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Weaponized [social media]
Harry Dresden
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Registered User regular
With the advent of James Gunn being fired from Disney over controversial older tweets it's becomingly increasingly apparent society needs to reflect on social media, the dangers it presents and what we all want society to look like. I think society is in a flux at the moment with social media, the boundaries are still undefined and changing every day, what was permitted 10 years ago is not permitted today, who knows where the limits will be 10 or 20 years from now?
It's an issue which can ruin and badly effect lots of lives, which covers many other topics intertwined in how people react to social media. Accountability, redemption, justice, transparency, corporations, brands, politics and life styles. And the culture war, which has been simmering on social media for a long time and this likely was a matter of when rather than "if."
While Gunn will be a main example, he won't simply be the focal point because the discussion is more than about him. It's what he represents and how the Alt-Right will use this tactic again, because they already have and will. And they won't stop with celebrities. This was a move to silence a vocal critic on their platform so they wouldn't have a voice countering their propaganda, and online harassment. It's not a new tactic for them, they've done this to various celebrities and other people in other creative industries, as well. However, this is the first time they've gotten an A or B-list director from Disney fired for horrible posts he made in the past, which he apologised for and has been making amends over the years. Disney knew what they were getting when they hired him, and they also knew he was no longer that person. This becomes hypocritical when they've had their own controversial history and employ actors like Johnny Depp and convicted pedophiles like Victor Salva on the Jeeper Creepers movies, without hesitation.
For those who don't know what this is about:
https://deadline.com/2018/07/james-gunn-fired-guardians-of-the-galaxy-disney-offensive-tweets-1202430392/
To be clear, Gunn shouldn't have made those vile tweets in the first place. Should he have disciplined for them? Sure, or not hired in the first place if he hurt their brand. However, there's a lot more nuance in this which Disney should have prepared for and corporations should not be so trigger happy with employees who made horrible mistakes on twitter. Ceding to the Alt-Right immediately, rather than taking a stand or analysing the situation for a while before acting should have been in consideration.
This should not have been given the same treatment that they gave Roseanne Barr, since Gunn did not do the same thing at all. Unlike Barr he did not double down, he had spent years rehabilitating himself and apologised before they employed him.
What should be the limits and boundaries for social media? How should businesses react? How do we stop the Alt-Right from declaring war on their liberal and progressive enemies online and get away with it? What should twitter's responsibilities be? Where do we go from here?
It's an issue which can ruin and badly effect lots of lives, which covers many other topics intertwined in how people react to social media. Accountability, redemption, justice, transparency, corporations, brands, politics and life styles. And the culture war, which has been simmering on social media for a long time and this likely was a matter of when rather than "if."
While Gunn will be a main example, he won't simply be the focal point because the discussion is more than about him. It's what he represents and how the Alt-Right will use this tactic again, because they already have and will. And they won't stop with celebrities. This was a move to silence a vocal critic on their platform so they wouldn't have a voice countering their propaganda, and online harassment. It's not a new tactic for them, they've done this to various celebrities and other people in other creative industries, as well. However, this is the first time they've gotten an A or B-list director from Disney fired for horrible posts he made in the past, which he apologised for and has been making amends over the years. Disney knew what they were getting when they hired him, and they also knew he was no longer that person. This becomes hypocritical when they've had their own controversial history and employ actors like Johnny Depp and convicted pedophiles like Victor Salva on the Jeeper Creepers movies, without hesitation.
For those who don't know what this is about:
https://deadline.com/2018/07/james-gunn-fired-guardians-of-the-galaxy-disney-offensive-tweets-1202430392/
We found these tweets below in a report by Fox News, and perhaps it is not a coincidence that it came from that outlet. Fox News got its ammo from The Daily Caller, One America News Network correspondent Jack Posobiec and right wing commentator Mike Cernovich, and apparently these conservative outlets pounced on old social media after Gunn mocked conservative pundit Ben Shapiro, as he defended liberal actor Mark Duplass after he came under fire and apologized for encouraging his followers to give Shapiro a chance, in the name of hearing views from the other side of the aisle. That is nothing compared to some of the tweets unearthed by Cernovich, which included suggestions that readers email Disney, to complete the takedown.
Here is Gunn defending the prior tweets, which were aggregated by Fox News before his Twitter feed was taken down.
1. Many people who have followed my career know when I started, I viewed myself as a provocateur, making movies and telling jokes that were outrageous and taboo. As I have discussed publicly many times, as I’ve developed as a person, so has my work and my humor.
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) July 20, 2018
2. It’s not to say I’m better, but I am very, very different than I was a few years ago; today I try to root my work in love and connection and less in anger. My days saying something just because it’s shocking and trying to get a reaction are over.
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) July 20, 2018
4. For the record, when I made these shocking jokes, I wasn’t living them out. I know this is a weird statement to make, and seems obvious, but, still, here I am, saying it.
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) July 20, 2018
5. Anyway, that’s the completely honest truth: I used to make a lot of offensive jokes. I don’t anymore. I don’t blame my past self for this, but I like myself more and feel like a more full human being and creator today. Love you to you all.
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) July 20, 2018
To be clear, Gunn shouldn't have made those vile tweets in the first place. Should he have disciplined for them? Sure, or not hired in the first place if he hurt their brand. However, there's a lot more nuance in this which Disney should have prepared for and corporations should not be so trigger happy with employees who made horrible mistakes on twitter. Ceding to the Alt-Right immediately, rather than taking a stand or analysing the situation for a while before acting should have been in consideration.
This should not have been given the same treatment that they gave Roseanne Barr, since Gunn did not do the same thing at all. Unlike Barr he did not double down, he had spent years rehabilitating himself and apologised before they employed him.
What should be the limits and boundaries for social media? How should businesses react? How do we stop the Alt-Right from declaring war on their liberal and progressive enemies online and get away with it? What should twitter's responsibilities be? Where do we go from here?
Harry Dresden on
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For a number of years on these forums, there's been an interweaving through threads of people saying "Hey, maybe it's not cool for someone who makes a stupid twitter/instagram/facebook or political donation - sometimes many years ago - to be publicly denounced, resulting in loss of job, career, or even life in cases of suicide"
And on these forum there have been responses along the lines of "We should not tolerate these behaviours, I'm not sorry they got punished disproportionately to their posts".
I'm not saying that this is a majority opinion, but it's certainly been a prominent opinion - that people who say and do vile things online should be made examples of, for the good of social media. To have a thread saying "How do we make sure THE OTHER SIDE don't get to do this" gets an eyeroll from me.
I think social media enables excessive bullying - no matter whether the bullies think they're doing the "right" thing, and let's face it 80% think they're doing the "right" thing (the other 20% are trolls who join in the dogpile for the lulz).
I genuinely believe that Gunn is sorry for what he did, and he's a different person now, but if getting a "wait... that's one of OUR guys getting hit" is what gets the Internet Hate Machine to get checked, then I hope he's not the only recipient of clemency for people who have dumb shit online that's not a good representation of who they are.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html
The rest of the story is worth reading; she made a joke amongst a small collection of friends on social media that was in poor taste. It got retweeted a few times until a celebrity with some serious pull got hold of it, and all of a sudden she was the number one trending topic on twitter, was doxxed, people were calling her job, her parents, her friends... she lost her job before the plane even landed. She got death threats.
Doesn't stop there. The former CEO of Firefox, who seemingly never brought politics to work, made personal donations to political campaigns on the right. Social media pressure got so bad that he was booted, basically for being a conservative.
Yes, what happened to James Gunn is different in that the instigator who amplified it was very much a bad faith actor; its the fucking pizzagate guy. But the reason it was successful is because this is a well-worn tactic. It is the modern day torches and pitchforks. People feel empowered to use social media to ruin the lives of "bad people" and it has always been fucking disgusting, IMO.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
We're not in disagreeing that much, actually. Yes, he should have gotten checked - that's why it was so puzzling why Disney was ok with his apology years back for this yet now all that context goes out the window because a conservative talk show host says so is enough to punish him again. I'd been ok had twitter banned him or something for those type of posts, except they're totes cool with that and worse. That they failed didn't mean Disney had to go clear now because this is all in the past and he's shown he's grown since then. Disney doing this also is a seperate thing to a website like PA banning or displaying Gunn for posts which would rightly be punished severely by the admins here who do a tremendous job maintaining peace.
That he's one of our own shouldn't be a shield from accountability, it's the context where I disagree with his punishment. For example, that the right wing are using this against him rather than people being upset in good faith should be something worthy of judging how severely Disney should react, as well as the fact this is ancient history which they were ok with him serving penance for. It'd be quite different if he were doing these tweets today and he was doubling down, then I'd be more compliant to the idea that he should be fired.
Another thing wit this is how do we define wether someone should truly be fired over social media and have a spectrum, because right now there isn't one. That's why Disney went 1 to 100 into firing him, they had no outline for nuance. The last example for this was Roseanne, and while Gunn did make vile tweets I wouldn't put him in the same category as her for reasons stated upthread.
There is a huge difference between someone being banned from a forum and getting fired/possibly blacklisted from their profession. Not that there can't be circumstances which warrant both, of course.
Nor is he the only recipient for this behaviour. Comedians like Sarah Silvermann, Michael Ian Black etc are already getting the same response by Cernovich. This type of behaviour never stops at celebrities, either.
https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2018/07/the-far-right-targets-patton-oswalt-sarah-silverma.html
The Alt-Right are more than happy to target nobodies on twitter with trolling which ruins careers/lives. GG was kind of a dry run for this, where they directly harassed people online and pressured companies to obey their demands to shape the gaming industry.
I'm trying to account for the nuance since this can be complicated I hope I'm communicating clearly.
I have very little sympathy for any of the examples given here. The person on the plane made a series of racist and culturally assholish jokes to a public audience. Does she deserve death threats? Of course not. But it is literally the same thing as writing those on a cardboard sign and walking around a crowded street in an international city. People will notice your shit.
The people I have sympathy for in social media are the children who get posted by their parents and/or anyone who gets media posted about them without their consent. If you choose to broadcast your garbage, that's on you. If someone does it to you, or doxxes you, that's where the real problem is I feel.
That's some pretty bullshit stuff in general, especially in our free speech society. We should encourage growth and going nuclear because we have zero tolerance policies on this shit seems like the worst idea. If one side doesn't care, they're just going to weaponize it, let their own people get away with it, and the only person who wins is the one who has no morals or scruples. We should stop letting perfection be the enemy of good.
We probably shouldn't let someone drop a racist rant and go "whoops sorry it was my sleeping medicine" or someone groping a passed out woman probably doesn't deserve a pass, but someone trying to make stupid edgy jokes is quite a different beast than that. Context is important there, especially if the person has shown major improvements in their behavior and is actively working to be their best self and good for society.
Look at the parallel, you want to talk about prison and making these people valuable members of society but you openly demonize people who say mean things? Come on that's a pretty shit double standard. There are people who actively hurt others in tangible ways, but someone said a really mean thing, let's kill their career and make them the enemy. It's stupid. We can do better than that.
The hubbub over him wasn’t that he donated to conservative organizations but that he donated in support of specifically anti gay propositions. At which point people who have a problem with discrimination against LGBT opted to boycott rather than help pay his salary.
I have major issues using social media to inflict harm and attack individuals maliciously. But using it as an organizing force for boycotts is fine as far as I’m concerned.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
It depends on where the line is.
His company was getting calls, his address was posted in the usual places. The tactics are exactly the same. It wasn't just economic coercion through boycott, it was a full court press where he, his family and his workplace were harassed/abused until they were forced to let him go.
Because you (and I) agree that what he was supporting was crap it makes it easy to turn a blind eye to this being the exact same thing that just happened to Gunn, where a company pays tribute to the mob to make them stop.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Heaven forbid someone actively recording shit we've all said as teenagers and using it to judge us for the rest of our lives.
Social Media is here to stay and I don't think it's entirely fair to demand people to be perfect bastions of truth and justice their entire life either. Lord knows I haven't met many people like that. I'm not one myself. Kids starting up a twitter at 14 and posting poop jokes don't deserve that shit thrown at them in a job interview and I think we're going to need to contend with this shit as a society sooner or later and I think it's unfortunate that a lot of people see bad words and their minds crumple because of it. Especially if someone has made amends forever ago and said "hey I'm not sure why I thought that was cool, it wasn't, I'll leave it up to show how I've changed" and not delete it and pretend it never happened or that they are perfect.
The only ones who lose are the good people, bad people will use it to marginalize and attack you. You become an easy target. And it's not surprising that this shit is coming out and being used to lambaste people who are actively making political statements, either.
The vast, vast majority of participants did not harass the CEO. Any attempt at widespread social movements will involve some bad actors no matter what. I am not fond of the idea that they’re only acceptable when perfectly devoid of them.
What happened to Gunn sucks a lot and ought not have happened since, by all accounts, he’s grown considerably since then. But that’s no reason to conflate the bad faith actions of some online neoconservatives with legitimate boycott movements.
I am also going to assume that the number of people participating in actual doxxing activities or harassment activities of Gunn that extended beyond twitter were few. The overwhelming majority of folks just retweeted their support of the "fire james gunn" movement. I would also argue that anyone with hundreds of thousands or more followers on twitter who point at someone they disagree with and make it clear they do not like this person is a form of "Will noone rid me of this meddling priest" - they know their action will lead to abuse. This is a point of contention with Elon Musk, Donald Trump, etc. right now!
The fact that you painted it as "bad faith actions of some online neoconservatives" is inherent bias. You see one side as right and one side as wrong, and I likely agree with you! But I am speaking specifically on the tactic of using actions on social media as a means to abuse, attack and silence people, and how I think we have let this monster grow out of control.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
I dont think Gunn´s case deserves any type of protection, he is not being put behind bars and his carrer is not dead.
He didnt get fired from "The Eric Andre Show" for making baby rape jokes, he was let go from Disney.
Now it is my personal belief, wich may be wrong, that as long as a contract wasnt breached, there is no wrong doing in that specific case. The very singular case of very inappropiate jokes for a company whos products are aimed at young children and their parents.
I repeat, as long as there is no breach of whatever contract he had with the studio.
The other two cases are also very different, one is a public figure going on a racist rant, the other is not a public figure making a racist joke.
BUT! Unless you are on a stage, Im a bit iffy about protecting "jokes" as a sacred place, it is becoming the new "just asking questions".
Going back to the case of Gunn, wich I am shocked that so many people defend (in another thread), he is an adult, he posted those jokes as an adult and he should accept the consecuences of burning those bridges as an adult. Also, we are not the christian god, repenting or apologizing doesnt grant inmediate and assured forgiveness, he puts his pology out there, but its up to each person to belive it or accept it.
Is there no such thing as people moving on from their past and becoming better people? Must we be held accountable for all of our past sins for all eternity?
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I think there is a big difference between saying things and doing things. Donating money to awful causes has a material impact on the real world. Words have power but they are not the same.
The hypocrisy is even more notable when many of the people going after James Gunn defended a real sexual predator in Roy Moore.
Yes,!abuse is bad. Characterizing someone being fired for “basically being conservative” when it was actually supporting LGBT discrimination is misleading. Which is what I specifically quoted at the start of this and you’ve been eager to try and move away from as if I was disagreeing with some other part of your post.
I have no trouble coloring this particular conservative movement as acting in bad faith because I have gotten to enjoy decades of observing both prominent and minor American conservatives lament anyone suffering any consequence whatsoever for any reason related to people being “offended”. Conservatives have stated loudly and clearly for decades that they don’t think people should be affected for offensive comments, this is not me being biased it’s simply established historical precedence.
Please do not dismiss critical thought pulling from observed reality as simply bias. It’s insultingly reductive.
Conservatives found out about them and Gunn is a well known Trump detractor.
Except her shitty joke was made this past year, she didn't really apologize (she blamed it on drugs), and she wouldn't because she can't see what's wrong with it..
and it came on the tail end of being actively involved in multiple racist conspiracy theory groups(which she still is)
Not exactly. Until now Gunn's apology was accepted by the very side who are condemning him now. That said, the left is divided on Gunn and this situation with the Alt-Right at the moment while during his original apology there were many who disliked what he did but it was absolutely nothing like this reaction. Many condemned him when it was bought up again, which was Cernovich's intention. Gunn may as well have said this all yesterday with how Disney and many people reacted to it. Apologies and contrition aren't enough anymore, even for vile jokes on twitter. Meanwhile conservatives, including Ted Cruz, are framing Gunn as being someone who broke the law for crude jokes which send whoever clicks on them to harmless rick rolls. Which is working as intended.
https://deadline.com/2018/07/sen-ted-cruz-on-james-gunn-he-needs-to-be-prosecuted-if-the-tweets-are-true-1202431098/
Another aspect is that Disney might have made him a sacrificial lamb so their bid for Fox goes smoothly.
https://www.polygon.com/2018/7/23/17604178/rick-morty-dan-harmon-twitter-4chan-reddit-far-right
And others are being targeted and harassed because these same disingenuous people assume any deleted tweets are hiding something.
Jim Starlin, who is credited as creating Thanos, has made a statement that I agree with.
It basically exposes the entire problem with trying to make blanket statements about this kind of thing. You can see a lot of the same tactics, both good and deplorable, going both ways on this shit. But it's important to distinguish between people who've apologized for what they've done and changed and those that haven't.
The incident with Gunn doesn't invalidate the idea of a boycott it simply suggests we need to pay the fuck attention to what is going on and stop getting trolled.
And given the difficulty of getting that through to the mass public it perhaps behooves us to be less harsh and judgmental on social media in general.
I said this in the Daily Show thread but it remains applicable:
Conservatives don't give a shit about sexual assault. Or sexism. Or racism. Or bigotry. Or hypocrisy. Or consistency. This is all just an attempt to own the libs with their own playbook and Gunn's firing is another example of how goddamn stupid so many people are that they don't get the game. Stop shooting yourself in the foot. The other side will give you no points for preformative consistency.
It's a fascinating/inspiring/horrifying topic.
I think the "are you sorry for what you did?" plays a huge part in it. Sometimes it's hard to tell if someone's just giving lip service.
But half the time these people will double down on their rhetoric or craziness anyways.
Think about it in a more mercenary way: those other times with other people, was an apology accepted or was it just not necessary?
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
No, actually fuck all this. This isn't at all about "one of our guys getting hit!!!" It was something that happened a decade ago, that had already been apologized for, and the guy making the tweets had worked to improve himself on.
People on the right being "bullied" by the left, are making those "jokes" (aka they're not jokes, they're attacks against people for being "different") currently, and showing ZERO contrition about them or changing their beliefs in any way.
This is nothing like Roseanne, because she is doing her racist attacks right now. It's who she is, and she isn't changing.
Mark Cernovich is a rapist and now all of a sudden Mr. "Date rape isn't real" actually cares? No, this is a political hit and smear job against an outspoken critic of the alt-right and Donald Trump.
In short, fuck off with that bullshit and punch all Nazis.
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And that shit is dangerous. Social pressure is very powerful and leaving it to the mob is a terrible idea most of the time. I would hope we didn't all read the Scarlet Letter in school as a primer. Someone in chat mentioned a recent non-fiction book on this exact subject but I can't for the life of me recall or find the name. But it was about how a lot of the social shunning punishments were moved away from because they were too harsh.
"I'm a provocateur" isn't going to get me to carry any water for some stupid shit you've said. You wanna be provocative? You wanna get a reaction? Well, ya did. Writing things like (and let me know if I've found a bad/inaccurate source) "I like when little boys touch me in my silly place", or "The best thing about being raped is when you’re done being raped and it’s like ‘whew this feels great, not being raped!'" seems like the kind of pretty fucking stupid thing that anyone with a degree of common sense would go "wait, is this funny or interesting or am I just going to look ... well, not how I want to look". I mean, OK maybe some college kid's gonna write that and go "yep, that's exactly what I want to express". I'm fairly sure the tweets in question were from like 2008-2015 which puts Gunn in his early 40's. That is old enough to know "gee, this might be a bad idea." It wasn't a one-off, throwaway thing either, like the "haha, I won't get AIDS in Africa 'cause I'm white" lady. He wrote utterly stupid, stupid shit for a good while.
I understand he's apologized, and has tried to leave his old shit in the past, but I guess that still leaves me going "well, that was pretty fucking stupid, it bit you in the ass, maybe you won't do that again. I'm glad you've apologized. Now, continue to work on being a better person, as you have been doing, work on the work you can get, and don't give up going for that next big chance in directing."
That's....exactly what we're saying?
Nobody is apologizing for his tweets. All anyone is saying is those were stupid tweets a decade ago and he's since already apologized for them and worked on making himself better.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Except Gunn is not being shunned, nor put on trial. He is just losing A job from family and children oriented company, for saying some extremely crude jokes involving sexual abuse, child abuse, etc. There is no justifiable outrage on either side. "it was just jokes!", and that is true, and it doesnt fit Disney image, wich is also true. As long as he is being payed what he was told for his work, and no contract is being revoked because of this incident, I say its all good, I have no sympathy for Gunn and no social justice expectations from Disney.
Regarding the previous comments about him being a new person and apologizing profusely, thats nothing, if he thinks he did wrong (wich I dont agree) then he should own up to it, including the backlash.
Then I'm misreading a lot of people then. 'Cause it sounds like people are angry that Disney fired him, and that they pointed at the tweets as the reason for it (from my understanding).
He DID own up to it! He had ALREADY BEFORE THIS WHOLE SHIT STARTED apologized for it. He should not own up for shit regarding this new backlash, though, because it's a political hit job being run by a fucking GooberGating Pizzagate bullshit shitbag who thinks date rape isn't real.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
The idiom generally goes "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."
There's lots of ways to interpret that, of course, but I think the best way is, "Not a single one of us can judge someone when we've made similarly stupid mistakes, we should forgive and move on and be better people". I don't even know someone that hasn't said something off the cuff. Most people don't put it on display, I guess, but who cares. He's not some racist or sexist douchebag trying to actively hurt people today. He made a gross joke. Like a kid asking another kid if they like "see food". He realized he fucked up, apologized, and even went without a fight when it was brought up again. He's definitely someone of high integrity, I have no problem for him having the exception here.
It seems like he was already doing what he should have been doing
he said shitty things
he apologized for saying shitty things (years ago from the sound of it)
he moved on and stopped saying shitty things for quite some time and continues that trend
I'm not sure what else he could do aside from continue
Mewling Quim and Hide the Zucchini certainly are not family friendly jokes.
No, we're angry that they fired him because of Mike "It's okay to masturbate in front of a woman if she won't have sex with you" Cernovich's smear campaign
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You also have people embracing this on the progressive side to target easy pickings with loud mouths among the foolish, just as surely as there are conservatives trying to punish people for social stigmas.
I know of people who said really dumb, gross stuff on the internet, which they absolutely deserved getting shouted down over, but even after they apologized they had people doing everything they could to ruin their lives, even though they were just some random kid with their head up their ass and not someone with any power or intention. This stuff followed them for *years*.