Justine Sacco, Internet Justice, and the Dangers of a Righteous Mob

An anonymous reader writes "So what exactly was the injustice that everyone was fighting against here? There were no pro-Sacco factions, nobody thought her comment was funny, and it became clear early on that her employers were not going to put up with this. It was quite easy for groups to unite against her precisely because it was such an obviously idiotic comment to make. By the time Valleywag had posted her tweet, the damage to her career was already done; there wasn't any 'need' for further action by anyone. The answer is a bit darker – this wasn't really about fairness, it was about entertainment."

Re:What kind of summary is this?

[blackraven14250]

Seriously, I read /. regularly, and I have no clue what the hell is going on here from the summary alone. As in, not even a slight clue as to what the problem was originally. Sure, you can post some analysis, but sum up what happened up to this point for people who really haven't heard the original story.

Another Case of Poe's Law?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

For those who didn't RTFA, her tweet said:

"Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!"

I thought it was intended to be darkly ironic, reflecting an awareness of the privileges that the poor in africa don't have. It was an ugly truth, but censoring her for saying it doesn't help anyone except people who would rather pretend that aids in africa isn't a problem that lines up with race and economic status. She wasn't saying that aids is a disease for black people, she was saying that too many black people don't have access to the resources to protect themselves.

Compare this to the Duck Dynasty thing where the guy really had no sense of irony, the surface meaning of his words was the intended meaning.

Re:Context?

[El_Muerte_TDS]

Justine Sacco was a PR executive at IAC. IAC being the owner of sites like Ask.com, About, Vimeo, OkCupid, match.com, etc.

A PR exec should know that you should not say these things on a global soapbox like twitter.

Re:Another Case of Poe's Law?

[Xolotl]

Her apology pretty much says it right there: "a needless and careless tweet". If it was "darkly ironic" etc etc it wouldn't be "needless and careless".

She's (was) a PR exec - writing heartfelt apologies is part of her job description. Then again, so is not creating PR disasters for her employer (which this was, even if it was indeed meant as a deep commentary on the lot of poor South Africans), so YMMV I suppose. Anyway, I find it hard to believe this was anything deep and meaningful with a history like this:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jenvesp/16-tweets-justine-sacco-regrets-hxg7 [buzzfeed.com]