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Twitter Continues To Have A [Twitter] Problem

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Posts

  • I ZimbraI Zimbra Worst song, played on ugliest guitar Registered User regular
    I mean, it sucks for him but if you're going to say that kind of shit on a public account and not apologize or even acknowledge it until after you get fired, you just have to charge that to the game and move on with your life.

    Anywho, Twitter said that Trump's batshit tweet about Martin Gugino didn't violate their rules and they won't do anything about it.

  • reVersereVerse Attack and Dethrone God Registered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    reVerse wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    reVerse wrote: »
    Nosf wrote: »
    Some dude on the Flash got fired, guess people are out digging up old tweets; 8-9 years ago he made some shitty, shitty jokes. Dunno if they looked into any personal growth over that last decade, easier to fire him and recast. Fuck 'em, the mob has spoken!

    You're right, you don't know, and yet you seem convinced that they didn't.

    Looks like Hartley Sawyer has. This definitely feels like an overreaction to me.
    “My words, irrelevant of being meant with an intent of humor, were hurtful, and unacceptable," he wrote. "I am ashamed I was capable of these really horrible attempts to get attention at that time. I regret them deeply.”

    “This was not acceptable behavior," he continued. "I am incredibly sorry, ashamed and disappointed in myself for my ignorance back then. I want to be very clear: this is not reflective of what I think or who I am now."

    He goes on to describe his views and beliefs changing thanks to friends and experiences. Seems genuinely remorseful and it sucks if this ends his career.

    That is from his statement after he was fired. Has he apologized for his past behaviour before then?

    edit; Because in his statement he says he has "kept his journey largely private". How is anyone supposed to know that he's improved if no one can actually tell the difference between "has learned his lesson" and "has learned to keep quiet for his career's sake". Because for an outside observer, those two look exactly the same.

    Well before that he was vocally supportive of BLM arguing for the movement’s necessity in the face of the white privilege he and others enjoy. It’s difficult to find anything before that since all news about him now is focused on his tweets, but that does not strike me as the actions of someone who hasn’t changed.

    Well, it's not nothing, but it's not the same as an actual apology. A more cynical person might even suggest that he's voicing his support for BLM because it's the popular thing to support, not because he genuinely believes in it (see: Mitt Romney).

    Ultimately, there's not enough information to say for certain either way. Maybe he has genuinely changed, he's just been bad at making it known; maybe he hasn't changed one bit; maybe he was causing some unrelated trouble on the set and the producers latched onto this thing to be rid of him; or maybe it is an overreaction, spurred on by what's going on in the world right now.

    Jumping to the conclusion that this was "mob justice" against an innocent man who's just trying better himself, like Nosf did, isn't really grounded in any kind of facts and just goes to show their personal biases, just as assuming that this guy is an irredeemable asshole does.

    He could be truly remorseful for the things he said, but if he never actually publicly apologized for them, I can't blame the producers for letting him go.

  • MrMisterMrMister Jesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered User regular
    You can review the offending tweets, as well as the statement about the firing, here:
    Some of the tweets are disturbing, including the one hedgie references, and, what's more, rather hard to understand in isolation--and impossible to read for context given that all the originals are taken down. Others are pretty innocuous. I'm not sure why I'm supposed to be upset that someone tweeted "the greatest lie the devil ever pulled was convincing me that he didn't have genital warts before he sexed me," which is juvenile but as far as I can ascertain not offensive.

    But regardless, I think it's a distraction to litigate the tweets. People shouldn't be fired for their extracurricular social media use, especially not a selective review of their extracurricular social media use from half a decade ago.

    The showrunner's statement explaining the firing speaks almost exclusively to the current political moment with respect to the protests. I was unconvinced of the connection between the statement's truthful and high minded claims like "murder is not democracy" or "suppressing the free press with violence is not liberty" and the actual action being announced, which was: oh yeah I fired this guy because someone showed me some of his old objectionable tweets. Your mileage may vary.

  • AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    reVerse wrote: »
    Nosf wrote: »
    Some dude on the Flash got fired, guess people are out digging up old tweets; 8-9 years ago he made some shitty, shitty jokes. Dunno if they looked into any personal growth over that last decade, easier to fire him and recast. Fuck 'em, the mob has spoken!

    You're right, you don't know, and yet you seem convinced that they didn't.

    Looks like Hartley Sawyer has. This definitely feels like an overreaction to me.
    “My words, irrelevant of being meant with an intent of humor, were hurtful, and unacceptable," he wrote. "I am ashamed I was capable of these really horrible attempts to get attention at that time. I regret them deeply.”

    “This was not acceptable behavior," he continued. "I am incredibly sorry, ashamed and disappointed in myself for my ignorance back then. I want to be very clear: this is not reflective of what I think or who I am now."

    He goes on to describe his views and beliefs changing thanks to friends and experiences. Seems genuinely remorseful and it sucks if this ends his career.

    When someone makes "jokes" about cutting off the breasts of homeless women (yes, this was one of the things he tweeted), it should not surprise people that an apology isn't going to work.

    What would?

    Possibly nothing - sometimes you fuck up hard enough that you can't recover. I remember in the discussion over James Gunn's dismissal on another site that a number of women just said "done" when his old, hurtful tweets came out - they didn't care that the tweets were being used to attack Gunn, they cared that he amplified the sort of rhetoric that had caused them so much pain, and they had no desire to participate in his rehabilitation.

    As for him being supportive of BLM, I have just two words: Joss Whedon. He was considered a prominent feminist voice - up until his abuse came out. And his story isn't all that rare either. So no, his public statements aren't enough to show contrition for his past conduct.

    Ultimately, the simple fact is that Sawyer isn't owed either the role or our support. The whole "private journey" thing is going to be a hard sell in light of people like Whedon - I'd point out that part of why Gunn had the support he did was because he did publicly own and disavow his prior conduct (and even then it wasn't enough for some.) It's on his head to show change, and to demonstrate that others can trust him.

    XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    But regardless, I think it's a distraction to litigate the tweets. People shouldn't be fired for their extracurricular social media use, especially not a selective review of their extracurricular social media use from half a decade ago.

    Oh no they definitely can and should be depending on what they say and when they said it.

    I don’t think he deserves to be fired, but only because he seems to have genuinely grown and change as a person. Which, you know, whatever.

    If someone was saying that shit last week I’d have no problem with whoever employed them during their ass.

  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    reVerse wrote: »
    Nosf wrote: »
    Some dude on the Flash got fired, guess people are out digging up old tweets; 8-9 years ago he made some shitty, shitty jokes. Dunno if they looked into any personal growth over that last decade, easier to fire him and recast. Fuck 'em, the mob has spoken!

    You're right, you don't know, and yet you seem convinced that they didn't.

    Looks like Hartley Sawyer has. This definitely feels like an overreaction to me.
    “My words, irrelevant of being meant with an intent of humor, were hurtful, and unacceptable," he wrote. "I am ashamed I was capable of these really horrible attempts to get attention at that time. I regret them deeply.”

    “This was not acceptable behavior," he continued. "I am incredibly sorry, ashamed and disappointed in myself for my ignorance back then. I want to be very clear: this is not reflective of what I think or who I am now."

    He goes on to describe his views and beliefs changing thanks to friends and experiences. Seems genuinely remorseful and it sucks if this ends his career.

    When someone makes "jokes" about cutting off the breasts of homeless women (yes, this was one of the things he tweeted), it should not surprise people that an apology isn't going to work.

    What would?

    Possibly nothing - sometimes you fuck up hard enough that you can't recover.

    Yeah that’s what I figured. Someone learns and grows as a person is irrelevant to you.

    Never mind you outright speculating his support for BLM is a farce with no evidence.

    I don’t think he’s owed anything. I think he’s someone that’s become a genuinely good person who’s been supporting people in need for years now and it’s incredibly unfortunate that means nothing to some.

  • NosfNosf Registered User regular
    edited June 2020
    If you work on a large, expensive public facing thing like a tv show and are a shit show in your off work but public life, yeah that's gonna bite you in the ass for sure as they need to protect the workplace. I've seen that firsthand with some of our dimwitted former staff attacking community partners because "it was their personal view and personal social media account." Whelp, if your stupid view fucks the org, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out because that other community partner is more important to us than you.

    Now if you said some stupid shit years ago, and immediately own up to what was said and address it now that does mean something.

    Nosf on
  • MrMisterMrMister Jesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered User regular
    edited June 2020
    Quid wrote: »
    But regardless, I think it's a distraction to litigate the tweets. People shouldn't be fired for their extracurricular social media use, especially not a selective review of their extracurricular social media use from half a decade ago.

    Oh no they definitely can and should be depending on what they say and when they said it.

    I don’t think he deserves to be fired, but only because he seems to have genuinely grown and change as a person. Which, you know, whatever.

    If someone was saying that shit last week I’d have no problem with whoever employed them during their ass.

    As with many friends of labor, I think criteria for hirings and firings should be objective, clearly specified, and related to job performance. One reason for this is because it prevents employers from having arbitrary and tyrannical authority over employees. Another is because it allows people security in their work, and in a society where people continue to work to live, that means security in life.

    There are cases where private behavior is arguably inextricable from confidence in the execution of the job itself, e.g. it may be impossible to trust the policeman or public defender who is also a KKK member or regular contributor on Stormfront to execute their duties impartially and without racial favor. These cases are mostly exceptional. Here, by contrast, it's clear that the putative problem with Hartley is just that people find this past behavior offensive to currently prevailing social morality. Making conformance to currently prevailing social morality a condition of employment was also the rationale for firing women who became pregnant out of wedlock and bachelors who were busted in raids on gay bars. I much prefer a civic ethic which treats individuals as entitled to a private sphere separate from their employment.

    But we've argued about this before on this forum plenty; I doubt I'm going to change e.g. Hedgie's mind.

    MrMister on
  • PaladinPaladin Registered User regular
    If you don't have influential people that will stand up for your job, forgo social media if you want to keep it, unless you have a disciplined plan to use it as a publishing tool and no more. The people on social media include your friends and your enemies and you should treat the general public with suspicion with everything you post.

    Marty: The future, it's where you're going?
    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.
  • WhiteZinfandelWhiteZinfandel Your insides Let me show you themRegistered User regular
    reVerse wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    reVerse wrote: »
    Nosf wrote: »
    Some dude on the Flash got fired, guess people are out digging up old tweets; 8-9 years ago he made some shitty, shitty jokes. Dunno if they looked into any personal growth over that last decade, easier to fire him and recast. Fuck 'em, the mob has spoken!

    You're right, you don't know, and yet you seem convinced that they didn't.

    Looks like Hartley Sawyer has. This definitely feels like an overreaction to me.
    “My words, irrelevant of being meant with an intent of humor, were hurtful, and unacceptable," he wrote. "I am ashamed I was capable of these really horrible attempts to get attention at that time. I regret them deeply.”

    “This was not acceptable behavior," he continued. "I am incredibly sorry, ashamed and disappointed in myself for my ignorance back then. I want to be very clear: this is not reflective of what I think or who I am now."

    He goes on to describe his views and beliefs changing thanks to friends and experiences. Seems genuinely remorseful and it sucks if this ends his career.

    That is from his statement after he was fired. Has he apologized for his past behaviour before then?

    edit; Because in his statement he says he has "kept his journey largely private". How is anyone supposed to know that he's improved if no one can actually tell the difference between "has learned his lesson" and "has learned to keep quiet for his career's sake". Because for an outside observer, those two look exactly the same.

    I don't think it's reasonable to expect someone who grows as a person to drag painful and humiliating past behavior into the spotlight, show everyone their shame, and make an apology to the whole world unprompted. At least when that behavior wasn't directed at anyone in particular. Especially when people like AngelHedgie are around who consider particularly distasteful jokes to be literally unforgivable irrespective of apology, bringing up one's past mistakes to admit fault is a self-sabotaging strategy.

    The way I see it, you can reasonably expect people to try to do better moving forward and you can reasonably expect them to admit that they've done wrong when they're called on it. If they've harmed someone in particular then more proactive amends are in order.

    Hartley Sawyer definitely fucked up when he posted those things back then, but that was a while ago and he seems to be both openly remorseful and doing better now. Social justice is a major focus for the people working on the DC shows so I get their zeal, but this probably could have been handled with less force.

    There's something to be said for an automated process that restricts the public access to social media posts past a certain age. If I said some dingus stuff five years ago, the public doesn't really need to know. Either I'm still a dingus and there will be more modern examples to prove it, or I'm not and there's no good reason to keep providing outdated material that will stoke anger at a person who doesn't exist any more.

  • ForarForar #432 Toronto, Ontario, CanadaRegistered User regular
    edited June 2020
    I Zimbra wrote: »
    I mean, it sucks for him but if you're going to say that kind of shit on a public account and not apologize or even acknowledge it until after you get fired, you just have to charge that to the game and move on with your life.

    While some people take it to an extreme and have their entire account nuked from orbit, I'm willing to bet that with a decade or more worth of content to peruse and the right digital fine toothed comb, someone could dig up some posts that look awfully shitty with or without context from these very forums.

    Does everyone stand by every shitpost/drunkpost they've made here? Some of y'all (myself included) have literally tens of thousands of posts. I'm willing to bet somewhere in there I said something off colour enough to raise some eyebrows, at least in a sarcastic manner. Or a string of 'agree/awesome' reactions to shitty content of one kind or another (divorced from context of sarcasm or what have you)

    Note, I am pointedly NOT saying 'yeah, we've all talked about cutting a woman's breasts off' like it's no big deal. The point I'm more trying to make is that with a large enough body of work across a long enough time frame, how would you even begin to delve into that. I have some posts that come to mind that I was proud of, or felt were part of an important discussion to have, but if I was to become famous enough to worth digging into tomorrow, I couldn't fathom what I'd need to go purge.

    I'm trying to express that, while I don't defend someone saying shitty things and seeing repercussions for that behaviour (nor am I a fan of him or the show, so I have no horse in that race), as someone who has grown on these very forums for nearly 17 years (even with some of those years lost to the mists of time when we changed platforms, though perhaps some might still exist on archiving sites), I'm not 100% confident saying that nothing in there is worthy of a raised eyebrow or perhaps even scorn. I mean 'grow up' literally, from my early 20's to my early 40's, and my positions on a number of topics have changed since then.

    So in a broader sense I'm trying to raise the notion that while people should think before they post, I'm not 100% on board with 'we should always held to the standards of our worst or darkest moments', and I hope that if they haven't made efforts to make amends here in particular, that they do so genuinely and openly.

    As the years go on, it will be ever more common to have boards we've entirely forgotten about for years and even decades. I can think of a handful of forums I was very active on that still exist, and couldn't say with certainty I wasn't a shitty edgelord on one of them at least a couple of times. This particular case seems egregious, and I swear I'm not trying to Devil's Advocate needlessly. As I said, no horse in that race, fuck that guy, whatever. But the wider matter of having countless shitty moments and things said held in perpetuity is very new to our species. Maybe it's a good thing. But it's not something I've entirely squared in my head all the same.

    Forar on
    First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
  • AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    reVerse wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    reVerse wrote: »
    Nosf wrote: »
    Some dude on the Flash got fired, guess people are out digging up old tweets; 8-9 years ago he made some shitty, shitty jokes. Dunno if they looked into any personal growth over that last decade, easier to fire him and recast. Fuck 'em, the mob has spoken!

    You're right, you don't know, and yet you seem convinced that they didn't.

    Looks like Hartley Sawyer has. This definitely feels like an overreaction to me.
    “My words, irrelevant of being meant with an intent of humor, were hurtful, and unacceptable," he wrote. "I am ashamed I was capable of these really horrible attempts to get attention at that time. I regret them deeply.”

    “This was not acceptable behavior," he continued. "I am incredibly sorry, ashamed and disappointed in myself for my ignorance back then. I want to be very clear: this is not reflective of what I think or who I am now."

    He goes on to describe his views and beliefs changing thanks to friends and experiences. Seems genuinely remorseful and it sucks if this ends his career.

    That is from his statement after he was fired. Has he apologized for his past behaviour before then?

    edit; Because in his statement he says he has "kept his journey largely private". How is anyone supposed to know that he's improved if no one can actually tell the difference between "has learned his lesson" and "has learned to keep quiet for his career's sake". Because for an outside observer, those two look exactly the same.

    I don't think it's reasonable to expect someone who grows as a person to drag painful and humiliating past behavior into the spotlight, show everyone their shame, and make an apology to the whole world unprompted. At least when that behavior wasn't directed at anyone in particular. Especially when people like AngelHedgie are around who consider particularly distasteful jokes to be literally unforgivable irrespective of apology, bringing up one's past mistakes to admit fault is a self-sabotaging strategy.

    The way I see it, you can reasonably expect people to try to do better moving forward and you can reasonably expect them to admit that they've done wrong when they're called on it. If they've harmed someone in particular then more proactive amends are in order.

    Hartley Sawyer definitely fucked up when he posted those things back then, but that was a while ago and he seems to be both openly remorseful and doing better now. Social justice is a major focus for the people working on the DC shows so I get their zeal, but this probably could have been handled with less force.

    There's something to be said for an automated process that restricts the public access to social media posts past a certain age. If I said some dingus stuff five years ago, the public doesn't really need to know. Either I'm still a dingus and there will be more modern examples to prove it, or I'm not and there's no good reason to keep providing outdated material that will stoke anger at a person who doesn't exist any more.

    My point isn't that I think that his statements are beyond forgiveness by everyone, but that nobody is obliged to forgive him. Back in this thread on fandom and sexual harassment, I talked about something called the redemption narrative, where the focus gets moved from an individual seeking forgiveness for their actions to the fact that they are doing so - and one of the problems with this is that there becomes pressure on other people to forgive the individual regardless of how they might personally feel. I brought up Gunn because I personally can forgive him - but that's because I think he put in the work by publicly owning and disavowing his past statements; and because I heard arguments from others on why they didn't forgive him.

    XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
  • I ZimbraI Zimbra Worst song, played on ugliest guitar Registered User regular
    Forar wrote: »
    I Zimbra wrote: »
    I mean, it sucks for him but if you're going to say that kind of shit on a public account and not apologize or even acknowledge it until after you get fired, you just have to charge that to the game and move on with your life.

    While some people take it to an extreme and have their entire account nuked from orbit, I'm willing to bet that with a decade or more worth of content to peruse and the right digital fine toothed comb, someone could dig up some posts that look awfully shitty with or without context from these very forums.

    Does everyone stand by every shitpost/drunkpost they've made here? Some of y'all (myself included) have literally tens of thousands of posts. I'm willing to bet somewhere in there I said something off colour enough to raise some eyebrows, at least in a sarcastic manner. Or a string of 'agree/awesome' reactions to shitty content of one kind or another (divorced from context of sarcasm or what have you)

    Note, I am pointedly NOT saying 'yeah, we've all talked about cutting a woman's breasts off' like it's no big deal. The point I'm more trying to make is that with a large enough body of work across a long enough time frame, how would you even begin to delve into that. I have some posts that come to mind that I was proud of, or felt were part of an important discussion to have, but if I was to become famous enough to worth digging into tomorrow, I couldn't fathom what I'd need to go purge.

    I'm trying to express that, while I don't defend someone saying shitty things and seeing repercussions for that behaviour (nor am I a fan of him or the show, so I have no horse in that race), as someone who has grown on these very forums for nearly 17 years (even with some of those years lost to the mists of time when we changed platforms, though perhaps some might still exist on archiving sites), I'm not 100% confident saying that nothing in there is worthy of a raised eyebrow or perhaps even scorn. I mean 'grow up' literally, from my early 20's to my early 40's, and my positions on a number of topics have changed since then.

    So in a broader sense I'm trying to raise the notion that while people should think before they post, I'm not 100% on board with 'we should always held to the standards of our worst or darkest moments', and I hope that if they haven't made efforts to make amends here in particular, that they do so genuinely and openly.

    As the years go on, it will be ever more common to have boards we've entirely forgotten about for years and even decades. I can think of a handful of forums I was very active on that still exist, and couldn't say with certainty I wasn't a shitty edgelord on one of them at least a couple of times. This particular case seems egregious, and I swear I'm not trying to Devil's Advocate needlessly. As I said, no horse in that race, fuck that guy, whatever. But the wider matter of having countless shitty moments and things said held in perpetuity is very new to our species. Maybe it's a good thing. But it's not something I've entirely squared in my head all the same.

    You know what my 100% foolproof system for avoiding this is? I don't post racist or sexist shit. Not when I'm angry, not when I'm drunk, not when I'm tired. It's easy and free.

    Unless this story is even wilder than we thought nobody put a gun to his head and made him post those things, or made him leave them up, or prevented him from acknowledging or reckoning with his behavior until he got caught for it.

    I have seen at least 20-25 stories in just the last couple of days of people of color losing their media jobs because of obvious racism so if you are choosing this of all weeks to cape up for some rando actor facing the gentlest of consequences for his actions then take it somewhere else because I got nothing nice to say to you.

  • MrMisterMrMister Jesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered User regular
    edited June 2020
    I Zimbra wrote: »
    Forar wrote: »
    I Zimbra wrote: »
    I mean, it sucks for him but if you're going to say that kind of shit on a public account and not apologize or even acknowledge it until after you get fired, you just have to charge that to the game and move on with your life.

    While some people take it to an extreme and have their entire account nuked from orbit, I'm willing to bet that with a decade or more worth of content to peruse and the right digital fine toothed comb, someone could dig up some posts that look awfully shitty with or without context from these very forums.

    Does everyone stand by every shitpost/drunkpost they've made here? Some of y'all (myself included) have literally tens of thousands of posts. I'm willing to bet somewhere in there I said something off colour enough to raise some eyebrows, at least in a sarcastic manner. Or a string of 'agree/awesome' reactions to shitty content of one kind or another (divorced from context of sarcasm or what have you)

    Note, I am pointedly NOT saying 'yeah, we've all talked about cutting a woman's breasts off' like it's no big deal. The point I'm more trying to make is that with a large enough body of work across a long enough time frame, how would you even begin to delve into that. I have some posts that come to mind that I was proud of, or felt were part of an important discussion to have, but if I was to become famous enough to worth digging into tomorrow, I couldn't fathom what I'd need to go purge.

    I'm trying to express that, while I don't defend someone saying shitty things and seeing repercussions for that behaviour (nor am I a fan of him or the show, so I have no horse in that race), as someone who has grown on these very forums for nearly 17 years (even with some of those years lost to the mists of time when we changed platforms, though perhaps some might still exist on archiving sites), I'm not 100% confident saying that nothing in there is worthy of a raised eyebrow or perhaps even scorn. I mean 'grow up' literally, from my early 20's to my early 40's, and my positions on a number of topics have changed since then.

    So in a broader sense I'm trying to raise the notion that while people should think before they post, I'm not 100% on board with 'we should always held to the standards of our worst or darkest moments', and I hope that if they haven't made efforts to make amends here in particular, that they do so genuinely and openly.

    As the years go on, it will be ever more common to have boards we've entirely forgotten about for years and even decades. I can think of a handful of forums I was very active on that still exist, and couldn't say with certainty I wasn't a shitty edgelord on one of them at least a couple of times. This particular case seems egregious, and I swear I'm not trying to Devil's Advocate needlessly. As I said, no horse in that race, fuck that guy, whatever. But the wider matter of having countless shitty moments and things said held in perpetuity is very new to our species. Maybe it's a good thing. But it's not something I've entirely squared in my head all the same.

    You know what my 100% foolproof system for avoiding this is? I don't post racist or sexist shit. Not when I'm angry, not when I'm drunk, not when I'm tired. It's easy and free.

    Unless this story is even wilder than we thought nobody put a gun to his head and made him post those things, or made him leave them up, or prevented him from acknowledging or reckoning with his behavior until he got caught for it.

    I have seen at least 20-25 stories in just the last couple of days of people of color losing their media jobs because of obvious racism so if you are choosing this of all weeks to cape up for some rando actor facing the gentlest of consequences for his actions then take it somewhere else because I got nothing nice to say to you.

    Ah yes, as Jesus famously said in John 8:7, "I've seen a lot of bad things happen to good people, so fuck you if you want to white knight for some adultress"

    MrMister on
  • ForarForar #432 Toronto, Ontario, CanadaRegistered User regular
    edited June 2020
    I like to think I haven't said anything embarrassing either, but as I've tried to convey, it would be folly to state that definitively across *checks profile* Twenty Seven THOUSAND posts over nearly 17 years. (edit: holy fuck I've probably been posting for longer than some of y'all have been alive...)

    Some of the shit this guy said is obviously awful, but there will always be shifting changes in views and can you honestly say that over four thousand of your own posts and nearly 12 years on the forums, nothing would incur ire if viewed in the present? Maybe not! Hell, hopefully we're both upstanding folks who play well with others.

    But I think there's a reasonable place to have a discussion about where the greyer areas exist. This doesn't have to be one of them. But they will show up, if not now, than in the future, as that endless body of searchable data grows. We've joked on these very forums that we're not too many years away from having someones shitposts from one forum or platform show up as needing to be defended in a Presidential debate or something. Even a thorough vetting will miss things. (though with how awful Trump is on Twitter, obviously that's only a concern for non-Republican politicians. GOP folks can wallow happily without concern, clearly)

    Again, I don't even know who that dude is. But I think it's interesting to have a discussion about the implications, and maybe you would kindly note the repeated caveats I include to that effect.

    I'm not 'caping up' for anyone, I'm providing thoughts on something I see as worthy of Debate.

    And Discourse, even.

    If you have nothing nice to say to me, you're welcome not to bother wasting your time on those thoughts.

    Forar on
    First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
  • OrcaOrca Also known as Espressosaurus WrexRegistered User regular
    edited June 2020
    Forar wrote: »
    Does everyone stand by every shitpost/drunkpost they've made here? Some of y'all (myself included) have literally tens of thousands of posts. I'm willing to bet somewhere in there I said something off colour enough to raise some eyebrows, at least in a sarcastic manner. Or a string of 'agree/awesome' reactions to shitty content of one kind or another (divorced from context of sarcasm or what have you)

    ...

    As the years go on, it will be ever more common to have boards we've entirely forgotten about for years and even decades. I can think of a handful of forums I was very active on that still exist, and couldn't say with certainty I wasn't a shitty edgelord on one of them at least a couple of times. This particular case seems egregious, and I swear I'm not trying to Devil's Advocate needlessly. As I said, no horse in that race, fuck that guy, whatever. But the wider matter of having countless shitty moments and things said held in perpetuity is very new to our species. Maybe it's a good thing. But it's not something I've entirely squared in my head all the same.
    I Zimbra wrote: »
    You know what my 100% foolproof system for avoiding this is? I don't post racist or sexist shit. Not when I'm angry, not when I'm drunk, not when I'm tired. It's easy and free.

    Have you never posted racist or sexist shit anywhere? I've got pseudoanonymous and not-actually-anonymous postings dating back to when I was a child. I know I'm not perfect. I know I've been called out for stuff. I strive to be better, but it's a process. Hell, I know for sure there's garbage in my posting history here that I was called out for somewhere in my (holy shit) nine year history of posting here. And the bar for acceptable behavior has changed since I was a child. That's a good thing! We're getting better! More inclusive! But if someone digs through all of my communications back to the year 2000, I'm sure there's stuff in there I would disavow in a heartbeat today.

    "Be perfect" isn't realizable. "Don't be a shitlord" is, though the definition changes over time. It sounds like this guy crossed the line. But it does raise a question: at what point do we allow ephemeral communication to be ephemeral, and for the past to be in the past?

    Orca on
  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    Here's the facts though, social media is no different from your resume. Now, we can argue if it should be the same, but that's a whole different thing than what is. If you post racist shit 10 years ago, grow as a person, well. That post is still there unless you work real hard to get rid of it, and even then that's probably not going to happen. That's not to say redemption isn't valuable and forgiveness and growth shouldn't be acknowledged, but part of what social media is showing your personal journals to the entire goddamn world. Be careful about what you write because once it's out there, its out there.

    Is he a better person now? Sure seems to be. But those posts persist, and a price will be paid because of it. Posting your garbage thoughts on the internet on social media is writing a check to karma, and it will 100% collect as soon as any light shines down on you. In media based jobs, you should especially be careful about your posts.

  • ArbitraryDescriptorArbitraryDescriptor changed Registered User regular
    Enc wrote: »
    Here's the facts though, social media is no different from your resume. Now, we can argue if it should be the same, but that's a whole different thing than what is. If you post racist shit 10 years ago, grow as a person, well. That post is still there unless you work real hard to get rid of it, and even then that's probably not going to happen. That's not to say redemption isn't valuable and forgiveness and growth shouldn't be acknowledged, but part of what social media is showing your personal journals to the entire goddamn world. Be careful about what you write because once it's out there, its out there.

    Is he a better person now? Sure seems to be. But those posts persist, and a price will be paid because of it. Posting your garbage thoughts on the internet on social media is writing a check to karma, and it will 100% collect as soon as any light shines down on you. In media based jobs, you should especially be careful about your posts.

    Hopefully these high profile lessons that intersect with popular media will help Gen Z avoid the missteps that would require some millennials+ to run down 20 year old forum accounts to clean up.

  • AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    Forar wrote: »
    I like to think I haven't said anything embarrassing either, but as I've tried to convey, it would be folly to state that definitively across *checks profile* Twenty Seven THOUSAND posts over nearly 17 years.

    Some of the shit this guy said is obviously awful, but there will always be shifting changes in views and can you honestly say that over four thousand of your own posts and nearly 12 years on the forums, nothing would incur ire if viewed in the present? Maybe not! Hell, hopefully we're both upstanding folks who play well with others.

    But I think there's a reasonable place to have a discussion about where the greyer areas exist. This doesn't have to be one of them. But they will show up, if not now, than in the future, as that endless body of searchable data grows. We've joked on these very forums that we're not too many years away from having someones shitposts from one forum or platform show up as needing to be defended in a Presidential debate or something. Even a thorough vetting will miss things. (though with how awful Trump is on Twitter, obviously that's only a concern for non-Republican politicians. GOP folks can wallow happily without concern, clearly)

    Again, I don't even know who that dude is. But I think it's interesting to have a discussion about the implications, and maybe you would kindly note the repeated caveats I include to that effect.

    I'm not 'caping up' for anyone, I'm providing thoughts on something I see as worthy of Debate.

    And Discourse, even.

    If you have nothing nice to say to me, you're welcome not to bother wasting your time on those thoughts.

    Except this isn't about shifting morality - making light of abusing women and bigotry has never been anything but punching down. There are definitely things that I've said in the past here that are questionable and no longer reflect my views, but I'm also pretty sure that I've never joked about mutilating homeless women for sport, either. Too often bigots and abusers have hidden behind "jusajoke", and it's not surprising that people are no longer willing to just accept that.

    XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    I was extremely racist well in to my early 20's. I would rather not have to bring up every single slur I said and racist philosophy I followed as an idiot raised in a racist family at each and every job I go to. I would hope that over a decade of pushing for better causes would mean something.

    I don't see too many people ready to pony up every single text, blog, email, recording, etc that they've ever made in their lives. It's terrible, shitty cynicism to look at someone whose actions and statements demonstrate they've become a much better person and decide it's all an act.

  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    Forar wrote: »
    I like to think I haven't said anything embarrassing either, but as I've tried to convey, it would be folly to state that definitively across *checks profile* Twenty Seven THOUSAND posts over nearly 17 years.

    Some of the shit this guy said is obviously awful, but there will always be shifting changes in views and can you honestly say that over four thousand of your own posts and nearly 12 years on the forums, nothing would incur ire if viewed in the present? Maybe not! Hell, hopefully we're both upstanding folks who play well with others.

    But I think there's a reasonable place to have a discussion about where the greyer areas exist. This doesn't have to be one of them. But they will show up, if not now, than in the future, as that endless body of searchable data grows. We've joked on these very forums that we're not too many years away from having someones shitposts from one forum or platform show up as needing to be defended in a Presidential debate or something. Even a thorough vetting will miss things. (though with how awful Trump is on Twitter, obviously that's only a concern for non-Republican politicians. GOP folks can wallow happily without concern, clearly)

    Again, I don't even know who that dude is. But I think it's interesting to have a discussion about the implications, and maybe you would kindly note the repeated caveats I include to that effect.

    I'm not 'caping up' for anyone, I'm providing thoughts on something I see as worthy of Debate.

    And Discourse, even.

    If you have nothing nice to say to me, you're welcome not to bother wasting your time on those thoughts.

    Except this isn't about shifting morality - making light of abusing women and bigotry has never been anything but punching down. There are definitely things that I've said in the past here that are questionable and no longer reflect my views, but I'm also pretty sure that I've never joked about mutilating homeless women for sport, either. Too often bigots and abusers have hidden behind "jusajoke", and it's not surprising that people are no longer willing to just accept that.

    Hartley isn't doing that.

  • ForarForar #432 Toronto, Ontario, CanadaRegistered User regular
    And to further build on the point, I'm trying to note that in these less egregious cases, some people won't even think they're worth chasing down and deleting or decrying later. It would take quite an effort to read through everything I've written to date, especially to assess context.

    We've seen efforts ranging from 'I'm mostly sorry I got caught, yeah I fucked up, so uh can we just ignore it happened now?' to a more James Gunn'ian style where he disavowed those comments repeatedly and made his employers aware of that past, at least based on the comments that happened around that time and articles linked.

    Yes, the ideal is to just never say anything that could be taken as sexist/racist/homophobic/grossly offensive (for humour or otherwise), but we know that isn't going to happen.

    People fuck up. They should admit to those fuckups and do better, but what I'm trying to dig into is that over enough years that stuff gets lost. I am vaguely aware of some heated exchanges I've had in the past, but I wouldn't know to go wipe a post from August 3rd 2003 where I called someone *something that used to be permitted on the forums but is now verboten in the Glorious Edict days*, because that shit is gone for me. But it's not gone for someone with the time, dedication, and resources or just plain stubborn curiosity to go digging.

    If this asshole is a 0 on the scale, and Gunn is a 10 (and it still led to some bullshit), I'm saying what about the 4's through 6's. This will be on a spectrum. I'm hoping most of us always err on the side of caution and learn/grow/repent where we may have slipped, but I just turned 40, and have been posting here since I was 23. The world has changed on a lot of levels in that time, and I bet in another 5 or 10 years it'll change even more. Will posts from literally a quarter century ago hold up flawlessly?

    First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
  • GarthorGarthor Registered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    I was extremely racist well in to my early 20's. I would rather not have to bring up every single slur I said and racist philosophy I followed as an idiot raised in a racist family at each and every job I go to. I would hope that over a decade of pushing for better causes would mean something.

    I don't see too many people ready to pony up every single text, blog, email, recording, etc that they've ever made in their lives. It's terrible, shitty cynicism to look at someone whose actions and statements demonstrate they've become a much better person and decide it's all an act.

    More importantly: who fucking cares if it's all an act? If the sum total of someone's actions amount to something positive, then whether they're doing it cynically or sincerely doesn't actually matter!

  • ForarForar #432 Toronto, Ontario, CanadaRegistered User regular
    Except this isn't about shifting morality - making light of abusing women and bigotry has never been anything but punching down. There are definitely things that I've said in the past here that are questionable and no longer reflect my views, but I'm also pretty sure that I've never joked about mutilating homeless women for sport, either. Too often bigots and abusers have hidden behind "jusajoke", and it's not surprising that people are no longer willing to just accept that.

    Which is why I explicitly noted I wasn't defending this guy in particular.

    This example is a jumping off point for a broader element, in my eyes.

    That guy can take a long silly off a short goose for all I care.

    But not every case demanding justice will be nearly as egregious, and I'm trying to mull over the middle ground. The longer we're all doing this social media/forum stuff, the more it's going to be pertinent to consider. It's very much 'do people have a right to be forgotten'? Should they need to openly denounce any vague thing they think they may or may not have done and then forgotten about years later when it comes up again?

    First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    I Zimbra wrote: »
    I mean, it sucks for him but if you're going to say that kind of shit on a public account and not apologize or even acknowledge it until after you get fired, you just have to charge that to the game and move on with your life.

    Anywho, Twitter said that Trump's batshit tweet about Martin Gugino didn't violate their rules and they won't do anything about it.

    Why would you say anything until it came up?

    People don't just randomly apologize out of the blue to random people for being dumbasses in the past when they become better. Generally they just change their behaviour and move forward.

    I don't see where there's any sort of obligation on his part to spontaneously bring the subject up.

  • KamarKamar Registered User regular
    I can think of specific posts I'd love to be rid of, and it's trivially easy to connect me to pretty much any account I've had in the 20ish years I've been online.

    And while the extent of my dreams of being a public figure is like, hoping to become a midlist indie fantasy author, and I doubt anything I've ever said would impede that particular dream, it does make me sympathize with people who fucked up. Even if my stuff's more horrifically embarrassing than harmful to others.

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    Enc wrote: »
    Here's the facts though, social media is no different from your resume. Now, we can argue if it should be the same, but that's a whole different thing than what is. If you post racist shit 10 years ago, grow as a person, well. That post is still there unless you work real hard to get rid of it, and even then that's probably not going to happen. That's not to say redemption isn't valuable and forgiveness and growth shouldn't be acknowledged, but part of what social media is showing your personal journals to the entire goddamn world. Be careful about what you write because once it's out there, its out there.

    Is he a better person now? Sure seems to be. But those posts persist, and a price will be paid because of it. Posting your garbage thoughts on the internet on social media is writing a check to karma, and it will 100% collect as soon as any light shines down on you. In media based jobs, you should especially be careful about your posts.

    Except the only reason it is "your resume" is because of the very attitudes being argued for here. The people saying his statements should be held against him, regardless of whether there's evidence he has changed, are the ones actively enforcing that system.

    If you want to argue it shouldn't be that way, then you have to help make it happen.

  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    shryke wrote: »
    Enc wrote: »
    Here's the facts though, social media is no different from your resume. Now, we can argue if it should be the same, but that's a whole different thing than what is. If you post racist shit 10 years ago, grow as a person, well. That post is still there unless you work real hard to get rid of it, and even then that's probably not going to happen. That's not to say redemption isn't valuable and forgiveness and growth shouldn't be acknowledged, but part of what social media is showing your personal journals to the entire goddamn world. Be careful about what you write because once it's out there, its out there.

    Is he a better person now? Sure seems to be. But those posts persist, and a price will be paid because of it. Posting your garbage thoughts on the internet on social media is writing a check to karma, and it will 100% collect as soon as any light shines down on you. In media based jobs, you should especially be careful about your posts.

    Except the only reason it is "your resume" is because of the very attitudes being argued for here. The people saying his statements should be held against him, regardless of whether there's evidence he has changed, are the ones actively enforcing that system.

    If you want to argue it shouldn't be that way, then you have to help make it happen.

    [Should be held against him] and [are part of his living, public record] are the two conflicting ideas here. The former doesn't depend on the latter, the latter simply is. How people choose to read it is up to the viewer. It's your resume because the nature of the internet is a permanence that records every bit of information possible and gets it out there are effectively as possible, especially so via social media where the primary goal of the software is to drive attention to your speech. If your speech is garbage, you shouldn't be surprised if it still stinks 20 years later.

    Now looking at that along with everything else that has happened since is something worth doing! Lots of artists and individuals grow and change over time and get better. But that doesn't mean you aren't still accountable for your past speech if you made it public. Especially in a position where you will be highly scrutinized like Hollywood or politics. I'm sure the guy who played Kramer is a better person these days, but that doesn't mean he is going to get a TV gig after his awful rant. What you say and do in public sticks with you, and you have to simply accept the ramifications of that.

    If you put shitty, racist, horrific stuff on your social media way back when as a dumb kid, that's probably still out there. It's not going away, and you just have to accept that because it's not going to vanish and people will make their minds up based off of what they see, past and present. You have no control over their decisions. If that decision is to fire an actor for awful things he said in the past, that's the consequence. That doesn't mean you are that same person who did the writing way back when, I genuinely hope not! But you can't escape it. Ever. No wishful thinking will change that. You put it out there for the entire world to see and hear, and they did, and can hear and see it again, at any time on demand.

    This is what social media is. It's what you are doing with every post and every picture. There is no escape. There is no forgiveness. It's an inexorable record that only grows and looms like a sword of damocles until the light of attention shines and cuts the thread. And how deep that sword cuts depends on how awful you were, not how good you are now.

  • jothkijothki Registered User regular
    Enc wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Enc wrote: »
    Here's the facts though, social media is no different from your resume. Now, we can argue if it should be the same, but that's a whole different thing than what is. If you post racist shit 10 years ago, grow as a person, well. That post is still there unless you work real hard to get rid of it, and even then that's probably not going to happen. That's not to say redemption isn't valuable and forgiveness and growth shouldn't be acknowledged, but part of what social media is showing your personal journals to the entire goddamn world. Be careful about what you write because once it's out there, its out there.

    Is he a better person now? Sure seems to be. But those posts persist, and a price will be paid because of it. Posting your garbage thoughts on the internet on social media is writing a check to karma, and it will 100% collect as soon as any light shines down on you. In media based jobs, you should especially be careful about your posts.

    Except the only reason it is "your resume" is because of the very attitudes being argued for here. The people saying his statements should be held against him, regardless of whether there's evidence he has changed, are the ones actively enforcing that system.

    If you want to argue it shouldn't be that way, then you have to help make it happen.

    [Should be held against him] and [are part of his living, public record] are the two conflicting ideas here. The former doesn't depend on the latter, the latter simply is. How people choose to read it is up to the viewer. It's your resume because the nature of the internet is a permanence that records every bit of information possible and gets it out there are effectively as possible, especially so via social media where the primary goal of the software is to drive attention to your speech. If your speech is garbage, you shouldn't be surprised if it still stinks 20 years later.

    Now looking at that along with everything else that has happened since is something worth doing! Lots of artists and individuals grow and change over time and get better. But that doesn't mean you aren't still accountable for your past speech if you made it public. Especially in a position where you will be highly scrutinized like Hollywood or politics. I'm sure the guy who played Kramer is a better person these days, but that doesn't mean he is going to get a TV gig after his awful rant. What you say and do in public sticks with you, and you have to simply accept the ramifications of that.

    If you put shitty, racist, horrific stuff on your social media way back when as a dumb kid, that's probably still out there. It's not going away, and you just have to accept that because it's not going to vanish and people will make their minds up based off of what they see, past and present. You have no control over their decisions. If that decision is to fire an actor for awful things he said in the past, that's the consequence. That doesn't mean you are that same person who did the writing way back when, I genuinely hope not! But you can't escape it. Ever. No wishful thinking will change that. You put it out there for the entire world to see and hear, and they did, and can hear and see it again, at any time on demand.

    This is what social media is. It's what you are doing with every post and every picture. There is no escape. There is no forgiveness. It's an inexorable record that only grows and looms like a sword of damocles until the light of attention shines and cuts the thread. And how deep that sword cuts depends on how awful you were, not how good you are now.

    The problem is that all of this implies that people who said or believed horrible things in the past but had the sense to not make them publicly visible at the time should be given a free pass that people who did make them visible shouldn't get, even if they're equally reformed.

  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    jothki wrote: »
    Enc wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Enc wrote: »
    Here's the facts though, social media is no different from your resume. Now, we can argue if it should be the same, but that's a whole different thing than what is. If you post racist shit 10 years ago, grow as a person, well. That post is still there unless you work real hard to get rid of it, and even then that's probably not going to happen. That's not to say redemption isn't valuable and forgiveness and growth shouldn't be acknowledged, but part of what social media is showing your personal journals to the entire goddamn world. Be careful about what you write because once it's out there, its out there.

    Is he a better person now? Sure seems to be. But those posts persist, and a price will be paid because of it. Posting your garbage thoughts on the internet on social media is writing a check to karma, and it will 100% collect as soon as any light shines down on you. In media based jobs, you should especially be careful about your posts.

    Except the only reason it is "your resume" is because of the very attitudes being argued for here. The people saying his statements should be held against him, regardless of whether there's evidence he has changed, are the ones actively enforcing that system.

    If you want to argue it shouldn't be that way, then you have to help make it happen.

    [Should be held against him] and [are part of his living, public record] are the two conflicting ideas here. The former doesn't depend on the latter, the latter simply is. How people choose to read it is up to the viewer. It's your resume because the nature of the internet is a permanence that records every bit of information possible and gets it out there are effectively as possible, especially so via social media where the primary goal of the software is to drive attention to your speech. If your speech is garbage, you shouldn't be surprised if it still stinks 20 years later.

    Now looking at that along with everything else that has happened since is something worth doing! Lots of artists and individuals grow and change over time and get better. But that doesn't mean you aren't still accountable for your past speech if you made it public. Especially in a position where you will be highly scrutinized like Hollywood or politics. I'm sure the guy who played Kramer is a better person these days, but that doesn't mean he is going to get a TV gig after his awful rant. What you say and do in public sticks with you, and you have to simply accept the ramifications of that.

    If you put shitty, racist, horrific stuff on your social media way back when as a dumb kid, that's probably still out there. It's not going away, and you just have to accept that because it's not going to vanish and people will make their minds up based off of what they see, past and present. You have no control over their decisions. If that decision is to fire an actor for awful things he said in the past, that's the consequence. That doesn't mean you are that same person who did the writing way back when, I genuinely hope not! But you can't escape it. Ever. No wishful thinking will change that. You put it out there for the entire world to see and hear, and they did, and can hear and see it again, at any time on demand.

    This is what social media is. It's what you are doing with every post and every picture. There is no escape. There is no forgiveness. It's an inexorable record that only grows and looms like a sword of damocles until the light of attention shines and cuts the thread. And how deep that sword cuts depends on how awful you were, not how good you are now.

    The problem is that all of this implies that people who said or believed horrible things in the past but had the sense to not make them publicly visible at the time should be given a free pass that people who did make them visible shouldn't get, even if they're equally reformed.

    It implies no such thing. It simply is how the internet works. If you participate in social media, you are now bound by these rules. I'm making no moral judgments on the quality of character of those who do or don't participate, only the inescapable truths of how social media operates in the long term.

    There are plenty of racist, awful people today who never say anything bad online, and plenty of great and noble people who were absolute shits when they were kids and trumpeted such on the internet. The latter is bound by how social media works, and the former suffer no consequences. It's certainly not fair. But it's not changable either. You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, or delete your mistakes from the internet.

  • MrMisterMrMister Jesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered User regular
    edited June 2020
    Enc wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Enc wrote: »
    Here's the facts though, social media is no different from your resume. Now, we can argue if it should be the same, but that's a whole different thing than what is. If you post racist shit 10 years ago, grow as a person, well. That post is still there unless you work real hard to get rid of it, and even then that's probably not going to happen. That's not to say redemption isn't valuable and forgiveness and growth shouldn't be acknowledged, but part of what social media is showing your personal journals to the entire goddamn world. Be careful about what you write because once it's out there, its out there.

    Is he a better person now? Sure seems to be. But those posts persist, and a price will be paid because of it. Posting your garbage thoughts on the internet on social media is writing a check to karma, and it will 100% collect as soon as any light shines down on you. In media based jobs, you should especially be careful about your posts.

    Except the only reason it is "your resume" is because of the very attitudes being argued for here. The people saying his statements should be held against him, regardless of whether there's evidence he has changed, are the ones actively enforcing that system.

    If you want to argue it shouldn't be that way, then you have to help make it happen.

    [Should be held against him] and [are part of his living, public record] are the two conflicting ideas here. The former doesn't depend on the latter, the latter simply is. How people choose to read it is up to the viewer. It's your resume because the nature of the internet is a permanence that records every bit of information possible and gets it out there are effectively as possible, especially so via social media where the primary goal of the software is to drive attention to your speech. If your speech is garbage, you shouldn't be surprised if it still stinks 20 years later.

    Now looking at that along with everything else that has happened since is something worth doing! Lots of artists and individuals grow and change over time and get better. But that doesn't mean you aren't still accountable for your past speech if you made it public. Especially in a position where you will be highly scrutinized like Hollywood or politics. I'm sure the guy who played Kramer is a better person these days, but that doesn't mean he is going to get a TV gig after his awful rant. What you say and do in public sticks with you, and you have to simply accept the ramifications of that.

    If you put shitty, racist, horrific stuff on your social media way back when as a dumb kid, that's probably still out there. It's not going away, and you just have to accept that because it's not going to vanish and people will make their minds up based off of what they see, past and present. You have no control over their decisions. If that decision is to fire an actor for awful things he said in the past, that's the consequence. That doesn't mean you are that same person who did the writing way back when, I genuinely hope not! But you can't escape it. Ever. No wishful thinking will change that. You put it out there for the entire world to see and hear, and they did, and can hear and see it again, at any time on demand.

    This is what social media is. It's what you are doing with every post and every picture. There is no escape. There is no forgiveness. It's an inexorable record that only grows and looms like a sword of damocles until the light of attention shines and cuts the thread. And how deep that sword cuts depends on how awful you were, not how good you are now.

    It's true that it's a fact of life that it's hard to extinguish information once it gets online. But it's still up to us, ethically, how we respond to it. For instance, we can decide not to seek out that information, not to spread it, and not to use it as a basis for certain decisions. A boss can decide not to google their employees before hiring them; a bystander can decide not to forward a tweetstorm about someone to their boss, etc. Members of the public can decline to boycott people and businesses. They can even decline to be outraged at all. And they can avoid patronizing entertainment news whose business model is to peddle that kind of story, and otherwise decline to participate in a busybody culture.

    This is similar to gossip and rumors. Once rumors are circulating out there, they can take on a life of their own. It can be hard to get rid of them. That's a fact. But even given that fact, we can still think, as individuals, about how we ethically ought to respond to rumors. It's very common for people to say that for at least some topics, it's wrong to gossip, or that there are some things which are just "none of my business." It's natural to interpret Shryke as pointing out, correctly, that we can make the same sorts of choices that many of us were taught as kids with respect to gossip and make them with respect to random old tweets too. Depending on how many people are collectively making that kind of choice, the consequences of having information 'out there' vary considerably.

    MrMister on
  • dispatch.odispatch.o Registered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    I was extremely racist well in to my early 20's. I would rather not have to bring up every single slur I said and racist philosophy I followed as an idiot raised in a racist family at each and every job I go to. I would hope that over a decade of pushing for better causes would mean something.

    I don't see too many people ready to pony up every single text, blog, email, recording, etc that they've ever made in their lives. It's terrible, shitty cynicism to look at someone whose actions and statements demonstrate they've become a much better person and decide it's all an act.

    Looking back I was a liberal person philosophically but had leftover stupid shit I'd say out of habit as a result of being a teen. It took a decade to stop reflexively using homophobic slurs and implied racist nonsense as just blanket expressions of frustration.

    If it were somehow all tweets or on Myspace or something and I got a job. I definitely would keep the fuck quiet and hope no one ever noticed I was a dumbass in my early 20s. Blurting out an apology for the person I used to be to people who didn't ever know me, in a professional setting seems like a great way to ostracize yourself.

    Context matters. Acts of penance and service to the communities you've wronged count, even if you don't announce you're trying to balance your moral scales.

  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    edited June 2020
    It's not the same as gossip or rumors, because it is substantiated truth and a first hand, 100% accurate account that the person themselves wrote. It's not "oh did you hear what Becky said?" its actually "Becky published this and got it notarized."

    As far as the rest, if I am hiring someone, or dating someone, or wanting to know who I am teaming up with for my business why wouldn't I examine whatever public records I can find? I don't want to team up with a company that is currently spouting anti-BLM bullshit on their corporate twitter, I wouldn't want to hire someone to do public relations that has a history of battery and assault of minorities, I wouldn't want to date someone who treated a former spouse like shit and bragged about it online. These things aren't gossip or hearsay. It's documentation. The tragedy of the internet is that most users of social media have no real understanding of the permanence or consequences of their actions, which are real, lasting, and immediate once they become known.

    Doubly so when people get put on social media by others, which could be more likely to be rumor or gossip as you say. I got several posts made by people I don't even know showing me at a party in my 20s showing people getting trashed while I'm in the background. I was there for 5 minutes to pick up a drunk friend who wanted to go home safely. Doesn't mean I haven't had to account for it more than once in my early career. Imagine all the shitty parents that are, right now, posting pictures of their kids to social media of embarrassing moments. Those kids will be dealing with those posts when they are 40+ and being considered for management because its all public record. Forever. It's easy to dismiss if its just text. It's hard if people are tagging you in pictures against your will. And its hard to get those down once posted.

    As a person who knows that the internet is a log of records, I treat social media like I treat restaurant reviews. You look at the most recent stuff to get a feel for what is happening now, and look at the past to see how things change over time. But that's my choice, it's not something you can force, require, or expect. You have literally no control once you make a post. It's out there for everyone and anyone to use however they like, for you or against you. Forever.

    Enc on
  • WhiteZinfandelWhiteZinfandel Your insides Let me show you themRegistered User regular
    While I'll agree that the fidelity of internet posts makes them different from gossip, we still get to choose how we interact with them. I'm not going to dig up something a poster said in an unrelated thread 6+ months ago to take a shot at them in today's debate because I think that's just a shitty, mean-spirited thing to do. That's not the prevailing sentiment on this forum, much less the wider internet, but I can still incorporate it into my personal moral code and argue for its adoption by others.

  • AridholAridhol Daddliest Catch Registered User regular
    There's no universe where I'd hold someone accountable or view them differently for posts they made in their teens.
    I think looking at past history and behaviour needs to have some kind of time adjustment or lens through which the person is viewed.

    I wouldn't and don't look up the people I meet or interview and I think it's fucking gross and invasive to do so.

  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    Aridhol wrote: »
    There's no universe where I'd hold someone accountable or view them differently for posts they made in their teens.
    I think looking at past history and behaviour needs to have some kind of time adjustment or lens through which the person is viewed.

    I wouldn't and don't look up the people I meet or interview and I think it's fucking gross and invasive to do so.

    Its also standard practice because, even if you feel it is invasive and choose not to, nothing will stop your employees or customers from doing so. And they -will- do so.

  • AridholAridhol Daddliest Catch Registered User regular
    edited June 2020
    Enc wrote: »
    Aridhol wrote: »
    There's no universe where I'd hold someone accountable or view them differently for posts they made in their teens.
    I think looking at past history and behaviour needs to have some kind of time adjustment or lens through which the person is viewed.

    I wouldn't and don't look up the people I meet or interview and I think it's fucking gross and invasive to do so.

    Its also standard practice because, even if you feel it is invasive and choose not to, nothing will stop your employees or customers from doing so. And they -will- do so.

    Some people do not do this.
    You're correct though, nothing stops people from doing it.
    I suspect people will just get better at purging their old posting history.


    edit:
    Forgot to say, it may be standard practice in some places but it is not in any workplace I have been a part of. The company I have been with for the last 15 years does not do this.
    Companies requiring passwords and usernames and shit like that for social media to comb through a persons private life like this is fucking horrible.

    Aridhol on
  • MrMisterMrMister Jesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered User regular
    edited June 2020
    Enc wrote: »
    It's not the same as gossip or rumors, because it is substantiated truth and a first hand, 100% accurate account that the person themselves wrote. It's not "oh did you hear what Becky said?" its actually "Becky published this and got it notarized."

    As far as the rest, if I am hiring someone, or dating someone, or wanting to know who I am teaming up with for my business why wouldn't I examine whatever public records I can find? I don't want to team up with a company that is currently spouting anti-BLM bullshit on their corporate twitter, I wouldn't want to hire someone to do public relations that has a history of battery and assault of minorities, I wouldn't want to date someone who treated a former spouse like shit and bragged about it online. These things aren't gossip or hearsay. It's documentation. The tragedy of the internet is that most users of social media have no real understanding of the permanence or consequences of their actions, which are real, lasting, and immediate once they become known.

    Doubly so when people get put on social media by others, which could be more likely to be rumor or gossip as you say. I got several posts made by people I don't even know showing me at a party in my 20s showing people getting trashed while I'm in the background. I was there for 5 minutes to pick up a drunk friend who wanted to go home safely. Doesn't mean I haven't had to account for it more than once in my early career. Imagine all the shitty parents that are, right now, posting pictures of their kids to social media of embarrassing moments. Those kids will be dealing with those posts when they are 40+ and being considered for management because its all public record. Forever. It's easy to dismiss if its just text. It's hard if people are tagging you in pictures against your will. And its hard to get those down once posted.

    As a person who knows that the internet is a log of records, I treat social media like I treat restaurant reviews. You look at the most recent stuff to get a feel for what is happening now, and look at the past to see how things change over time. But that's my choice, it's not something you can force, require, or expect. You have literally no control once you make a post. It's out there for everyone and anyone to use however they like, for you or against you. Forever.

    As per White Zinfandel above, the point of analogy is that we can choose how we respond to each kind of information, which is true in both cases, even if there are also other points of disanalogy, such as differences in their average veracity.

    Still, it's worth noting that some gossip is absolutely accurate. Sometimes you can be quite confident in a source. Sometimes you are the source! There are things that I've seen first-hand, yet which I still wouldn't share with third parties because even if I know them to be true, I think it would be inappropriate to spread. Not everything is everyone's business.

    Some of your examples are pretty wild (I don't think we need to reach 'literally physically attacked a string of minorities' in order to address 'wrote a tweet where he joked that Al Sharpton wouldn't like him.') Others, I think, may not make the point you want. I have family who have been through divorce, and family working in family law who see divorce in a professional capacity: it gets real messy really easily, and judging people by the worst they behaved during a bad divorce is gonna leave you with a pretty jaundiced view of humanity. For instance, once my uncle got in a shouting match with my aunt during their ugly divorce which culminated in his throwing her keys across a parking lot. A bad moment. And if someone had been phone filming that and uploaded it to twitter, it'd look pretty bad. Of course, if his employer or his friends just saw that video clip, they wouldn't also see the part where his then-wife was a ravenous cocaine addict, financially ruining them both with drug-fueled debt, abusive to him personally, and an absent-slash-toxic mother to their child. That clip where he lost it, even if published and notarized as 100% a thing that really did happen, is just some tiny slice of what was going on then--let alone what's going on now, where he's found his way into a very boring, happy long term relationship.

    Part of the reasons gossip can be toxic is that even when it's completely true, it's also generally acontextual and reductive. When the One Fact people know about someone is the gossip a little bird told them (did you know he threw his ex's keys across a parking lot? Can you believe how fucked up that is???), well, then, that's what people go on. In doing so, they often massively overestimate how much they actually know about a person. Part of the reason ~not~ to spread gossip, even when it really is true, is because it can be really harmful for a person to spend the rest of their life being judged in those simplistic, reductive terms.

    Of course, I would say even when the judgment is correct, it is still not a generally good thing to make someone's employment contingent on the their good guy score--so it's not like the problem here is just one of getting a good assessment. But this is a case where two considerations tell in the same direction.

    MrMister on
  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    Aridhol wrote: »
    Enc wrote: »
    Aridhol wrote: »
    There's no universe where I'd hold someone accountable or view them differently for posts they made in their teens.
    I think looking at past history and behaviour needs to have some kind of time adjustment or lens through which the person is viewed.

    I wouldn't and don't look up the people I meet or interview and I think it's fucking gross and invasive to do so.

    Its also standard practice because, even if you feel it is invasive and choose not to, nothing will stop your employees or customers from doing so. And they -will- do so.

    Some people do not do this.
    You're correct though, nothing stops people from doing it.
    I suspect people will just get better at purging their old posting history.

    In my experience, I doubt it. People only seem to care when the 15 minutes of fame shines on them suddenly and now the world actually sees what they wrote and now its too late. See all these racist kids losing their scholarships or the various Karens getting attention after calling the cops on their neighbors. By time it matters to most folk, its too late.

    Or just don’t participate in social media, which is totally possible even in 2020, albeit not without its own setbacks.

    Or, better yet, don’t be awful on the internet and be compassionate and willing and proud to own everything you write against the eyes of history. Which is easy enough to say as an ideal but not an easy road for anyone to walk 24/7.

  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    Aridhol wrote: »
    Enc wrote: »
    Aridhol wrote: »
    There's no universe where I'd hold someone accountable or view them differently for posts they made in their teens.
    I think looking at past history and behaviour needs to have some kind of time adjustment or lens through which the person is viewed.

    I wouldn't and don't look up the people I meet or interview and I think it's fucking gross and invasive to do so.

    Its also standard practice because, even if you feel it is invasive and choose not to, nothing will stop your employees or customers from doing so. And they -will- do so.

    Some people do not do this.
    You're correct though, nothing stops people from doing it.
    I suspect people will just get better at purging their old posting history.


    edit:
    Forgot to say, it may be standard practice in some places but it is not in any workplace I have been a part of. The company I have been with for the last 15 years does not do this.
    Companies requiring passwords and usernames and shit like that for social media to comb through a persons private life like this is fucking horrible.

    Ive never heard of handing over passwords. Usually its a cursory google search of whatever comes up in 5m during the paper review stage for most employers or a detailed search by a consultant for high profile positions like senior admins or public relations, usually as part of the general background check.

    To @MrMister s point i agree about how problematic it can be, but that doesn’t change the fact that social media works as such. You have no control of the narrative nor how people will pick and choose what they find about you and retain. Even setting aside bad faithful actors, lazy or accidental discovery of something from the past can disrupt your life with neither fairness nor accuracy to who you are now and that cannot and will not change. No social compact will stop information from being discovered save for not participating.

This discussion has been closed.