The Glade 4.0

The tone of it just came off feeling victim-card like.

Don't make me hasten Obama's agenda to return California to the land of Mexican Brown and radioactive schwag.

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Please dont I just got my card.

Yeah, I actually wouldn't wish that on anyone, except maybe Huge Chavez.

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Not just him. Although I probably let go of more than I should.





And the opinions an individual writes reflect on them. If I walk the streets screaming all Portugese people should be hanged, that isn't going to make me look good. If I hold a certain type of job at a company, my opinions are said to be representative of that company.

This is NOT new to Twitter. Officers of a company, senior leaders, spokesmen, and other high-profile roles have always been seen as such since the advent of the corporation, if not before. Twitter just allows for more rapid, more transparent, and broader exposure of the opinions of those people.



Not really poking a hole in it. Twitter may be 99% opinions, but if you work in one of the roles mentioned above, you don't get to have personal opinions. At least not ones you express to the general public. Both de facto and as a matter of policy.




In that case, railing at Khross is unwarranted, as he's merely stating facts about policy.

Additionally, if that is the case, you're tilting at windmills.

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

It has nothing to do with twitter. Twitter is a medium. As Coro pointed out it has to do with the price of a public life or the way your company does business.

A friend of mine lost his council seat and got demoted for a private statement made off the record and off work hours. He didn't need twitter to do it. Just one person who heard it and complained.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

That's still misrepresentative. We just think that everyone, regardless of position, should be able to express and differentiate between professional statement and personal opinion. From myself, to NDT, to Obama. It's not right that some people need to hide behind anonymity to voice their thoughts without repercussion.

They should, but the evidence is that sometimes they don't with or without Twitter.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Freedom of Speech does not mean what you seem to think it means.

Everything anyone ever says to other people has consequences.

The simple fact is, as a public persona that relies on other people's opinions of you, what you say has even more consequences than it would for anybody else. Nobody cares if Joe Schmoe goes on a jew-bashing rant. He's Joe Schmoe, they don't care WHAT he does. But if Mel Gibson does, suddenly he can't get work. He's someone who relies on his public persona and the perception of the public to do his job. Obscurity is a protection when you say stupid ****. Fame, however, quickly turns into infamy if you do not protect it.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Why is that not right? The repercussions are entirely the choice of private people and organizations to make their own choices.

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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:

Do you listen to NPR? I was listening to the special edition of "On Point" last night; as I mentioned in the other thread, I felt the people screening the call-ins were unfairly biasing the content, and quite appallingly so. Every 3rd caller blamed "right-wing extremist groups," "groups who oppose our first steps toward finally getting meaningful gun control," "groups who want to protest tax day and scratch the scab on Oklahoma City," "domestic terrorism from the right," etc. Those are actual quotes from the callers. There were no comments from callers blaming the American left. There were no comments from callers blaming non-domestic sources. Two of the expert guests continually said this attack felt like something from the fringes of the American right. One of them actually said, "This is the danger of allowing the right to continue to operate. Sooner or later they stop talking about blowing up people and start blowing up people." That comment actually got Ashbrook to balk, but for the most part, those comments were going back from callers and non-host participants without challenge.

Ashbrook's opinion or 'reporting' were obviated by content he "can't control." Never mind the 8-15 second tape delay on callers vs. the broadcast, certain opinions were allowed through; others were not. I feel that behavior is editorial misconduct, particularly when the message control privileges one side over the other. I have no problems with the various opinions in any philosophical sense; people can think and say what the want. I do, however, have a problem when the rhetoric allowed into the broadcast is consistently targeted against one group and attempts to shoehorn the issue into a political narrative that has nothing to do with the situation. The call-screeners made no attempt to balance the biases the callers were presenting: someone choose a series of callers who all pointed in the same direction. Would you agree this is problematic?

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I don't listen to NPR, but your description of what happened would have me siding with you. I do agree that it's problematic, especially if NPR (or the show you were listening to) tries to sell itself as a "fair and balanced."

If that particular show markets itself as far-left right-haters, then whatever, I suppose it's okay. That's what they're tuning in for. The subject here is changing though because now you're asking me about workplace behavior and my whole spiel is about off-hours, personal commenting or behavior.



Right, so Mel Gibson says he hates Jews and then can't get work. That's fine. No one listened to his comments though and followed that up with wanting to boycott Universal Studios.

You think his drunken rant didn't cost studios money?

http://www.hollywood.com/news/movies/35 ... t?page=all
http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/w ... sive-36952
http://www.ugo.com/movies/mel-gibson-sc ... ers-beaver

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

And my whole spiel is that for some individuals in society, no such thing exists, at the very least when it comes to commenting to "the public" and some would say "at all."

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

Also:

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/04/ ... -response/

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

I'm actually trying to have a conversation, Lenas. I asked a question and posed a different consideration that's related, but definitely not analogous to gauge your response. For Nicholas D. Kristof, there's no difference between a comment in the Times itself and a comment on Twitter. Kristof depends, economically and professionally, on the close association of his person with the New York Times. His Twitter feed is advertised at his place of employment and linked to his professional output. And, as such, he is expected to behave in a manner that befits a journalist and staff member of the New York Times.

Had Kristof made the comment to a friend, in what was an appropriately private or reasonably private conversation; had the comment then been recorded by a third-party; had said third-party made the comment and the recording available to the public; I would agree with your responses 100%. I would call him careless and perhaps a bit stupid, but I'd be far less upset about this situation. Kristof, however, voluntarily published the comment through a medium he's already tied to his professional space and consistently uses for professional purposes and self-advertising of his professional writing; I find that inappropriate for a variety of reasons -- journalistic integrity and good-will with the public and his employer being among the chief reasons.

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Before I start, I formally retract my statement in the bombing thread. It really is that liberals just don't want someone they agree with to be accountable for their stupidity. That is the real crux of this issue.


Back to the other point I raised earlier: It's not misrepresentative at all. You might say it's unpleasant, but it's not misrepresentative. When you get right down to it, nobody cares what you think or what you have to say. That informs your views on social media in ways you don't realize, because it's so ingrained in your mind. You exist in a state where you can run off at the mouth however you like on Facebook and Twitter, without fear of repercussion, because your opinions just don't matter. Nicholas Kristof's opinions do.

By the by, that's another point that's hard to swallow. The idea that our opinions don't matter, while someone else's does, seems to violate our idea of freedom and equality. The thing to remember is that the idea is that we are equal at our origin, not our destination.

The freedom of speech does not protect you from all consequences that follow, nor should it. It's just that, for most people, there simply aren't any consequences. The worst that happens when you call someone a nigger is you might lose a few friends. Maybe you get your *** beat. Michael Richards loses his career, because nobody wants to listen to a racist comedian. There are plenty of other funny people in the world that can tell you jokes.

I stand in front of fifty people for several hours and I tell them things. It's what I do. I have to be careful what I say about certain topics in front of students, wherever students might hear me. It's just something I have to deal with. My students are under the impression that I have magical powers over time and space that allow me to divine the answer to any question they might ask, because I'm the person you present questions to when you don't understand. Anything I might say is going to be perceived in that light. There's no right and wrong about it. There's no fair and unfair. That's just how it is.

In order to maintain my reputation as having magical powers over time and space that grant infinite knowledge, and consequently, my job, I have to make sure I don't say **** that damages that reputation. That means, I don't get up there and say, "This is just my personal opinion, but I think the BP oil spill was really caused by Venezuelan commandos sabotaging the pipelines to protect their nation's GDP."

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

What's hilarious to me is people getting bent because they expressed an opinion that some folks didn't like about an expressed opinion that some folks didn't like.

Moreover, nearly everyone here is agreeing on the issue, but from different sides. For example, Khross, in a nutshell, thinks the guy should be fired because his comments do not reflect the level of professionalism that the Times should demand. I take the "he stated an opinion, apologized, who gives a ****" approach, whilst confirming freedom of association and responsibility for one's actions.

These are not disagreements, it's merely a question of severity of the issue.

Meanwhile, the underlying theme is that the comments were not thought out, were jumping to conclusions, and a distraction from developing, important events.

And this entire conversation is a distraction from more important developing events. Definitely a good move to extract this from the other thread.

I had a longer response planned, but I'll leave with simply this: Be the change you want to see in the Internet.

Namaste, y'all.

Coro:

It's funny that after everything you've said about opinions not mattering, you still write your posts like yours do. You talk about the reality of the world today and that people's inability to separate person from profession is the crux of the issue. We don't disagree on that. I hope for a society where that's not the case, where personal opinions can be a real thing and not hidden away. I don't just think that anyone should be able to get away with any stupid thought nor do I think that only people I agree with should be allowed to voice them.

In your last example, making a stupid comment about BP, I don't see why that should have any influence on your job or your student's impressions of you. Sure, it would be obvious that wasn't your strong suit, but that doesn't make you any less of a math teacher, or whatever you're teaching now. If on the other hand you made a comment about how math is stupid and you think we should all be doing arts and crafts every day, sure, maybe your department should take notice of that. That public opinion would then be in direct opposition to your job. Kristoff's comments showed his political leanings, but it had nothing at all to do with his ability as a writer.

I happened to have been lucky enough to teach at an institution that valued personal opinion and encouraged discussion between teachers and students. They recognized that my thoughts had no bearing on how good of a developer and teacher I was. Off-topic discussion outside of class was encouraged by our Dean and we all probably came out the better for it.

The "y'all" is a bit redundant

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Trust me. After many IM convo's with Coro over the years, he doesn't believe his opinions matter.


That isn't to say they aren't correct. He's just very aware of his position in life, from the scope of his influence as an instructor (where is opinion does matter) to his position on this forum (where nobody's really matters, within the context of the forum).

That said, if the full identities of some of us were known, I'm quite sure we could lose our jobs behind some of the stuff we post here. So in that sense, it "matters."

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

To the contrary, my opinion is the only one that actually does matter. I just have no delusions preventing me from recognizing the fact that all of you feel the same way about your own opinions.

The rest of you either believe me, or you don't. That isn't my problem. It may, however, be yours.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

You're mistakenly conflating two different scopes. It is not unreasonable for Coro to assume that the Glade population would allow his comments some amount of weight. You have conferred such in the past, and probably will in the future. It would be unreasonable for Coro to assume that the Twitter population would allow his comments any weight. The populations differ by orders of magnitude, and he has no reputational backing in the Twitter venue.

Perhaps it was a bit unfair to state "there are no personal opinions on Twitter" from a clarity perspective. Obviously, people vomit personal opinions all over Twitter, so from that standpoint, certainly, there are personal opinions on Twitter. In the old days (and you'll forgive me, I hope, for regressing into a tale of the golden age of the Internet) when personal opinions were exchanged in a public venue, or at least as public as a venue could be in those days, everyone was very careful to disassociate themselves and their opinions from any affiliations, such as employer or volunteer organization or whatever, that could be potentially harmed. In fact, you may have seen some of the artifacts of this time, such as "#include <disclaimer.h>" or "#include <std/disclaimer.h>". The standard disclaimer was along the lines of "All opinions expressed are solely personal, and are not to be mistaken in any way for those held by my employer/volunteer organization/whatever." and so on and so forth for as much verbiage as it took to adequately distance yourself from any repercussions.

Let us examine reputation. Your perceived reputation is the sum total of what people know about you. Your actual reputation is the sum total of what people can know about you. There's an important distinction there. Remember when you posted "I sure do enjoy rapin' trannies"[1]? No? Well Google does, and it's more than happy to tell both your best friend and your worst enemy. How far will they disseminate this information? As it makes the rounds, your perceived reputation is modified in relation to your actual reputation.

Today, in social media, there is no separation of private and public persona, except insofar as you can refrain from leaking your private persona into your public one. Every wife-beater is aware, for instance, that they don't want that proclivity to become public. The average person, generally not being a wife-beater or anything else egregiously anti-social, doesn't have a yardstick against which to measure what they should or should not make public. The average person also cannot mentally encompass the speed of proliferation of the Internet, so they reason that since there's nothing horrendously wrong with them, and they have friends that don't constantly call them retarded, that the Internet is pretty much the same way. Now, most of the time, nobody gets the comeuppance that makes them go hang themselves in a closet for the amusement of 4chan. And that's obscurity working in their favor. But every so often, for whatever reason, somebody hits the wall. Twitter is "on-record". It's a broadcast. There are no mulligans, there are no backsies. There are only retractions, apologies, and hoping somebody else does something stupider so that you can go out in public again.

[1] Obviously, no one has posted this, and the "you" in this sentence is the rhetorical "you", not any specific "you".

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Y'all is never redundant (or perhaps always is), y'all.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"