[HN Gopher] A Twitter thread sparked a lawsuit against Nieman La...
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A Twitter thread sparked a lawsuit against Nieman Lab's founder
Author : giuliomagnifico
Score : 98 points
Date : 2021-07-21 15:30 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cjr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cjr.org)
| adolph wrote:
| Bottom line: doxing is doxing no matter who does it. It isn't
| about "rights" but about the right way to live. Pseudonymous
| posting may have been that lady's cry for help that she couldn't
| say elsewhere. As it stands Benton just put another brick in the
| wall.
|
| Remember this guy?
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/01/us/carson-king-hospital-fundr...
| renewiltord wrote:
| Is doxxing illegal, though? It kinda depends on the
| circumstances.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It's rarely illegal in the US. There are exceptions, but as a
| rule of thumb, US law leans heavily in the direction of "more
| truth is better." That includes the truth of who someone
| who'd rather speak pseudonymously actually is.
|
| Exceptions tend to center around safety of the speaker and
| massive and obvious power imbalances.
|
| For example, in this case the claim on the table is one of
| the statements attributed to Viola was not made by her. She
| hasn't sued over the rest of the statements attributed to her
| and she hasn't sued over the university's right to terminate
| her.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Thanks. It feels reasonable to sue based on a false
| attribution of what she said. Saying she was this ID
| doesn't seem bad except for when it's not true that she was
| this ID.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Maybe the right way to live is to not spread hatred and
| laughably false conspiracies? Maybe the right way to live is to
| call out those that do. Peer pressure is an incredibly powerful
| force, and if she wrote that comment about muslims the
| educational environment at Temple is better now that she's
| gone. Even if she didn't, I believe that most journalism
| students would not want to be taught by someone who can not
| tell fact from fiction.
| colpabar wrote:
| > _Temple's own student news site backed Viola's right to say
| what she thought: "We don't believe she should be removed for
| her alleged comments, although we condemn them."_
|
| To be fair, I don't know how representative the student news
| site is of journalism students. But I also don't really think
| you can make a "right way to live" argument for someone who
| admitted to and apologized for wrongdoing.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| > But I also don't really think you can make a "right way
| to live" argument for someone who admitted to and
| apologized for wrongdoing.
|
| Of course I can. Just because he apologized doesn't mean he
| was wrong.
| colpabar wrote:
| If you really think it's ok for someone to abuse
| privileged access on a supposed "anonymous" commenting
| platform to dox someone because they didn't like their
| comments, then I don't think our discussion is going
| anywhere.
|
| edit: commenting platform of a _journalism_ organization!
| Journalists should know better than _anyone_ how
| important anonymous communication is.
|
| If you want to argue that he was just doing what he
| thought was right, fine. But I think that they should
| update their organization's website to include something
| along the lines of "we think journalism is important,
| unless we disagree with what you're saying."
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Sometimes two wrongs make a right. I really think people
| have gotten far to comfortable with anonymity on the
| internet. If you want to say something that could cause
| you to face significant social/political/economic
| backlash you should have to think twice about how to
| ensure no one will trace it back to you.
| minsc__and__boo wrote:
| This case isn't a question of morality - Francesca Viola
| has openly admitted to spreading the false conspiracies
| and the other comments. She also appealed to her position
| of authority at the university in her own comments.
|
| She's claiming that Benton misattributed the Islamophobe
| comment "Scum. Deport them. They hate us. Get rid of
| them." to her, despite it being from the same disqus
| account.
|
| If you want to drag morality into it to take the moral
| high ground, at what point does making bad faith
| arguments in civil court cross the line too?
| colpabar wrote:
| I wasn't arguing anything related to the lawsuit. The
| comment that started this thread stated that doxxing was
| wrong, and morality was dragged in in the comment I
| responded to, which said that doxxing people is ok if you
| feel it's morally justified ("the right way to live").
|
| I personally think the university had every right to fire
| her. I also think that what Benton did was extremely
| unethical, _especially_ because he works for a journalism
| organization.
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| I'm conflicted here. On the one hand, I'm not in favor of
| contacting a person's employer because you don't like their
| comments. Plenty of people have sent me terrible emails over the
| years from their work emails and I have never even considered
| emailing their bosses.
|
| On the other hand, she used her Temple email for the Disqus
| account and used it to comment on a different university's
| journalism lab website, while openly admitting to being a
| journalism professor. We can question whether it was ethical for
| Benton to reveal who she was on Twitter (tho I would hardly call
| this "doxxing" as he didn't reveal her phone number or address),
| especially without reaching out for comment first, but I don't
| see anything illegal about it.
|
| The fact that she is suing Nieman and not Temple makes it clear
| she has little basis for anything, in my opinion. She was an
| assistant professor and almost certainly didn't have tenure (or
| else she wouldn't have been fired) and was, given the amount of
| time she had been at Temple, probably never even going to
| approach getting tenure. She used her work email to register for
| a pseudonymous account; there should be no expectation of that
| email address being private to the site owners or administrators.
| That's something a longtime journalism professor (and professed
| attorney) should know.
|
| Moreover, her claims that she didn't write the worst comment are
| just laughable. That isn't how Disqus works. It also doesn't
| matter here. It was entirely reasonable and in good faith to
| assume that comments made under the linked account at websites,
| where by her own admission she made comments, were by her.
|
| Reading the judge's decision not to dismiss, the only reason the
| suit wasn't dismissed is because at this stage, the judge assumes
| everything written in the complaint is true. I don't at all
| expect this case to survive much further, nor for it to be
| decided in her favor.
|
| Putting the legal issues aside, I do think it is fair to find
| what Benton did to be in poor judgment. He should have reached
| out for comment first -- or really just let it go. Let people
| have bad opinions. But I hardly think he did anything worthy of a
| lawsuit.
|
| As for Temple, well, she didn't have tenure and she embarrassed
| the school. It seems entirely reasonable for them to not renew
| her contract. But as I said above, she's not suing them. She's
| suing Harvard and Benton.
|
| I wouldn't have done what Benton did, but I am also not overly
| sympathetic to someone who decided to use their work email to
| shitpost and then got called out.
|
| Was what Benton did unethical? Without reaching out for comment
| first, I think it probably was. At the very least, it was
| punching down and unnecessary. Should he be sued for defamation?
| I don't think so.
| user982 wrote:
| She was a journalism professor who wrote that "[Hannity] is
| absolutely right about this Seth Rich thing.... The DNC had him
| killed." That seems fairly disqualifying for the job.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Worse yet she said below about Muslims, which seems more
| relevant as she probably teaches muslim students.
|
| about a Muslim protest at Trump Tower, was especially
| abhorrent: "Scum. Deport them. They hate us. Get rid of them."
| Leparamour wrote:
| >That seems fairly disqualifying for the job.
|
| Why? Wrongthink?
| rsynnott wrote:
| Incompetence. If you were a hospital who employed a surgeon
| who posted about how the germ theory of disease was bullshit
| on the socials, well, you'd probably be looking for a new
| surgeon; they're either malicious or incredibly bad at their
| job.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| Or here's another example: if you were a doctor advocating
| for mask use in May 2020, when everyone knew that mask use
| was bullshit, you should be fired from your job. Also, if
| you were a doctor advocating against mask use in May 2021,
| when everyone knew that mask use wasn't bullshit, you
| should also in that case be fired from your job. I would
| write more examples, but I have a book burning to attend
| to, brb...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| An inability to evaluate sources seems like an issue for
| someone teaching, at least in part, how to do that.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Yes, a university has good reason to believe their journalism
| instructor who believes obvious lies from known liars is bad
| at their job
| teachrdan wrote:
| As a journalism professor, you could argue that she has to be
| able to identify high and low quality journalism to be
| effective at her job.
|
| If she thinks that Fox News adequately researched the Seth
| Rich story and accurately determined that he was murdered by
| agents of Hilary Clinton, she probably does not know what
| quality journalism is, and is therefore unable to perform her
| duties as a journalism instructor.
| asciident wrote:
| That seems like a dangerous line of thought. Imagine a
| software engineer (maybe one who writes code for airplanes
| or medical equipment) writes some sloppy code late one
| night and puts it on their open source github, and the
| commit log is "this code rocks."
|
| You could make the same argument that As a software
| engineer, you have to be able to identify and write high
| quality software to be effective at your job. So should
| your employer fire you for writing this code outside of
| your regular job duties?
|
| What about if a friend shows you their code, and you say
| "that looks good" but it turns out that this code is
| vulnerable to a key security issue? Should you get fired
| from your security job?
|
| I think we'd agree not, and more broadly, that making a
| statement or doing a task related to your job but outside
| of your job's responsibilities should not be sufficient to
| fire you from your job. Especially when it's clear you are
| not representing your employer, by using pseudonym.
| ohashi wrote:
| Apples and oranges.
|
| I think a better example would be the case where the
| university professors/students committed known vulnerable
| code to linux kernel and they banned the whole
| university. If you're doing something ethically
| questionable and potentially harming others (spreading
| hate and conspiracy theories can do real harm), it could
| be grounds for not believing they are capable of doing
| their job.
|
| I don't think it's a freedom of speech issue at all, it's
| a I want freedom of speech without social consequences
| issue. Sorry. If you're spreading around hate and lies -
| as a journalism professor no less - there should be
| consequences. You don't deserve the responsibility of
| teaching others.
| asciident wrote:
| I don't see how that's a better example, and you missed
| the point. Your example is about someone doing something
| unethical as part of their job. My example was about
| someone doing something unrelated to their job duties.
| That's the entire point I'm making, that things done
| outside of job duties do not reflect the competency of
| the job.
|
| If you read the grandparent post, it's about making a
| judgment about whether one is effective at their job.
| dominicjj wrote:
| Unless of course the DNC really did have Seth Rich killed.
| There are an awful lot of things which have yet to be
| explained away about his death:
|
| - nothing taken
|
| - photo shows disproportionate emergency vehicle response
|
| - Kim Dot Com has made a public statement that it was Rich
| who gave him the DNC emails
|
| - he was stabilized in ICU but died overnight according to
| an eyewitness
|
| - The director of the hospital is married to Lisa Kontupes
|
| - two sicarios who worked for Clinton's campaign were found
| dead in NC the day after his death
|
| - the DNC emails were detrimental to the Clinton campaign
|
| These are all facts. Some journalists find them suspicious
| and have constructed a theory of his death that makes sense
| of them all in one shot. This is an entirely legitimate
| thing to do. You can also explain away each of them and
| come to the conclusion that it was just a botched robbery.
| But assuming a priori that the DNC killing Seth Rich is
| somehow impossible and a conspiracy theory is not
| journalism or even common sense, no matter how often the
| mainstream media says it is.
| Jlsmprof wrote:
| One caution: The story doesn't say that she was fired, it says
| she lost her job, which could include a decision to eliminate her
| position. The original story is here.
| https://www.cjr.org/opinion/nieman-lab-lawsuit-joshua-benton...
| underseacables wrote:
| What someone does legally, without harming or threatening anyone
| else, in their private life outside of their job, should have
| little to zero impact on their ability to maintain employment. I
| hope her lawsuit is very successful. She was clearly targeted,
| ostracized, and fired for speaking her mind. I don't agree with
| her statement, but academia is poisoning free speech under the
| guise of righteousness.
| csours wrote:
| > but academia is poisoning free speech under the guise of
| righteousness.
|
| No. "Free speech" is not a get out of jail free card.
|
| I think there may some narrow grounds for a lawsuit here, but
| it's not about free speech, it's about piercing pseudo-
| anonymity.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| The lawsuit is purely a claim that the doxxing false-
| positived some posts that didn't originate from the doxxed
| individual.
|
| The suit itself isn't purporting to make any claims about the
| ethical or legal dimensions of using the information
| available to find someone in the way it was used, only that
| statements were attributed which the plaintiff did not make.
| threatofrain wrote:
| A professor is someone who speaks with the authority of their
| associated institution, whether they or the institution wants
| it that way. In that respect, a professor can drain the
| credibility of an institution faster than they can repair it,
| as is typically the case with credibility anywhere. And in this
| case, then-professor Francesca Viola logged in with her
| official institutional email.
|
| Speaking her mind was the not the issue. The issue is draining
| the credibility of the institution. The academic institution
| she hails from, Temple University, has their own interests to
| watch out for, she did not sue them.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| > What someone does legally, without harming or threatening
| anyone else, in their private life outside of their job, should
| have little to zero impact on their ability to maintain
| employment.
|
| Except this has always been the case. What you do outside your
| work has _always_ affected your ability to maintain employment.
| The difference is that now those who benefited from this in the
| past are now suffering from it.
|
| > She was clearly targeted, ostracized, and fired for speaking
| her mind.
|
| No, this is literally not what happened. I can point to
| numerous cases of people speaking their mind without suffering
| from repercussions.
|
| Pretending this was about someone "speaking their mind" ignores
| the reality and nuances of what is actually happening.
| Hermitian909 wrote:
| I'm sympathetic to this point of view, but the effect of social
| media is that people are effectively speaking into a bullhorn
| for the whole world to hear. Once they've done so it's hard to
| keep that out of work.
|
| Let's say someone, call them Frank, expresses on twitter that
| he thinks women aren't fit for work outside the home and his
| coworkers discover he said this. At the very least, Frank's
| female coworkers will almost certainly not feel comfortable
| working with him anymore knowing his opinions. They're unlikely
| to believe he respects them, and since they don't believe that
| they likely won't want to collaborate with him. If Frank's work
| requires collaboration (as most does), he's now hamstrung
| himself at work.
|
| From the employer's perspective: Frank is now less effective at
| work. Frank's coworkers who are uncomfortable may try to leave
| teams Frank is on, or avoid work that might force them to
| collaborate with Frank. The result is organizational chaos and
| Frank becomes a drag on the company.
|
| The natural response here, I think, is to let Frank go. It's
| hard to avoid it because there aren't just social pressures to
| fire him, but economic ones.
|
| The above isn't a thought experiment, I've watched more than
| one version of the above happen. I just don't really see how
| this separation can be maintained.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Except in this case, Frank used a pseudonym and the only
| reason why Franks's coworkers deel uncomfortable is because a
| Twitter admin outed Frank and alleged Frank said things on
| other platforms that Frank denies having said.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Frank has no right to anonymity. If someone wants to tell
| all his coworkers what he said they have just as much right
| as Frank does to say those things.
| kmlx wrote:
| > and his coworkers discover he said this.
|
| how and why?
|
| we all hold crazy opinions. as long as "Frank" has a proven
| record of successfully working with women, what exactly is
| the problem? throughout my career i've been working with some
| crazy individuals. their opinions were expressed in non
| office settings. then at work they were basically the
| antithesis of what they were preaching in private.
|
| the gist is easy to understand: as long as your opinions
| don't affect your work, why should anything like this matter?
| colpabar wrote:
| I think the difference here is that in this case, there is
| a tangible record of what was said outside of work, rather
| than a story about how someone said something outside of
| work. I'm sure there are countless examples of employees
| wishing that whatever their crazy coworker said after work
| was recorded or written down somewhere so they could report
| it, but that wasn't the case until social media came along
| and gave everyone a chance to post things online. In the
| example, Frank probably wouldn't have kept a written record
| of his opinions _precisely because_ he knew it 'd probably
| get him in trouble if anyone else found it.
|
| This doesn't really answer your question of "why does it
| matter," but I bet that if some of the crazy individuals
| you worked with had posted their opinions somewhere that
| people could see them, they would have been fired too.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| > how and why?
|
| Someone on twitter tells them?
| Hermitian909 wrote:
| > > and his coworkers discover he said this.
|
| > how and why?
|
| My post specifically mentions how social media makes this
| difficult, so that's one way. Rumor is another, but that
| has existed for as long as we've had workplaces and has not
| had the same effects, so I presume most people are worried
| about, again, social media.
|
| > as long as "Frank" has a proven record of successfully
| working with women, what exactly is the problem?
|
| Feelings are not always rational, knowing he holds those
| opinions will make many people viscerally uncomfortable and
| they will act on it. Whether you think they _should_ react
| that way, people do, moralizing the issue doesn 't solve
| it. If you disagree with that, I don't think it's a
| difference we can resolve here.
|
| I also think whether Frank has had a proven record of
| successfully working with women isn't something we can
| _know_ , and I think others share this view. For example if
| Frank is in a hiring position he may have passed on female
| candidates because of his views, or he may not have. No one
| can verify the details. Frank knows we can't verify the
| details. Frank may only be acting on his views when he's
| confident no one can credibly accuse him.
|
| This all sounds overwrought, but people really do get
| caught in these game theory thought experiment quagmires
| wondering whether Frank or someone like him have or will
| hurt someone and decide "I don't want to deal with this
| person". Which leads back to the social dysfunction I
| described above.
| [deleted]
| RememberTheFtr wrote:
| This is maybe a fallacy since very few men actually think
| women shouldn't work outside the house. A lot of men (and
| women) think women would be happier in the home than working.
| There's also psychological and sexual dynamics in play with
| submissiveness vs assertiveness required to be competitive.
|
| And that our culture of 2 income households and every woman
| wants to be in STEM to build ad products is a flawed concept.
| We want all genders to be technically competent but we want a
| resilient, self sufficient world, that doesn't have to
| 'capitalize' on every human ambition/potential.
|
| Except we live in a world where me saying that makes me
| sexist. And worthy of doxxing.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| You're completely missing his point. Think in generalities,
| the specifics of his example.
| getlawgdon wrote:
| I would say that aggressively disseminating hate speech and
| generally forwarding crazy conspiracy theories and racism
| qualifies as "harming and threatening" others.
| colechristensen wrote:
| I think it highly depends on the content and relation to the
| profession.
|
| You indeed can post things outside of a professional setting
| which demonstrate that you aren't appropriate for your job. A
| journalism professor commenting on the news isn't exactly
| unrelated activity.
|
| This is indeed close to the edge of what would be appropriate
| but it would seem that what she said went beyond opinion and
| perspective and well into a questionable relationship with the
| truth and hate speech.
|
| A professor should be held to a high standard of rationality
| and posting things online, even anonymously, should be able to
| be taken into consideration.
| mc32 wrote:
| We've had journalists claim that all journalism is (should
| be) activism --that in itself is an oxymoron. but that's
| "journalism" in the States, today.
|
| So we have journalists who see it in their purview to frame
| things to fit their objectives as they envision them.
|
| We also had someone at the NYT who said what is in this age
| called hate speech against a majority "color" but wasn't
| fired for those comments. So it's indeed one sided.
| jlarocco wrote:
| It's a little more complicated than that, though.
|
| The underlying issue for the university is whether she can
| effectively teach Muslim students when she thinks they're
| "scum" who should be deported. And, will Muslim students be
| comfortable signing up for her class now, or has she
| effectively steered them away with her racism? Regardless of
| how it came to their attention, the university undoutedly has
| some kind of zero-tolerance policy against racism.
|
| Generally I agree with your sentiment, but I think this case
| squeezes into that small "little to zero" impact section.
| AutumnCurtain wrote:
| She is not pursuing a lawsuit against the university itself
| (at least at this point) for exactly the reason you point out
| here - a university cannot reasonably trust someone with
| those views to treat Muslim students fairly.
| pwdisswordfish8 wrote:
| > for exactly the reason
|
| Do you have insider information about the case, or is this
| your synthesis? The former strikes me as being unlikely,
| because you seem to have missed that the cornerstone of the
| suit is the claim that she's not actually the one
| responsible for the anti-Muslim comment, which is what
| makes this defamation.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| "Someone hacked my account to post that one comment
| that's in line with the other sorts of comments I've been
| posting for years... and they managed to use my IP
| address" is gonna have an uphill battle for credibility
| in court.
| munk-a wrote:
| It certainly will, but she's got every right to pursue it
| in court because _sometimes_ that does happen.
| Natsu wrote:
| > The underlying issue for the university is whether she can
| effectively teach Muslim students when she thinks they're
| "scum" who should be deported.
|
| The article says that she denies writing that exact comment
| and that is in fact part of why the lawsuit has been
| permitted to go forward.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| I don't think any of the students will believe that
| considering the comment was posted by her account and she
| has provided no evidence showing it wasn't her.
| Natsu wrote:
| Let's see what the court says. I don't see any comment by
| "truthseeker" in the archive linked from the article so
| that part is not verifiable, I don't know how unique
| Disqus names are (there could be multiple "truthseeker"s
| with different spelling, spacing, etc.), and it's hardly
| impossible for someone to misuse another person's
| account. I would not expect anyone intelligent to comment
| on pending litigation, either, and it's entirely possible
| that she has literally no idea who on earth anyone else
| posting as "truthseeker" might be.
|
| The court called her allegations "plausible" (though
| that's a far cry from "true"), and the article also says
| that Benton posted an apology: "By revealing such details
| without making an effort to contact her and seek
| confirmation and explanation, and otherwise adhere to
| rigorous reporting methods, the tweets did not meet
| Nieman's journalistic standards. I apologize and regret
| my error in judgment."
|
| So it seems to me that Benton has already admitted
| failing to validate this information, thus I'm reluctant
| to take it as given.
|
| That aside, if comments here are any indication, she's
| screwed even if this isn't true. Half of the posters here
| appear unaware that she denies making that comment.
|
| Comments like those can be used as evidence of damage to
| her reputation should she win.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Yea if it turns out she didn't write that one he's got a
| big problem.
| forgingahead wrote:
| Like all other religious extremists, their worldview is that
| heretics and non-believers are not just sinning, they are
| condemned to an eternity of hellish suffering. It's ironic that
| supposedly liberal arts universities and "4th estate"
| journalists are the newest converts to this type of extremism.
| devwastaken wrote:
| "One truthseeker comment that Benton found, responding to a
| 2017 Gateway Pundit piece about a Muslim protest at Trump
| Tower, was especially abhorrent: "Scum. Deport them. They hate
| us. Get rid of them."
|
| Calling an ethnicity of people "scum" and to "deport" them _is_
| harmful behavior. Every time something like this comes up the
| actual matter gets downplayed as if it were "just a comment".
| When this individual quite literally is being 100% racist with
| intent to cause harm. Perhaps were all too young to remember
| what happens when people like that group together.
| nec4b wrote:
| >>Calling an ethnicity of people "scum" and to "deport" them
| is harmful behavior.
|
| Being a Muslim has nothing to do with ethnicity.
| p_j_w wrote:
| If you're using the word "ethnicity" as a proxy for race,
| then no. But "ethnicity" doesn't just mean race, and GP may
| well have been using the word in that manner.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| American Muslims are 26% white, versus an overall American
| percentage of between 61% and 77% depending on who you
| count. Pretending there's _nothing_ to do with ethnicity is
| hard to sustain.
| underseacables wrote:
| Which she denies saying. In fact the article goes on to state
| that the journalist never actually verified or even asked her
| if she made that statement. Just assumed.
| devwastaken wrote:
| Disqus ID's are unique and public. Hover over a name and
| it'll give you the ID. Guests can't comment with names.
| TOMDM wrote:
| Are you implying that if it were verified that she made
| that comment that you would change your mind about her
| firing?
| underseacables wrote:
| Good question. I think yes, if you disparage publicly a
| persons race or religion, that would be justification for
| termination from a job. I would put that under hate
| speech, and it would apply equally to everyone. Here what
| troubles me is that she denies it, and there's no proof
| that she said it, but she's being made to be accountable
| for it. With the depositions and everything I'm sure that
| she is going to be asked did you write this, and she will
| be required to answer under oath. I think that will be a
| very telling moment and all of this. The Internet makes
| it far too easy to attribute things to people.
|
| I could create an account on a multitude of services call
| "TOMDM" Top of your bio, and say some truly horrible
| things. Your job or employer comes to you and says why
| would you say these things and you say hey that wasn't
| me, someone took a name that I was using on another
| service. Well I'm sorry, we have to let you go. Now it's
| up to you to pursue civil litigation probably in order to
| identify the person who was actually using that handle,
| so you could then go back to your former employee and say
| your termination of me was unjustified.
|
| That's what I'm seeing here, a claim without proof Which
| has led to someone's loss of employment. I'm bothered by
| that and I think we all should be.
| TOMDM wrote:
| Yeah I agree almost entirely, I think the next point of
| contention people would need to hash out is how heavy
| should the burden of proof be that employers should
| strive for.
|
| I'd hope that there was some formal process her employer
| undertook in order to meet their own bar, wherever that
| was set, rather than letting an external party set the
| narrative entirely.
|
| That aside, I think your initial comment may have been a
| tad dismissive of the idea that such an investigation
| could have taken place, especially considering she was
| fired a year after the controversy started.
|
| _> I don't agree with her statement, but academia is
| poisoning free speech under the guise of righteousness._
| avereveard wrote:
| > that would be justification for termination from a job
|
| From how many jobs tho. This happened in 2017. The
| problem is there's no statute of limitations on moral
| outrage, so if acting on it is justified, the punishment
| would effectively be a jobless life.
|
| And I think that's a little excessive.
| TOMDM wrote:
| If we're talking from the employers perspective, likely
| until it doesn't hit the bottom line.
|
| To make this discussion easier, lets consider just the
| comments in isloation, and assume they're all verified
| (like most would as an employer, to do otherwise would
| bring extra risk on yourself)
|
| If you're employing Muslims, then in this case, she's
| probably unemployable by you until she can demonstrate
| reform of some kind to an extent where both she and
| others in the workplace can collaborate effectively.
|
| However, _as a journalist_ it depends on your outlet.
|
| Some may look at her conspiracism, and decide that to get
| to that point alone she's probably not a very good
| journalist and would again need to demonstrate some sort
| of pivot in her decision making that lead her to that
| point.
|
| On the other hand, there are probably some right wing
| outlets that would look at her and decide she's a great
| journalist based on those comments, and that her decision
| making is on point.
|
| Whether this is good or ideal is another matter.
|
| It comes down to how much you want the government
| involved in businesses ability to freely associate.
| meragrin_ wrote:
| Was the comment about the group of Muslims protesting Trump
| or all Muslims? I see nothing to indicate anything more than
| the former.
| warent wrote:
| I would agree if she didn't exhibit racism. Keeping her in a
| workplace after learning about that would be sending a signal
| that they care little about how hostile the workplace is.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Right - if she just said dumb nonsense, the school wouldn't
| have fired her. She was racist against a protected class
| under Federal employment law, who she certainly interacts
| with -- how could they possibly keep her on staff?
|
| And suing the website for exposing your racism? Why would she
| think she has any right to anonymity while spewing trash on
| someone else's platform?
| cryptoz wrote:
| According to the linked article, her speech was definitely
| threatening harm to specific groups of people, not at all what
| you describe in your first sentence.
| adolph wrote:
| _Temple's own student news site backed Viola's right to say
| what she thought: "We don't believe she should be removed for
| her alleged comments, although we condemn them."_
|
| _And Benton's actions seemed at odds with Disqus's own
| policies, which state that "user information is for
| moderation purposes only" and adds that "distribution of
| personal identifiable information is prohibited."_
| [deleted]
| afavour wrote:
| But her lawsuit is against the Neiman Lab, not her employer, so
| it wouldn't have any bearing on what you're saying? If anything
| it feels kind of telling that she's suing the organisation that
| named her instead of the organisation that fired her.
|
| IMO at the very least the case is a lot more nuanced than
| you're making it out to be. For example: the fired professor
| was propagating conspiracy theories about Seth Rich. From the
| free speech angle, sure, she's free to say whatever she wants.
| But if you're a journalism professor and you aren't able to
| tell when something being propagated in the media is a baseless
| conspiracy theory, what does that say about your ability at
| your job? And as a teacher? It is not flat out wrong to fire
| someone for engaging in actions that cast doubt on their
| professionalism. At the _very least_ it 's open for debate.
|
| I think there's an interesting debate to be had over her having
| done this anonymously: if she separated it from her
| professional persona is she less culpable in a professional
| sense? Personally I'd still argue no, but I think this is why
| she's targeting the Lab and not her employer: it's a lot easier
| to argue that unmasking her (thus combining her anonymous and
| professional identities) was wrong than to argue that firing
| her was wrong.
|
| It seems their argument is going to be centered around one
| particular post expressing an anti-Muslim sentiment. Benton
| said she wrote it, she said she did not, thus he defamed her.
| All the posts were made under the same Disqus account so she
| might have a hill to climb in proving that it wasn't her. I'm
| very far from a lawyer but this feels like a case designed to
| set the professor up as a cause celebre on the right rather
| than one designed to win.
| Justsignedup wrote:
| A. K. A. Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences.
| [deleted]
| alabamacadabra wrote:
| Can you define what free speech would be then? How exactly
| is that not just an idiotic paradox?
| chris11 wrote:
| Speech is meaningless if it has zero consequences.
| Freedom of speech isn't absolute. I don't necessarily
| think freedom of speech should necessarily be the most
| important consideration if other important values are
| involved.
| webkike wrote:
| Freedom of speech means that you can express any opinion
| civilly in a public forum without being persecuted for
| such speech. It does not mean you won't get fired for
| saying something racist, and importantly it means that
| there are restrictions on speech that are not opinions or
| expressed civilly, such as the famous "yelling fire in a
| crowded theater" example.
| delgaudm wrote:
| Prosecuted, no. Persecuted? You certainly might be.
| minsc__and__boo wrote:
| Which would be others exercising their freedom of speech
| as well, or in the case of her employer, freedom of
| association.
| kyrra wrote:
| Yelling fire in a crowded theater is protected under the
| first amendment. That phrase came out of a 1919 SCOTUS
| ruling[0]. The limitations on speech were slowly restored
| over the next 50 years, with Brandenburg v Ohio[1] (1969)
| ultimately blocking making speech illegal.
|
| The important distinction is that you can be punished
| under the law for the intent + consequences of speech.
| For the fire example, if no one reacted at all to me
| yelling "Fire!", the state could not go after me. Now, if
| I caused a stampede or other behavior from those in the
| theater, I could be sued for various things (manslaughter
| if someone died, criminal mischief, or disturbing the
| peace).
|
| It's also the same reason the government can go after mob
| bosses for hiring a hitman to kill someone. They just
| said something (like, "take that guy out"), which is just
| speech. But if the actions that resulted in the speech
| can be directly connected, you can get in trouble for it.
|
| EDIT: To make clear here, intent and consequences matter
| here. It's why you rarely see cases against speech
| brought, as intent must also be clear and provable in
| court.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio
| J5892 wrote:
| Amendment I
|
| Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
| religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
| abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the
| right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
| petition the government for a redress of grievances.
| [deleted]
| klyrs wrote:
| Exercising free speech can have social consequences.
| You're free to advocate for the legalization of
| necrophilia; others are free to criticize you and
| disagree with you (exercising their own free speech) or
| shun you (exercising their freedom of association).
|
| Legal consequences imply non-free speech; employment
| consequences are more complicated.
|
| edit: Responding to dead response; not gonna vouch for
| you again with that attitude...
|
| Every freedom has consequences. You've got the right to
| bear arms, but you can shoot yourself in the foot. You've
| got the freedom to move about the country, but you can
| miss your sister's wedding if you're in another state.
| You've got the freedom to vote, but your elected
| politician won't always vote in the way you'd like.
| You've got the right to drink and smoke, but you might
| get cancer or other diseases. You've got the right to
| piss off your friends by spouting off hot takes, and you
| might lose those friends if they don't like what you have
| to say.
| alabamacadabra wrote:
| It's simply not free speech then. Call it something else,
| you're using incorrect terms.
|
| Edit because it seems the point is getting lost here: Let
| me rephrase this: freedom of speech seems to be such that
| one is not able to have legal action taken against them
| by the government for their speech.
|
| I am not debating that whatsoever.
|
| Within the context of the United States, "free" rights
| are used in the same sense of being granted "Liberty".
| You are liberated from being unable to criticize the
| king, as it were. What are you specifically free from?
| You are free from the punishments that a king can inflict
| on you for having used your full speech capabilities.
| Now, here is where I believe we differ: to me, it's
| merely an abstraction to have another entity restrict the
| speech. As in, sure, I'm not using money to purchase
| items with Bitcoin, I'm just exchanging money for
| something that can be exchanged for goods. In that same
| light it seems that you're arguing "no one is restricting
| speech they're just making it not possible for them to
| say those things and keep living"
|
| If that's what it is, fine... let's not call it "free
| speech". I submit "free opportunities for punishment".
| hogFeast wrote:
| But we aren't talking about necrophilia. It is about
| people who may work in an environment that is 95%
| Democrat being attacked as racists or whatever because
| they have a different political view.
|
| The issue isn't exactly about free speech but
| discrimination. And this happens in a million other ways
| too: being overweight, having a certain accent, being
| shorter than average. The fact that people have to resort
| to a "free speech" defence is indicative of the problem.
| And, of course, there will be "consequences"...no-one
| doubts that are consequences for not being like other
| people.
| rhizome wrote:
| You don't have to talk about politics at work. Heck, you
| may have even heard never to bring up politics or
| religion. Because of consequences.
| minsc__and__boo wrote:
| Political party is a personal choice and thus not a
| protected class.
|
| Freedom of association permits us to choose who we do and
| do not associate with based on that individual's own
| choices.
| gnicholas wrote:
| In many jurisdictions, political affiliation/activity is
| protected. [1] It looks like PA has had a couple cases on
| the matter, one offering protection and a more recent one
| limiting the first case to its facts (i.e., saying it is
| not precedential anymore). Details on page 319.
|
| 1: https://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/empspeech.pdf
| klyrs wrote:
| One of the alleged opinions, "deport all Muslims,"
| advocates for discrimination. As I said, employment
| consequences are complicated, and that's especially true
| when the employer is a public school. But, that isn't
| just a "different political view," it's evidence that
| you're predisposed towards... discrimination. If you make
| such statements in public, and you interview and don't
| hire a qualified Muslim who applies for a job at your
| place of employment, you've provided that applicant
| ammunition for a discrimination lawsuit. For that reason,
| it behooves a company to fire employees who make such
| statements in public.
| dkural wrote:
| It's about Government's ability to restrict or punish
| free speech, for example, by making you disappear (e.g.
| China per Hong Kong and Uighur brainwashing, Saudi Arabia
| bone-sawing journalists).
|
| There can be, and are, private consequences to speech. I
| may not invite you back for dinner for example, other
| consequences may be more impactful.
| nostromo wrote:
| She's suing Nieman Lab because she claimed they lied about
| what she actually said.
|
| Yes, I'm sure she would love to sue the university too.
| However she likely doesn't have a case there.
|
| I hope she wins the lawsuit because they sloppily doxxed her
| and broke the terms of service of Disqus in doing so.
|
| > Viola acknowledged writing most of the posts. But she
| denied being behind the anti-Muslim screed. That was critical
| to Sorokin's decision to allow the libel and defamation part
| of Viola's suit to proceed. The former professor "has
| plausibly alleged that Benton may have been negligent in his
| failure to verify that she was the author," the judge wrote.
| He also took note of how Benton managed to discover and
| reveal her identity. Viola wrote her comments "based on the
| promise that her user information would be used for
| 'moderation purposes only,' which was violated when Benton
| posted her information on Twitter," Sorokin wrote.
| mmcwilliams wrote:
| Is violating a website or platforms' ToS grounds for a
| third parties to sue you?
| shkkmo wrote:
| I believe the potential grounds are libel, not any TOS
| violation.
| afavour wrote:
| Yes, but I was responding to this quote by the OP:
|
| > I hope her lawsuit is very successful. She was clearly
| targeted, ostracized, and fired for speaking her mind.
|
| Those two statements have no connection to each other,
| since the lawsuit has nothing to do with her being
| targeted, ostracized and fired, instead (as you say) it's
| about her being defamed.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| yeah but the organization she is suing was the cause of
| revealing her identity, leading to her being targeted,
| ostracized and fired.
|
| actually maybe the targeted is in reference to Nieman.
|
| I guess I see not a legal connection, but the kind of
| connection that people often make in informal speech.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Doxxing isn't illegal.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| ... and this is not a criminal case, but a civil one.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Doxxing is not a civil violation either. There is nothing
| wrong with doxxing people.
| nostromo wrote:
| They violated Disqus's terms of service, which is a civil
| violation.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Sure, you can complain about that. But you said she was
| sloppily doxxed, which doesn't really seem to be the
| case. She was properly doxxed.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Sure but it's not Disqus that is filing the suit. I'd be
| surprised if she has standing to claim damages based on
| an agreement she was not a party to.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| I'm pretty sure violating the TOS isn't a civil
| violation.
|
| It's a violation of the TOS. The recourse is Disqus cuts
| the offender's access (either the individual or the
| institution) for violating the TOS.
| kbelder wrote:
| Civil and Criminal violations are not the only things
| that are wrong.
|
| For good reason, many wrong things are completely legal,
| and still should be condemned.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Of course, but that's not the case here. Doxxing this
| woman made Temple a better place to learn, and hopefully
| it made some people think twice before posting racist
| comments. I think this was the perfect outcome.
| spoonjim wrote:
| Did it make Temple a better place to learn? How can you
| know that? Was anyone having problems with her before? Is
| academia's march towards a highly policed speech
| environment a good thing for students? Even marginalized
| students?
| afavour wrote:
| > Did it make Temple a better place to learn? How can you
| know that?
|
| If you are a journalism professor and are unable to
| recognise disinformation when you see it (e.g. Seth Rich
| conspiracy theories) then it calls your job competency
| into serious question. Yes, the firing would make Temple
| a better place to learn.
| tobr wrote:
| By what metric is academia marching towards a highly
| policed speech environment, though? I think that's a line
| of attack against academia that has been parroted for
| decades, by referencing anecdotes such as this news
| story, while ignoring less newsworthy forces pushing in
| the opposite direction.
| spoonjim wrote:
| What are the forces pushing in the opposite direction? If
| you look at what happened to Erika Christakis or Bret
| Weinstein (try to ignore everything that Weinstein has
| become since then) it's hard to say that academia is not
| more highly policed than previously. Of course in some
| ways this is good, in that I recall some professors
| mercilessly ridiculing some students in front of the
| whole class, and of course professors having sex with
| some students which was always terrible but had no
| consequences until a few years ago.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| This depends on exactly what you mean, but you can
| equally look at Nicole Hannah Jones for either the
| "reverse", or for an example of speech policing, but by
| the "other side".
|
| > try to ignore everything that Weinstein has become
| since then
|
| I feel like this is difficult to do. I'd sort of argue
| that "we caught a bad faith actor early" is a good thing.
| Maybe you could argue that Bret wouldn't be what he is
| today if he weren't fired, but I don't really find that
| convincing.
| mc32 wrote:
| Also, it's been known that people with normal accounts also
| have alternate provocateur social media counts where they gauge
| reaction to what they say. Sometimes they egg their own
| accounts for sympathy, etc.
|
| Imagine if we discovered all those accounts...
| 3637383 wrote:
| I'll never understand how people can respect academia. It's a
| thoroughly shitty environment for people who at best got
| gaslighted into not valuing their time. The only reason the
| hard sciences are more credible than the soft sciences or the
| humanities is because the hard sciences are forced to tackle
| reality in a manner where it can tell them they're wrong
| without room for simply inventing a new critical framework and
| attacking the topic instead of the question.
| TOMDM wrote:
| Lets be explicit about what happened here.
|
| A) A journalist brought light to the comments made by a
| journalism professor.
|
| B) Said journalism professor's employer chose to fire her for
| those comments.
|
| Now, I think there is little room for taking issue with point
| A. If we're at the point where Journalists can't discuss the
| views of people in their own space, I have very little hope for
| a future environment of open and honest discourse.
|
| On point B, I think there are many views people can hold which
| justify firing someone. The only question is where you draw the
| line. If an employee was actively spreading hateful messaging
| concerning a coworker in their own time, away from work, I
| think most people would agree firing that person is an
| acceptable course of action (I understand that wasn't the case
| here).
|
| I also think there are a great number of people that believe
| pushing hateful discourse, even on your own time means that you
| are unfit for the workplace given that those views aren't
| conducive to a healthy work environment.
|
| In this case they were pushing some rather racist discourse.
| They said in response to an article about Muslims "Scum. Deport
| them. They hate us. Get rid of them."
|
| Obviously the point where you draw the line on acceptable
| discourse is in degrees, with active harrassment/hate of
| coworkers on one end, active hate towards a general group in
| the middle, and some kinds of conspiracism on the other. Where
| you draw the line is open for discussion, but lets not pretend
| it's not acceptable to have a line at all.
|
| EDIT:
|
| Other people are pointing out that Joshua doxxed Francesca
| using priveleged information from their Disqus platform. While
| I think that's condemnable, I find it largely immaterial to how
| Francesca's employer chooses how to react.
| spoonjim wrote:
| But he used his administrative privileges on Disqus to
| discover her identity. If you criticized Sundar Pichai from
| an anonymous Gmail account should it be OK for him to look up
| your IP logs and dox you? I'd hope not.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| That isn't remotely the same thing - he wasn't an admin at
| Disqus, he was an admin on the Disqus instance at their own
| website. She went to his website, commented horrible things
| under an anonymous account, and he exposed her as a person
| in a position of trust. That's not even close to
| approaching an abuse like the CEO of Google doxxing your
| gmail account.
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| She didn't comment horrible things on his website, only a
| critique of an article. He took offense to that, de-
| anonymized her by abusing the moderation system and
| looked for distasteful comments elsewhere.
|
| I won't speak to the legality of it because I'm not
| qualified, but it's morally reprehensible.
| dubbel wrote:
| That is not necessarily the order these things happened
| in.
|
| He could have
|
| 1. Taken offense to this comment/taken interest in what
| else this user comments (which you can do without any
| admin tools)
|
| 2. Seen the islamophobic/xenophobic comment
|
| 3. De-anonymized the user
|
| In this version the de-anonymization is related to the
| more repugnant comments, not the initial critique.
| spoonjim wrote:
| How is it different? It's a misuse of the information he
| had access to. He was within his rights to ban her but
| not to dox her (and Disqus should not have exposed email
| addresses to site admins).
| mikeyouse wrote:
| How is it a misuse? If you had a blog with a comment
| system and someone wrote horrible things, it's well
| within your rights to see who they are based on their
| registration and publish a post naming and shaming them.
| These are all 1st amendment protected activities. Free
| speech in the US is an extraordinarily broad right for
| very good reason. She's claiming defamation (which is one
| of the limits on free speech) but it's very likely
| bullshit given she admitted to writing the rest of the
| posts, just not the overtly racist ones all showing up
| under her account.
|
| Take the internet away and it's even more obviously
| protected. If you ran a newspaper and occasionally
| published letters from readers, and if a racist letter
| showed up with a vaguely obfuscated address that was
| easily traceable, it would be well within your rights to
| write an article about the person in a position of power
| who sent your newspaper racist rantings.
|
| The journalist likely violated Disqus's terms of service
| but in no way does that give the professor grounds to sue
| him.
| inkblotuniverse wrote:
| Personally, I find it in very bad taste.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| In the abstract sure, but say you're the journalist in
| question and you discover that a professor at a major
| university thinks all "muslims are scum" -- is it worse
| taste to say "too bad about that" and do nothing or take
| just the barest of steps to ID her and make sure she
| doesn't have authority over any muslim students without
| them knowing about her mindset?
| rhizome wrote:
| > _If you had a blog with a comment system and someone
| wrote horrible things, it 's well within your rights to
| see who they are based on their registration and publish
| a post naming and shaming them._
|
| I've been surfing everything from Usenet to webboards and
| other internet comment facilities for 25 years, how come
| I've never seen it? Typically the routine goes: cosmetic
| blocking (hiding, disemvoweling), account block, email
| block, ip block, then whack-a-mole for the truly
| persistently annoying.
|
| Have you, and can you link to it if so?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| He's not a Disqus employee. He used the moderation tools on
| Nieman Lab's Disqus install.
| threatofrain wrote:
| Then-professor Francesca Viola used her institutional email
| to login to Disqus. This proved to be extremely problematic
| for her institution, Temple University.
|
| A professor naturally speaks with the authority of their
| corresponding institution, whether they or the institution
| likes it that way. A professor is also often in a position
| of leadership as they supervise the fate of students.
| m_myers wrote:
| > A professor naturally speaks with the authority of
| their corresponding institution
|
| Does she though? She had every reason to believe her
| choice of email address would remain private.
|
| By a similar token, I am currently working for <REDACTED>
| (on lunch break) and using a computer belonging to said
| entity. If you managed to work out what <REDACTED> is,
| would I retroactively be considered to be speaking for
| it?
| threatofrain wrote:
| If you are a mere student who was later uncovered to be
| an unsavory Twitter person, do you speak for the
| institution? In some ways you do, and in some ways you
| don't -- whether or not you or the institution likes it
| that way. Similarly, if you are a judge or lawyer and
| you're later found making unsavory statements about
| ethnic defendants, do you speak for the institution of
| law? That is up to the public to decide.
|
| Credibility and reputation aren't precisely in anyone's
| hands.
| TOMDM wrote:
| Yes of course using a priveleged position to dox someone is
| condemnable. I'll admit, I missed where Joshua Benton
| managed to identify Francesca Viola.
|
| However that wasn't what I was taking issue with in the
| parent comment.
|
| I think it's reasonable to expect however that:
|
| - Journalists should be able to discuss each others views
|
| - People who work at tech platforms should not dox their
| users (without a warrant)
|
| - There is an acceptable point where an employer can fire
| their employees for what views they express in their
| private life.
|
| So in all, is what Joshua did wrong here? I'd say so, but
| only because he doxxed a user. Is what the University did
| wrong here? It sucks where the information came from, but
| probably not. But even if you were to argue that there was,
| I find what Joshua did here to be largely immaterial
| towards that point, it's only how her employer chooses to
| react that is relevant.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| You can't ethically separate cause and effect in this
| case though.
| TOMDM wrote:
| If I wanted to analyse the ethics of the whole situation,
| no of course I can't.
|
| But I can say that an unethical decision on the part of
| one party spurred on an ethical response from another.
|
| If a robber breaks into a house a pedophile and discovers
| illicit material, are the police unethical for following
| up on that lead?
| Natsu wrote:
| It's weird, but I remember a completely different
| consensus on journalists publishing and using "hacked"
| information just last year.
|
| Abusing one's admin position to dox someone is not really
| distinguishable from any principled position against
| publishing hacked information.
|
| It's weird to me that this ethical consideration seems to
| be something that can be ignored whenever convenient.
| munk-a wrote:
| Was this information "hacked" from the US government or a
| corporation? We've frequently seen dumps of information
| from corporations and governments that could not be
| acquired legally but leveraging them is, IMO, a net good.
| There is no "person" that's being harmed, just a
| company's profits.
| Natsu wrote:
| They doxxed a person, and allegedly misattributed racist
| comments to the wrong person based on that info which was
| gathered without authorization from Disqus.
|
| That probably shouldn't rise to a CFAA violation, but
| there was a supposed ethical standard around publishing
| hacked information, so it's a bit weird to see that
| ethical consensus come and go so easily.
| adolph wrote:
| C). The journalist acknowledged and apologized for his error
| in judgement when performing A.
|
| https://twitter.com/jbenton/status/994303319907725312
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > In this case they were pushing some rather racist
| discourse. They said in response to an article about Muslims
| "Scum. Deport them. They hate us. Get rid of them."
|
| That's better described as religious intolerance, not quite
| the same as racism per se. Not that this makes the attitude
| any less problematic, far from it. OP is ironically
| projecting her own attitude onto Muslims by saying that they
| all hate us for not sharing their religion.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| In all likely hood, she was talking about a subset of
| Muslims. Possibly the ones with terrorist tendencies. Seems
| like the full context needs to be examined to cast
| judgment.
| therouwboat wrote:
| Article is about muslims praying/protesting in front of
| Trump tower in New York and as far as I know there has
| not been terrorist attack on Trump tower.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| I suppose its less defensible for sure. Still her comment
| seems aimed at even a smaller subset of Muslims, actually
| a tiny subset of those that were there on that day.
| Definitely less then what is claimed in a lot of posts
| here, that it was aimed at all Muslims.
|
| Why were Muslims protesting in front of Trump Tower?
| Seems like Trump was like the first President in decades
| not to Bomb the shit out of one of their countries of
| origin. Trump had one the lowest Muslim body counts since
| last century.
|
| Perhaps her comment was all about perceived ingratitude.
|
| I've come across this before, were Americans think other
| countries should be grateful that they don't get bombed.
| TOMDM wrote:
| Yeah agreed.
| minsc__and__boo wrote:
| Sure, but keep in mind that islamophobia, xenophobia, and
| racism are partially overlapping phenomena.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| That's a bit hard to square with the fact that so much
| religiously-motivated hate towards Muslims comes from
| other self-identified Muslims. If there's some of the
| overlap you mention, it must be quite limited indeed.
| TOMDM wrote:
| I'd bet there's a huge overlap amongst right wing
| americans. Probably the same for many Western right wing
| populations.
|
| If we're going to call that population limited, then yeah
| I'd agree
| minsc__and__boo wrote:
| Well in reference to the comment in the article about
| deporting muslims, the islamophobia is overlapping with
| xenophobia at the very least.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > Other people are pointing out that Joshua doxxed Francesca
| using priveleged information from their Disqus platform.
|
| He also seems to have done this in retaliation towards
| legitimate commentary and criticism of a Nieman Lab article.
| If there's anything that makes his behavior especially
| reprehensible, surely this must be it. And this also implies
| that her lawsuit might actually have some merit to it.
| afavour wrote:
| > And this also implies that her lawsuit might actually
| have some merit.
|
| How so? It's a defamation suit so the criteria are pretty
| clear and as far as I'm aware whether it was revenge or not
| doesn't have any bearing.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| The only thing I can think of is that maybe she had some
| expected right to privacy that he violated on behalf of
| Neiman Labs?
|
| Either that or maybe she can demonstrate how his actions
| caused her harm without her harming him, but his actions
| were only possible as an employee of Neiman labs.
|
| I think what will most likely happen is he will be fired
| and she will get an undisclosed settlement.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| The defamation suit is claiming that his attempt to de-
| anonymize her false-positive-associated some
| reprehensible things said on another site with her, which
| she did not say. She isn't disputing that she said the
| things on the Disqus forum (or several other things on
| other sites).
|
| She's either telling the truth or she's gambling that he
| overplayed his hand, doesn't have hard evidence to link
| her to those comments, and (in the context of a civil
| suit, which is what defamation is) lacks the resources to
| prove his case with preponderance of evidence. In which
| case, he'll be liable for damages and have to pay to
| "make her whole" (which could be quite a bit if she can
| convince the court she lost her job _because_ of the
| things she 's alleged to have said in that one set of
| comments she's suing over).
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| > Now, I think there is little room for taking issue with
| point A. If we're at the point where Journalists can't
| discuss the views of people in their own space, I have very
| little hope for a future environment of open and honest
| discourse.
|
| Really? There's very little hope for an environment of open
| and honest discourse without doxing people?
| colinmhayes wrote:
| There is no open and honest discourse without knowing who
| you are talking to.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Some of the best discourse I've had has been with folks I
| have no way of identifying.
|
| Some of the worst I've seen was under their real names
| (including one I knew as a leadership role in a local
| Scouting group, and another prominent local businessman)
| on Nextdoor.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| Strange that you say this on HN, a forum that allows
| pseudonymous accounts. Is the discourse here not open and
| honest? Less open and honest then on facebook?
| Regardless, if you think an open and honest discourse
| requires knowing who people are, you should have an
| explicit policy to that effect. You should not use
| private data entrusted to you to dox people.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Perhaps I should've said good faith discourse, because
| yes, I do not believe continuous good faith political
| discourse is possible when people can hide behind
| pseudonymity. Most political discussions online devolve
| into bad faith because there are no consequences. Not
| having anonymity is the first step toward ensuring good
| faith.
| spoonjim wrote:
| What does "good faith" mean? Does it mean "honest"? For
| example, I, the real actual me, think that the US should
| vastly reduce the number of unskilled immigrants it
| admits, strongly secure its borders, tighten the
| eligibility criteria for asylum, and deport anyone found
| crossing the border illegally. However, on Facebook or
| LinkedIn I would never say this as I would get Francesca
| Viola'd. So it's actually my real name identity that
| speaks in "bad faith" and only my pseudonymous identities
| (on HN, Reddit, and in the voting booth) that speak in
| "good faith."
| TOMDM wrote:
| Sorry, I misrepresented the situation due to ignorance.
|
| Doxxing people is condemnable, journalists discussing each
| others views alone is not.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| I think doxxing is a tool. It can be used in condemnable
| ways.
|
| It's also used in virtuous ways; for example, to
| determine whether what appears to be grassroots activism
| is astroturfing
| (https://www.businessinsider.com/astroturfing-grassroots-
| move...).
| lsh123 wrote:
| I think the key here is that person A used admin access to a
| product to access user B information and then made it public.
| I would say that the company that owns the product should
| also be sued since I am pretty sure this data usage is not
| covered in their privacy policy/TOS.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| I'd argue that someone who talks like that _needs_ to be
| fired from their position. She was a professor at a State
| owned college, there are certainly muslim students,
| professors and staff there. What kind of horrible hostile
| work environment would you be engendering if you let someone
| like that stay on staff?
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| She is a professor at a state college. The state is
| obligated to follow the law, including the First Amendment
| to the United States Constitution, declaring that "Congress
| shall make now law... abridging the freedom of speech."
| Yes, this is incorporated against the states. Yes, it
| applies to state-run colleges. The firing MAY be legal if
| this speech is "disruptive" to the university or
| "subversive" of their goals; if so, the firing _must_
| satisfy a balancing test as to whether:
|
| * the employee's speech addresses a matter of public
| concern.
|
| * their free-speech interests outweigh their employer's
| efficiency interests.
|
| The comments do seem to be on a matter of public concern,
| which is typically interpreted quite broadly. The criteria
| used to assess these efficiency interests include whether
| the speech:
|
| * Impairs discipline or harmony among co-workers.
|
| * Has a detrimental impact on close working relationships
| for which personal loyalty and confidence are necessary
|
| * Interferes with the normal operation of the employer's
| business.
|
| Any litigation over this firing would focus on whether
| these are real factors that would disrupt teaching, or
| whether the university officials are just punishing her for
| her politics. The specific tweets are presumably not
| directed against any individuals who are at the college,
| and do not involve the college's normal operations. This
| does undermine the case somewhat.
| carols10cents wrote:
| Her lawsuit is against the Neiman Lab for defamation, not
| her employer for wrongful termination.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| That's quite nice, but the parent comment insists her
| employer has a duty to do something about her conduct,
| while it's not at all clear it was even legal.
| carols10cents wrote:
| If it wasn't legal, why wouldn't she be suing on those
| grounds instead?
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Of course it was legal - this has been litigated many
| times, which is how you end up with public servants (e.g.
| Police officers) being fired for being racist on
| "personal time".
|
| You can't fire them for the speech - which is of course
| protected - but you can fire them because they can't
| possibly be qualified to hold their position while
| holding/espousing those views. Unless there's a specific
| state law protecting employees from off-duty conduct
| (Pennsylvania doesn't have one), employees can certainly
| be fired.
| Natsu wrote:
| She specifically alleges that this comment about Muslims
| was not hers. I do not have any way to know if that's
| true or not--and I find the article's notion that she
| should know who did make an anonymous online comment
| incredibly thoughtless--but if that's true, your entire
| argument is wrongly premised.
|
| I would think that she would want to prove that statement
| falsely attributed first in a defamation suit before
| going after the university.
|
| The test above is correctly quoted, the only dispute is
| factual which none of us here has the evidence to
| resolve. She may be lying or telling the truth, but we
| can't make any grand pronouncements about whether the
| university was right or wrong on the basis of disputed
| factual claims that have yet to be resolved in court.
| [deleted]
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| > _In her suit, Viola acknowledged writing most of the
| posts. But she denied being behind the anti-Muslim screed._
|
| Most of the rest of it seems like bog-standard US political
| polarisation, and if she _didn 't_ write the bigoted
| stuff...
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Likely...
| [deleted]
| colinmhayes wrote:
| I'm sure the muslim students would believe that the
| comment written by the account she controlled wasn't
| written by her.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Which depends on the philosophy behind the firing. Was it
| punitive, or to prevent ongoing harm?
| mikeyouse wrote:
| So she wrote all of the borderline bad things under her
| unique account, but not the really bad things. Sure.
| Let's give her that benefit of the doubt.
| [deleted]
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| > _under her unique account,_
|
| It's Disqus; it doesn't work like that. Anyone can use
| any username.
|
| > _So she wrote all of the borderline bad things_
|
| I like them as much as you do (possibly less), but a
| _large_ proportion of the US population has been
| radicalised in this way. It 's not so cut and dry as I'd
| like these situations to be. (I'd delete that kind of
| thing if I were moderating, though; _that 's_ an obvious
| thing to do.)
| mikeyouse wrote:
| > _It 's Disqus; it doesn't work like that. Anyone can
| use any username._
|
| Nah, if you click through a username, you can see where
| else they commented if they're logged in. And the chances
| of her leaving comments with that login at Breitbart /
| Drudge Report but _not_ Gateway Pundit are so vanishingly
| small to not even consider.
|
| But yeah, most of her really off-the-rails stuff was at
| properties the Nieman Labs guy didn't control so he
| couldn't delete, it seems like she wrote dumb nonsense on
| his page partially identifying herself and then he just
| clicked through to read the rest of her garbage she was
| writing all over the internet about every silly right-
| wing conspiracy theory du jour.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > It's Disqus; it doesn't work like that. Anyone can use
| any username.
|
| https://help.disqus.com/en/articles/1717153-registering-
| a-co...
| nitrogen wrote:
| _> Note that usernames are only for login and moderation
| purposes, and you have the option to display a different
| name with your comments after you have finished
| registering._
|
| Is this what they were referring to?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I think they were referring to the guest commenting
| option.
|
| https://help.disqus.com/en/articles/1717211-guest-
| commenting
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Huh. Guess there's no moral dilemma then.
| mc32 wrote:
| There was an activist professor at a university in Colorado
| [mr Churchill, I believe] who used to say some foul things
| about some people --but said it in sympathy to native
| Americans.
|
| He said the US deserved 9-11 and so on.
|
| This professor was protected by the university in spite of
| calls to have him fired because they said the university
| needs diverse voices, even if they are violent and they
| would protect his 1A rights...
|
| Things have changed...
| chris11 wrote:
| I don't remember it that way. He did say the US deserved
| 9-11, and called people who worked in the World Trade
| Center "little Eichmanns".
|
| But his essay was kind of ignored until 2005. Then CU
| Boulder investigated him for academic misconduct and
| fired him. The committee concluded it wasn't serious
| enough to fire him, and he later successfully sued the
| university for firing him. Media was reporting on his
| firing as having major free speech implications.
|
| Academic misconduct should be punished. But to me it
| looks like one of the major motivations for his firing
| was his extremely offensive comments.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Churchill#Activism_on_
| Nat...
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| > Things have changed...
|
| Let me get this straight: someone who expressed hateful
| left-leaning political opinions was _not_ fired, and then
| later someone who expressed hateful right-leaning
| political opinions _was_ fired? What changed, exactly?
| mc32 wrote:
| I think there was more willingness to defend these kinds
| opinions on principle based on the 1A and, importantly,
| defending someone on principle wasn't conflated with
| supporting that PoV. But now that is no longer the case.
| Now people claim that there are exceptions and also that
| while the 1A exists, it does not protect individuals from
| repercussions (job loss) even if state jobs.
|
| I think that is a significant shift (even if yes, we do
| see a free pass for the likes of Sarah Jeong[1] for
| example.
|
| [1]https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45052534
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| I agree with you that there's been a shift in general
| attitudes towards freedom of speech. I disagree with you
| regarding where that opinion has shifted. Correct me if
| I'm wrong, but it sounds like you view this shift as
| occurring "across the board". I don't think that's the
| case. To me it seems that left-leaning people have
| shifted into very pro-censorhip views (against anyone who
| disagree with them), while right-leaning people have not
| shifted into pro-censorship views. You have now provided
| 2 examples of people who have (arguably) spewed hateful
| rhetoric, but didn't face harsh consequences for their
| actions. Both of those examples are left-leaning people.
| It does not strike me at all surprising that these left-
| leaning people were not censored, because the pro-
| censorship movement appears to be facilitated exclusively
| by people on the left, and of course they're not going to
| censor their own.
| mc32 wrote:
| I think that's correct. There is less acceptance of free
| speech if it's "alt-right" than if the speech is coming
| from the "alt-left". I agree.
|
| It's frightful to see that defending the 1A on principle
| is seen as an endorsement of objectionable views.
| DrewRWx wrote:
| It's more that defending the spirit of the first
| amendment only on principle is seen as being disconnected
| from reality and ignoring the effectiveness of rhetoric
| in eroding the rights of vulnerable populations.
| fatbird wrote:
| There's a large body of established case law that organizations
| do not have to bear the consequences of their employee's
| private lives, or continue their association with an individual
| when that association is harmful to the organization. You're
| proposing an appealing ideal, but it's already contrary to a
| lot of existing decisions on the first amendment and balancing
| the competing rights of the different parties.
|
| In other words, you're stripping the rights of some to enhance
| the rights of others, which is rarely intended, but still
| something that has to be recognized.
| duxup wrote:
| Generally, I think it depends on WHAT they say.
|
| If someone says they don't trust / like people of a particular
| race, and they're in a position where they are expected to work
| with those folks. That certainly has something to do with their
| job.
|
| That's not threatening or violent, but as an employer I don't
| think you can ignore it / tell everyone at that workplace "well
| she didn't say it here so guess you have to ignore it...".
|
| Ultimately almost every job involves working with people, and
| you don't get to pick and choose who that is.
| Swizec wrote:
| > Generally, I think it depends on WHAT they say.
|
| This argument used to be used to fire gay people from
| engineering jobs. Because being gay was obviously very bad
| and you can't possibly have good judgement if you're gay.
|
| Being gay and racist have obviously different implications on
| your workplace behavior and biases. The issue is that
| precedent is precedenty. If we normalize firing people for
| their personal life issues, where do we stop?
| colinmhayes wrote:
| How can you expect muslims to accept her as their professor
| when she called them scum and said to deport them? She is
| no longer an effective educator as all her grades for
| muslim students would be suspect. I draw the line at able
| to effectively perform job duties.
| cortesoft wrote:
| You quoted someone saying it depends on WHAT they say, then
| posted an example of someone being fired for who they are.
| That isn't the same.
| duxup wrote:
| I'm not sure what you mean, actually focusing on what
| someone said isn't an argument... it's a thing they
| actually said.
| dandellion wrote:
| I don't agree with him, but his post seems pretty
| straightforward and easy to understand. You're reasoning
| that we should fire people based on WHAT they say, that's
| an argument you're making about how to go about firing
| people.
| duxup wrote:
| Yes... what we communicate to each other matters.
| Swizec wrote:
| My question is whether the practice of firing people for
| what they say or do in their life outside work while off
| duty is a good idea in general? Is that something we want
| to condone?
|
| In some cases the answer is obviously yes. Off-duty cops
| committing crimes, not good. A politician or judge might
| never be fully off-duty.
|
| Where is the line for professors? Naked pics with their
| spouse? Orgies? Racist tweets? Racist comments at a
| friend's barbecue? Being a spy for China?
|
| What about for regular employees. Fired when they speak
| against the company? When they complain about toxic work
| environment? Or just if they say something racist? What
| if they're asian and say a racist joke at a party? Or an
| ardent feminist with edgy views against men? How about an
| angry father who got his kids taken away and now says
| mean things about women?
|
| If we normalize these firings for saying things we don't
| like, others will want to normalize them for things we do
| like.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| The fact that some firings for outside behavior are bad
| is not enough, imo, to justify a blanket prohibition on
| firing based on outside behavior that would prohibit me
| from firing an employee who called black people scum (for
| instance).
|
| I think this is probably the median perspective.
| staticman2 wrote:
| One theory that suggests firing people can be a good
| thing is you want social consequences for bad behavior.
|
| For example, firing people for joining the KKK is a good
| way to reduce their ability to recruit and radicalize
| others.
|
| But under American law you can be generally fired for no
| reason, so it's weird we are even having this
| conversation in the land of no job security.
| kmlx wrote:
| > That certainly has something to do with their job.
|
| "certainly"? why?
|
| i'm a contrarian. i will argue against you on pretty much any
| subject in order to bring out the best arguments. are you
| still so certain my contrarian opinions will have something
| to do with my job?
| duxup wrote:
| I'm not aware of how being a contrarian would really apply
| to my example.
| yumraj wrote:
| > in their private life outside of their job
|
| Sure, I'll agree if the comments were stated in a private
| setting and limited to a group which knew each other.
| Unfortunately this is not that. This is analogous to a person
| standing in the middle of a market square with a megaphone and
| a hood over them to hide their identity.
|
| Given that, it is only natural for the people who are opposed
| to the person's views to want to know who that person is in
| case that is a person who they interact in real-life and might
| be in a position of influence.
|
| This applies to any kind of opinion and not just right leaning.
|
| BTW, if we want to allow them to have their free speech,
| doesn't free speech protect the other side too, Neiman Lab in
| this case? If the opinions expressed by the person deserve
| protection, the right of others to investigate and present
| their findings should also be preserved.
| jtbayly wrote:
| Investigate?
|
| He wasn't investigating. He was canceling somebody who
| criticized him.
|
| In violation of his own promises both to Disqus and to the
| woman whose job he destroyed.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Well, obviously the disagreement in this whole space seems to
| be around what "harming or threatening anyone else" means.
|
| Some people, for instance, would find (making up a
| hypothetical) it "harming" if a large strong person spent spare
| time drawing incredibly graphic representations of smaller
| weaker coworkers being sexually assaulted by him. Others
| believe that no harm has been caused.
|
| Hopefully, in that situation you can see both sides of the
| argument. Now you can weaken that to whether referring to
| Muslims as people who should be deported is similarly a point
| where people can disagree.
|
| For my part, I believe in the freedom and liberty. No one has
| the right to have their stuff bought by someone. Temple doesn't
| have the right to have students go to them. If they feel like
| they have to fire people in order to appeal to people, they
| should be permitted to. If they feel like they would rather
| lose customers than professors, that's fine too.
|
| Unlike California, which believes that political opinion should
| be a protected class, I prefer the federal system.
| Causality1 wrote:
| How is any of it defamation, though? Defamation is the telling
| of lies about someone in order to damage their reputation. If
| anything, Nieman violated laws against doxxing.
| lhorie wrote:
| FTA:
|
| > In her suit, Viola acknowledged writing most of the posts
|
| I'm as pro-free-speech as the next person, but looking at the
| evidence[0] I frankly don't understand on what leg Viola is
| hoping to stand. If I understand this right, she's claiming she
| is the person behind the truthseeker username on Gateway
| Pundit, but that she didn't write a specific comment that was
| entered into evidence as being written by truthseeker? How does
| that not scream lying to evade responsibility?
|
| Also, IMHO, the repercussions on her job are not really
| relevant to the suit. Had Benton outed her for spamming
| pictures of unicorns, her job would've been just fine. It's her
| own alleged content that got her into hot water with her
| employer. Benton has no control over her employer's actions.
|
| [0] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/59725194/8/4/viola-v-
| be... (page 5)
| [deleted]
| ciupicri wrote:
| What about the freedom to hire/fire whomever you want to?
| N1H1L wrote:
| > She was clearly targeted, ostracized, and fired for speaking
| her mind. I don't agree with her statement, but academia is
| poisoning free speech under the guise of righteousness.
|
| Big claims, iff true.
| logronoide wrote:
| The craziest part of this story is the fact that the Nieman
| Foundation purpose is: "to promote and elevate the standards of
| journalism in the United States and educate persons deemed
| specially qualified for journalism."
|
| But basically they ignored the basics of journalism not verifying
| the sources. Nice.
| danso wrote:
| People shouldn't be downvoting you. I'm ambivalent about this
| whole situation (I'm a fan of NL so I'm biased either way). But
| the most strongly unequivocal point for me is that the
| defendant fell short of the journalistic standard of confirming
| the story and talking to the main people involved. Yes --
| exposing someone via tweet thread while on the job is still an
| act of journalism
| logronoide wrote:
| I guess people think I'm ideologically close to her because
| I'm saying the foundation has poor journalistic standards...
| but quite the opposite. For the American standards I'm
| probably a leftist and for European standards a social-
| democrat, so I find her ideas really disgusting (I won't
| write here stronger words). Journalism is really important in
| a full democracy, we should demand the highest standards.
|
| About the downvoting, this is HackerNews, I can live with
| that :-)
| colinmhayes wrote:
| she admitted to writing most of the comments.
| Natsu wrote:
| She specifically denies the most-used example in this
| discussion (the anti-Muslim comment), though.
|
| I'm using that as a filter to see who didn't read the
| article.
| ohashi wrote:
| Someone hacked her disqus account to hate muslims? It's a
| pretty laughable defense. I wrote all the other bad things,
| but the worst, totally wasn't me. Someone jumped on your
| laptop and wrote it for you?
| rhizome wrote:
| The thing is, someone else using her account is both
| possible and plausible.
|
| Civil suits hinge on a preponderance of evidence ("who
| has more"), and if "same email" is all Benton had to go
| on, that might not be enough to surmount "anybody _could_
| have done it, " regardless whether she did actually write
| it.
|
| Benton didn't know for sure, apparently didn't care that
| he didn't know for sure, then went ahead and stated
| something as fact that he didn't actually know. Heck,
| Viola might be able to find a route to actual-malice via
| the apparent recklessness of an actual trained journalist
| (and beyond...) making an assumption about someone else
| that could have life-altering consequences.
| logronoide wrote:
| It's really scary how people assume anybody's privacy can be
| exposed without consequences. No, it can't. In a full
| democracy only a judge can ask for it. Even journalists have
| to be extremely cautious before exposing the identity of
| anybody, and this is a perfect example.
|
| They never contacted her to verify she was the person behind
| the email and the person that wrote comments in social media.
| They assumed it was her, but they did not verify it. Even a
| high school journalist knows this is the first rule to learn:
| if you assume = ass for you and me.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Couldn't disagree more. There is no right to anonymity, and
| for good reason. That's how you get people spouting about
| muslims being scum who all deserve to be deported.
|
| Francesca got exactly what she deserved.
| logronoide wrote:
| That is fascism. Everybody deserves the same rights, no
| matter what they think. If you think she is promoting a
| speech of hate, go to the court and try prove it.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Everyone has the same rights. Francesca has the right to
| spout nonsense. Joshua has the right to tell everyone
| she's doing it. The government doesn't care about either.
| logronoide wrote:
| Joshua has broken the ToS of Discuss because he has
| access to the tool and got an email address that belongs
| to Francesca. He used a privileged access to obtain her
| PII. Under the GDPR that is simply illegal. In Western
| Europe his behavior could take him to a court.
|
| This is a site where we discuss about privacy in
| technology, and this is an example of how people with
| privileged access to PII should follow the higher
| standards, no matter how disgusting are the opinions,
| like the ones from Francesca.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Breaking the TOS of Disqus is between Nieman Labs and
| Disqus; their likely response would be termination of
| services. Francesca has no standing to enforce someone
| else's contract she's not part of.
|
| The GDPR doesn't really apply here in the US. No part of
| this dispute happened in the EU or to EU citizens.
| vecplane wrote:
| The scrolling on this page doesn't work unless I turn off uBlock
| Origin.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| I have no strong views either way, but I think it destroys her
| case that in the original comment she identified herself as a
| professor on media at a major east coast university. She was
| basically asking to be named as she explicitly referenced her
| somewhat unusual job as claim for her credibility.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| I can't comment on the legal issue, but it seems to me that the
| sites where she made the comments that got her fired deserve a
| big part of the blame for using disqus. If you want to have a
| forum where people can speak freely, you should make it easy and
| natural for people to have separate identities.
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| Ah my goodness, education does not immunize people from adapting
| very daft racism patterns. To simply throw all Muslims in one box
| is beyond crazy, there are Muslims of various different races. As
| a non Muslim, I have experienced Muslims as some of the nicest
| people out there, while the loudest Christians were often the
| most bigoted people imaginable and the only thing Christian about
| them was the label.
|
| Freedom of speech should remain firm and never infringed with,
| but there should always be consequences for such freedom of
| speech escalations.
|
| She has no business being an educator, poisoning the minds of
| people with her racism.
|
| The sack was justified, the doxxing was well deserved, if she
| wants to be a racist loudmouth, have the guts and show your
| "face". Compensation, hell no if it was for me to decide.
| xenihn wrote:
| >there are Muslims of various different races
|
| I've noticed that most people have trouble understanding this,
| regardless of political affiliation. Islamophobia is a thing.
| "Racism against Muslims" is not.
| bsd44 wrote:
| I've met Muslims with the most extreme views you could imagine.
| Third generation immigrants raised in the Western world still
| believing that "white" women deserve to be raped, teaching
| their children to only socialise with their own kind. I'm not
| sure what can you get from my comment, neither do I understand
| what anyone could possibly get from yours.
|
| Also, saying that someone "deserves" something says more about
| you than them and can some day come back and bite you on the
| ass.
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| Yeah, they happened to tell you that casually? Sure thing,
| some have radical and outdated views. Sometimes it takes one
| or two generations until immigrants come around, so what. The
| way forward is to include these people, make them feel
| welcome, institutionally and personally, if that doesn't
| happen, slums and ghettos arise. I still wouldn't bet that
| more Muslims hold this view than there are racist Christians.
| And yes, I maintain my view, she deserved what happened, she
| was ripe for the meltdown, wanted to express herself to the
| whole world. She should do that in her name if she is so
| convinced.
|
| You simply cannot emit such verbal cacophony and expect
| nobody will be enraged about it.
|
| Some of her students could be Muslims. This brings me to a
| sledgehammer comparison.
|
| Should a pederast be a teacher of teenagers so long he keeps
| his sexual orientation clandestine?
| rhizome wrote:
| You could transpose that worldview onto people from, oh,
| let's say Southern Indiana, without changing very much at
| all.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| Well, this post had just about everything. Just about the only
| thing missing is a screed about how there's totally no
| censorship or cancel culture of conservative voices. Maybe you
| can write that as a follow up.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/rFLbp
| rhizome wrote:
| Whatever you think of what Viola posted, if she is fired, Benton
| should definitely also be fired for doxxing her. Disqus should
| also revoke Nieman Lab's account (but I bet they won't).
|
| I don't agree with Viola, but if she's able to live under the
| radar then more power to her. Frankly, people on the "fake news"
| side of US politics usually _can 't_ keep quiet, so let's maybe
| even commend her for her discretion.
|
| But Benton's acts were worse, WAY worse. Not worse than being a
| fake-news Republican, but worse than simply being a shithead on
| Twitter.
| lhorie wrote:
| > if she is fired, Benton should definitely also be fired for
| doxxing her
|
| Isn't that anchoring bias? For starters, why equate firing with
| punishment? Firing an employee is a discretion of an employer
| meant to be used if they deem that the employee did not fulfill
| duties adequately, it's not really supposed to be a vehicle for
| mob appeasement.
|
| More generally, I take issue with this idea that doing
| something bad ought to result in career ruin. Like, is the
| undertext that they ought to gtfo of their field of expertise
| and go flip burgers or something instead? I feel like there
| ought to be better ways to address conduct issues that doesn't
| involve messing w/ people's livelihoods (twitter lynching is
| not any better, to be clear)
|
| IMHO, it'd be more conducive to a healthy society if we
| defaulted to talking about remediation strategies in the
| workplace, like three-strike systems, clearer public comm
| policies etc than defaulting to tearing people down.
| dntrkv wrote:
| Benton's acts were worse? In what way? Viola "anonymously"
| called Muslim people scum (not really anonymous because she
| used her work email and exposed info about her location / job).
| He called her out, in a very public way. Kinda hard to feel
| sorry for her, to be honest.
| croes wrote:
| Didn't Temple university ignored her right of freedom speech by
| firing her for her comments?
|
| Nieman lab's ignored her right of anonymous freedom of speech,
| wait that right doesn't exist.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It's a private institution.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_System_of_Higher_...
| "Legally, the universities remain separate and private
| entities, operating under their own charters, governed by
| independent boards of trustees, and with assets under their own
| ownership and control, thereby retaining much of the freedom
| and individuality of private institutions, both
| administratively and academically."
|
| There _is_ no "right of freedom speech" there. They're not a
| government actor to which the First Amendment applies.
|
| (Even if you work for the government, you can be fired for
| telling your boss to fuck off, or putting up "Muslims are evil"
| comics on your cubicle wall. It's not an unlimited right even
| there; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garcetti_v._Ceballos and
| https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1608/pickering-...
| apply.)
| croes wrote:
| So there is no freedom for anyone dependent on their wages.
|
| Doesn't sound like a freedom at all.
| minsc__and__boo wrote:
| Employment with this specific organization isn't a right,
| it's a contract between two parties. She's free to
| associate with employers who will take her and her racist
| views.
| TOMDM wrote:
| Your employer doesn't hire you to promote your freedoms.
| They hire you to serve a purpose. For private enterprise
| that's to make money.
|
| If you want freedom in the workplace, then that exists in
| the form of democratic workplaces, like worker co-ops.
| Joining or starting one is certainly possible if that's
| something you value.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| There aren't really any _absolute_ freedoms.
|
| I can't decide my religion's core tenet is murder, nor can
| I artistically express myself via a mass shooting.
|
| Similarly, I can't libel people as free speech, nor use a
| megaphone outside your house at 3am in most places. I can't
| demand a strip club accommodate a requirement I wear modest
| clothing as a dancer. etc. etc. etc.
| croes wrote:
| That's no freedom at all, the same freedom of a dog on a
| leash. You can do what you want as long I'm pleased.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| When our freedoms conflict with each other, we have to
| reconcile that. I have a right not to be libeled, not to
| be defrauded, and not to be murdered. You may not like
| that these rights place limits on your rights to free
| expression, but that's the trade-off of living in a
| functioning society instead of alone on a deserted
| island.
| xenihn wrote:
| >Similarly, I can't libel people as free speech, nor use
| a megaphone outside your house at 3am in most places. I
| can't demand a strip club accommodate a requirement I
| wear modest clothing as a dancer. etc. etc. etc.
|
| You can do any of these things as long as you can afford
| to deal with the consequences.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Do you see this bit of silly gotcha as adding to the
| conversation?
| duxup wrote:
| The institution is free to employ her or not too, they have
| that right.
|
| Now the reasons they might choose fire her could be
| something they can't do, but generally those are pretty
| limited.
| nostromo wrote:
| Freedom of Speech as an ideal predates the First Amendment by
| millennia and is not limited to government actions.
|
| It's completely valid to opine that her employer violated her
| rights to free expression, even if the First Amendment
| doesn't apply in this case.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| We're discussing a lawsuit, where the legal setup of the
| United States is going to be the deciding factor.
|
| (The millennia-long discussions of things like freedom of
| speech tend to similarly wind up having to balance
| different conflicting freedoms, too.)
| ilamont wrote:
| In June 2020, Benton stepped down from his leadership position at
| Nieman:
|
| https://twitter.com/jbenton/status/1276165792195842049?lang=...
| KittenInABox wrote:
| I don't think this lawsuit will go anywhere. The lawsuit is a
| defamation lawsuit, which is notoriously difficult to prove, as
| you have to prove that the statements were knowingly false (not
| made as an opinion) and made with purpose to damage you.
|
| In this case, from what I can see, the claims were largely true.
| You can't successfully sue for defamation of statements that are
| just true. Then, even if there are claims that aren't true, you
| have to prove the untrue statement wasn't an opinion and that it
| was made with the intent to say an untrue thing as if were fact
| in order to damage you.
|
| EDIT: A poster below pointed out that you to make claims
| statements that you knew were false; there is also standing if
| you didn't know they were false but you didn't confirm if they
| were true in a manner deemed as "reckless" by the court. I
| believe this is a lesser burden than I described above, but still
| a very high bar.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Also Benton didn't report this as a reporter on his
| publication. it was his personal twitter.
|
| To me the more interesting problem is him using his workpace
| Discuss mod privileges to first ID her, and then posting to his
| personal twitter - which seems like it's not an official org
| piece of reporting. At least that's what I'm reading I think -
| it very well could have been possible for him to ID her without
| that admin info?
|
| So maybe Benton is in violation of his work's policy.
|
| I agree though even if it wasn't true wouldn't it have to be
| malicious intent to cause harm?
| joreilly wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > In her suit, Viola acknowledged writing most of the posts.
| But she denied being behind the anti-Muslim screed. That was
| critical to Sorokin's decision to allow the libel and
| defamation part of Viola's suit to proceed. The former
| professor "has plausibly alleged that Benton may have been
| negligent in his failure to verify that she was the author,"
| the judge wrote.
|
| If she can prove that it wasn't her/Benton can't prove that it
| was her (I'm not familiar with the legal system, so I don't
| know which it would be), then there would indeed be an untrue
| statement. As for damage; why does anyone dredge up another's
| darker side, if not to damage them in some way? I can't think
| of another motive for doing so.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Basically all critical reporting dredges up another's darker
| side and it's important.
|
| Maybe you can say that she isn't notable enough that it would
| be valuable as news, but I don't think that standard would be
| hit there are a lot of reports now about Karens and such, and
| her being a professor adds some umph.
| GongOfFour wrote:
| Does tweeting constitute critical reporting?
| klyrs wrote:
| > As for damage; why does anyone dredge up another's darker
| side, if not to damage them in some way?
|
| To confront them with the harms of their "darker side", with
| hopes that they will have a change of heart and desire to
| reform. But.. that's often misguided if one does this in
| public before at least making an attempt in private.
| intrasight wrote:
| She was wronged and harmed by his actions. This should prove
| to be an interesting case.
| KittenInABox wrote:
| No, you have to prove that it was stated with intent of
| spreading false information about the person who was wronged.
| A reporter who genuinely believed that Viola made those
| statements can't be judged as committing defamation.
| spoonjim wrote:
| So if I genuinely think you murdered a baby I can publish
| articles saying you did, with no legal consequence?
| colinmhayes wrote:
| yes, if you can prove that you genuinely believe it.
| spoonjim wrote:
| In the US that standard is only applied to public
| figures. For a private figure, the speaker can commit
| defamation if they do not exert reasonable care to ensure
| that the statement is true.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| No, the burden is not "exert reasonable care that the
| statement is true"
|
| It's much more relaxed: "cannot have acted negligently in
| failing to ascertain whether the statement is true"
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Yes, that is the definition of defamation in the United
| States
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > No, you have to prove that it was stated with intent of
| spreading false information about the person who was
| wronged.
|
| Even for public figures where the _NY Times v. Sullivan_
| "actual malice" standard applies, intentional /knowing
| falsity is not required; reckless disregard for the truth
| or falsity of the statement is sufficient for actual
| malice.
|
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/defamation
| KittenInABox wrote:
| OK, let me add in your clarification. Thank you for
| educating me on the matter.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| I agree, also federal lawsuits can be dismissed at anytime for
| lack of jurisdiction. For diversity jurisdiction, the amount of
| damages has to exceed $75,000. I don't have time to read the
| entire docket but that is going to be really difficult to
| prove.
| evgen wrote:
| It is interesting how much conservatives suddenly care about
| making sure that their speech should suffer no consequences
| after spending decades oppressing anyone who dares step out of
| line with similar loss of job, rank, and income. In the 50s you
| would be attacked for any deviation from anti-communist
| orthodoxy, in the 60s for deviation from racial orthodoxy, and
| in the 80s for daring to question sexual orthodoxy.
|
| I would probably care more about their claims and complaints if
| they were not so transparent about the fact that their real
| complaint is that people who they look down on are now in a
| position to judge and ostracize them.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| You don't have to go back to the 50s-80s.
|
| Colin Kaepernick's situation reveals the hypocrisy, just a
| couple years ago.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| It goes both ways. While I agree that conservatives appear to
| be hypocritical, I also think Democrats are equally as
| guilty. I really see both parties as two sides of the same
| coin.
| RememberTheFtr wrote:
| This thread is a cautionary tale about the future of freedom.
| These are dark moments everywhere. Either we pick the
| Enlightenment or we create some new experiment.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| What freedom are you refereeing to? The freedom to use an
| account linked to your work email address to spread lies and
| racist rhetoric on private third party websites without fear of
| identification?
| inkblotuniverse wrote:
| The freedom to speak without fear of punishment, which can
| clearly only be protected by increasingly extreme
| anonymization measures
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > And Benton's actions seemed at odds with Disqus's own policies,
| which state that "user information is for moderation purposes
| only" and adds that "distribution of personal identifiable
| information is prohibited."
|
| I can't access the link, but it sounds like that's Disqus's
| policy. It's not necessarily Nieman Lab's.
|
| Proving this was libel or defamation seems like an uphill battle,
| given they admit ownership of the commenting account.
| [deleted]
| Jlsmprof wrote:
| The original story is here https://www.cjr.org/opinion/nieman-
| lab-lawsuit-joshua-benton...
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