jon ronson-hilarious and disturbing story on public shaming

I remember this story.

If your job is PUBLIC RELATIONS and you make a stupid post like that on a public forum... WTF did you think was going to happen?

Having read up on the follow up from this story, I don't think she's racist. I actually believe she her when she said she was having a go at white privilege, and to the few people that followed her on twitter, they probably knew her and understood her tone.

But like I said, twitter is a public platform, and devoid of context (one of the many reasons I don't use it), and again if your job is PR, surely you should understand this.

Basically, the takeaway from all this is that twitter is a fucking TERRIBLE platform for any kind of meaningful discourse, in fact, any kind of commentary beyond simple announcements and banal observations.

Sacco ended up meeting Biddle and in the unlikeliest of plot twists, they became friends.

enoch

says...

@ChaosEngine

i have many:teachers,police,firefighters as facebook friends.

during the run up to the election i was posting a ton of my research,analysis and commentary in regards to the election.

this,on it's own,should not be surprising,what WAS surprising is all the support i received from these people and who were simply afraid to like,or comment.

they were literally sharing my work with other people via private messaging.

each and every one expressed to me a fairly robust paranoia that if they liked any of my posts,or commented,that they would receive disciplinary action and that their jobs would be in jeopardy.

i found this very troubling and what i could not,and STILL cannot reconcile,is how some people not only ignore this very subtle form of censorship,but find it a viable and understandable in the realms of social media.

when you restrict what a person can comment or speak on due to fear.this is censorship.

in the case of justine sacco,she was simply making a joke and when put in context..a really damn good one.but due to the self-righteous moralizing of total strangers,her life was destroyed.

now there will be some that may still find this justified,and that is fine,that is their right but what REALLY chills me is that nobody is addressing the much deeper and far more insidious nature of public shaming.basically:other people saw what happened to justine sacco and will modify their social media persona accordingly.

this,in my opinion,will only result in a vanilla goo like substance that offers no challenging ideas,no conflicting opinions that offer an opportunity to discuss and debate difficult subjects,because debate starts with disagreement,and if you impose a fear of retribution by simply posting any content that may be construed as controversial.then the conversation ends...
and we all pay a price for that kind of groupthink.

this will force the really bad and worst of us to go underground,and reside in an echo chamber where their fucked up ideas are parroted back to them,resulting in a confirmation that their worldviews are correct.

conversely...

those who may have good ideas,or wish to engage in controversial subjects,or in the case of justine sacco..make a fucking joke...will be relegated to the "good little worker bee" position.who never challenges power or authority and simply obeys...for fear of losing:financial security,public standing etc etc.

they become fucking stepford wives.

and in my sincere opinion,this is the real danger.