How can a tweet destroy your life.

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Was reading this article today and even though is not about nursing, it related greatly in how can a simple post in a social media site destroy your life and career.

A great read to remember that the internet is a force to be careful with.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html?_r=1&referrer=

I read the whole long article too. I couldn't look away, the horror was just too much!

IMO, ever single tweet or picture that started the cascade of public shaming were grossly, obviously stupid things to post MAINLY because the context can be so easily misunderstood, and that includes deliberate 'misunderstanding'. It's probably my age and life experience that prevents me from posting much of anything on my Facebook (I don't tweet . . . yet? Who knows) except what expensive or irreplaceable item my parrot just chewed to confetti. I can't get myself to post political or social or religious (in my case, NONreligious) things on Facebook, even if I am firmly agreeing. I can't even get myself to 'like' most of these posts from friends. I thought I was a wimp, wishy washy, but after reading that article, I might be being 'smart' instead.

I love a good joke, or a funny picture. I love lightheartedness and nonviolent 'challenges' to the status quo. I can totally see myself making a joke that could be construed, out of context, as 'racist' or 'sexist'. If you have a sense of humor at all, the jokes where 'A Hindu, a Catholic priest and a pedophile walked into a bar . . ." can be quite funny simply because of the clever use of bits of stereotypes from each of the three. The person telling the joke is almost always laughing at the cleverness and facility of the jumbled stereotypes. People who are actually racist, anti-religionists or sexist have NO sense of humor about these things! They aren't telling the jokes in the first place.

The kind of obvious issue to me is that we thoroughly enjoy participating in public shaming (except when it happens to us). There is this weird . . . shadow part of us that is dreadfully sadistic :( Public Facebook and tweet shaming gives 'permission' to be sadistic.

Even if you've been horrendously offended, so what? What makes MY offense so special and entitled to attack who offended me? We go wayyy to far with this sense of entitlement to shame and humiliate. We'd never do it if it weren't anonymous, which leads me to think 'cowardice' fuels such public humiliation. I don't give myself permission to participate in public shaming, even if I kind of agree with the shamers, mostly because I don't believe I can characterize a person's true motives without a lot more information than a tweet or FB pic. Please. People engaging in public shaming are no different than the persons being shamed, in spite of how hard they are trying to convince themselves they are different by shaming them.

Refusing to see or acknowledge that 'sameness' is cruel. Perhaps I WANT to believe I am nothing like the woman gaffing in front of the war dead's monument, but what I 'want' to believe hardly has anything to do with the fact we are both human beings failing to live up to high ideals. Calling the woman 'classless' and 'inappropriate' is fine, I believe she was, as was Sacco and her amazingly inappropriate tweets and that idiot who overhead 'large dongles' and took a picture of the poor guy who said it (he is my exception, his joke was harmless in spite of the very REAL sexism going on in the tech industry against women).

But what Sacco et all GOT in response to their stupid tweets or pics is much more a reflection on the public shamers than the classless tweet or pic. The viciousness and persistence to recruit further shamers is . . . shameful. Finger pointing people need to look at all those fingers pointing back at their own face, why are THEY beyond reproach for all the stupid, immature crap they've said that by virtue of complete CHANCE did not go viral?

Specializes in Behavioral Health.
Was reading this article today and even though is not about nursing, it related greatly in how can a simple post in a social media site destroy your life and career.

A great read to remember that the internet is a force to be careful with.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html?_r=1&referrer=

Well, there's things to joke about and there's things NOT to joke about. I thought all the AIDS jokes ran out in the early 90's.

as far as the picture from the vet's cemetery, we all might remember that they died to maintain OUR freedoms, one of which is speech.....and if you think a lot of those (mostly) men, wouldn't have gotten a kick out of it, you are fooling yourselves.

Specializes in RN, BSN, CHDN.

Why would somebody write/tweet something about 'AIDs and being white' It just blows my mind, it is not funny. The thing that really bothers me is how stupid she was to think that it was ok and to post it on a website for all to see.

When I was growing up my Mother always said to me 'Never put anything in writing, unless you are prepared to stand by what you have written-It will come back and bite you, plus it is there forever' This was pre computers, internet and public websites.

I have always thought about the consequences of what I write to paper or email-if I can stand by what I have written then I will stand up and be counted. If it could potentially cause a huge issue then I will run it by people.

Nothing has changed in 50 years-we are still accountable and the sooner people realize this the better they will be

Specializes in Geriatrics, Dialysis.
as far as the picture from the vet's cemetery, we all might remember that they died to maintain OUR freedoms, one of which is speech.....and if you think a lot of those (mostly) men, wouldn't have gotten a kick out of it, you are fooling yourselves.

Just because we have freedom of speech doesn't mean it should used. Decency should also be considered. Even if taking that picture is a protected right, it was still offensive. Those soldiers buried there might have indeed found it funny, but their families and the families of all those who have lost servicemen and women most likely fail to appreciate the atttempted humor

as far as the picture from the vet's cemetery, we all might remember that they died to maintain OUR freedoms, one of which is speech.....and if you think a lot of those (mostly) men, wouldn't have gotten a kick out of it, you are fooling yourselves.

I don't need to be reminded why those soldiers died. I have relatives buried there, NONE of whom would have "gotten a kick out of it". They would have been horrified. You've made one heckuva wrong global assumption.

There is another problem besides the stupidity of the tweets, or childish shenanigans at a place where too many people grieve for anything to be 'funny'.

The article is more about the viciousness of the public reactions, and the consequences like losing your job and your previous social status (however humble) and becoming a pariah.

In my opinion, a person opens themselves up to the mob tweeting against our sacred lightning rods like sexism and racism. Obviously the consequences are bad. I wouldn't do it however much I wanted to, just because of stories like these.

But the mob itself is the point of this article. People used to go to public executions or punishments for entertainment purposes, they still do in other places. It's like the mob mentality is alive and well however indecent it would be to go and laugh at someone being whipped or hung. We can do it in the safety of being anonymous, which is one part of how mobs form, as individuals get absorbed into a 'herd mind' or whatever. Whatever the 'lightning rod' issue is, sexism and racism in this article, a mob forms in response, and the individuals will have some shared world view that the lightning rod issue trips.

The worst thing about tweeting is how brief your tweets must be, and how easily context is lost or disregarded. A single tweet could be 'heard' many different ways, depending on what YOU yourself 'hear', which is in turn influenced by your pre-existing attitudes and belief system. The word "abortion", without any context at all, is going to mean something very different to a research MD and a Christian. To one it means a pregnancy ended before term and to the other one of our greatest human failings. Tweets are dangerous!

Which leads me to think, how a tweet could end your career when it is actually a minuscule piece of information that could mean a number of things but no one knows for sure without the context?

Are we willing to participate in a mob that causes a person to lose their basics of safety (home, job, status) when we don't really know what was meant? Should the immature woman gaffing at a veteran's cemetery have lost all three when she meant no insult and had a fruitcake idea of fun? I don't think so. If she offended so many people, who had to put their own agenda as her context, who's problem should it be? It shouldn't be hers. Having her Facebook spammed for a while by offended people seems more reasonable, maybe she'll think twice about her privacy settings, but to lose your job and be hated and threatened? That's just wrong! Too much punishment. And the mob . . . how embarrassing to be caught up in something like that?

Specializes in PACU.

I fully understand that there is really no such thing as privacy on the Internet so I keep my Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram as vanilla as possible. I also don't go out of my way to act like an idiot in public.

Social media really has done a number on how people share. I have so many people on my Facebook who have no filter and just blurt out everything about their kids, their marriage, their political views, etc. People have been FIRED from their friends showing their employer (or the employer finding it themselves)the types of things their employees post on their non-work-related Facebook. You couldn't pay enough to risk that.

While I find most of these people's comments horribly offensive, my mind wanders to some of the things I've said at work that could be received just as poorly. We nurses tend to have a twisted, dark sense of humor and I cringe to think about what could happen if one of my comments was overheard or taken out of context. Granted, I didn't post or tweet them, but in this day and age anyone who overheard me could have.

These people made some nasty, ignorant remarks, but none of us are any better or worse than them. We all do and say dumb, irresponsible and thoughtless things. But most of us get to learn and grow from these mistakes in private.

Racism is ugly. I'm certain we can all agree on that. Not condoning the choice to tweet this, but the reaction is disproportionate.

Daniel Tosh, CK Lewis, George Carlin, Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and countless others have made millions doing what this woman has done. Used tongue in cheek, satirical comments to highlight a large issue. She was doing it for, what she thought would be, a small audience. It grew bigger than she-or anyone else!- could have imagined. My sympathies are with her for the backlash she has received.

While I find most of these people's comments horribly offensive, my mind wanders to some of the things I've said at work that could be received just as poorly. We nurses tend to have a twisted, dark sense of humor and I cringe to think about what could happen if one of my comments was overheard or taken out of context. Granted, I didn't post or tweet them, but in this day and age anyone who overheard me could have.

These people made some nasty, ignorant remarks, but none of us are any better or worse than them. We all do and say dumb, irresponsible and thoughtless things. But most of us get to learn and grow from these mistakes in private.

Very well said! How would we all be received if we were judged on a snippet of our day?

I've given report to the next shift saying "This patient is going to die on your shift. Sorry about the paperwork" while eating an apple. Would I have done it if I was under scrutiny? Absolutely not! To someone in another profession, this would be obscene, but I know that between my coworker and I, this is part of our day.

Daniel Tosh, CK Lewis, George Carlin, Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and countless others have made millions doing what this woman has done. Used tongue in cheek, satirical comments to highlight a large issue. She was doing it for, what she though would be, a small audience. It grew bigger than she-or anyone else!- could have imagined. My sympathies are with her for the backlash she has received.

Exactly. That tweet is the exact type of comment that Jon Stewart would say his show, and no one would bat an eye.

It feels like Americans are just looking for a fight against some little person who can't fight back. We're a bunch of bullies.

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