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Vulgar Comment On Newspaper Site Costs Man His Job
DeeFresh writes "ReadWriteWeb has an article up today discussing an incident in which a school employee lost his job after leaving a comment on the website of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper. After the school employee responded to the newspaper's poll of 'the strangest thing you've ever eaten' with a feline-inspired vulgarity, Kurt Greenbaum, the site's director of social media, tracked down the commenter's identity through his IP address and reported him to school officials. When confronted, the school employee resigned from his job."
In a truly free country, people shouldn't be forced to associate with other people that they disagree with, no?
In a truly free country, the natural association that all people have with each other is respected, and no one is ostracized or left out. In a non-free country, a few people can stick a flag in something and deny access to the rest. The mechanism by which those people are chosen is irrelevant. Birth, violence, money, irrelevant. The US achieved its power by being the least free nation on earth, where a man who is cruel and vicious enough can realize his dream to be a feudal lord. That's a great way to achieve power in the short term. Doesn't bode well for the long term health of the nation, but you leave something for the future and still have everything...
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
The paper did not release any information to a third party. The contacted the registered owner of the IP address which sent the message. Most definitely a "first party".
And this is the key, isn't it? He didn't go to law enforcement or the ISP even. He went to the owner of the system and let them know that someone (probably a student at the school) was misusing one of their computers.
This wasn't internet vigilanteism, it was courtesy to the system owner. Regardless, if you troll someone, there should be no righteous indignation when you get trolled back.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!