Are We Too Quick To Act On Social Media Outrage?

RedK writes: Connie St-Louis, on June 8th, reported on apparently sexist remarks made by Sir Tim Hunt, a Nobel prize winning scientist, during an event organised for women in sciences. This led to the man's dismissal from his stations, all in such urgency that he did not even have time to present his side, nor was his side ever offered any weight. A leaked report a few days later suggests that the remarks were taken out of context. Further digging shows that the accuser has distorted the truth in many cases it seems. This is not the first time that people may have jumped the gun too soon on petty issues and ruined great events or careers.

Comments

Social Media Outage

[rossdee]

I don't use either Twitter or Facebook so would not be worried if eithere or both of them went down

Re:Social Media Outage

[Cassini2]

Unfortunately, that doesn't stop people. All they need to do is create a fake Facebook profile. The scam is:

1. Acquire targets name, some basic information.
2. Create Facebook profile.
3. Post some cat pictures, get friends.
4. Run a scam / Post defamatory post
5. ***
6. Profit / Watch target get fired

Non-participation in social networks is no protection.

Re:Social Media Outage

[Any Web Loco]

Then to be fair, you don't really have much useful to contribute to this discussion. It's as if it were a discussion about the best/worst thing on TV and your only contribution was that you don't watch it and couldn't care less. Good for you.

Re:Social Media Outage

[AK Marc]

In this case, it was confirmed by at least 3 others, and nobody, including the "victim", has disputed it.

Seriously

[fizzer06]

When a charge is this serious, the facts don't matter. /sarc

Re:Seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

Sexism/racism/homophobia are the new witchcraft.

Accusation is enough to justify burning someone at the stake.

Progressives are essentially puritans, only without explicit mention of a god.

Re:Seriously

[ckatko]

See Moral Panic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

They do have a "god": themselves. It's whatever that they deem "politically incorrect" or "intolerant" that automatically becomes wrong, even if it's something that they're directly engaging in (like harassment), except in that case it doesn't count because it's them doing it and they can do no wrong.

O rly

[wodencafe]

This is the same thing that happened to a Texas Firefighter who supposedly had praised that sadistic little shit Dylan Roof, on Facebook. However, the post was a response in a thread, and the Firefighter claims it was in response to another poster, who had donated to a fund for the victims of the shooting. The words were "He needs to be praised for the good deed he has done." He was immediately suspended and is now a social Pariah, a walking target. The disturbing trend in these kinds of situations is the accuser doesn't even have a chance to defend themselves before they find their lives ruined.

Re:O rly

[alphatel]

It's called wrongful termination and the civil lawsuit consequences are harsh enough that any employer worth their salt would do some investigative work of their own before jumping on the dumbass bandwagon.

Re:O rly

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why you must never use pronouns on the internet.

Re:O rly

[sideslash]

Wow. Just... wow. Given what I've been through recently, I can't believe that the AC above would say "you must never use pronouns on the internet". To call me out individually like that was inexcusably offensive. This AC should be summarily shamed out of Slashdot.

DailyWail

[Anonymous Coward]

I love the idea that in an article about media outrage the author uses a Daily Mail article as evidence for why someone else's media outrage was wrong.

Re:DailyWail

[RedK]

The Daily Mail article is not about how Connie was wrong. The Independent piece provides the alternative version to Connie's, in which Tim Hunt's comments are framed as a sarcastic protrayal of "what is keeping women out of STEM" (the classic boys club accusation) and adds the follow-up he did, telling women to not be discouraged by it and to go forward.

The Daily Mail simply did some digging into who exactly this Connie St Louis person is, and why maybe we should ask questions before we simply give her 100% trust in this matter.

Re:DailyWail

[J. J. Ramsey]

The catch is whether to trust Daily Mail's supposed digging. It doesn't exactly have the most stellar reputation for accuracy.

Re:DailyWail

[RedK]

The catch is whether to trust anything at face value. Don't take the Daily Mail article at face value, just like you don't take Ms. St-Louis' comments at face value.

Re:DailyWail

[goose-incarnated]

The catch is whether to trust Daily Mail's supposed digging. It doesn't exactly have the most stellar reputation for accuracy.

How the hell is this insightful? She claims to have published stuff that she hadn't. She claims to have worked in positions that she hasn't. There is a large body of evidence that she has fabricated her CV. She now claims a nobel prize-winner said sexist things. Many of the eminent female scientists, as well as people who were actually at the toast her gave disputes this, yet you jump to her defence? What the hell is wrong with you?

Re:DailyWail

[RedK]

The BBC interview was made over the phone while he was still at the Airport in Seoul. And he didn't double down, he admitted to making the statement, and never denied that part. The part in question is the entire context in which the statement was made, which is now being said to not have been presented initially : that the context is that it was made as a joke and that Sir Tim Hunt.

Basically, comes back to the premise of the submission : Are people reacting too quickly. Couldn't they have waited for him to get home, take in the reporting and then have him comment when people had calmed down ?

No, instead they catch him off guard while he's in a foreign country, in an uncomfortable situation.

Re:DailyWail

[Onnimikki]

Actually, he did double-down. Listen to how to says in the BBC interview...

"I did mean the part about having trouble with girls," he said. "It is true that people - I have fallen in love with people in the lab and people in the lab have fallen in love with me and it's very disruptive to the science because it's terribly important that in a lab people are on a level playing field."

He said it. He wasn't joking. He confirmed what the original witnesses in Korea said he said. He double-downed and wanted everyone, via the BBC, to know it.

He changed his story afterwards. And you're buying the revised story.

Re:DailyWail

[james_gnz]

It seems to me the first teaser and the interview have both been edited. The teaser seems to skip a bit from the interview, and the interview seems to skip a bit from the teaser. I suspect this makes the interview sound much worse than it otherwise would have.

BBC Today 10/06/2015

01:15:45 Teaser

Reporter:

It's now quarter past seven.

There are three problems with having women in the laboratory, according to the Nobel laureate Sir Tim Hunt. You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them, they cry. That's what he told a conference of senior women scientists and journalists in South Korea, and it didn't go down terribly well.

We caught up with Sir Tim a few hours ago as he was about to board a plane back to the UK. He told us his comments had been intended as a joke, but that he stood by some of what he said.

Sir Tim (recording):

[This section seems to be clipped from the interview] I did mean the part about having... having trouble with girls. I mean it is true that people... I have fallen in love with people in the lab, and that people in the lab have fallen in love with me, and it's very disruptive to the science. Um, because it's... it's terribly important that in the lab, people are, sort of, on... on a level playing field, and I found that, um, you know, these emotional entanglements made life very difficult.

[A section from the interview seems to be clipped from here]

I mean I'm really really sorry that I caused any offence, that's awful. I'm, I certainly didn't mean... I just meant to be honest actually.

Reporter:

Well, it's a subject we'll return to later in the programme. We'll be speaking to one of his colleagues, and to a scientist who was at that speech.

02:08:58 Teaser

Reporter:

The British Nobel prize winner Sir Tim Hunt has insisted he was joking when he said that women scientists shouldn't work with men, because they fall in love with male colleagues, and cry when criticised. Sir Tim, who was awarded the 2001 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine, made the comments to a group of female scientists in South Korea, but he told this program he didn't mean to offend anyone.

Sir Tim (recording):

I came after three women, who very nicely thanked the organisers for the... for the lunch, and I said it was odd that they had asked a man to make any comments. I'm really sorry that I... I said what I said, it was a very stupid thing to do in the presence of all those journalists, and what was intended as a sort of light-hearted ironic comment, apparently was interpreted deadly seriously by my audience.

02:21:30 Story

[Which I didn't transcribe.]

Re:DailyWail

[mjwx]

The catch is whether to trust anything at face value. Don't take the Daily Mail article at face value, just like you don't take Ms. St-Louis' comments at face value.

The thing is, ironically the Daily Mail is trying to point out that we should be more sceptical when the DM in itself is one of the publications which is most deserving of scepticism.

The DM may be having one of it's "broken clock" moments, but even then you can bet there's an agenda behind it.

Point in short, you should never take the Daily Mail at face value.

Are We Too Quick To Act On Social Media Outrage?

[QuietLagoon]

Yes.

Eat Me Last

[pipingguy]

90% of "outrage" is virtue signalling and peer pressure.

Re:Eat Me Last

[tnk1]

I find it interesting that most movements like this are effectively that.

Religious inquisitions? Basically people falling all over themselves to sell out their neighbors to show their own virtue publicly (while at the same time often hiding their own sins)

Secret police informants? Same.

It's just people trying to fit into what they think society's current target is. It gives them something to be offended at, and sometimes lets them overlook their own sins, and even distract attention away from their own (worse) misdeeds.

Without being able to hear what was actually said, I can't be sure what actually happened at that dinner. It could have been out of context, or wildly offensive. Or actually both based on your perspective and your sensitivity to certain phrases strung together that one person thinks should be funny, but the joke goes horribly wrong for someone else.

I do think, however, that if Hunt was removed for this, there needed to be a much higher bar to removing him and ending his career. And not just because he was a Nobel scientist, but because any person should have the ability to at least have a fair investigation and the benefit of the doubt before action like that is taken. With the knee jerk reactions we are seeing these days to things that are labelled "hate", it is starting to feel like we're losing our understanding of why due process and presumption of innocence is extremely important.

And while I have no intention of telling his critics to stop talking, I do wish they would not take a scorched earth approach. This feels like they're trying to make their point by creating a fear of losing your job to compel compliance, not by educating people.

"It's all about perception"

[Archtech]

We see this kind of outcome all over the place nowadays. It's mostly because those in positions of power are far too worried about public perception. (Of course, their almost complete lack of any firmly held moral principles leaves them adrift, and very much at the mercy of popular sentiment). Obviously Sir Tim Hunt is of infinitely more value to society than Connie St Louis - a glance at the Daily Mail story referred to in the summary makes that clear. So why was he forced to resign as a kneejerk reaction to a wave of ephemeral indignation, which will be forgotten by next week (and it's Saturday as I write)?

Recently I have been glued to a box set of the complete "Hill Street Blues" - yes, I know that telegraphs my age and unadventurous taste in TV. It was only the other night that I got quite angry at the spectacle of the police chief twisting Captain Furillo's arm to get him to abandon his defence of an apparently "bad cop". This guy, a narcotics agent, had shot and killed a young black man while interrupting some suspicious activity in the small hours. The cop claimed that he had given due warning, and fired only after being fired on - all of which was true. Also, the group he tried to apprehend were in fact committing crimes. Nevertheless, the police chief tells Furillo that it's vital for the department to be seen to throw this "bad cop" to the wolves. It's all about perception, he explains. The facts don't matter at all; all that counts is that this is a good time to throw someone to the wolves.

University College London (UCL) has indeed stained its reputation. Its refusal even to consider reinstating Professor Hunt makes matters worse. And Britain, which seems to prefer Ms St Louis to Professor Hunt, will get what it has chosen. Not to its advantage.

Re:"It's all about perception"

[Anonymous Coward]

you both missed the point - the story called for him to be a 'bad cop' but who was actually innocent of the thing he was accused off. This is a false dilemena as his captain should have taken action when it was known he was a bad copy and then the situation would nevre have arisen.

Cops who do nothing are still bad cops.

Re:"It's all about perception"

[Archtech]

My, what a long comment! And all based on a misunderstanding. Of course I do know that "Hill Street Blues" is fiction. But one of the reasons I enjoy it is that it appears to be accurate, realistic fiction. Regardless of the many details, the basic plot idea I mentioned - a political boss who is willing and eager to throw a subordinate to the wolves "for the look of it", regardless of the facts - is something that is common in real life.

Nothing wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with "social media".

It is the Progressive thought that prevails the Western Culture.
Political Correctness places style over substance. Or, speech over actions.
Pulling words out of context and the twisting of meaning to suit one's purpose is a long and effective tactic.

People are "convicted" for "crimes" they did not commit while people who have actually committed the same "crimes" are never bothered because they are Progressives and Politically Correct actors.

Re:Nothing wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

There are many, many things wrong with social media; for instance, Twitter destroying context and the ability to communicate properly in most cases. That's why offendatrons flock to it for all their burn-the-witch needs.

Re:Nothing wrong...

[pipingguy]

Look up kafkatrapping.

Re:Nothing wrong...

[groggy.android]

Social media has made all those sins easier to do. In the past there'd just be neighbors gossiping about neighbors. Now it's the whole world and in a more permanent way

Re:Nothing wrong...

[shutdown -p now]

I have to preface all this by saying that I personally identify with the much-maligned "progressive thought". I do believe in social justice in general, and I do believe that specific issues, such as discrimination against females, non-whites, non-heterosexuals and other minorities is very real and a problem that we have to deal with. At the same time - and precisely because of that! - I have to speak out; because it is my side and my cause, and I am responsible for the evil that people who share (or claim to share) it with me perpetrate in its name. I'm well aware that there are even more numerous equivalents on the other side of the fence, but they are well-documented and well-accepted among those whose opinion matters to me, and so I am not going to touch on that.

Now to the matter at hand. When I started digging into the recent slew of high-profile social justice activism cases, one thing stood out. It's not so much the quickness to act that is the problem in and of itself, as it is the readiness to do so based on conformance to stereotypes that the person has. Remember the Virginia university rape case? Pretty much every feminist and progressive outlet has published a scathing attack on the purported rapist - spending very little time on the fact that the only evidence to date is the testimony of the self-identified victim, but instead focusing on how this horrible event, which is obviously true (because, well, frat boys gonna rape, duh - "everybody knows", "common sense" ...), is a testament to how horrible things are in general.

And then, when it turned out that not only there isn't anything else, but even said testimony has gaping consistency holes and outright falsehoods - did anyone apologize? Well, the website that broke the original story had the decency to, but I was surprised at the number of other places that doubled down on their take instead by basically claiming that it's all just lies (Jezebel is basically still doing that), or that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the victim should be believed by default - even if there are inconsistencies in her story.

What really raised my hairs, though, was when they acknowledged that the story is false, but nevertheless demanded that the accused should be treated as guilty based on nothing but accusation alone as a generic rule, and that the self-identified victim should give extreme benefit of the doubt, and cannot even be questioned (because that is traumatic etc). Because, you see, actual rapes happen, and therefore if you don't support harsh measures, you support actual rapists - even if you are complaining about an actual false rape accusation. In other words, it's better for one innocent to suffer than for ten guilty persons escape.

I wish this was something that could be ambiguously interpreted or misunderstood by me, but no: the title of the piece that summed up that argument is literally No matter what Jackie said, we should generally believe rape claims". And it contains gems such as, "We should believe, as a matter of default, what an accuser says. Ultimately, the costs of wrongly disbelieving a survivor far outweigh the costs of calling someone a rapist. Even if Jackie fabricated her account, U-Va. should have taken her word for it during the period while they endeavored to prove or disprove the accusation". Go ahead, read it in its entirety, it's well worth it.

That particular article just left me speechless, for obvious reasons - I am a liberal, among other things, and this was anything but. But then I started digging into it, and have found out that this sort of stuff is not actually new, it's just that it's the first time it was broadcast so prominently to the general audience, and subscribed by so many. Yet if you start digging into the subculture - go visit the blogs where adherents cluster and discuss things in an environment where the

Do not react AT ALL

[mi]

Whether the reaction is "too quick" or not is the wrong question to ask. It is wrong to prosecute thoughtcrimes at all. Whether or not he is "sexist", he is still a brilliant scientist and a credit to whatever stations he was fired from.

Such prosecutions are not only unfair — and offensive to everyone, who values the First Amendment — they are also ineffective and counter-productive: people will not change their minds this way, they'll just learn to keep their mouths shut.

And, of course, it also exposes the preachers of tolerance and crusaders against bigotry as intolerant bigots. Some silver lining, I suppose...

Re:Do not react AT ALL

[rmdingler]

Perhaps the most astonishing thing about the So Carolina church shooting is the grace with which the survivors remarked on the assassin.

Rather than the low road reponse taken in previous shootings, their's was exemplary in that they clearly identified themselves as better people.

Tolerance, and yes, even the defense of that which you find most disgusting, is the hallmark of personal freedom.

Re:Do not react AT ALL

[hey!]

First of all, Sir Tim is British, and second of all the First Amendment refers to government regulation of speech. It does not compel a private organization to employ or associate with an individual whose speech it feels reflects poorly on them.

This is not a legal issue, it's a moral issue. It's morally wrong to empower a social media lynch mob without performing a reasonable inquiry into the facts.

Re:Joke

[Opportunist]

If this is the rules that get you to jail if broken, you can as well break them.

You are already in a jail.

Obviously

[Karmashock]

Internet veterans know to laugh at most of the outrage. You can't take it seriously. I think a lot of the problems come from old media trying to be hip and cool so they get on social media but they don't know how crazy people can be on the internet so they take people too seriously. And then crazy people get treated as anything but crazy people.

All this hyperventilating about various moron outrages. Just do what the internet does with these people. Give them a an "oh really nick cage"... or a "sarcastic wonka"... and move on.

Re:Obviously

[thegarbz]

and move on.

That's hard to do once persecuted by the court of public opinion.

The point I got from the summary was that the internet outrage we all laugh at is actually affecting people negatively in the real world.

Statements taken out of context and manipulated

[blind biker]

Tim Hunt was attacked and dismissed from UCL, the Royal Society and other bodies, based on nothing more than lies. Anybody can, with enough manipulation, be ostracized for comments taken out of context. Anybody.

If Tim Hunt is not reinstated, and the liar(s) that caused his reputation to be tarnished, will not bear the consequences of their dishonest behavior, our society is going towards a very scary future. We have not learned anything from the lessons of the past, and any Goebbels wannabe is going to fuck us up.

Re:Statements taken out of context and manipulated

[PvtVoid]

Tim Hunt was attacked and dismissed from UCL, the Royal Society and other bodies

No he wasn't. He resigned from a couple (largely honorary) posts. He kept his paying job.

Re:Statements taken out of context and manipulated

[RedK]

Forced to resign. His wife got the call from HR, which was basically "either he resigns, or we remove him" while he was on the plane back from Seoul. Which makes it all the worse, the guy isn't even back from his conference, and without even meeting him, they ask for his resignation.

Re:Statements taken out of context and manipulated

[quintessencesluglord]

If anything, this whole debacle has made me question the Royal Society and UCL, It speaks poorly upon those organizations that they would go off half cocked without collecting evidence and performing a full investigation, which is the hallmark of good science.

And it makes me wonder how well they could handle a real controversy in the scientific community, when they can't weather a twitter storm of questionable origin. If you can't bear the slightest political intrigue, what makes you qualified to answer questions about the world? Just post the questions to twitter and let the masses decide the properties of time.

And especially now, when we have had similar occurrences in recent memory, with Donglegate and whatnot, I expect institutions of the pedigree of the Royal Society to show a little more discernment in handling situations like these. I mean christ, Sir Newton wasn't exactly an uncontroversial figure in his day, and that whole row was dealt with with more class and sobriety than this.

The scary future is here.

Re:Statements taken out of context and manipulated

[houghi]

Not sure what the laws are in your country, but if you have the choice of getting fired or resigning, I would take getting fired every time. I mean, what are they going to do if I don't resign? Fire me for not resigning?

If I resign, I have nothing. If they fire me, I get at least some parting money and most likely some unemployment benefit.

And even if I did something illegal that would cause them to not pay me anything and not get any benefits (e.g. if I stoe from the company) resigning would not be my choice. Let them do the paperwork.

There is only one reason I would choose resigning over getting fired and that would be that I would be guilty of a crime and resigning would mean no charges. And I mean GUILTY as in no way I can ever get out of this as I know I did it willfully.

And even then I would make darn well sure I talk to a lawer first if it is the only option.

Because 'to save face' does not work.

Re:Statements taken out of context and manipulated

[ArsenneLupin]

A resignation might look better than a firing to a prospective next employer. Of course, if the resignation or firing is in response to a well-publicized event that point is moot...

Ohh, she's female AND black

[Opportunist]

So entitled to being an insufferable twat twice for the price of one?

So please listen, lady. You're not entitled to anything. And neither is anyone else due to the color of their face, their sexual orientation, their gender, their upbringing, their place of birth or ANYTHING else. The only thing you are entitled to is the SAME treatment that anyone else gets who isn't part of $minority_group (albeit I fail to see how "female" is a minority in any kind of context except maybe when it comes to who pisses standing up).

You can complain if you suffer from having other/fewer/inferior rights and treatment due to your $minority_group. You will see me in the first row center in a march for equality, be it equal pay for women and men or equal marriage rights for gays and heterosexuals. But THAT IS IT!

You are NOT entitled to be except from being made fun of because of your $minority_group. You are NOT entitled to not being the butt of jokes because you are $minority_group. You are NOT entitled of better or preferred treatment because of belonging to your fucking minority group!

Equality, yes. And I will gladly fight for it, even if I don't belong to your minority group because I do think people have the right, the absolute and unalienable right, to be treated the SAME way as everyone else independent of anything you could think of.

Entitlement, no. Not now, not ever.

Re:Ohh, she's female AND black

[RedK]

Which is precisely what they get from people like you

Ad hominem. While the OP was rather vulgar, it does not diminish his point that "Special treatment" is not equality and minority groups asking for and receiving preferrential treatment, is the exact opposite of equality.

People that support the idea of Special and preferrential treatment of minorities are the very problem. They are the ones creating inequalities in the world and pushing conflict at every turn, instead of supporting resolutions and equality for all.

Re:Ohh, she's female AND black

[Opportunist]

It's amazing how well you know me. Or, well, rather how well you know your prejudices towards people who aren't willing to bend over and hand out trinkets and freebies to anyone crying for them because they're part of $minority_group.

It may amaze you that yes, indeed, I not only support equality but am actually part of a minority. And frankly, it sucks. Not because of the prejudice against my "type" of people. That sucks too. But what's worse is the "look at me, I'm $minority, gimme handouts! Gimme jobs! And if you don't, you're a $minority hater and should be in jail!" assholes.

Because they breed even more contempt. I have to work twice if not thrice as hard to accomplish anything. You don't have ANY kind of idea what uphill battle I was fighting to get where I am now. No, not because of people being prejudiced. Because they see me, look at my job and AUTOMATICALLY assume that I got it because I'm $minority. Not because I am good at what I do, not because I FUCKING deserve having that job, not because I worked my ass off to get there. No, that can't be. It just has to be because of this AFFIRMATIVE ACTION BULLSHIT.

Doesn't anyone get a FUCKING clue that this shit hurts people who are "disadvantaged" because they belong to $minority more than it does for them? It breeds even more contempt and prejudice. Anything you do, anything you accomplish, anywhere you get, it's not because you're good at what you're doing, it's not because you proved that you're not only on par but actually BETTER than any of the self proclaimed "better people", oh no. They can always point at that affirmative crap and claim that this is the only reason for your accomplishments.

Do you have a FUCKING idea how much that hurts?

Re:Ohh, she's female AND black

[Opportunist]

If you expect unequal treatment for different parties you implicitly expect them to not being able to compete on equal grounds. Different handicaps in golf very bluntly mean that the players are at a different level of ability.

So if you can't find a better parallel to draw, one has to assume your expectation is that $minority has a lower level of ability if he needs a leg up. And that's just fucking wrong. That's basically what I had to fight throughout all my life!

Accuracy not speed.

[AnotherBlackHat]

Asking "should they be acting slower?" is missing the point.

The problem isn't how quickly they acted, it's how stupidly they acted.

Re:Accuracy not speed.

[RedK]

Sometimes, taking a step back, letting the dust settle, and making sure to have all relevant information can lead to proper actions being taken. Time (if you use it to better understand a situation), can lead to better Accuracy.

It's the newest political weapon

[TuringTest]

Last week in my country, a new political party overrun the previous party in charge of the municipality for about 30 years (yes, those thing happen in Europe sometimes).

The day the new government took charge, the displaced party dug out some four-year-old tweets containing a silly joke about nazis (the kind that would gather a +5 funny and some grammar nazi "corrected for you" replies around here) when the man had not even a politician. The same day, all the traditional media were reporting on their front pages as if it was the man's true opinion instead of a joke, reaching international press and forcing the councillor to resign (you may have heard about it as the "communist politician supporting the holocaust").

As long as the public falls for such obvious tactics, and until politicians learn to trim their twitter and facebook timelines when they run for office, this is bound to happen again and again.

Re:Are We Too Quick To Act On Social Media Outrage

[flopsquad]

Yes.

Take that, Betteridge!

Fuck SJWs

[Anonymous Coward]

That is all.

made fun of?

[nten]

People didn't make fun of him, they got him fired. I am in favor of shaming people for incorrect behavior that is still legal behavior. But I don't think we should limit ourselves to socially unacceptable views on women and ethical or sexual minorities. We need to shame politicians and business people that give the appearance of impropriety in their dealings too. And we should be proportional in our response. If someone makes a bad joke, and then softens it when they realize it was a bad joke, we shouldn't get them fired, we should humiliate them for "acting like an ass in public" and watch them more closely to see if they are acting like an ass consistently towards people they work with. The latter is grounds for firing someone, but not a different sense of humor. Even if he was a misogynist, racist, homophobe, it wouldn't really matter as long as he treated all his coworkers with respect and based all decisions on merit. People are allowed to be stupid, and we are allowed (and encouraged) to laugh at them, but not fire them.

Are we too quick to act on social media outrage?

[Chas]

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Oooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllllllllllllllllllllll Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssssssss!!!

People need to grow the fuck up and grow some slightly thicker skin.
People still have a lot of rights. Thankfully.
But the "right to never be offended" has NEVER been among them.

Re:Social Media Outrage?

[RedK]

As for the idea that he was taken out of context, the linked article which is supposed to support that idea quotes him as saying:

False, you did not read the Independent article. You simply reposted the original quote. Read it thoroughly, here is the relevant context submitted by the EU official :

"He allegedly continued: âoeNow seriously, Iâ(TM)m impressed by the economic development of Korea.

âoeAnd women scientists played, without doubt an important role in it. Science needs women and you should do science despite all the obstacles, and despite monsters like me."

I'll give you a pass, the Independent's article is formatted in a way you might not have noticed that the first 3 paragraphs are not the entire article, it continues after the image. I suggest giving a 2nd read through, fully :

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/sir-tim-hunts-claims-that-remarks-on-girls-in-science-not-sexist-backed-by-leaked-eu-report-10341309.html

Re:Are We Too Quick To Act On Social Media Outrage

[phantomfive]

Outrage is almost always a sign that someone is trying to manipulate you (either for page views, or something else).

Re: Act like a Democrat...

[liquid_schwartz]

In this time and age, with terrorism and an economy in the dump...

I really don't think that, in the US at least, there's a terrorism problem. We've had 2 problems in ~14 years, even less if you go farther back in history. I think to be a relevant charge terrorism would have to be more frequent. Car accidents kill around 32k people a year, so . For the couple trillion piddled away in Iraq / Afghanistan you could have given away self driving cars and saved ~450k people in addition to not having lots of vets with PTSD. So with the facts in mind, please don't list terrorism as a top 5 concern. On the economy you are correct. A real recovery, one for more than just the 1%, would be greatly appreciated.

Re:Social Media Outrage?

[Ded Bob]

I think what he did was endearing. The talk about women in the lab was a reference to his wife whom he met while she worked in a lab.

But it's OK to fantasize about killing men?

[K. S. Van Horn]

Jo Brand and Roseanne Barr got applause when they "joked" about wanting to stab men through the heart. Isn't that far worse than calling someone thin-skinned?

More here.

What concerns me on social media is this

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

Rarely do people do fact checking. Propaganda is really easy to push on social media if you know how to do it right, causing people to stand up for causes, buy products or to make someone public enemy #1. This is the downside of popular opinion social media sites, if its wrong, yet a popular opinion, everyone gets a wrong popular opinion. Fortunately not all astroturfers understand how to pull on heart strings yet.

Re:Divorce?

[sideslash]

Thought experiment for you. It's really important to enable women to participate in traditionally male-dominated areas involving leadership in society, right? I'm going to hazard a guess that you agree with that. So a question: is that just so the ladies aren't left out, or can an argument also be made the actual quality of these areas of society will be improved in the big picture by the participation of women? It's not unreasonable to argue the latter, and many reasonable people make such arguments.

So just take the above and apply it to child rearing, and I've successfully made my case that it's at least an issue worth considering/discussing. Diversity minus women equals "???". I suggest that the trolls in this conversation are those who say there's nothing to talk about, and everybody who disagrees with them is an idiot. I believe that would be you?

Re:Get your facts right.

[RedK]

All Tim Hunt was asked to do was to stay on message and not step out on the stage wearing one of Matt Taylor's lingerie print tee shirts.

It wasn't a single reporter who did him in but hundreds broadcasting to a global audience.

Sorry I didn't pollute the submission with a overly verbose description of the event. As for this quote, this is not a fact, this is in fact false. The very CORE issue here is that we do not have a broadcast of the speech. There is no video or recording of it, and thus we have to take both Ms. St-Louis and the anonymous EU Representative at face value.

If you're going to tell me to get my facts straight, at least get yours straight. Thank for providing further information about what the Lunch was about, even though that is not the topic.

As for what Tim Hunt was asked to do, if indeed that is even true (you provide no source), that's even worse. No one should be told to shut up and look good, if you do that, you should expect people to simply not show up to your talks. Let people express themselves, even if you may disagree with the result. It won't physically or mentally harm you to hear an opinion different from your own.

If it does, it would do you well to learn how to deal with those situations now rather than later anyway.

Re:Social Media Outrage?

[RedK]

Sexist jokes aren't inherently wrong. There's a difference in advocating sexist policies (lab seggregation, that women don't belong in STEM) and a sexist joke.

It's a good way to introduce a serious talk where he congratulates women in science in fact. "Women don't belong in science, pfwaaahh, look at all this neat stuff they have done!" is a sexist joke followed by a very serious praise. Haven't you ever used sarcasm or irony to then show how the opposite is the desired outcome ?

Re:Get your facts right.

[NullLogic]

Your comment offends me. Tell me you real name and where you work so I can start a campaign to get you fired.

Honestly, I would never do that to anyone, but you don't seem to have that problem. If what he said had been a direct quote taken in proper context, he should have been reprimanded at worst, and that should have been the end of it. Unfortunately, there are apparently a lot of people out there like you with an axe to grind. You said it yourself. This was someone associated with a group who made decisions with an outcome you disagreed with, and this is an opportunity for you to attack that group by attacking one of its members. Your motives are not suspect; they are provably corrupt.

We used to have this concept of "innocent until proven guilty". I still think most western legal systems try to recognize this concept, but people like you seem to have found a way to circumvent that legal system entirely. This thing, whatever you call it, is definitely not justice. It's mob mentality. If you want to learn the difference, tell us what your real name is and where you work.

Re:Are We Too Quick To Act On Social Media Outrage

[jdavidb]

Outrage is almost always a sign that someone is trying to manipulate you (either for page views, or something else).

An angry outburst is temporary insanity. You are not rational while you are angry, and anything you are thinking of saying or doing is going to be irrational and stands a high degree of making your problem worse. If you will train yourself to relax as your default habit whenever something frustrates you, and adopt the rule that you won't say or do anything until you have calmed down, you will actually train the neurons in your brain to focus on rational problem solving instead of producing an angry outburst, and you will be able to come up with much better solutions to your problems.

A debt collector knows that if you are thinking rationally when they call, you will not pay them, so they seek to get you upset so you will do something irrational. Politicians exploit the exact same thing.

As a parent I know the most important thing I need to do in raising my children is to keep my head and stay calm and relaxed so that the solutions I come up with to parenting difficulties will be rational solutions, the best solutions possible so I can do a good job of raising my kids.

This works for nearly any problem in life.

Ridiculous

[OmegaWolf747]

He should've at least been allowed to defend himself.

Re:Ridiculous

[Onnimikki]

He was given that chance. On the BBC, right after the conference. Listen for yourself: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02tc22c.

He meant the sexist comments. And he used the BBC to assert this.

Re:Social Media Outrage?

[thinkwaitfast]

offensensitivity

Re:Are We Too Quick To Act On Social Media Outrage

[thinkwaitfast]

Neil Postman wrote an excellent book on this subject back in the 1980's about how television was, inherently by its very nature and not through conspiracy of actors, incapable of supporting and encouraging the rational thought required to sustain a modern democratic civilization.

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Tim Hunt - In HIs Own Words (BBC Radio 4)

[westlake]

Scientist Tim Hunt responds to criticism of 'girls in labs' comments

Transcript of BBC 4 "Today" clip. 10/6/2015

''I did mean the part about having trouble with girls,'' he said.

''It is true that people - I have fallen in love with people in the lab and people in the lab have fallen in love with me and it's very disruptive to the science because it's terribly important that in a lab people are on a level playing field.

''I found that these emotional entanglements made life very difficult.

''I'm really, really sorry I caused any offence, that's awful. I certainly didn't mean that. I just meant to be honest, actually.''

Tim Hunt's version of events changes a little even before a friendly interviewer.

His brief remarks contained 39 words that have subsequently come to haunt him.

'''Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab. You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them, they cry,'' he told delegates.

''I stood up and went mad,'' he admits. '' I was very nervous and a bit confused but, yes, I made those remarks --- which were inexcusable --- but I made them in a totally jocular, ironic way. There was some polite applause and that was it, I thought. I thought everything was OK. No one accused me of being a sexist pig.''

[Hunt's wife] clutches her head as Hunt talks. ''It was an unbelievably stupid thing to say,'' she says. ''You can see why it could be taken as offensive if you didn't know Tim. But really it was just part of his upbringing. He went to a single-sex school in the 1960s. Nevertheless he is not sexist. I am a feminist, and I would not have put up with him if he were sexist.''

The next morning, as he headed for Seoul airport, Hunt...recorded a clumsily worded phone message [for "Today.''] ''It was a mistake to do that as well. It just sounded wrong.''

Tim Hunt: ''I've been hung out to dry. They haven't even bothered to ask for my side of affairs''

The audience at the conference was expected to be about 40% Asian. "If you don't know Tim..." as well as his wife? No in Seoul could be reasonably be expected to know him that well. No one in the audience for Radio 4.

Yes, but..

[sudon't]

Are We Too Quick to Act on Social Media Outrage?

Sure. Probably. But, it should have no bearing upon how institutions, (employers, law enforcement, schools, government, news media, etc...), behave. We can't have the Twitterverse making decisions for us, especially in this era where people seem to derive identity from victimhood, and derive victimhood from the mildest transgressions. And, the last thing one can expect from the internet, on any topic, is a proportionate response.

The distilled and unequivocal will of the Universe

[r-diddly]

I don't suppose anyone wants to talk about the fact that the survival of any species including humans depends 100% on males "falling in love with" females of that species and vice-versa? Or that our attention to the pursuits of the intellect and will, including all of science, are easily trumped by the reproductive urge, because life depends on it, and this urge has evolved in us to be very strong and distracting? Any species with a reproductive urge that is not strong and distracting is bound for the evolutionary scrap heap.

So the guy is correct on both counts. The next sentence is the dubious part: Whether "girls" cry when you criticize them... well yeah they're usually called women actually, and whether they cry or not depends on who it is, how narcissistic she is, what culture you're in, the degree to which she has "fallen in love with" the criticizer, what kind of day she's having, and how much of an ass the criticizer is being in their criticism.

Re:Some facts about Tim Hunt's comments via KOFWST

[Onnimikki]

Tim Hunt backed Connie St. Louis' report. He did so in a BBC interview recorded soon after the shit hit the fan on Twitter. That's the evidence, in full audible glory. He's not under duress. He's not being misquoted. It's 100% calm and collected Tim Hunt repeating his sexist comments. He's not joking as anyone with any first grade grasp on the English language can tell.

Only after it dawned on him that it was 2015 and that sort of stuff doesn't fly anymore that he changed his story.

Re:Are we too quick to act on social media outrage

[Mr. Shotgun]

Sorry, but until you apologize for your statement that I can't really have a dialog with a homophobe.

Re:The People Have Spoken

[lucm]

And calling for segregation in the labs based on gender is also sexist.

This story is not people fighting sexism. It's people reaching for the low-hanging fruit of using twitter and facebook to swarm a semi-famous person for a mildly insensitive joke he made.

Where are you, twitter vigilantes, when women are sold as sex slaves in the ISIS kingdom? When Latino girls are shipped by containers to a life of abuse in the Middle East? When Indian women are raped because they are walking on the street without a husband after sundown? When a large number of native prostitutes in America disappear?

You know where you are. You are in line at Starbucks, giving 20 seconds of attention to the latest scandal on your twitter feed while someone is preparing the skinny vanilla latte. So of course you can't find a solution to real problems, but you find it rewarding to join your "voice" to a crow of other misinformed idiots attacking someone who can possibly be shamed.

Why don't you all install a Sudoku or latest Angry bird game instead and give the world a break with your twitter garbage. Keep your shallow opinions to your close circle of friends instead of broadcasting your ignorance and everyone will win.

Re:Are We Too Quick To Act On Social Media Outrage

[mjwx]

Outrage is almost always a sign that someone is trying to manipulate you (either for page views, or something else).

This, and social media is just the latest form of doing it.

For a long time this kind of manipulation has been the domain of major news agencies. They'd print inflammatory statements and headlines with the express intent of stirring up public outrage, trial by media such as the Chamberlain case is a classic example. With social media its gotten worse as a single person can fabricate enough half truths, exaggerations and outright lies to create the same kind of outrage.

On one hand, people should be more sceptical and mistrustful of random news sources, on the other hand humans are emotional and irrational creatures. The one unintended and good side effect of regular false outrage that we're experiencing is that people are developing a resistance to outrage, which explains why newspapers like the Daily Mail which relies on creating false outrage to sell hate social media outrage.

I would guess that the answer is "yes" we are too quick to act on media outrage (no matter if it is social or traditional) but that's human nature.