How can a tweet destroy your life.

BuckyBadgerRN, ASN, RN · Feb 18, 2015

The only saving grace there is that she went down with him!!

Some things, like a national historical monument dedicated to fallen servicemen deserve respect at all times and it was very inappropriate to take such a picture there. I don't really care about the running gag of defying signs...some things you just don't do! However the poor man that made a dumb "big dongle" joke to a companion in a conversational voice that just happened to overheard and shared by an offended woman [geez, talk about uptight!!]...do rational people really think he should have lost his job over this? Talk about an overreaction.

imintrouble, BSN, RN · Feb 18, 2015

Back in the day, all you had to worry about were the whispers from one person to another. Eventually the whispers stopped and were forgotten. If you could survive the humiliation of your mistake for a few weeks, it would eventually die down. Not totally disappear, but be relegated to the back page of people's memory.

No such luck now. The internet ensures your mistakes will be on display and readily available, to anybody who has access to a computer. I'm an old lady with minimal internet skills, and I recognize that. How is it possible that younger people who've grown up with social media don't?

Ruby Vee, BSN · Feb 18, 2015

The sad thing is just about everything is made for public consumption these days. She should have done a better job at ensuring, or at least trying to, that she was keeping her information "private" (yeah, right). Or better yet, maybe get a better sense of humor as some things aren't funny, at all. She should have known better.

She was a dope. She should have done a better job of keeping her information private, and clearly she had no idea of how to use Social Media for PR, which should have been part of her job. So maybe she deserved to get fired as well. (Especially if she used her employer and job title on her twitter account or FaceBook account.) But the public shaming is just plain wrong -- it's the behavior of bullies.

And sadly, probably a good proportion of the folks doing the public shaming/bullying were the very people who are also publicly condemning bullying and calling for "No tolerance for bullies!"

Libby1987 · Feb 18, 2015

I read the article and there was nothing scary about it. It just goes to show that you can held more accountable for your actions today than ever before. It's not a "mistake" if somebody discovers your true colors and you cry foul.
If anything, I see this as a very positive story. By the public banding together to shame those with bigotry, we are instilling a social/global value that this is not something to be tolerated. If people said racist things in public forums and nobody blinked an eye, then the general populace would start doing the same.

i would say we didn't advance one micrometer with this demonstration of social values. Perhaps the anonymous champions should go after bigger targets.

klone, MSN, RN · Feb 19, 2015

Okay, finally read the whole article. I didn't realize it wasn't so much about what Justine Sacco did, and more a commentary about social media bullying. It was a very thought-provoking article. I wish Ms. Sacco nothing but the best in her future.

theradiantforce · Feb 19, 2015

This is why people should REALLY utilize that "privacy" option on their social media pages. Or better yet, if they can't control their impulses to make statements in poor taste, they should just SAY NO to social media altogether. Smh, how pitiful to lose your career and become the laughing stock of the nation over a tweet.

I am so glad social media wasn't around when I was younger cause who knows what dumb junk I would have posted.

Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN · Feb 19, 2015

I find it very interesting--and sad--that Bindle only apologized for starting the mob attack after he himself felt the damage that a ill-thought tweet can do.

This doesn't mean I'm excusing either one's tweet in any way. But I do think that, as someone else posted out, Twitter and other social media can bring out the mob mentality in people. It's a very convenient way for them to tar and feather.

joanna73, BSN, RN · Feb 19, 2015

Probably it's a generational thing, but I have never understood the fascination with facebook, twitter or instagram. Social media never existed and yet people went on with their lives. What is the need to comment on every mundane aspect of life and broadcast every thought for strangers? I'll never understand.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Feb 19, 2015

Probably it's a generational thing, but I have never understood the fascination with facebook, twitter or instagram. Social media never existed and yet people went on with their lives. What is the need to comment on every mundane aspect of life and broadcast every thought for strangers? I'll never understand.

I don't understand, either. When I first got on FaceBook, a friend "(and posted) every meal she ate along with some inane comment: "Yum yum!Chicken salad for lunch!" or "Ricky's 'lil Redhead (that would be the friend, referring to herself in the third person) LOVES me some chicken salad." Sadly, she was at the time married to Mike . . . . It turned me off FaceBook. Then I just used it to monitor what the child was doing online. The child is now of age and can do any stupid thing she likes on FaceBook -- and does. I try to avoid it.

Eru IlÃºvatar · Feb 19, 2015

Probably it's a generational thing, but I have never understood the fascination with facebook, twitter or instagram. Social media never existed and yet people went on with their lives. What is the need to comment on every mundane aspect of life and broadcast every thought for strangers? I'll never understand.

But the reality is that it is not only young people, but also several age groups that use social media, and make the mistakes. Is more about the times than a specific generation.

Aliareza, BSN · Feb 19, 2015

But the reality is that it is not only young people, but also several age groups that use social media, and make the mistakes. Is more about the times than a specific generation.

Yup. I know lots of older people who did not grow up with social media and computers who are waaaay heavier consumers of it than I am. I mean, why not? It's a great way to keep up with your grandkids, your friends who moved away after college, etc. For social people, it's a wonderful invention.

None of the people in the article realized how mean and nasty people on the internet are to others when they can anonymously get away with it. It's reprehensible behavior. It makes me shake my head to see nurses here also condemning these people without taking a second to realize that literally anyone could be a victim of this. Taken out of context and without any idea of who you really are/what you meant by them, your words can offend anyone. Their hurt feelings should not be your problem/responsibility. They certainly shouldn't be used as justification to cause a massive disruption in every aspect of your life.

It's one thing to fire somebody for making stupid decisions on the job (Ms. Sacco seems to fall into this category -- she traveled a lot for work, most of her tweets were made about people on flights/in other countries, thus she was likely on the job or doing things in her official work capacity when she tweeted those comments), but having a good ole' Internet lynching where a person's entire life is just completely torched because of one statement made in private is wrong. None of you would want that to happen to you, but you think it's justifiable to speak out against, for example, Lindsey Stone, because you were offended by her doing something that you found immature and disrespectful. And this is despite knowing that her intent was not disrespect or mockery. Several here have said she got what she deserved. That is simply horrific to me.

Gooselady, BSN, RN · Feb 19, 2015

I was trying to quote your previous post as well but I lack the skill..
You have a good, decent and wise streak a mile wide, in all of your posts but this one brings the house down, and I wish more could hear you.
But instead I'm afraid your words have been brushed aside by many with the need to keep repeating to each other how social media is not private.

Wow, I appreciate your compliment, and I don't know about wisdom and bring' down the house, but I too saw not much attention paid, in this thread, to the point of the article in the first place (as I saw it). Privacy settings and not spewing stupidity into the WWW are genuine issues for sure, but the issue of 'bullying' or whatever we want to call it, the mob mentality, 'witch hunting' tendency is more dangerous to us all than making careless or insensitive posts. Usually 'careless and insensitive' get called out right away, and 'punished', which is just part of human communication.

I'm not sure that it is as WELL known, by folks in general, when a lynch mob happens. It seemed to go under the radar for a little while in this thread (not completely). It's not something we really think about all that much, and to be honest, the reason we DON'T think about it much is because it is really yucky, shameful behavior we don't want to be associated with. Think of villagers with pitchforks . That is perhaps a less consciously recognized kind of bullying, perhaps because the conviction of being so darn RIGHT blows away all self-inspection.

Being right is fine and someone is always more 'right' than others. But being 'right' doesn't entitle the 'right' person(s) to indulge in primitive mob behavior. "I'm right about racism being bad; therefore a racist deserves whatever they get. A racist person is beneath me (and other nonracists), and don't deserve for us to be 'polite' or 'respectful', they lost those rights by making racist statements."

If you take a step back from that common mindset, you could replace 'racist' with 'Christian' or 'atheist' or 'Chinese' or any term that sharply defines us from them. The evidence is all around us, we humans have deep instincts toward tribal behavior, though not all tribal behavior is 'bad'. This attacking and crucifying behavior is in itself just as immoral (ethically speaking) as making nasty sexist remarks.

We often lump the person and the idea they have together, so if their idea is 'bad' that person is also 'bad'. Since people change their ideas all the time, it's hardly a worthwhile way to judge someone's character. And really . . . what special entitlement do *I* have, of myself, to define another person as 'bad' because of their cherished ideas? To be honest I'm as guilty as the rest of us about saying stupid things. Years ago (uhh, many many years lol he he) I was listening to a friend tell about how she and her neighbors in an apartment block were fighting against a raise in their rent. I commented, "somehow you've got to jew them down . . " and we locked eyes (she's Jewish) and she told me how offensive my words were. I'm still embarrassed, and rightly so. Just slipped out . . . which means it was IN there, it was in ME. And I had NO antisemitic feeling in my whole body, or so I thought. That incident woke me up, big time, not to racism in general but how I'm no different than anyone who gaffs. And that I could do it again.