The Glade 4.0

If Kristof had such a disclaimer at the top of his Twitter page, would this discussion still exist?

That presupposes that there is any distancing mechanism sufficient to the task of distancing oneself from any affiliations in a broadcast medium arguably as or more powerful than television. Is there?

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Wouldn't that disclaimer itself be such a distancing mechanism? I don't see why it needs any elaborating.

No, but my perception of his and the NYT's reputation might be in jeopardy for having something with that disclaimer linked from their official website. Depending on my own personal bias, I would think one or both of them either stupid or being willfully deceptive due to the incongruity.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Possibly, but it would be quibbling over a line that may or may not exist, as indicated by Shuyung's answer. That's not to make light of the discussion, either; as I'm well aware the opinion wasn't anything Kristof would situate professionally with intent -- Kristof legitimately pulled the trigger before he considered his statement -- see Mookhow's post about Adam Orth.

Twitter has staggeringly personal penetration: smartphones or other devices capable of receiving tweets belong to most people in the developed world and a significant part of the undeveloped world. The internet is vast and provides effectively instant transmission to more people than 2 billion people (35% of the world's population). Cell phones hit 87% of the world's population. Between the internet and secondary transmission via cell phone, tweets can reach 6 billion people in a matter of seconds. Granted that would require 100% pass through and reception (i.e. perfect which never happens), but well ... it's huge.

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What Twitter is?

Actually pretty stupid.

I still don't get the appeal of it.

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Holy shitsnacks!

I realise the majority of normal employees probably don’t have the time or the interest in reading all the Code of Conduct and Standard Operating Procedures associated with a company. Most large companies are certified by an accreditation standard which states any possible risk to a business should have a document, whether on process or addressed through the code to mitigate that risk. While informative, they are boring as hell to read...

In recent years, along with the emergence of social media, majority of the companies who is accredited in some way have such a document dealing with both personal use, and professional use of this method of communication. Most cover confidentiality, promotional/advertising, social responsibility and company image. e.g. “Do not post anything on social media whether professionally or through personal use which may be seen as or could potentially cause risk and damage to the company”.

In more extreme cases, where your reputation is associated with your job role, you are required to physically walk away from business or personal conversation where the continuation of the conversation may lead you to breach such codes and SOPs. You are then required to notify your legal and PR department of such an event and submit a form detailing the issue, and potential out comes.

So yes, you’re allowed personal opinions, but when you sign on that contract with your employer, make sure you read all of the SOPs and Code of Conduct carefully as part of that signature, because that is also what you’re signing into. And as long as you work for that company, you’re limited by your own signature as to what personal opinions you are allowed to voice and to whom. Also keep in mind most companies have a standard period of time after your employment where you’re also bound by these documents (usually between 6 month and a year), and they are legally able to sue you for any damages.

By itself, no. And again, you are ignoring scope. The original standard disclaimer on the Internet was accepted among a much smaller population, all of whom had a much greater respect for privacy, and a much greater awareness of public vs. private communication. In today's Internet, and this situation, it would be much akin to Brian Williams looking directly at the camera, saying "the following does not represent the views of NBC", and then saying something irresponsible and inflammatory. Now Brian has to hope Lester Holt displays his penis during a broadcast so that he can ever get another job.

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This mattered a great deal to me, but mainly because I read it in Morgan Freeman Voice.

I still have issues with accepting that literally anything on the Internet that has your name even indirectly attached to it directly impacts your "professional reputation" and also reflects on your employer.

What happens when Blizzard (or any other company) decides to bring back Real ID? Does the fact that you used the word nigger a few times in a hastily-made WoW post a few years ago mean you should be unemployable for life?

Xequecal:

I'll be honest; I suspect a large number of social ills facing American today have to do with the systematic dilution of cause-and-effect and consequence chaining in our education and social systems. Political insulators are bad mojo, I suspect.

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Again, this effect is due to the social pressure created by society in general, not due to any legal requirement.

Who cares what "should" happen? People "should" just magically suddenly start separating people's personal opinions from their professional status because you think it's unfair, or some other self-appointed geniuses think it's "stupid" if they do?

It doesn't matter whether you have issues accepting it or not, that's the way it is. Unless you have a magic solution to make people just stop attributing the personal opinions of people to their employer or their suitability for certain positions, it's going to stay that way. Just demanding that humans suddenly start thinking differently because you think it's stupid or unfair is wildly unrealistic.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Um... We all should?



This is going to sound crazy, but here's an idea: just stop attributing the personal opinions of people to their employers. It's really not so hard.

Ummmm... no?

First, yes it is actually that hard to get society in general to stop doing that. Just yelling "Stop it!" doesn't help.

Second, the fact is that every place of employment has a "culture". Places that are involved with politics, such as newspapers, by virtue of reporting it, have one as well.

That culture is made up by the aggregate of the opinions of the people that work there, taking into account their authority and influence.

When a major figure at a newspaper makes a statement about a political matter, he is revealing his influence on that culture, which in turn affects how the newspaper reports and frames issues.

When people get the idea that a particular newspaper or other outlet's "culture" and thus reportage has moved too far away from neutral reporting and in the direction of evaluating the events in a particular political light, they trust it less. This effect is less strong, of course, when they agree with that bias, but it's still there.

This is what you guys don't seem to get - people do not have separate professional identities. They're people; their personal feelings and beliefs affect how they approach what they do. Some people are better at separating than others, but none are perfect.

By making this tweet, this particular journalist revealed a facet of his personality - namely, that his views on Republicans are so distorted that he cannot look at a major event without trying to find a way to tie them to it in a negative fashion. That's unacceptable for his paper because it indicates he's not really a neutral reporter, or even a thoughtful writer of editorials; he's a demagogue, or at least really would like to be one.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Lenas:

It's not an issue of attributing personal opinions to employers; it's an issue of bad personal opinions negatively impacting the market viability of their employers. Would you shop at a store that prohibited minority customers?

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This is where reputation, representation, anonymity, population size, reasonable expectation, and the Internet throw most people for a loop. Saying something ridiculous in a particular venue under reasonable expectations of anonymity is worlds different from saying something ridiculous in a venue where you are reasonably expected to represent a larger entity. Real ID was a problem due to the WoW population reasonably expecting some measure of anonymity, and Blizzard wanting to revoke that in favor of true identity. The WoW population, not wholly but a vocal enough subset, realized just how stupid they had acted while reasonably anonymous, and worried about the impact of that idiocy on their true identity. As they should.

Now, when you are operating under your true identity, you should take as much care with your image as if you were acting in full public view. Because you are.

It's not a problem of attribution. It's a problem of representation and reputation. When someone has positioned themselves as a representative of another entity, they are always then a representative of that entity. This is the part that seems to elude you. If you bind your reputation and representation so closely, you must always take the utmost care with it.

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Tilting at windmills.

You're essentially arguing against human nature. And, while I often agree that human nature is "**** retarded," that doesn't mean I can change it.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine