Are we too dependent/abusing the power of Social Media??

[minmin001]

Just read this on yahoo and I think it should totally not have happened. Shame people have to lose their job over joking around with friends.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/joke-dongles-conference-led-two-130019308.html

 

[sonnyjane]

Looks like she also lost her job for posting the picture in the first place. I have to say, and it might not be a popular opinion, that I think she was more in the wrong for posting their faces than they were for making a joke. Making a joke that is overheard by someone that finds it offensive is not as bad, in my opinion, as posting a picture of two people, complaining about their behavior, and tagging it online with the name of the conference they are attending, therefore violating their privacy.

 

[minmin001]

Looks like she also lost her job for posting the picture in the first place. I have to say, and it might not be a popular opinion, that I think she was more in the wrong for posting their faces than they were for making a joke. Making a joke that is overheard by someone that finds it offensive is not as bad, in my opinion, as posting a picture of two people, complaining about their behavior, and tagging it online with the name of the conference they are attending, therefore violating their privacy.

Yes, if she would have just said something to them right there I'm sure they would have just said sorry and nobody will get hurt. In this case she didn't and end up costing someone else and her own job.

 

[ame]

Wow. "How dare she point out misogyny in our industry!" Her receiving rape and death threats over that guy's firing is making her point entirely, I'd say.

Regardless of that, posting their pictures was probably to her detriment. I don't disagree with making a comment about the joke being inappropriate, but posting the picture was over the line on her side. Him making a joke/statement of the like at the conference implies to me that he probably makes such comments elsewhere and probably also at work, and that was probably one more example of it, since he was there as a representative of his company and for all we know, it was bound to happen eventually, she just sped it up by posting his face out in the web.

To answer your question---yes I think "we" are very abusive or dependent on social media and what it can and will do. A lot of people don't get that once it's out there like that, it's OUT THERE, and when you're someone people keep track of, like her for example, she was a big deal in the tech industry apparently, people are GOING to see it, screen grab it, and it's gone, out of your hands, even if you delete it.

 

[mrs jam]

What a bitch.

 

[kenny]

It is so creepy how the separation between our lives, real and online, is crumbling.
Instant access to millions of people accelerates and amplifies everything.

I'm SOOOO glad to not be on Twitter, FB, etc..

 

[04diamond<3]

What a bitch.

I think I might have asked them to stop, but taking a picture of them and posting all over the internet is way too far....

 

[MichelleCarmen]

What a bitch.

I think I might have asked them to stop, but taking a picture of them and posting all over the internet is way too far....

Yep, totally unacceptable to post a picture of them online. People have no boundries anymore. It's all a free-for-all.

 

[justginger]

I don't like the direction society is going. Now you can't enjoy jokes with friends without worrying someone is going to overhear and be offended? I KNOW the things my friends and I joke about would get SOMEONE upset. Probably many someones. But I'm not saying it to them, I'm not saying it about them, I'm not saying it publicly. How quietly does one have to speak amongst friends in a public place for it to be considered a private conversation? Let me guess...we need to make a new law about this. A certain level of decibels and conversations are considered public domain.

Unless they were shouting or heckling, she was very much in the wrong.

If I were in her place and I were truly upset by what they were saying, a few huffs and puffs, a few pointed looks, those would be my weapons of choice. And if that didn't work, I'd try addressing them directly instead of plastering their faces all over (potentially) the screens of every computer in the world. It's not fair to punish someone without giving them the option of shaping up.

 

[smitcompton]

Hi,

The people in her own company would be afraid of her. Who wants someone like that around. You always have to watch what you say. The company had to let her go.

The guy shouldn't have been fired. It was a private conversation. She should have asked them to stop. What happened to the friend he was talking to? The listener wasn't fired? Absurd

Annette

 

[ksinger]

It is so creepy how the separation between our lives, real and online, is crumbling.
Instant access to millions of people accelerates and amplifies everything.

I'm SOOOO glad to not be on Twitter, FB, etc..

The line between people's real lives and their online lives really only crumbles to the degree that they allow it. I'm on FB, but I don't post any pictures of my home, or people, or even myself. I post articles I find interesting - with comments as to why - generally of political stripe but never truly incendiary - basically nothing I would not say in a public place and with a mind to the fact that not all of my friends agree with me, and that yes, the vast majority of the relatively few people I'm "friends" with online, really ARE my genuine real life friends. And never anything about specific people, but then I probably wouldn't do that in person either. I do reply to other people, admire my adorable near-4-year-old cousin and various other family children, and occasionally wax amusing about mundane issues in my life - like how exhausting it was watching someone ELSE paint my living room. But other than that, why on earth would you live out your real life online?

The real problem is people who always probably had boundary/oversharing issues, discovering a new means to have even MORE boundary issues. That, and the generations that grew up with social media have never known real privacy and therefore have no experience or expectation of it. And are astonished and repeatedly stupid when it comes to being called out on it. My husband comments that his kids are so weird about privacy, that across the board they will speak where everyone can hear, and yet get very indignant when anyone comments on what they heard - kind of a "how dare you listen to my private business" attitude, while seemingly not understanding what PRIVATE really means, or that they themselves bear some responsibility for maintaining said privacy. It's been a relatively recent phenomenon and he is at a loss to explain it as yet. I know when we were that age, if you were concerned that something stay private, you did not blab in front of a roomful of people and then get all twisted when they all knew and talked about it, rather you kept your mouth shut and/or only told those you wanted to know and trusted not to speak.

I've followed the Steubenville rape case pretty closely, and I just shook my head at the monumental inability to learn from example exhibited by the two girls, who, after a trial that rested on social media and electronic evidence to convict the rapists, posted death threats to the victim on Twitter and FB. There are many issues and angles to discuss about girls making threats to female rape victims, but all that aside for the moment, good grief, talk about just pure unmitigated stupidity on a monumental scale. Mind-boggling really. It's like the whole concept of privacy - and real consequences from its lack - is just beyond their comprehension.