Real-World Consequences of Social Networking Posts

gbulmash sends in a classic Streisand Effect story of a Chicago landlord suing a tenant over a tweet complaining of mold in her apartment. The landlord claims that the tweet caused $50,000 damage to their reputation. If it didn't, then the fallout from their own ill-advised lawsuit surely will. The woman's Twitter account is now gone (possibly on advice of counsel), but the tweet that started it all lives on. And in a similar vein, reader levicivita notes a firing over a political comment on a Facebook page. "Lee Landor, who had been the deputy press secretary to Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer since May, posted comments on her Facebook page criticizing Mr. Gates [Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.] and the president, whom she referred to at one point as 'O-dumb-a.' ... The borough president has accepted Ms. Landor's resignation, effective immediately."

Comments

it was only a matter of time

[Anonymous Coward]

before all these social networking rantings came through to haunt/hurt us in real life....folks dont seem to understand that the internet is a serious place with actions having far reaching effects

Re:it was only a matter of time

[TopShelf]

This reads much like articles we've seen for several years, just with Twitter substituted for email/blog/message board post.

Re:it was only a matter of time

[yog]

What about letters to the editor? What about traditional magazine articles, newspaper columns, and books? People for centuries have been publishing their opinions and ideas and we have a whole body of laws to deal with the consequences--slander (calumny, in the old days), truth in reporting, copyrights, and so forth. Then, we also have 30 years of usenet and website publishing which preceded the Facebook/Myspace/Twitter model. Society seems to have adapted pretty well to this technology.

There is nothing about social networking to distinguish it from previous publishing modalities except that it is faster and easier to publish something far and wide than it ever was before. It's accelerated information distribution, and that's what society is reacting to.

If a tenant can complain about a landlord in a matter of seconds and have an audience of hundreds of thousands, the landlord will be more upset than if the tenant just mentions it to her friends at the golf course or knitting circle or watering hole. However, nothing particularly revolutionary is happening.

"We're a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization". That sums it up. It's just another lawsuit-happy guy who ought to get his wrist slapped for a frivolous case, unless the defendant rolls over and pays some symbolic fine, which is likely to happen, a la RIAA.

Re:it was only a matter of time

[kent_eh]

Yup.
As far as I know, no one that I have ever met face-to-face is aware of my username at various online forums.

Also, I avoid making posts that would connect my username with my employer, or my family.

Re:it was only a matter of time

[Sir_Lewk]

Maybe I'm missing something, but how is "O-dumb-a" a racial slur?

A childish insult for sure, but racist?

Re:it was only a matter of time

[Tanktalus]

I might be missing something, too, but I've seen a vocal minority of Obama supporters assuming that if you disagree with Obama, you must be racist against blacks. Some of us prefer disagreeing with Obama for his actual statements, policies, and actions, without regard to race, but some people think that Obama is so infallible that they think the only reason to disagree with him is because he's black. See "Undercover Brother". These people I refer to think this is a documentary, not a parody.

Re:it was only a matter of time

[paeanblack]

We need forums to express ourselves to some people, but not others.

We have those. Twitter is not an appropriate forum for controlled distribution.

Besides, she's probably fine. The purpose of libel law is not to stop people ranting or spouting off-hand thoughts, but rather to prevent false and malicious statements of fact.

Her statement of "Horizon Realty thinks is okay" will be pretty hard to sell as a statement of fact instead of opinion. She cannot know what Horizon Realty actually "thinks", even taken in the context of internal policies, and this is obvious to a typical reader. Since it is not falsifiable, it cannot be a statement of fact.

Horizon will also have a hard time convincing a court that her primary intent was to damage their reputation. If that were the case, she would like have chosen a forum far less ephemeral than Twitter.

Lastly, if she can provide any support to her notion that Horizon did not act quickly and adroitly to address a possible mold issue, her statement becomes a reasonable and justifiable opinion. That's a pretty strong libel defense.

Re:it was only a matter of time

[Anonymous Coward]

If a tenant can complain about a landlord in a matter of seconds and have an audience of hundreds of thousands, the landlord will be more upset than if the tenant just mentions it to her friends at the golf course or knitting circle or watering hole. However, nothing particularly revolutionary is happening.

On the other hand, the landlord could, you know, obey the applicable laws on housing standards and FIX THE PROBLEM when the tenant first complained about the problem.

Re:it was only a matter of time

[elrous0]

What a funny world we live in where a guy who was raised by his white mother and white grandparents in a tony Hawaiian neighborhood, who is in no way descended from anyone ever enslaved or oppressed, could be considered some oppressed minority in need of special favoritism. This guy probably didn't even meet an actual black person until he went to college, yet now he's being treated as some sort of black messiah.

Re:it was only a matter of time

[Abcd1234]

There is nothing about social networking to distinguish it from previous publishing modalities except that it is faster and easier to publish something far and wide than it ever was before.

So, there's no difference, in the same way that the printing press was really just a minor improvement over scribes. Yup, no big deal at all!

Re:it was only a matter of time

[redKrane]

You don't have to be raised in a ghetto to be affected by the oppression that all minorities feel. There's plenty of well educated minorities who grew up middle class who deal with bigotry and oppression every day. Just because Obama does not fit *your* stereotypical ideal of an oppressed black man does not mean he abandons the right to speak out as a person who is affected adversely as a minority. Secondly, I do not agree with all that Obama does, but I do generally support Democratic candidates. Why is that my intellectual and emotional support for the 1st black president has to be pigeonholed as some type of religious messiah seeking? Is my general support of Obama as a leading American figure different than the views held by many conservatives of Ronald Reagan? Liberals may disagree with the love conservatives have for Reagan, but we do not simply dismiss it as the seeking and following of a messiah. And on top of all that, liberals are the intellectuals, conservatives the emotionals. So who the hell are you to scream messiah?

Re:it was only a matter of time

[dasunt]

There's plenty of well educated minorities who grew up middle class who deal with bigotry and oppression every day.

Why do you need to be a minority to have an experience with race-based bigotry?

Re:it was only a matter of time

[AP31R0N]

i figure Obama isn't black, as black suggests being a descendant of slaves. He's a child of an immigrant who arrived way after slavery ended. He's closer to something like a dual citizen African-American. As you point out, he was raised in an affluent mostly white community. i'm as white a sour cream, but his upbringing was way more "privileged" than mine. Obama is culturally white, afaict. Hand a white baby to a poor black woman in the ghetto and that child will have a rough time of it, despite their color. Race is less of an issue in one's outcome in life than class. Being born into a poor family of any race is a bigger hindrance than being born brown. Accepting victim status is even worse. Once you start thinking of yourself as a victim, you surrender control/responsibility/power to those who hurt you. It's much harder to overcome a problem while you think it's someone else's fault or responsibility to fix. Granted, there are some fuckers out there who will ruin you for any number of reasons. But until you chose to be a survivor, rather than a victim, you're helpless.

i think it's wrong to treat minorities as children who simultaneously expect protection from their supposed oppressors AND to demand equality. Children get away with it because we don't expect them to live up to adult responsibilities. We give them protection and assistance, but we don't give them equal status to adults. If you're treated like a child after childhood, you'll be a child forever.

It would be far better to work against the root causes of poverty. If we could fix those problems (interest, inflation, fractional reserve ratios of 12 to 1 etc), we could get rid or seriously reduce "entitlement" programs, which would give racist whites less to bitch about. i'm frustrated to no end that so many conservatives bitch about entitlement programs for brown/poor people, while ignoring the programs that benefit the rich. The latter are vastly more costly. For what it cost to bail AIG we could have educated a generation. Meanwhile the root causes remain and we'll have to do this all over again. /voted for Obama //there i go, bringing class into it again /way off topic

Re:it was only a matter of time

[Omestes]

The racism thing is an old trope for quelling dissenting views. People pull the same thing when Israel is questioned (not its right to exist even, just some of its policies), or when you question gay marriage, or any other issue where a minority is supremely interested. Look at people against illegal immigration, how often are they also called racist, even if their rational has nothing to do with race whatsoever. it isn't just false allegations of racism either, look how often the term "socialist" has been bandied about inappropriately lately for no other reason but as a form of incognito ad hominem. People always do that.

You also have the equally moronic reverse of this, as evident by group names such as "pro-choice" or "pro-life", meaning people in the opposite camp are "anti-choice" or "anti-life", which is pretty much ad hominem by negation.

In short, this is nothing new.

I got yelled at for not voting for Clinton in the primary, apparently my vote was "misogamist", though I suppose all the Clinton people were ignoring the fact that their own rational made them "anti-hispanic", and by not voting for Richardson, even if they voted for Obama.

This is stupid

[EagleEye101]

I dont blame the lady for complaining. Mold is dangerous stuff and a lot of landlords dont care. My sister bought a house with undisclosed mold (illegal here in maryland) and it looks like the realitor is going to get away with it because shes a teacher who just invested her money into a house so she can not afford legal fees.These are sketchy people and deserve to be put in a bad light.

Re:This is stupid

[Radtastic]

Here's the rub: The problem is, EVERY house has some amount of mold, and every person has different tolerances to it (as well as other allergens.) At what point is the combination of mold amount + tenant sensitivity become landlord liability?

Sure, 1 inch think black-mold on every wall is a pretty clear issue. But what about some mildew in the bathroom because the tenant never cleans it?

I'm not siding with the landlord here, just noting that mold issues are wide ranging.

Re:This is stupid

[ivan256]

Mold disclosure laws may actually make the problem worse. There's even more incentive to cover-up a mold problem, since the occurrence of mold once will end up on-file and hurts the value of the home forever. So a homeowner is more likely to do a crappy cover-up job and sell the house than get the issue properly taken care of.

Not only that, but such laws generally cover all kinds of mold, and most mold is essentially harmless to the majority of people.

Free speech

[DaveV1.0]

We have it, but there are consequences for it. Sadly, the consequences seem to be getting out of hand.

Re:Free speech

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I share your concern about the rise in consequences for speech(in particular, given the ease with which technology lets us retain information indefinitely. Having an excellent record of exactly what you said 10 or 15 years ago hanging over you is a pretty unnerving prospect, particularly given the period of youthful stupidity that people commonly go through.)

That said, I have a very hard time sympathising with a Press Secretary who gets fired for mouthing off on controversial issues. The whole point of the "press secretary" job is managing media relations and generally smoothing PR feathers for whoever hired you. Having highly visible and controversial opinions, particularly if they oppose that of the person you are doing media relations for, seems an obvious contradiction. I'd be much more concerned if somebody with a more or less apolitical job were being axed for political reasons.

Re:Free speech

[EvilBudMan]

--"We're a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization," [italics mine] he said, noting that the company manages 1,500 apartments in Chicago and has a good reputation it wants to preserve.--

Stupid, very stupid, nobody will ever want to rent off of them again. Even though the mold problem might be real or it might not and not all house mold is dangerous. The inner stuff is usually metal studs in an apartment complex and I know that can't mold much. If she didn't complain directly to the company first, maybe just maybe I could understand, but making something virtually unknown, out there to world is going to get them very bad PR no matter what.

Welcome to the 21st Century

[Hmmm2000]

Any time you post something to any social networking site, you should imagine yourself on a podium in giving a presentation in front of millions of people. If you would be embarrassed to say it on stage, don't post it, because they are effectively the same thing now.

Streisand Effect

[Drakkenmensch]

If he hadn't sued her and let the story die of its own, how many people would have heard about that mold? 10? 5? So little that a clumsy shop teacher still would have enough fingers left to count them all? Instead, the whole of slashdot knows about it now!

Re:Landlord is a moron

[Anonymous Coward]

Only possible legit suit you could have is one for libel.

Did you RTFA? The landlord *is* suing for libel; it says so right in there.

Of course you're correct about truth being an absolute defense against libel in the USA, but why does everyone assume that the claim is actually true? It might be, it might not - we don't know.

It seems a bit stupid on the part of the landlord to sue over a post that apparently got read by about 20 people at most, but on the other hand, if it really IS untrue, I can also see why they wouldn't want for it to stay online where it just might get picked up by Google and returned when someone searches for e.g. the company's name.

Let's not jump to any conclusions until we actually know the facts - not *all* libel suits are unjustified.

Fail

[thisnamestoolong]

I would love to see this blow up in the landlord's face -- in the process of investigating the libel claim they will certainly need to check the apartment for mold. If it can be shown that there is mold in the apartment and the landlord was notified and did nothing, I am thinking that he could be in some trouble, but IANAL. That would be, for my money, the best way that this could possibly turn out.

Unbelievable

[Svenne]

When will people learn that putting something on the web is not the same as writing it down in your own personal diary?

Really, it's not that hard.

Re:Unbelievable

[Ironica]

When will companies learn that if they mistreat their customers, someone else *may* find out about it?

Really, it's not that hard.

So?

[CannonballHead]

I see no issue with this at all... in neither case.

1. The tweet is a publically "published" media outlet, so to speak. It should be treated as such. Just because you didn't print it in a newspaper doesn't mean you are immune from libel charges. IS it libel? That is what the lawsuit is for and the courts should decide. IMO, it's not libel, but I don't know if her apartment was actually moldy or not.

2. The political FB post should be valid grounds for firing, too. If I gave out company "secrets" or confidential material on FB, I'd get fired. Duh. If I am working in a political office and make a political comment in a public media outlet, I should be held accountable for what I said. If that means my boss wants me to resign because of the comment, then I don't see how FB is the culprit. If anything, it's the comment that should be argued about, not the particular outlet chosen (public bulletin board, flyer at library, Facebook post, tweet, etc). Facebook and Twitter are not private and secure messaging systems.

Re:So?

[BasilBrush]

I'm not sure how big of a secret Obama being "dumb" is. Some of us had that figured out for a while now.

Hard to imagine just how someone who supported Bush has the gall to call anyone dumb.

Two incidents, two responses

[girlintraining]

...a Chicago landlord suing a tenant over a tweet complaining of mold in her apartment.

Was there mold? Because if there was, it's perfectly legal and the landlord can shove those papers right where the sun don't shine, and she might be able to file a countersuit and win.

The aide, Lee Landor, who had been the deputy press secretary to the Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer, since May, posted comments on her Facebook page criticizing Mr. Gates and the president, whom she referred to at one point as "O-dumb-a."

If these comments were made public for anyone to view, then they might have something -- a press secretary should know better. If this was something posted privately to her friends and word leaked out, then I would say she excercised poor judgment -- but her employer did worse by firing her over it instead of a reprimand. People make mistakes -- Good managers understand that and work to correct the behavior. Bad managers paper over their own asses, and wind up costing their company/organization both human resources and morale. Legally, however, in the United States most states are "at will" employment, which basically means you have no rights whatsoever -- you can be fired for almost any reason, or none at all, without any recourse. This is one of the problems (some would say benefits) of living in the only first world country that lacks a strong labour party.

On a different note -- it's amazing how petty most people are. For example, I think you are a pompous bastard child of a whore. Curiously, I have no idea who you (the reader) are, but nevertheless, someone, somewhere, will be offended. Apparently, when people go online, they forget the social etiquette lessons they learned in grade school -- namely to ignore bullies, loud-mouths, and to have a thick skin, because there are not enough bullets in the world to kill every assh0le you're going to meet.

Re:Two incidents, two responses

[Anonymous Coward]

When my old slumlord landlord in NYC, name of Mark Scharfman wanted us out so he could raise the rent $2000
he had us in court for every little thing. Oh, and if you are in new york city don't rent from Mark Scharfman or
Beach Lane Management. They will lie to you, rip you off, and are other wise shifty individuals.

Posting ANON !!!!!!

Re:Landlord is a moron

[b4upoo]

Usually truth is a potent defense but I wouldn't count on it in this case. Telling a story far and wide, knowing that it would do harm, without some cause to spread the story may be seen as a deliberately savage attack. If the person had warned someone who was about to rent the unit then it is another issue. Keep in mind that there is a difference in remarking that you have mold in your apartment and saying that all the apartments have mold. That may be an untrue statement. Lack of being specific in her report may well amount to a lie.

Re:first amendment

[CannonballHead]

Why shouldn't it? I don't feel that I should be allowed to let you say whatever you want about me... let's say I run a small business that is completely built on trust and honesty. Why should you be allowed to publish slander and libel all you want, under the guise of the first amendment? It hurts my reputation, it hurts my ability to do business, etc. In fact, if you were to NOT allow me to sue you for libel/slander, all you'd be doing is protecting the ability of the rich (read: ability to publish widely due to wealth) to completely put me out of business with utter lies and nonsense. I think I should be allowed to protect myself.

No different than real-life actions...

[TWX]

...other than that these are better documented. Take your clothes off for pictures on your web page, don't be surprised if that is weighed in a hiring process (might work your advantage :) Make strong, rude political statements, don't be surprised if a political organization that tries to be civil doesn't wish to have you representing them. Criticize your boss, especially if you are rude, unduly harsh, or anything other than factual, and you betchya they could terminate you for it, even in large organizations with separate HR departments. Demonstrate other behaviors that show that you're unsuited to something and they might just deny you that.

On the mold issue, I haven't seen enough to make a call. If there really is mold then I wouldn't find her in the wrong in the slightest, because Truth *should* win out even if it's not a happy truth. If there isn't a mold problem then I could see how there could be issues.

Consider what you've typed before submitting. It could come back to bite you if you're not careful.

Fools!

[Loki_1929]

Why on God's green Earth would you post anything of any substance to any online account that can be traced back to real you without massive court involvement? These social networking sites are prime candidates for one-stop shopping sprees of information about individuals. We've got people posting everything from offensive tirades to nude pictures of themselves where anyone with a search engine and a free, anonymous account can find them.

Do people seriously think that they exist in a bubble so long as they have a keyboard in front of them? Or are their brains trapped in a bubble of ignorance and short-sightedness?

Separate YOU from online YOU, and if possible, separate online YOU into several different online YOUs such that an individual profile can't be established via common username, cross-linkage, etc. For Christ sakes, people, it's 2009. It's long, long past the point where anyone should be doing stuff this stupid. Every spot where a user can post something on the internet is an enormous billboard so high and large that everyone on Earth can see it for the rest of time. Learn to treat it as such.

Re:Fools!

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Or do what I do: post under your real name (and my name is rare enough that it's pretty easy for anyone who wants to find out about me to do so) and take the risk.

It's a real risk, I acknowledge that. It shouldn't be, any more than writing a letter to the editor of a newspaper back in the days when that was the main way for people to get their political opinions out to the world, but I know it is. But there are benefits as well. For one thing, there are probably just as many people who share my opinions as disagree with them. People who would, say, deny me a job because I expressed a political opinion are probably people who are looking for an excuse to fire me anyway (or wouldn't hire me in the first place.) And maybe most importantly, I can take a certain amount of pride in knowing that I'm attaching my name to my words. If an opinion is important enough for me to express in a public forum, then it's important enough for me to say "I say this."

All that being said, of course we need an option for anonymity, to protect whistleblowers and the like. But the assumption that posting under a screen name is always the best way to go strikes me as kind of distasteful.

Re:first amendment

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

, and it never fails to boggle my mind that what the constitution protects from government interference, it doesn't protect from private sector lawyers.

Because the first amendment is there to protect us from the government, not from each other. Go figure.

Re:Landlord is a moron

[NotBornYesterday]

True claim or not, the landlord may figure that using lawyers to intimidate their tenant into silence might be worth a try. What good is the truth if you cannot afford a lawyer of your own to defend yourself against liars?

Quantum mold

[Anonymous Coward]

A) Tenant observes apartment and sees mold.

B) Landlord observes apartment and sees no mold.

Only one solution, mold has two quantum states. If jurors are taken to the apartment to view said mold then roughly half will observe the mold leading to a hung jury and no award.

OT: good example

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Mod that shit up! I agree 100%.

That right there is a lot of what's wrong with the mod system...

Re:Landlord is a moron

[Jaysyn]

Sounds like sarcasm to me. I think she'll be just fine. The realty company on the other hand is probably in for a world of shit.

Re:Landlord is a moron

[Rob the Bold]

True claim or not, the landlord may figure that using lawyers to intimidate their tenant into silence might be worth a try. What good is the truth if you cannot afford a lawyer of your own to defend yourself against liars?

Something tells me the landlord figured wrong here.

Re:I got fired for a tweet

[PRMan]

Sounds like a good way to get rid of co-workers you don't like anonymously...

What's to stop somebody making a Twitter account in someone else's name and then Tweeting about their struggles at work and criticizing their boss and calling him an idiot?

Boom! Person you hate just got fired...

Duh, she was a PRESS SECRETARY

[spun]

I personally take issue with the firing of the public employee due to her Facebook posts. She voiced her personal opinions, unrelated to her job, and not in an official capacity. IANAL but as a simple citizen who believes in America and in free speech, I think she should sue the city. I am not going to even bring up the issue of whether she would have been fired if she had been on the political correct pro-administration side. The rise of the thought police (witnes what happened to that CA model that dared to speak her mind about gay marriage) is a scary prospect - irrespective of your ideology.

Unrelated to her job? Bullshit, she was a press secretary. Their job is to engage in public relations for their boss. Publishing an opinion counter to your boss's position is simply not allowed under any circumstances. Imagine if Tony Snow had posted on his Facebook page that he thought John McCain was a loon, how long do you think he would have lasted? Boo hoo for this stupid woman. By her actions she showed her boss that she can not be trusted. How is he to know that she will not let her personal opinions slip into his official press releases? Anyone doing what she did would be fired, on any side of the political spectrum. Hell, if she'd said the same thing about some Republican, she would have been fired. You don't get to have personal opinions about politics when you are a press secretary, if you don't like that, get a different job. Spouting out grade school level insults simply proves that she does not have what it takes to be a press secretary.

Guess what? Words have consequences. That CA model was an idiot, she deserved what she got. If you spout out idiotic rants in public, people may not want to do business with you, go figure. Selfish assholes like you think free speech means you get to say whatever you want, and nobody is allowed to take offense. That's not how things work in the real world, champ. If you talk like an asshole, people will assume you are an asshole, and most people don't want to have much to do with assholes.

Re:Duh, she was a PRESS SECRETARY

[spun]

Oh please, grow up and get down off of your princess chair. This is the Internet, you will find 'cussing' here. Get used to it.

Carroline Prejean was an idiot (yes, she was a model and a beauty queen, so that almost goes without saying.) In our modern, enlightened age it is no more acceptable to be prejudiced against gays than it is to be prejudiced against people of color. If you say you hate black people, or think gays shouldn't have the same rights as everyone else, most decent human beings will simply not respect you or your 'opinion.' Again, get used to it. You have a right to free speech. That right comes with responsibilities. If you act or speak like an asshole, expect consequences.

In this case, the consequences were nothing more than people saying what a douchenozzle Prejean is. She was stripped of her crown for completely different reasons, not for her anti-gay comment. Depending on who you listen to, she was stripped of her crown for either a.) posing nude, or b.) refusing to pose nude. I was only bringing up Prejean in response to the previous poster, who seemed to think free speech means the right to yell without being yelled back at.

Any press secretary that has ever openly disagreed with their boss's politics has been fired, so what is your point exactly? I can't even tell where you stand on the issue. In fact, the only tangible thing I got from your post is that you are a precious little princess who's delicate ears can't stand the sound of (GASP!) cussing. Well, fuck you and the whore you rode in on.

Re:Landlording

[plague3106]

In my experience as a landlord, most problems occur as a direct result of actions taken by the tenants. In this case, spilling water and not immediately cleaning it up will cause mold. This happens because the tenants don't "own" the property they are living in. Cleaning up requires effort, and there's no incentive on the part of the tenants to do this.

Doesn't matter; its still your responsiblity to remove the mold, remove the fire hazard, etc. If you want to sue the tenent because they were careless, that's one thing.. but its your responsiblity as landlord to maintain the building. I suspect you also have a lease saying the tennent CANNOT make any major changes to the building.. perhaps even forbidding painting the walls a different color (every lease I've signed has).

Mold is (apparently) completely blown out of proportion by companies that want to be paid to remove it. Yes, toxic mold does occasionally happen and it should be dealt with... but it's extremely rare.

Mold can be much more serious than you seem to think. No one is saying mold is now everywhere, but if it does appear it needs to be removed ASAP, because it very likely can be a health problem... and those problems may not show up for your tennant for YEARS. http://www.epi.state.nc.us/epi/oii/mold/healtheffects.html

Re:first amendment

[noidentity]

Why shouldn't it? I don't feel that I should be allowed to let you say whatever you want about me... let's say I run a small business that is completely built on trust and honesty. Why should you be allowed to publish slander and libel all you want, under the guise of the first amendment? It hurts my reputation, it hurts my ability to do business, etc.

Because you don't own your reputation; it is merely what other people think of you. There are many things which affect what others think of you, and you don't have a right to stop others from doing all those things merely because it's in your interest. Ironically, libel laws make things people say more potentially damaging to your reputation, not less, as they cause others to give things said more weight than if there were no laws. Ultimately, your liberty isn't threatened by things others say, therefore there should be no laws "protecting" you from things people say (beyond threats of use of force against you).

Talk about your catch 22

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why correlation doesn't imply causality.

It never struck them that the reason there are so many black inmates is BECAUSE they are racially profiled?

Re:Talk about your catch 22

[Tanktalus]

I think the reason is far less nefarious: the reason there are so many black inmates is because a) "disadvantaged" (aka poor) people commit a disproportionate amount of violent crime, b) violent crime is less often thought through and thus are caught more often than "white-collar" or "rich" crime, plus get harsher sentences, c) blacks are disproportionately poor (at least in the US).

If there were a simple way to look at someone and know that they are rich or poor, that'd provide much more reliable profiling. Instead, what we're stuck with is an indicator (race) of an indicator (wealth) of an indicator (likelihood to commit crime). It does mean that those who use the profiles can find their perp more often than those who do not, but it also feeds on itself.

Re:Talk about your catch 22

[Sj0]

That's a simplistic and childish view.

Hundreds of years ago, black slaves were released due to the civil war. They had nothing, or nearly nothing, and still suffered not just from personal racism, but institutional racism -- laws that said coloured people were less human than whites, job interviews that started with "But you won't get the job, nigger", banks that wouldn't loan to blacks. For a century or more they had to deal with that, while trying to pull themselves out of the depths of poverty they'd been dropped into.

Today, unsurprisingly, many black people are still in poverty, trapped in cities with no obvious means of escape. The centuries of subjugation, segregation, and racism have left their mark, leaving them just as racist as the people who subjugate them, blinding them to many opportunities the modern world affords them.

Trapped in poverty, blinded by racism as to their true options, many take up the only career path apparently open to them: Crime. Hence more criminals, hence more prison population.

The problem with racial profiling isn't when the people are actually criminals, it's when they're not. It's unjust for innocent people to be subjected to extra scrutiny just because people like them are acting badly.

Re:Talk about your catch 22

[hairyfeet]

Dude, if cops didn't have race as a reason to fuck with you they'll just find another excuse. Sadly I've found that for every one good cop depending on the city you have 5-7 "bullies with badges". In fact two out of the three bullies at my HS ended up cops.

I'm just waiting for the recruiters on career day to go "and for all those of you who enjoy stuffing your fellow students in lockers and beating on them for their lunch money. looks/ sexual orientation: Have you ever considered a career in law enforcement?"

Considering how bad the pay is and how much crap they will let a cop get away with before actually firing their ass we probably shouldn't be surprised. Believe you me, you get a cop that is an asshole? he will find a reason. That is why they have laws like "disorderly conduct" which can be anything the cops want it to be. While I would love to see things change, as someone who has been slammed against a squad car for being a long hair riding with black guys which apparently is "suspicious behavior" I wouldn't hold my breath. They are advertising like crazy here trying to get folks to become cops and nobody wants the job, even in this economy, and the older ones I've talked to (which were good cops) have taken early retirement because they don't like the way the force is getting filled with bullies with badges. According to the last one i talked to it seemed like the only ones taking that job were in it to "stir up shit" in his words.

Barratry

[Pig Hogger]

”We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization”.

This is great. That quote alone is grounds for lawsuit dismissal, for barratry.