Vulgar Comment On Newspaper Site Costs Man His Job 643
DeeFresh writes "ReadWriteWeb has an article up today discussing an incident in which a school employee lost his job after leaving a comment on the website of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper. After the school employee responded to the newspaper's poll of 'the strangest thing you've ever eaten' with a feline-inspired vulgarity, Kurt Greenbaum, the site's director of social media, tracked down the commenter's identity through his IP address and reported him to school officials. When confronted, the school employee resigned from his job."
Pay back (Score:5, Interesting)
Some one should track every thing Kurt posts and report back to his boss and wife.
Punishment way out of proportion (Score:1, Interesting)
So a guy loses his job and ability to pay bills and a mortgage because of a harmless blog post?
That seems pretty damn harsh. Yeah, the guy was silly for posting from a traceable work IP, but the consequences were waaay out of proportion with what was done.
Oooh, someone said "Pussy". Quick, somebody get the internet fun police! There's Immorality going on!
Kurt Greenbaum is a pussy who should be ashamed of himself. Nobody needs you being internet police man, just piss off. Pussy.
Every post he makes should have as many "Pussy" replies as possible for a week.
Re:TOR (Score:4, Interesting)
Time to start using TOR: http://www.torproject.org/ [torproject.org].
Here kitty, kitty!
Yeah, it will come handy for e-fooling around while on the clock using work assets <sarcasm>
Your personal freedoms and right to anonymity end when you use equipment that is not your own (but your company) and you are doing it while on the clock for purposes other than those tasked to you while on the clock.
At home (or out of your company's equipment) and while off the clock, certainly, protect your privacy and right of anonymity.
While on the clock and/or using your company's assets, sorry dude, you have no right to that.
Re:Pussy. There, I said it. (Score:1, Interesting)
Your comment was informative (Score:1, Interesting)
English isn't my first language so I while I read and write it pretty decently (enough to get the point across at least) wordplays aren't that obvious to me. I first thought "Uh... So did he kill a cat and eat it or what?" until I read your comment. :D
Mod parent up for common sense. (Score:4, Interesting)
The issue to debate here is not whether someone should lose their job over posting a vulgarity on the internet.
The issue to debate here is whether someone should lose their job over posting a vulgarity on the internet while at work.
And if anyone would RTFA, they would have noticed that he made the post twice. The first time, they just deleted it w/o a second thought, but he reposted it. Again, he did it while at work.
And, does anyone know what else was he doing on company time?
Re:"Freedom of Speech" on the Internet (Score:3, Interesting)
All the same, it's kind of rough when you whine to someone's employer. When I moved into a new town, I tried to rent a video at a rental store. Their policy was strict - I had to show them a utility or other bill to prove I lived there. I had just moved! I got a little angry and asked what they expect me to do. They asked where I worked, and I named my employer. I didn't get a video that night, but they called my boss and complained about me.
Re:What? (Score:5, Interesting)
RTFA
he did delete the comment and the guy from the school kept posting the same thing multiple times
So what? How hard is it to delete it multiple times. That guy could be replaced by a shell script. And anyway, these reader feedback forums on newspapers' websites (and elsewhere) are just an open invitation for every crank, crackpot and wacko in town (and the whole internet) to post whatever vile, stupid, racist, crazy, nonsensical comment they can come up with.
First, we had letters to the editor. You had to take pen or keyboard in hand, crank out a physical copy, mail it in and even then the editors only posted a sampling of the feedback on any given subject. Usually, the editors even tried to get a balanced discussion on controversial topics -- at least in terms of number of letters.
Then we get the phone-in comment line. Any loser with a phone and time to burn could rant to his hearts content. The messages were kept short by the recording time limit, so the paper could print a bunch on the comment page. Uninformed illiterates could finally voice their ill-considered, illogical opinions in a public forum. But at least the finite amount of space on the page and the fact the editors had to choose which ones to print kept things to a dull but stupid roar.
Fast forward to on-line comments. Space is practically unlimited, so the editors no longer even bother to review comments prior to posting. Anything and everything gets put up for all to see until someone comes around to delete the really bad stuff (racism, threats, pointless profanity, rabid non-sequiturs, etc.)
Again, I say, if you create such a forum, you are begging for this kind of thing. Hunting down one guy for double-posting a profanity (and a slightly funny -- but cliched -- on-topic one at that) is really overkill, when there's plenty of really bad stuff to be dealt with. "Pussyman" was clearly singled out for personal reasons on the part of the newspaper employee for special treatment. Poster was a little stupid and childish, but the editor was mean and spiteful.
Re:No place for this kind of crap in America. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Kurt Greenbaum, you are stupid, puritanical scu (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow, that is surprising. What an unethical action to take on Greenbaum's part. Is there somewhere we can report this?
You're Right. It's About Manning Up (Score:3, Interesting)
In this case it was about some obscenities, but what's to say this couldn't have been about say, late-term abortion, or gay rights?
If you're not prepared to be called out by your boss/wife/kids for the controversial opinions you find yourself venting "anonymously" on the Internet, don't vent on the net. Save it for the local pub, or the diary you keep under your pillow. If everybody put their money and their reputation where there mouths were, civilization might just lurch forward a little bit.
Re:What? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think posting vulgarity on news stories is more a crime of opportunity, which is generally preventable if precautions are taken. I agree that they're certainly not open invitations, but unless you're naive enough to assume bored and stupid people do not exist (and FSM help you if you are), you're a fool to not protect yourself with email validation or a captcha.
Tight jeans are certainly no excuse for the crimes of a rapist, but a woman objectifying herself is the best way of attracting those criminals, just as showing off your wealth or walking alone at night are the best ways of getting mugged. It's not the cause of the crime, but it can determine what makes one person a victim rather than another.
Re:first Pussy? (Score:1, Interesting)
My reply to Greenbaum:
----
I just thought that I'll let you know that I think you are a terrible person. If you were a successful journalist you probably wouldn't have time hunt down, what you believed to be, children. I was under the impression editors manipulated the story, not the people talking about them.
Dont take it personal, but your a jerk.
"what's that stuff we used to eat back in the day, o yea man....."
----
Re:Pussy. There, I said it. (Score:5, Interesting)
The newspaper did the right thing. Someone repeatedly posting something after it has been deleted should be addressed. It was vulgar, and a large part of society thinks so. He did not get the poster fired, the poster resigned because he was discovered doing something he knew he shouldn't be doing and thought he couldn't be found out. Tough shit.
The newspaper did the wrong thing. They got really close to doing the right thing, but what seems like a vengeance motive pushed them over the edge.
The wrong thing, that they elected to do, was to attach personal consequences to allegedly anonymous speech. If it is anonymous, it is off the record, and should bear no weight in the real world. This concept is similar to that of the informant, the whistle blower, the confidant, etc. In the Slashdot context, we're not usually anonymous, though there is an option for that. I'll come back to this point...
The right thing, or perhaps an opportunity for a right thing done, was to call out the behavior in question without providing the means to attach any punishment to it. Perhaps they could have informed the school that someone violated their rules on multiple occasions and that if the behavior continued they would ban the school's IP from being able to contact the site. There should have been some kind of a track that gets the site the desired effect (the comments stop) without exacting severe negative consequences on the offender. Because again, there was the illusion of an anonymity pact.
As an example of this pact, imagine if Slashdot were to go back to all the comments you have posted AC over the years, match them by IP to your ordinary comments, and 'out' you publicly. Would you not feel betrayed? I certainly would.
By offering the option, you are allowing the free expression that comes along with it. The simple solution is to require users to log in, thereby allowing you the accountability desired without setting up a false covenant.
It's A Hoax, People! (Score:3, Interesting)
Details of the story don't make sense. How would he know the IP address belonged to the school? And worse:
The story is a hoax. Especially since if it were true, the guy who quit could sue the ass off the newspaper for violating their privacy policy. He had, according to their privacy policy, a belief that he could post w/o what supposedly happened, happening.
So, either a hoax, or someone's lying about something ... like maybe spyware on the computer that made the post, and the school trying to cover up.
Re:Pussy. There, I said it. (Score:3, Interesting)
The newspaper did the right thing. Someone repeatedly posting something after it has been deleted should be addressed.
Twice does not make for "repeatedly". So, twice, at least a few minutes apart. There was apparently no attempt to do it a third time before it was reported. I've seen spambots post stuff more frequently than that. So no, it wasn't the right thing, the reporter at the paper got offended by something someone said (such irony there) twice, reported it and ended up causing someone to lose their job.
And that bit about irony is important there. How often have you been offended by something you read in a newspaper? How often have people complained to papers about being offended by something in them? (This has happened a lot over the years with regards to comic strips. One of the examples I remember is a few papers refused to run one of the Opus strips.) Now how often has a reporter gotten fired and/or resigned because of those complaints? Seems to me this paper has a double standard. If they offend you, well, it's freedom of the press, you should just deal with it. But if someone posts something they find offensive as a comment on an article on their site? By God they'll report you and make you lose your job. Then they'll post about it gloating that they did so.
And besides, it was ONE FREAKING WORD. That's all the person posted. They probably though they were being witty. Hell, how many of us would think of that response when reading the question "What's one of the strangest thing you've ever eaten?" I'm surprised more people didn't think of it and post it. And if the person posting had really wanted to be vulgar they'd have used more than one word.