 characters.

Twitter seems pretty much designed to function as an emotional amplifier.

It's not dissimilar to traditional news media in that respect -- "if it bleeds, it leads" and all that. Humans like to pay attention to other humans, and are fascinated by bad behaviour and messy accidents. Newspapers and TV channels are always after something that provokes their readers and gets them emotionally engaged at a fight/flight level. And twitter and other social media that permit unrestricted engagement play to this -- that's precisely why they've grown so big.

(Facebook is in no way an improvement unless you lock it down to friends-only. After all, the difference between 4000 characters and 140 isn't that great, when you're trying to discuss complex issues, especially if you're not very articulate or thoughtful in the first place.)

Yeah, the most important benefit of Facebook is that you can say things "privately". But even then, it's a lot harder to portray someone as an evil villain cartoon when there's context.

Even if most people don't read more than a sentence or two, it's possible to look like a real human being, whereas on Twitter you get your 140 characters, and that's that. By the nature of the network, nobody cares or sees the ten tweets that come before/after the offending one.

> Facebook is in no way an improvement unless you lock it down to friends-only.

This is definitely not true. As lunatic as they may seem, many of the people in these online mobs are at least somewhat reasonable, and if they were able to see context (for example, a comment or edit on the original post) it would pretty seriously attenuate the virality of stuff like this. Twitter is drive-by conversation: there's practically no possibility for context, for clarification, etc. Hell half the time I'm exposed to Twitter, I end up looking at fragments of conversation whose context is pretty damn painful to nail down. A shitty interface like that is a hell of a lot more efficient at instigating mobs over misunderstandings.

Scott Alexander's "The Toxoplasm of Rage" (h/t mlp at Ello) describes how Tumblr is apparently the perfect storm of outrage:

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage

More from Merideth: http://maradydd.livejournal.com/530110.html

The phenomenon reminds me quite strongly of Orwell's Two Minutes Hate from 1984 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Minutes_Hate

That's what has been so frustrating about watching the GamerGate stuff in a subcircle of the people I follow. Or any argument/outrage-of-the-day I've seen pop up.

There are people on both sides of an issue who are genuinely, mistakenly trying to have conversations. On Twitter, where the UI is designed to strip context away.

The thing about Twitter is that everyone is connected to the same party line.

Imagine you are at a party of 100 people, all having their own small conversations in of two to five people. Then imagine someone throws a switch and every single thing said is heard by everyone in the room, but only fleetingly and with no time to imagine the context.

And sometimes Twitter's culture makes it really hard to find context. If someone responds directly to a tweet, you can see that in the conversation, but a manual RT destroys that chain.

The real solution is that we have to recognize that our lizard brains love beating the shit out of people. We've put on a layer of civilization that stops us from doing that in person, but it's just as bad to do it online. Once we recognize that we can be monsters, we can figure out how to stop doing it, or at least do it less.

This and many other problems are instantly rectified when one stops using shit like twitter or fb.

Communicating with friends? fine, perfectly acceptable, PM or share with some reduced circle.

Trying to be funny in the world where someone could get butthurt over a joke that was snooped from the conversation not intended for their ears? You're asking for it (for the lack of better wording).

And yes I do realize the irony about this comment, feel free to downvote for 'victim blaming' if you don't understand the message.

A tweet is not part of a private conversation and the user in question should have known that - particularly considering their profession.

Twitter & FB aren't the problem. A lack of awareness and judgement is.

You're right that lack of awareness and judgement is the problem.

Lack of awareness of the fundamental error of attribution, and rushing to judgement based on far too little information.

Anyone who thinks they can reasonably judge anyone based on any single post, much less 140 characters, is not doing a great job of being a citizen in the 21st century. Everything we say can be misunderstood, and if you can't imagine anyone tweeting something you don't like without them being racist/sexist/whateverist that is simply because your imagination sucks as a tool for knowing reality, just like mine, just like everyone else's.

What we can or cannot imagine has absolutely nothing to do with what is real. This is the lesson of three hundred years of science. This is why ideas must be publicly tested by systematic observation, controlled experiment and Bayesian inference to be counted as knowledge.

This is not to say we must never judge, but that judgement is far more difficult than most people realize, and they are far too quick to do it based on far too little information and far too much imagination. [edit: I should have said "we are far too quick..." The habit of judgement is hard to break!]

I'm not judging the woman. I'm judging the action she chose to take, in the given context.

I'm saying she did something really stupid. I don't know anything else about the woman bar the fact that she seems to have a very nice taste in New York social spots.

Anyone who thinks they can reasonably judge anyone based on any single post, much less 140 characters, is not doing a great job of being a citizen in the 21st century.

^ If you're referring to me, as I said, I'm not judging her. But it's great that you see fit to lay down a marker for what constitutes being a good citizen.

^wat

^ Agreed, but unfortunately thats a symptom a lot of the internet suffers (arguably, feeds) from.

> A lack of awareness and judgement is.

The only problem is that you don't know what you don't know right up until it smacks you in the face like this.

I would say 80% of people on here have shown a little lack of awareness and judgement at least once on HN.

Have you ever posted a joke that might offend?

Have you ever linked to one or more past projects?

Are you aware that you can not delete your account or your posts?

Maybe I'm missing the ToS where copyright is assigned to HN, but I'm going to guess that a simple DMCA notice to HN would have all your comments deleted quite expediently.

That's a bit questionable if you fight it as they may be considered to have an implied license due to the fact that you posted it here to begin with. It was never really contemplated in terms of removing content placed there by its author.

You might also get put into a Chilling Effects database, assuming HN contributes to that (I honestly don't know, but it seems plausible). These are significantly less public than they were prior to the Google removal, though.

I think the biggest problem is people not understanding human nature. But that cuts both ways. Still a mob mobbing one person is not a fair fight.

Brendan Eich wasn't purged for anything he put out on social media, it was for a past political donation. But you are correct that minimizing social media use, or at least viewing what you publish with a PR perspective, will minimize risk of becoming the prey of ideological mobs.

> The ex-Mozilla CEO knows this well. An online bullying campaign was launched against him and he was forced to quit.

It's kind of weird to think that Brendan Eich is still active in the web standards community, even though he's been forced to leave Mozilla. A man without a company.

Given his past contributions to the web, it's unsurprising that he still participates and people listen to him.

The people who fought for Eich's departure like to downplay just how much knowledge he carries around in his head. I think deep down they're afraid to admit just how much damage they did to Mozilla, Firefox and the entire open source community. They still think they did a good thing.

What's something concrete that you think the entire open source community lost as a result of Eich no longer heading Mozilla?

Losing one of the most important people at one of the most important open source projects is a loss in and of itself. That was twenty years of experience and technical knowledge that walked out the door.

Losing one of the only people in a position to fight against DRM who had the will to do so is another blow. The end result as I see it is the social justice community gets a "victory", religious people at Mozilla learn they're not to take part in our political process, and those who were left gave up the fight against DRM. Not that they had a choice, how do you ride into battle short a CEO and a CTO, and while licking your wounds from a vicious boycott/smear campaign?

Firefox circa Eich on DRM: https://brendaneich.com/2013/10/the-bridge-of-khazad-drm/

Firefox post boycott on DRM: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/05/14/drm-and-the-challen...

So basically without a company a person is nothing?

It would be a sad world if you needed commercial endorsement to be relevant about anything.

Would society really be any better off if people aren't held accountable for what they say?

The coorect response to what most of these people said is for someone to pull them to one side and say "stop being a dick, especially if you're using the company social media account".

Threats of violence, loss of job, weeks long campaigns -- none of that is an appropriate response.

in for example Eich's case how do you pull him aside and say "stop being a dick by donating to hate, and then trying to run a diverse company?"

Just because somebody's idea of diversity is different from yours doesn't make them hateful, it just makes them different.

It's ironic that this is lost on people who argue the most loudly for inclusiveness.

No, it doesn't make them "different," it makes them hateful. You're carrying water for some people that will go down in history next to the KKK. Stop it.

What, stop defending people who are being forced out of society by an angry mob? No. I dislike angry mobs, it's kind of my thing.

Not only that. If you take that approach to an extreme one e fs up a hermit or worse a selfreinfocing mentality. I mean no restaurants where a cook, server disagrees politically, no working for companies who have people who disagree with me, no listening to music from musicians who disagree with me....

Go ahead try and see how far people get. Not very.

I'm sure that if you really stretch your mind around the issue, you'll understand and agree that the rules are a bit different at the CEO level.

I don't think so. So long as they don't seek me out personally, I'm okay with the CxO, etc., being diametrically opposed to me.

I'll put up with an F'ed up president/prime minister with whom I disagree to the utmost, but I'm not going to move out of the country. I'd do what any civilized person would do and avail myself the tools at hand, vote, in the case of president/PM/Chancellor. But I'm not going to get in a tizzy over it.

I think there's a point you come to in life where you realize that no matter how righteous you think your personal cause is, it's your framework which makes it so. Live in another era, in greek times or babylonian times, their idea of what was right and wrong were different due to their frameworks. People who believe that when they are old and frail should go out to pasture to be consumed by nature are no less right than the person who believes in life prolonging drugs, euthanasia or hospice care.

I'm also not saying we're insignificant beings and nothing really matters in the face of the universe. Just that with few exceptions, like murder, etc. we can't say 'this is the righteous way', the enlightened way.

When I work for someone, when I buy something, there is no further symbolism -it's unconditional. I make a transaction for service or product. You pay me, I work for you do do x. I pay you and I get service or product x in return. I don't expect any conditions like, oh, you must say sweet things to your partner, don't think nasty thoughts in your dreams, else this breaks some implicit agreement, etc.

What you're missing is that people like Eich are the angry mob.

This is what your angry mob looks like.

https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2014/03/mozilla-statement-on-... https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/

I'm really sorry to have to be so direct about this, but it's perspectives like this that are part of the problem.

By saying that they're "next to the KKK", you're marking your opposition as not only immoral, but beyond reprieve. If you're willing to simplify the moral landscape to a single line onto which you've placed yourself squarely at the "good" end, you're taking a gravely irresponsible logical shortcut.

EDIT: I foolishly used 'retribution' in place of 'reprieve', thus making my above comment confusing and nonsensical.

By saying that they're "next to the KKK", you're marking your opposition as not only immoral, but beyond reprieve.

Can you elaborate on that? Several prominent racists of the KKK era, including people like Robert Byrd and George Wallace, ultimately renounced their earlier views. Eich is free to do the same whenever he wants. He has not, as far as I'm aware.

Whether or not you agree with Eich getting fired (stepping down) over it is another thing, but donating to a cause whose sole purpose is to prevent a group's right to get married (and reap the tax benefits!) seems pretty hateful. You can get into semantics about what was or wasn't written in religious texts, whatever, still doesn't make it right.

What CamperBob2 said was probably inflammatory but probably also right. If you're against same-sex marriage you're probably on the wrong side of history.

Note to hopefully avoid unproductive tangents: all the views I use as examples here say nothing about how I feel about these issues, they're just examples of how _society_ feels and may feel about certain things (which is what is relevant).

> If you're against same-sex marriage you're probably on the wrong side of history.

The problem I have with this is that it condemns the vast majority of society, throughout the vast majority of history. Understanding someone's views while stripping the context of society's views at the time is foolish. In 2015, being religious (e.g.) isn't a good excuse for opposing gay marriage in 2008 (when a majority of society was in opposition to gay mariage, btw). Hypothetically, in 2025, maybe support for Israel's actions vis-a-vis Palestine will be widely considered the new apartheid. Similarly, what if in 10 years, we decide that a robust social welfare system in the US is a moral imperative (there are many who already feel that the way poverty is treated in this country is a huge moral failing)?

Does that mean all of my friends in 2015 who donate to and participate in organizations and rallies in support of Israel should be forever blacklisted from public positions? Should all the people you know who in 2015 are opposed to robust welfare/basic income and the accompanying tax increases be forbidden forever from rising to certain positions of authority in entirely-unrelated fields?

I don't necessarily really agree with your statement that a majority of society was opposed to gay marriage in 2008. But I think it is a valid point to say that what happened near 6-7 years ago should not necessarily count against you in the present.

_BUT_ (and I'm largely paraphrasing) when asked about this issue and same-sex marriage, Eich pretty much sidestepped the question and refused to answer it, citing how he has never discriminating against anyone. And to a lot of people that wasn't good enough of a response coming from a CEO of a company that prides itself on its diversity, especially when they also have gay employees.

Anyways my actual point about this originally was that Eich's situation doesn't really parallel the situation Sacco went through. For one, Eich's situation was pretty enclosed to the tech world, whereas Sacco was a worldwide trending topic that brought her a lot of unwanted attention. I also doubt Eich got called a whore, bitch, slut, etc much. And to say Eich was "bullied" in the way Sacco was bullied is laughable (Not saying you said it, although I think one of the ancestor posts mentioned it).

> I don't necessarily really agree with your statement that a majority of society was opposed to gay marriage in 2008.

I actually thought this was the least controversial part of my comment. This isn't just my anecdotal opinion, it's pretty well supported by polls if I'm not mistaken. Do you mind if I ask on what basis you think the opposite is true?

> when asked about this issue and same-sex marriage, Eich pretty much sidestepped the question and refused to answer it, citing how he has never discriminating against anyone. And to a lot of people that wasn't good enough of a response coming from a CEO of a company that prides itself on its diversity, especially when they also have gay employees.

This is a more compelling point actually. On the other hand, it's easy for me to imagine that he just (like me) failed to comprehend the level of lunacy he was facing and figured the best way to handle a manufactured controversy was to not give it more attention than necessary. On top of that, I feel like I'd also be much more morally inclined to emphasize that political views are irrelevant, rather than pander by saying "oh I've completely changed forever" and implicitly approving of the intolerance implied by political litmus tests (regardless of your location on the political spectrum).

> I also doubt Eich got called a whore, bitch, slut, etc much. And to say Eich was "bullied" in the way Sacco was bullied is laughable

As you said, it wasn't me who compared them. That being said, I don't think using the term "bullied" for either person is particularly unwarranted though.

Calling it hateful is just a political smear.

Living in a democracy I'm uneasy when I see large-scale mobs form to punish and intimidate people for participating in our political process in "the wrong way." Take note that I've been a long-time supporter of same-sex marriage, but seeing Eich get forced out by the group I always supported because they were so innocent and powerless made me reconsider some things.

You see he has donated to a hateful cause. You then tell him that this action has triggered extra scrutiny of his actions at work. You the. Scrutinise everything he has done at work, and all interactions in the workplace. As soon as he discriminates againt gay people in the workplace you fire him.

But he has already discriminated against them by donating to a party that wants to take away their rights. How can he then claim to take diversity seriously?

I kinda agree, a PR person of all people should be held accountable for making a terrible joke that comes off as racist.

The problem is just the reaction of a mob of arm chair vigilantes thinking they are each delivering some unique tiny bit of justice with their comments, emails or calls. It's a death by a thousand cuts, not to mention the nut-cases who send horrible threats of violence and worse.

It's obviously something ingrained in our DNA, it reminds me of nature documentaries - watching a group of apes attack one of their own who they perceive as weak.

[McMurphy:] "Is this the usual pro-cedure for these Group Ther'py shindigs? Bunch of chickens at a peckin' party?"

[…]

[Harding:]"A 'pecking party'? I fear your quaint down-home speech is wasted on me, my friend. I have not the slightest inclination what you're talking about."

"Why then, I'll just explain it to you." McMurphy raises his voice; though he doesn't look at the other Acutes listening behind him, it's them he's talking to. "The flock gets sight of a spot of blood on some chicken and they all go to peckin' at it, see, till they rip the chicken to shreds, blood and bones and feathers. But usually a couple of the flock gets spotted in the fracas, then it's their turn. And a few more gets spots and gets pecked to death, and more and more. Oh, a peckin' party can wipe out the whole flock in a matter of a few hours, buddy, I seen it. A mighty awesome sight. The only way to prevent it-with chickens-is to clip blinders on them. So's they can't see."

great quote from a great movie. It's bizarre how much animal behavior we have in us when you look closely.

This is actually from the book, which is worth reading (also required reading, in some American high schools).

I'm not sure it goes back to the formation of our DNA. Or at least not in that way.

We're raised on stories of Abraham Lincoln and Rosa Parks and we idealize how important they were to society. Now as people leave childhood and begin facing their own complete lack of importance think they can join the social justice fight and simply by bullying people really be somebody. They'll spend hours a day in a rage at their keyboards while thinking what they're doing is really benefiting society.

Getting outraged politically is a quick and easy path to a social identity and group membership. That does make us sound a bit like apes....

I would certainly like the people who mobbed and bullied Justine Sacco to be held accountable for what they said, which unlike her innocent, easily-misunderstood comment was full of willful malice.

Yes.

You have to appreciate the difference between actionable speech and expressing an opinion.

Would you really say that a society where no one is ever held accountable for what they say is the alternative to what happened to Sacco?

Imagine if someone with a lot of twitter followers interpreted the statement you just made here as a veiled death threat, unleashing a raging mob against you, ultimately leading the utter destruction of your life as you knew it. Would you say that you were being held accountable for what you just said and that any society that did not do that to you had to be one where no one was being held accountable for anything they say?

Demanding that people should be held accountable for what they say is so generic that it allows for any kind of reaction to just about anything anyone could ever say. The islamists who killed the Charlie Hebdo caroonists could have said the exact same thing.

Proportionality is important.

Also, Sacco's case clearly shows that there are always lots of people out there who are waiting for an opportunity to bully others, regardless of how contrived and intellectually disingenuous the pretext may be. Portraying a joke about racism or race relations as a racist joke is just daft. I can't believe that many people honestly felt that Sacco was being racist. They just wanted to bully someone.

There's a spectrum of 'accountable' between being an unemployable pariah and being totally unaccountable which disorganized mass action cannot be properly calibrated for.

The "Mob" API has exactly one public method: start().

It doesn't return. You can't be sure if it worked.

And, most importantly, you don't have the ability to say "no, no, it started against the wrong person" or "okay, that's enough." It will run at its own speed, maybe finding a new target when the first one is destroyed.

Which is why you keep different online identities that don't point to each other. So you can say the stupid jokes on your "sgt.lonelyheart97" twitter while posting on your prim&proper official account once or twice a year. Someone who really wants to will probably be able to connect the dots after enough digging... somehow. But at that point it's someone with vendetta against you specifically.

Or just go and post on 4chan anonymously.

Two of the women mentioned in this article were doing just that. They posted pictures that the wrong people found offensive, got doxxed, bullied, and fired.

Which article did you read? Everyone in the article was demonstrating their innocence by doing things with their real names, with public profiles describing their place of employment.

Then the whole edifice is inherently unstable and will collapse at some point.

I will still post economic or political-ish things, under my real name, but they're generally not very controversial, they're references to articles, book or blogs ( usually that I'd like to see read a bit more ).

  It's essentially online bullying by people that want to 
  silence you for having an opinion that is different than 
  their own.

Do you see any breakthroughs coming in platforms and/or technologies, that tackle this problem, on the horizon ?

There's a qualitative difference between making a joke, which probably had no bearing on her actual opinion or position on AIDS or Africa, and actively trying to deny rights to other people. It's not like she donated money to Stormfront.

The equivalent comparison to Eich would be if he made a joke ending with "... Oh wait, I'm not gay" or something.

(And wasn't a lot of the Mozilla thing really a disguised way at getting back at him for JavaScript?)

An online bullying campaign was launched against him and he was forced to quit.

Maybe he shouldn't have participated in an offline bullying campaign against an entire segment of the population.

I have some pretty serious objections to summing up people making a campaign to remove a bigot from his role leading an open source, community friendly company as "an online bullying campaign"...

Replace "offend the wrong person" with "do something really f*cking stupid" - which is what she did - and the outcome seems fair.

No one deserves to be bullied or harassed but consequences need to exist to actions.

Fair? Do you really think so? If so you terrify me.

I've done plenty of really f*cking stupid things in my time. I'm very thankful most of them were offline or pre-internet.

You're terrified by the idea that someone should be fired for gross unprofessionalism?

To repeat: she did not deserve ANY bullying or harassment whatsoever.

Did you experience consequences of the stupid actions you've taken?

Gross unprofessionalism? She wasn't on the job. It wasn't an official account.

You'd think a PR person would know PR doesn't take breaks or consider unofficial stuff to be out of bounds.

I'd like to live to a world where your actions outside of the workplace in a physical or online sense don't affect how you're perceived but it's just not true.

Not true because of people like you who force the link, who call,email and tweet employers about the behaviour of their off duty staff.

because of people like you

^Thats quite an assumption to make, no?

For the record, I've never done any of the above.

I think you understand what I mean but are perhaps being dense for the sake of argument. There are people who hold simile views to yourself and these people take it up on themselves to bring people's employers into arguments that they have no part of or perhaps would be otherwise unaware of. That's not to say the employer cannot have a response to comments and posts of this nature but they are not allowed to deal with it in a professional manner because the mob is baying at their door.

Nope, not being intentionally dense - I'm already unintentionally dense without adding to it! - but your comment felt like you were saying that I did those things, when in fact I never have.

That was not my intention, Apologies if it came across like that.

I'm dating myself, but I grew up thinking pretty much whatever you did outside of work--was no one's business.

The first time I knew society changed was when Charlie Sheen was fired for his lifestyle. Actually, the first time was the Clinton/Monica fiasco.

The only benefit I see from this hyper morality is true hypocrites/authority figures are exposed. I partied in the eighties, like everyone else; The only time I was offered hard drugs was by three off duty cops at different engagements. I don't think I(a stranger) would get that offer today?

I don't like it when one of you guys are fired over something said, but I'm all for exposing hypocritical Politicians and Law Enforcement types. Yes, I have been harassed by law enforcement, and if it happens again, and all this tech works, I will post the offence online. Legally--I know they can randomly stop people, I can randomly post. I now have two cameras front and rear of my vechicle. I am waiting for the next time I get pulled over for no reason. I also try to keep that Iphone camera handy if I suspect abuse of authority.

I liked the old system because I was white and middle class, but I can't imagine what a lot of women and minorites had to put up with?

(Actually the I more think about it, maybe the reason we are so sensitive over online comments is because, as white males, we didn't experience the injustice the rest had to endure? I know my generation wasen't sexist, or racist, but my father's generation--is a whole other story.)

> To repeat: she did not deserve ANY bullying or harassment whatsoever.

That wasn't clear. You said the "outcome was fair" - the outcome was that her life was ruined.

I also said: No one deserves to be bullied or harassed but consequences need to exist to actions.

I meant the outcome from a professional standpoint was fair. I don't believe how her life has been "ruined" as I've explained elsewhere.

Clearly the person who fired her only did so because of public outcry, i.e. the bullying. That was in their best interest. It wasn't fair. It wasn't a consequence equal to her action. It may have been equal to the reaction to her tweet, but that reaction was unjust.

The consequences of the bullying, given her being fired, is much worse than if she was not fired. Her ability to compete in the workplace has been severely diminished because of this. Her PTSD that she will probably suffer for a long time has been greatly exacerbated by her firing.

Given the worst intention of her tweet (ignorance), getting fired was still not the right reaction to her "crime."

Do people need to be held accountable to their actions? I agree that they should. Outside of criminal law (since this wasn't criminal), the mob is not the right group to decide what the correct consequence of her actions should be. History shows that this leads to barbarism, which this was a case of.

She didn't get what was coming to her, she got much worse.

if you think the outcome from a professional standpoint was fair, you have a very bleak and dystopian view of fairness. she was posting something to her own private twitter account in her own time; it had nothing to do with the job.

I've posted something online that almost got me fired. No racists remarks, no hate, it was just some techincal info I shouldn't have shared.

The power that a few sentences can have is sometimes terrifying.

Among the reasons that I "am" "Dr. Edward Morbius" and "work" is "Krell Power Systems, Unlimited".

It appears that a big part of this discussion is about how we as a group are not sure if it really is a situation in which she "[did] something really f cking stupid", though.

Clearly, you do interpret her statement to be an offensive, racist remark, but by her own admission, she instead was commenting on how "[l]iving in America puts us in a bit of a bubble when it comes to what is going on in the third world. I was making fun of that bubble."

Whether or not her explanation for the off-color is truly genuine is up for debate, but scuttling somebody's life and career for something that only might have been a racist remark doesn't seem all that fair to me and (it would appear) a significant fraction of commenters here.

Her explanation does sound like it was crafted by a political PR group - which makes sense considering her profession - but I'm still happy to take her word for it.

However, it's pretty easy to see how it could be considered a racist and bigoted tweet and I'd expect her to have realised this before sending it.

EDIT: I totally agree that scuttling someones life on career off the back of one tweet is unfair - I 100% agree with that. As I said in the original comment, the bullying she experienced was totally unfair.

I don't believe, however, that her career is ruined by it - evidenced by the fact that she's now gainfully employed. I think it's definitely a red flag on her resume but by doing volunteer service after the fact I'd be surprised if any company wouldn't see this as "I did something dumb, I learnt and grew from it".

Professionals in PR should naturally be extra-vigilant about issues like these.

if the joke had come out of Louis CK's mouth, its intention would have been obvious.

given that, as she said in the article, "only an insane person would think that white people can't get AIDS", and the phrasing is obviously comic (dour opening, sudden & glib reversal, edgy punchline), I literally cannot read the tweet as bigoted or racist. Is the joke off-color? yes. Is it obviously self-deprecating, and aware of the fucked-up-ed-ness of white & first-world privilege? yes.

if the joke had come out of Louis CK's mouth, its intention would have been obvious.

^Agreed but Louis CK is a world famous comedian. When he speaks I know to take most of what he says in jest. Theres a context I can apply when he speaks.

A counterpoint to this would be that she had a small following on Twitter, most of whom she may know in real life, who likely know that she was joking. They can apply a similar context because of their relationship with her.

However, I would expect her to know that people will be able to read a tweet without that context - thus taking it out of context - and reacting accordingly.

I literally cannot read the tweet as bigoted or racist

^And that's okay. I see it differently. We all take different understandings of things. The tweeter should have considered this when posting the tweet.

> And that's okay. I see it differently. We all take different understandings of things. The tweeter should have considered this when posting the tweet.

I find it hard to accept this. I've offended people, unintentionally. Heck, there are still a few times that to this day I don't understand why the person was offended (I mostly do understand when they explain themselves).

We are human; I don't think it is reasonable to parse everything 140 characters that ever leaves our mouths or fingers and correctly predict how any/every person in the world might possible interpret it.

I mean, do you know anyone, ever, that has never offended somebody? It seems like an impossible standard. People shouldn't brake to late and rear end somebody at a stop light. People shouldn't ski too fast on a ski slope and fall. They shouldn't trip and fall. They shouldn't talk over somebody during a conversation. But we do them, now and again.

I loathe posting in conversations like this because it is almost inevitable that someone somewhere will misconstrue what I am saying. "Look, Roger is sticking up for racist posting!" Uh, no, anything but, but someone somewhere is going to say that. I'll probably get lucky and that won't develop into a Twitterstorm, but who knows? A good part of me says just delete this and don't hit reply.

But I don't want to live in that kind of world of perfect expectations. I'm going to try hard to express myself well, but you (you=public, not you the poster I'm replying to) have to understand that modelling the minds of others is a difficult and mistake ridden field.

I think there's something to be said for the idea that when people don't have context, they should slow their roll on the pitchforks, not make the worst assumption.

That's why I'm happy to see post-mob coverage of stories like this one, and some of the Reddit mob-justice-gone-wrong situations.

1) when I read the offending tweet at the beginning of the article my first thought was "she's making fun of clueless white/rich people traveling abroad." (If you've traveled you may have bumped into this not-uncommon type.) so I think it's reasonable to believe that explanation.

2) I got the impression that this was a personal account, meaning I'd judge it based on what stupid shit I hear people say in bars or other social/personal situations. I know plenty of people who have said way worse things, and continue to.

When I was younger and much more stupid, I told a joke once that in hindsight was homophobic. I in no way every considered myself homophobic whatsoever and it was just pure stupidity and thoughtlessness on my part. I was at a party and my joke went over like a lead balloon and I was immediately embarrassed. I believe I deserved to be embarrassed and that thought me a lesson. I feel like that, or perhaps a stern lecture is an appropriate reaction to somebody telling a thoughtless, tasteless joke.

At some point in life we all realize that we're not as funny as Steven Colbert, we're not as good looking as Brad Pitt, etc, etc. When you come to that realization, learn your limits and don't try to pull off a racist joke or wear a speedo to the beach. It's unfortunate that she had to learn this lesson in such a painful and public way. She was clearly in the wrong, but I don't agree that mob justice fits the crime.

The gray text makes it look like a lot of people disagree. So suppose for the sake of argument that lots of people on the internet considered this post "really f*cking stupid" and tried to get you fired for it - would that not be a problem?

I mean presumably you don't think it was a repugnant thing to have posted, but then neither did Justine Sacco.

A fair point but comparing the ideal that people should be held responsible for their actions to a bad racist joke intended to highlight that "living in America puts us in a bit of a bubble when it comes to what is going on in the third world" is apples and oranges at best.

If you feel like Gawker would be interested in running a piece on my comment then feel free to go ahead and submit it.

These things are subjective. Presumably Sacco felt that comparing genuinely racist content to someone's sarcastic joke about themselves was apples and oranges as well. I rather do myself.

Put it this way - nobody is against the idea of "people being held responsible for their actions". But it's pretty hard to buy that that's what happened here. I remember when the Sacco thing was trending and I never saw anyone who seemed hurt or angry, or even offended. To the contrary, people were thrilled that some PR asshole was going to get fired but didn't know it yet.

> Replace "offend the wrong person" with "do something really f*cking stupid" - which is what she did - and the outcome seems fair.

And yet if she was a writer for SouthPark or Family Guy, we'd all be laughing at the joke.

"consequences need to exist to actions"

Didn't G.W. Bush say something similar about people who criticized the Iraq war?

> The ex-Mozilla CEO knows this well. An online bullying campaign was launched against him and he was forced to quit.

Hahahahahahaha no. Eich paid money to political campaigns to ensure that some of his own employees and fellow citizens would not have basic human rights. Then, he refused to apologize for it and dodged the question when asked if he would do it again. That's not "expressing an opinion," that's nearly sociopathic. He was clearly working against his employees' best interest. Even ignoring his employees' feelings, he was bad for the company. Many productive employees threatened to quit because they didn't want to be represented by a person who explicitly expressed hatred towards them or their friends.

That kind of person does not belong in a position of power, full stop. Expressing homophobia in 2015 is going to close doors, the same way expressing racism or sexism does and should. There was no "bullying campaign" except the one supported and perpetrated by Eich.

Just curious why this is getting downvoted. Are people actually buying the whole "Eich is a victim because as a white multimillionaire he lost his job because he cared deeply about taking away the rights of others"...?

It's because they are going overboard... I stopped reading when I saw the word "sociopathic".

Do you think campaigning to ensure a group of people don't have certain fundamental rights that others do, for no reason other than your own personal animosity, doesn't qualify as sociopathic? I do.

This matter you are concerned with has always had more to do with recognition and acceptance in society than rights and equality.

You seem sharp set to demonize Eich and otherwise be combative with others in all these comments. Have you ever considered that your attitude would harden peoples' hearts against you rather than warming them?

Do you think you will you ever be able to drop this victim act and heal and move on with life?

Are you really suggesting that outrage directed at those intentionally harming other people for no reason at all is an act?

> for no reason other than your own personal animosity

If that's your understanding of people who vote against gay marriage, then you really have no idea what's going on in this country.

Please enlighten me.

Most people on this planet have religious beliefs, that claim some behaviors are good, and some behaviors are bad. A lot of them don't make much sense. Maybe you think that God doesn't want you eating bacon. Why? I don't know. But you follow them because you believe that's what God wants you to do. A lot of people—millions and millions of people in the US—believe that their God disapproves of gay marriage. And so these people, who are trying to understand the world and their place in it, try to live out the expectations they believe that their God has for them.

Maybe you think that sucks. Well, in fairly short order, gay marriage is being legalized over their objections. That's a good thing. But to believe that it's being fueled by sociopathic animosity—to turn millions of Americans into movie villains because they haven't yet learned what you already have—is an act of arrogant blindness. And it's a harm to you as well—by not understanding why they believe what they do, by turning them into fictional caricatures, you lose all hope of changing their mind, and helping them learn what you learned.

I have no doubt that, over time, quite a lot of them will see the errors of their ways, and support gay marriage. But it will be despite you, not thanks to you.

We have a constitution. The first amendment of which says religion will have no influence in making laws. Done, discussion over, and the courts agree.

That's not what the first amendment says. A lot of laws have inspiration in religion (and tradition)—people believe X, and so want laws that support X. But if X gets passed as a law, it's because people support X, not necessarily because it comes from a religion. What we're seeing with gay marriage is, people are studying the matter, and finding out that the only reasons against it are religion, and tradition. And those aren't sufficient. So laws against it are being overruled.

But that isn't to say that religion has (or should have) no influence, because it influences the believers, who then support laws & lawmakers. Nor is always it possible to separate the beliefs that someone holds for religious reasons, vs. beliefs they hold for other reasons. But it does mean that a law needs more than religious reasons to stay on the books. Thankfully, gay marriage seems to be one that is mostly held for religious reasons, so laws preventing it can be dismantled (versus, say, marijuana prohibition. It's more than just religion, so it's harder to dismantle).

But if all you take away is that people against gay marriage aren't driven by sociopathic malice, then that's still an improvement.

Yes, people are downvoting because Eich is white. That's most certainly the reason. ;)

I was a little rude there, but people claiming that Eich is the fricking victim here really sets me off.

The downvotes from cowards and/or homophobes do crack me up though. This is a discussion forum, folks. If you disagree, let's discuss it!

> Then, he refused to apologize for it and dodged the question when asked if he would do it again. That's not "expressing an opinion," that's nearly sociopathic.

Forcing someone to apologize for something that is not universally considered to be wrong is a good example of bullying. As is calling publicly his behaviour "sociopathic".

> He was clearly working against his employees' best interest.

This is hardly considered to be a firing offense for a CEO -- in fact, in many cases this is considered to be good by many people, e.g. by anti-tradeunionists when CEOs fights with unions.

> Many productive employees threatened to quit because they didn't want to be represented by a person who explicitly expressed hatred towards them or their friends.

Saying that he explicitly expressed hatred towards anyone is misrepresenting the facts, and is another example of bullying.

> in fact, in many cases this is considered to be good by many people, e.g. by anti-tradeunionists when CEOs fights with unions.

Sure, but arguably they're benefiting the company then. In what way does denying some people fundamental rights that other people are allowed to have benefit Mozilla? It's a different situation.

> Saying that he explicitly expressed hatred towards anyone is misrepresenting the facts

It really isn't. Did you see the Prop 8 campaign? Do you know the kind of offensive garbage anti-gay groups spew, even today? They regularly call homosexuals pedophiles, rapists, accuse them of having an "agenda" to convert others to homosexuality, or that their god hates them. These groups are a wellspring of hate, and Prop 8 was no lily-white exception. The "National Organization for Marriage," a major supporter of Prop 8, has been classified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group.

That's what Eich was paying to support. If giving material support to a cause forwarded by hate groups doesn't classify as expressing hatred, I really don't know what does.

Made me think of this tweet I saw the other day:

"Everyone who questions my obviously compassionate and righteous cause is a dangerous sociopath" — Many sociopaths

Go on, tell us why gay marriage shouldn't be legal.

To elaborate, you're implying there's a different, valid side to this argument. I'm curious to hear it.

I'm not religious, so I don't advocate for religious beliefs. I don't, however, deem people with non-violent religious beliefs, that differ from mine, to be "sociopaths".

So you'd be okay with, say, banning bacon because Jews don't eat it? I'm not arguing against a religious belief. I'm arguing against a religious belief being enforced by the government.

This isn't a disagreement over optimal taxation rates. There are people committing suicide because they've been demonized by people like those Eich paid money to support. There is real harm being done.

The alternative side to this argument is that if Eich discriminates against anyone at work he loses his job, but that inclusiveness includes including people we don't like - and that means Christians with weird but semi-private views about gay marriage.

The only reason anyone knows about his ciews is because political donations are public, not because of anything he did at work.

Yeah, sure, if you're privately a bigot, how is anyone to know?

But this was the CEO of a company unapologetically supporting a hate group aimed at many of his own employees. Then people have the balls to claim he was "bullied" out of his position as head of a major Internet company?

This isn't crazy programmer Ed going on about some conspiracy theory, this is the CEO of your company supporting hate directed at you and your friends. You can just wave Ed away. This guy is going after your fundamental rights. Screw that.

>But this was the CEO of a company unapologetically supporting a hate group aimed at many of his own employees.

There likely wouldn't have been a Mozilla corp or org if he hadn't founded the company and as Mozilla grew he did nothing to hamper its growth into a highly diversity-friendly company. Privately he had issues, likely religious, about the definition of marriage and this was, culturally, a mainstream view at the time.

Aw, I already answered that one!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9041105

Do you think people should get fired and ostracized for donating to Planned Parenthood? They literally murder babies. What kind of person thinks murder is ok, and would donate money to help an organization systematically murder? This kind of person does not belong in a position of power, full stop.

How do you define "baby"?

The young offspring of a human

At what point does a set of reproducing cells become an "offspring"? It's a hard question to answer and there's no bright line. I understand the opposition's argument, and I don't feel nearly as much animosity towards them.

There is no legitimate argument against gay marriage.

I'm gay (& partnered, fwiw), and I'd have to agree that there certainly aren't any good arguments against gay marriage; at least, not any arguments we'd accept in a wealthy, industrialized, western society at the beginning of this millennium, but do keep in mind that the great, great majority of the world does not agree with that assessment.

So, what makes an argument legitimate? In order for one to suggest that there is no legitimate argument against gay marriage, you'd have to rationalize what it is that we in the west know better than those living in less-wealthy, less-industrialized societies outside our corner of the globe.

I don't know that we need to go that far. In the US we take the stance that people should be free to do what they want unless what they want to do interferes with other people doing what they want. Where people conflict in their desires is where the law comes in to settle the matter. Whether that system is good or not is an open question, I guess, but it's what we have.

Using that as a rulestick, no one will be negatively impacted by homosexuals getting married. Studies have been done, plenty of places around the globe have tried it with no negative consequences. The courts agree. There's no government interest in preventing gay marriage.

Sure, keeping in mind that I don't disagree with any of that -- is this a stance that we've just adopted within the last ten(ish) years -- because if the issue of gay marriage were really that simple, wouldn't it have always been legal?

I would argue yes, it should have been. Just like women and minorities should always have had the vote and slavery was always immoral. But they all required periods of strife, and now anyone who argues against those positions is rightly shunned.

In order for one to suggest that there is no legitimate argument against gay marriage, you'd have to rationalize what it is that we in the west know better than those living in less-wealthy, less-industrialized societies outside our corner of the globe.

Most of those other societies incorporate substantial religious influence in their legislative and/or judicial processes. It doesn't require "rationalization" to demonstrate that this is harmful to human progress.

As an atheist, I agree, but asserting that the rationale behind prohibiting gay marriage is mostly religious isn't supported by evidence. More than a quarter of the world's population lives in countries that are majority-atheist without being any more supportive of gay marriage than those of us in western, more-religious countries.

I'm not aware of any countries that are majority-atheist (maybe Norway?) Any references for that?

The classic, easy, example is China.

EDIT: Apparently that's a little contentious -- only 47% self-declared atheist (http://redcresearch.ie/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/RED-C-pres...), but given that 9% of those surveyed did not respond to the question, the majority of respondents to this specific survey question did self-proclaim themselves as atheists.

Aren't most religions prohibited in China, though? Those people are basically answering the survey under duress.

Naw -- not really illegal; although it's probably politically complicated to be religious: "No state organ, public organization or individual may compel citizens to believe in, or not to believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate against citizens because they do, or do not believe in religion." (Article 45 of their 1978 Constitution).

Even today -- decades after the state/social pressures against religious affiliation disappeared -- most former soviet states still have very large atheist populations.

For the record, I don't think the author was actually trying to defend that point, but instead to highlight how when taken out of context or in hindsight any one of our behaviors could in the future be seen as a real, unambiguously "wrong" act.

Yes, I'm likewise highlighting that there's a gray area in that particular question, unlike the other question.

Thought experiment: Let's say hypothetically scientists discovered a drug or "vaccine" that a pregnant woman could take, which would guarantee that a male child of hers would not be gay (I'm operating under the assumption that homosexuality is caused by genetic or environmental factors and is not a free choice of the individual).

Would you be opposed to pregnant women taking this drug?

They abort fetuses, they don't murder babies. A baby has gone through the process of birth while a fetus has not.

I understand that this won't change anyone who's already formed an opinion on abortion but lying about your opposition shows a weakness in your position.

I think the grandparent is making a point about perspective and POV, one that you have conveniently proved by responding with an argument in absolute terms.

To some people, Planned Parenthood aborts fetuses. To other people, Planned Parenthood murders babies. I personally am much more in the former camp than the latter. But would you want the people who believe the latter to get you fired from your job because they read your Hacker News comment and plaster it all over conservative newspapers that "wavefunction is an apologist for baby murderers!"? I certainly wouldn't.

The nuance that always gets lost in these discussions is that different people have different points of view, and the same words may mean different things to them. Combine that with the lynch mob mentality and you have a powder keg.

> Do you think people should get fired and ostracized for donating to Planned Parenthood?

Yes, I think people, in a position where PR is a part of their role such as CEO, that work toward things that cause substantial outcry that prevent him from doing his job, should probably not be in that position.

Or are you saying that you'd think someone working against the ideals of Planned Parenthood in their own time would be suited to lead it?

You might disagree with the reasons, but the reality is, he couldn't do his job because of the outcry. So, the fundamental question becomes: Do you think someone should get fired for not being able to do their job?

>That kind of person does not belong in a position of power

That position of power, and Mozilla as a whole, would likely never have existed without Eich.

Good point, what other forms of hate should we allow him to express without consequences? :)

What would you recommend the consequences should be for Barack Obama, given he publicly held the view that Eich privately held?

I'd argue anyone against gay marriage is unfit for holding office. It's one of several reasons I never voted for Obama.

He's a war criminal who slaughters innocent civilians in countries he is not at war at (not that it matters, since, innocent civilians), so ideally, he should be tried at the Hague?

So if the CEO of your company doesn't share your political views, and votes for or against a law that might harm you, that CEO doesn't belong in a position if power? Someone who is enacting his fundamental rights, and having an opinion shouldn't be in a position of power? I'm curious, while he was a CEO did he do anything that would hurt his employees? Did he say anything that would indicate he would hurt his employees?

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