Social media is a poison

I'm sure you're all familiar with Justine Sacco, the PR rep who recently lost her job after tweeting a tasteless but otherwise harmless joke on Twitter and has since become a social pariah. There's also Adria Richards, who harmlessly called out a co-worker over Twitter for what she felt to be a sexist joke only for people to respond by making death threats and leaking her personal details to the public. Then there was Alicia Ann Lynch whose dressing as a Boston marathon bombing victim (admittedly tasteless and insensitive, yes, but like Justine Sacco's joke, utterly harmless) got her fired from her job, harassed by phone, her personal details leaked to the public, and even nude pics of her spread online.

These women aren't the only ones, there are probably countless others (of both genders) who are probably happy I don't remember their names. The shit that an individual will say to people over the Internet would, if done in person, most often get one arrested and put in jail. I'm all for so-called "Internet freedom" and free speech, but isn't this getting out of hand? Last I checked, free speech doesn't encompass harassment or jeopardizing people's lives over something as trivial and physically harmless as a tasteless joke and people who take part in such cruelty really should be held accountable for their actions, but unfortunately people such as Ms. Sacco aren't "important" enough to warrant the effort.

Actually it is illegal to harrass someone over the Internet, if it is done maliciously. Basically, if you would get in trouble for doing it face to face, you will get in trouble for doing it online. It is just harder to get caught online. And the principle of anonymity makes it very easy to harrass people online. Just ask Call of Duty.

Ah. Call of Dooty, that playable crap that isn't much different than it's own billion predecessors, and where kids are ALWAYS annoying. Always.

Aegis wrote:

Actually it is illegal to harrass someone over the Internet, if it is done maliciously. Basically, if you would get in trouble for doing it face to face, you will get in trouble for doing it online. It is just harder to get caught online. And the principle of anonymity makes it very easy to harrass people online. Just ask Call of Duty.

I don't deny it's illegal and, as I said, these cyber bullies need to be held accountable, regardless of whether it's done in person or through the Internet. But the thing is, the majority of us (like Justine Sacco) just aren't "important" enough to warrant the effort by the legal system. What if it was, say, Michelle Obama that was subject to such treatment (not trying to start any political discussion, that's just a name off the top of my head), what then? I'll tell you what, an FBI tactical team with assault rifles would be battering the cyber bully's front door down and hauling them off in handcuffs.

True. But the same can often be said of real life harassment situations as well, unfortunately.

A woman my step-mother works with just got fired for making a comment about a customer on her own private Facebook page. She never mentioned the customer's name or anything, but they fired her anyways.

A lot of this crap could be avoided if people would just get it through their heads that they don't need to share everything about their lives with the Internet.

**JUST ATE SAMMICH**

Nah, 'm just playing off this thread situation...thing.

Cyber bulliers are immatures. The answer is; be mature, be open-minded, and move on. That's it. You really don't have to go that far. I mean this people we're joking. But truly they are just trying to be a macho man in the internet world. But sad to say, people are so sensitive and butt-hurted that's why they had to arrest and fire you only to this.

Ghost Leader wrote:

A lot of this crap could be avoided if people would just get it through their heads that they don't need to share everything about their lives with the Internet.

Indeed.

RebelliousQueen wrote:

I mean this people we're joking.

Joking? Gee,I don't know - comments like "You should kill yourself" don't seem like a joke to me.
There was a case in my school a few weeks ago - a boy got into a fight with a girl (by fight I mean a physical fight) and the school decided to exclude him. Then the boy started threatening the girl through facebook. I don't think that she took that for a joke.

will1234562 wrote:

RebelliousQueen wrote:

I mean this people we're joking.

Joking? Gee,I don't know - comments like "You should kill yourself" don't seem like a joke to me.

No, they certainly aren't.

Mcghie wrote:

Ghost Leader wrote:

will1234562 wrote:

RebelliousQueen wrote:

I mean this people we're joking.

Joking? Gee,I don't know - comments like "You should kill yourself" don't seem like a joke to me.

No, they certainly aren't.

I agree with the majority of your points.
It's just one of these things that can't be helped, I mean we could fight back but in the end if the law or your job want's you to pay the price then you will.
I agree as well, we should just stop posting stuff like this if we don't want repercussions, but then again that is us bending over backwards and letting the law unlawfully walk over the top of you.

Something that few people realize is that freedom of speech doesn't always fly when it comes the workplace. Aside from illegal reasons like race, gender, and religion, your employer is well within their rights to fire you for anything you do that they feel reflects badly upon the company as a whole, whether that be your posting habits on social media or whatever. But as I said earlier, it all leads back to the the fact that if people would just realize that much of this can be avoided if they didn't share their every inner thought with the Internet.