...just gonna point out this isn’t a universally accepted notion. Were the Salem Witch Trials governed by this “righteous” fury?

Web technology isn't just the reserve of "geeks" making websites in their basements anymore. It fills every corner of our existance. It's no longer in the locker room and it should behave as such.

People should be empowered to say something about things. But in the vast majority of situation where no actual law is being violated, they really shouldn't be empowered to do anything about it. Whatever happened to freedom of speech? Why are so many people today willing to throw freedom of speech out the window?

It's just unkind and there's not really any reason for it.

My wife wouldn't divorce me if a random stranger on the internet accused me of something terrible. If I did do something terrible, then she might want to divorce me.

My employer wouldn't dismiss me if a random stranger accused me of something terrible. If I did do something terrible, then they might no longer want to be associated with me.

That seems entirely reasonable.

If I make a dumb racist or sexist joke, I should be told "hey dude, fuck off, that's not cool", not have people calling my employer to tell them how terrible I am, harassing my friends and family or sending me death threats.

> My wife wouldn't divorce me if a random stranger on the internet accused me of something terrible. ... My employer wouldn't dismiss me if a random stranger accused me of something terrible.

What if a thousand random strangers harassed you, her, your employer, your family and your friends with all kinds of accusations and death threats? Its not even that your wife or employer believes the mob, but that the stress and pressure becomes too much for them.

What if you made a single distasteful joke on twitter and instead of a few people telling you hey, that wasn't cool at all, instead you find tens of thousands of people harassing you and everyone you know? This happened to Justine Sacco. She made a very stupid and distasteful joke on twitter, to her 170 twitter followers. It got picked up by a journalist and thousands of people piled on to her. She lost her job because her employer didn't want to be associated with the press caused by the mob. According to interviews she suffered from anxiety and mental health issues for a long time after. Yes her comment on twitter was distasteful and racist, but it wasn't so bad as to warrant everything that happened to her. I've heard of such bully campaigns that lead to the targets suicide and it wasn't even clear if they were guilty of what they were accused of or not (but even if they were, their death is entirely too far!)

That doesn't seem reasonable to me at all. Quite frankly, I find it shocking how many people are not just ok with but also in support of these modern day witch hunts.

> Yes her comment on twitter was distasteful and racist

Racism isn't acceptable in any form. If I make a racist comment, I wouldn't be surprised if my employer dismissed me.

I agree, trial by mob isn't acceptable, neither are death threats, and I agree that it's more common and that it shouldn't happen. (To avoid this personally, I don't use Facebook or Twitter) But if I make a racist statement, in public (because social media is public) then I won't be surprised if people start thinking of me differently and I won't be surprised if my employer decides to get rid of me.

Getting someone fired over an off-the-cuff stupid joke is crazy. Getting a lynch mob to literally attempt to destroy someones life over a stupid joke is much much worse than the joke itself, no matter how sexist or racist it may be.

Besides, you don't change people by attacking them.

> I don't know the individual story

The specific story isn't really relevant, although you can look it up to see the context. The point is that the reaction is completely out of proportion with the "crime" and when someone loses everything over something as stupid as a joke, you either radicalise them or you push them to anxiety, depression and sometimes suicide. That is never ok no matter how racist or sexist you were.

> I won't be surprised if my employer decides to get rid of me.

Have you never said anything that you later regretted? I've certainly made jokes I wish I hadn't. She posted it to her 170 twitter followers, stupid sure, but how was she to know someone would pass it on to a journalist with hundreds of thousands of followers who would then spread it and complain to her employer?

I mean, sure, its dumb to assume anything you post online won't get spread and come back to you, but that's a separate issue.

Besides, it looked to me that the employer fired her because thousands of faceless "internet activists" demanded it, not because they themselves deemed the tweet was a fire-able offense.

Remember, this conversation is based off my statement above:

> There's a difference between calling someone out for something untasteful and actively trying to ruin their careers, marriages and lives over it.

By all means, call peoples bad behavior out! But don't go out of your way to try to ruin their lives. That is all I am arguing for.

Because her job title was "Senior Director of Corporate Communication" at a PR firm. Her job was to anticipate how people might react to her, and to use that skill to show her clients in the best light.

It's not too much of a stretch for any of us to think "would I get fired if my manager saw this tweet in a bad light?" and then NOT TWEET if you thought "yes". There's only so much you can blame ThE mOB for.

My point is that the decision should be solely the employer and not under pressure from the lynch mob. In this case, the mob absolutely did put pressure on them to fire her. Without that pressure, they may still have done so, or they may have reprimanded her in another way, we'll never know. In the end, as long as she changes her behavior, I don't think her livelihood needed to be attacked and she certainly should not have been harassed to the point of severe depression and anxiety (which she talked about in interviews later).

Again, call out, reprimand, whatever is deemed correct. Don't incite a mob to harass them or try to ruin their lives.

I do recommend that you read (google her name and it should come up) it because it is very informative just how destructive these internet mobs can be.

Interestingly enough, she said her post was sarcasm to highlight racism and thought her 170 followers knew her well enough to understand that.

That's exactly what's happening in this thread. People are discussing this website, sharing criticisms ("saying things" as you put it). Nobody is advocating for legal action, nobody is suppressing the author's speech.

> If you don't like it, don't view the site.

Sure! But someone posted it here for viewing and discussion. Should the comments only be for sympathetic discussion? What about freedom of speech!

>This was never "simply funny" to a lot of people, they just weren't empowered to say or do anything about it. Thankfully, things are changing.

There's plenty of corners of the internet that are anything but sanitized and will resist any form of sanitization. It's occupiers will probably choose that particular hill to die on too. 4chan would be a good (if you can use that word...) example.

> Whatever happened to freedom of speech? Why are so many people today willing to throw freedom of speech out the window?

Freedom of speech still exists. Case-in-point, the website in question still exists no matter how uncomfortable it makes me personally. Freedom of speech does not protect anybody from the consequences of that freedom.

People are much less tolerant of speech that offends them. I think this is a good thing, because many minorities were already often offended before but lacked the power to speak up. What you're seeing now isn't the erosion of freedom of speech, but the strengthening of it in the face of robust and diverse views.

I worry that this trend is polarizing — forcing us to two extremes.

Kindly disagree. Compare the old Simpsons seasons with the more modern ones. There is a change in tone in general.

But, apart from that, the "dark web" is currently filling this niche, so... Whatever floats your boat is fine.

Sure, I agree. FRIENDS is also an example of a pop culture icon which has aged _really_ badly since the 90s. But consider how the demographic make-up of those writers rooms will have changed in the last 20 years too.

Here's a good list: https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/1209195-Ways-the-...

Here's a buzzfeed list (if you're in the mood for gifs): https://www.buzzfeed.com/caseyrackham/moments-that-prove-ros...

Every main character on Friends was a caricature centered around a character flaw (or a stereotypical combination of flaws), so, yeah, any one of their actions would be looked on pretty badly now or at the time they were written, and Ross and Joey were pretty much the worst at the time.

Sitcom characters are very often far from role models for their time.

This website is not locker room talk by ANY means. The creator most likely had the hots for her, wanted to try and make boring nerd stuff more interesting & memorable and get more views. So what?

This is the online, PhD geek version of putting up a Britney Spears pinup. It's a fan/niche site, not the homepage of a major site. The audience is not kids; it's nerds.

She's a public celebrity who leveraged her looks to stardom. And a lot of people had the hots for her. So this guy used the shape of her body to explain conduction bands and valence bands and it's a problem? And an example of the cross that geeks need to bear in saving the internet with web technology?

Your opinion and ideal is not possible unless you censor content and user interactions.

And besides, the web got nasty once the general populace was added.

You can just look at your average friend and family argument on Facebook to see that.

People like to claim this all the time, with very little evidence of it actually happening. Also the web is full of sexist shit, even 20 years later. I really don't see the point you are making.

In reality you are WAY more likely to get fired for union organizing or for being the victim of sexual harassment, rather than for being an edge lord on the internet.

To be clear, in my opinion we definitely changed for the better, the position of women at the end of the 60's (which seems so close) is almost mind boggling to me now. It's just 2 generations away from me, but back then my grandmother's mother told my grandmother: "You want to work? What? I'll teach you how to work, in the kitchen, and around the house." I think this caused my grandmother to be very liberal with her kids and as a result my mother was with me and my brothers. As a result I never understood how one can not see men and women as equal. TOS gives some "nice" insights into the matter though...

I'd say most things changed for the better. But I'd be a hypocrite if I said there are no dark aspects. There are organized thugs on the Internet who will do everything to make your life miserable at the slighest hint of you not conforming to the current view on $SUBJECT. What's equally bad, it doesn't really matter if you actually did what you are accused of, it's enough that someone says so. As a consequence, many people just prefer to keep silent, including the ones who have the most meaningful things to say.

This is why Bob Hope is lame to us. He may have popularized the "tight 5" standup format but everyone copied him and many do it better.

This is also why Amos & Andy is just a fairly uninteresting half hour of blackface racism or why Mr Yunioshi in breakfast at tiffany's just looks stupid now. Sure these are racist but when you look past that, they're also not funny any more.

They're pointing at some, bringing focus to it, but it has no more symbolic resonance.

It's also why if someone made say mrs doubtfire today it'd look like an outdated flop.

There's a societal context that gave these things a dynamic which no longer exists.

It's actually the same reason Monica lewinsky and draft card jokes wouldn't work today. There's no longer a supportive scaffolding to give it the context.

Race and sex based comedy can still be done, it just needs to live in the 2021 context.

It's still racist and sexist, which are both morally objectionable, but unlike this site, it could probably still also be funny.

For instance, you could do a black Mr. Magoo who gets treated with constant dangerous racial prejudice but in the magoo character, always assumes good intentions and miraculously survives everything. Runs into klansman, thinks it's a costume party, etc..

You might also be able to pull off the 3s company dynamic (in the original, straight guy needed to convince everyone he was gay so the premise was "straight man in the closet") but using a different spectrum that's more relevant to today's conflicts.

I would just like to add that I'm, in fact, not American (nor Western European) and that we dislike low-key misogyny in other parts of the world too.

The distribution of people and cultures represented on the internet may have changed, but I think plenty of people would have seen this as objectionable at the time, even if you weren't as aware of them as you are now.

> These days, nobody would ever want to be associated with such a site out of fear of press and social media jumping at them and ruining their career forever.

Would the fact that the website is still up, _with_ a "contact me" link, undermine your point somewhat?

To an extent - but 20 years ago was also pre-Facebook when use of psudeonyms was widely accepted internet safety advice.

20-30 years ago it was perfectly acceptable to make incredibly lewd or offensive jokes or have your band LARP as Satanists. The culture was far more tolerant of coarseness and taboo-breaking.

Here's an example that would drive the present-day left and right bonkers if it was released today:

https://www.metrolyrics.com/my-sharona-lyrics-the-knack.html

Or, er, maybe they wouldn't want to be associated with it out of other motivations, such as common decency?

Is it really because "nobody would ever want to be associated with such a site out of fear of press and social media jumping at them and ruining their career forever" or because the web has matured beyond its "shitposting teenage edgelord" phase and many people now legitimately don't find that sort of thing funny?

I guess margot robbie consented to that depiction at least, but the punchline is essentially the same.