Can people please stop bringing up that tweet? It has absolutely nothing to do with what happened at PyCon. Whatever she says on her own personal twitter feed is wholly unrelated to what happens at a professional event. Especially since the only people who see her tweet are people that have explicitly chosen to do so (either by following her or by following someone's link to it). What is acceptable in an opt-in scenario is wildly different than what is acceptable when unwilling bystanders are listening.
If this is about lack of consistency, then where's the lack of consistency? Did Adria go to a conference (or other professional space) and start telling lewd jokes? I don't think so.
Your argument is basically akin to saying that, because I told some dirty jokes to my friends in private, I'm never allowed to complain when someone tells a dirty joke in public.
>Your argument is basically akin to saying that, because I told some dirty jokes to my friends in private, I'm never allowed to complain when someone tells a dirty joke in public.
Ah, Twitter is now considered private but two devs speaking in their chairs are pretty much delivering a speech.
Besides, you're putting words in my mouth. I never said you're not allowed to do these things, but you shouldn't be allowed to complain about it, just like senators who watch porn lose credibility when passing laws against all forms of porn.
No, Twitter isn't private, but neither is it forcing anyone to read it. Those two guys forced the people around them to listen to a lewd joke, whether or not they intended to.
There's also a matter of context. A personal twitter stream is a very different context than a professional event. If I'm friends with my coworkers, I may hang out with them after work, and a dirty joke then is perfectly acceptable. But with the exact same people, at the workplace, a dirty joke is inappropriate. Exact same people. The difference is context.
Well, yes and no. If you're the kind of person who sometimes, in some contexts makes lewd jokes and is not offended by them, then simply being in another context when hearing them shouldn't offend you. It might make you cringe at the incongruence but it won't offend.
Furthermore, you wouldn't then see yourself as a "hero" for publicly shaming the people who made said lewd joke. Simply turning around and telling them that what they're doing isn't appropriate.
Also, it's not like those two developers were using a microphone or loudspeaker or some such device, they were just chatting away behind her and talking to each other. Sometimes we forget that people may overhear us when we talk to each other in a public setting. In that context is inappropriate speech(not sexist, not outright wrong, just inappropriate for that context) grounds for public shaming and firing when you simply could've forgotten(or not thought about) being overheard?
I just think that she went overboard with the reaction and even seeing herself as heroic for doing something like that. The fact that she makes jokes like that in a different context simply shows that it couldn't have been that offensive to her(maybe just cringe-worthy) to warrant such a reaction.
> "Doug Walton, Canadian academic and author, has argued that ad hominem reasoning is not always fallacious, and that in some instances, questions of personal conduct, character, motives, etc., are legitimate and relevant to the issue,[10] as when it directly involves hypocrisy, or actions contradicting the subject's words.
The philosopher Charles Taylor has argued that ad hominem reasoning is essential to understanding certain moral issues, and contrasts this sort of reasoning with the apodictic reasoning of philosophical naturalism.[11]
Olavo de Carvalho, a Brazilian philosopher, has argued that ad hominem reasoning not only has rhetorical, but also logical value. As an example, he cites Karl Marx's idea that only the proletariat has an objective view of history. If that were to be taken rigorously, an ad hominem argument would effectively render Marx's general theory as incoherent: as Marx was not a proletarian, his own view of history couldn't be objective."
(wikipedia article on ad hominem)
In this case, i'd think it's pretty fucking valid.
No, you can say "so and so argues such and such" all you want, that doesn't make it valid. I claim it is not valid and also claim you have not provided any justification for it. It simply does not follow. As for rhetorical value ... Being a sophist is not the same as being logically consistent.
In those cases, the utterer's circumstances are part of the argument, and it's not 'ad hominem' to point that out - an ad hominem is personally attacking the target rather than attacking the argument. "But Marx was not a prole" is not attacking Marx personally.
I'm sorry, are we really discussing whether a person having recently made jokes about penises in public is relevant to whether it's okay for that same person to publicly shame two guys she accused of making jokes about penises in public?
Yes.
In fact, her personal twitter stream is worse, IMHO.
Her personal twitter stream has a larger audience than the audience of your "professional event".
It's nice that all of the sudden "pycon" is a "professional event" as if people are all walking around in suits and ties and monocoles.
Plenty of people go to conferences with friends as social events.
Pycon is definitely like that for a lot of folks.
That's why it's billed as an "annual gathering for the community".
Talking privately in hushed tones at a conference you treat as a social event is, IMHO, much better than blaring it out publicly to 11,210 followers.
Everybody that's following her twitter stream chose to follow her twitter stream. That makes a huge difference. And it's also trivially easy to unfollow her stream if what she says offends you.
Also, the context is very different. You may think of PyCon as a social gathering, but it is in fact work-related for a lot of people (including, presumably, Adria in her role as a developer evangelist). What's acceptable in an informal, personal setting (e.g. jokes made to people who explicitly chose to view her personal twitter stream) may not be acceptable in any kind of professional setting.
Your Twitter account is not exactly public in the same way that a crowded conference room is. One is a "pull" medium (i.e. I have to seek out your tweets), while the other is a "push" medium (i.e. I can't unsubscribe from your loud-talking). If you drive someone away from your Twitter feed with inappropriate jokes, that's OK, really — they just aren't a good fit for your feed and you'll both be happier. But if you drive someone away from a conference with your inappropriate jokes, that's not OK.
And that matters how? They were in the middle of the audience, where the people around them couldn't help but to hear them, and they were violating the code of conduct at the event.
Yeah, it was against the code of conduct. And they were members of a large audience. Not sure how either of those facts make it a big deal. PyCon's response was appropriate.
Fair usually, however, the conference provided a mechanism by which she could "unsubscribe". Basically she joined a conversation, and didn't like it, and could have just left or asked them to stop. Or if she was uncomfortable with that, because it can be uncomfortable to do that, she could have asked the conference staff to help. Which she did. And they responded and ended the situation.
The real problem is that she took what could have been a simple case of "inappropriate but dealt with" to a completely different and public level.
Yes, because the contexts are wildly different, and so are the genders of the jokers. In terms of power relations, this is exactly the same as how people of colour can use the N-word and white people can't.
Neither men nor women have a monopoly on anatomically-related jokes (of either gender). Not in the same way that it's unacceptable for a white person to use the 'n' word.
I'm not even commenting on whether either gender _should_ have such a monopoly (they shouldn't in my view). But just in actual fact it is not so in our society today.
That's even worse logic. So if a political candidate posts on their personal public twitter, hateful messages against the US, no one should even worry about that because they are on a personal twitter?
Do you know what a developer evangelist is or even what is expected of someone taking a representative role at a company? I don't know what this has to do with sending two letters from gmail. Sounds like argument from irrationality or grotesquely inappropriate analogy.
>Whatever she says on her own personal twitter feed is wholly unrelated to what happens at a professional event.
Except: A) She posted the picture in question on that twitter feed and B) She identifies herself as affiliated with her (former) employer at the top of that feed/in her profile. To me, those make her "personal" feed not so personal and wholly germane to this conversation.
Lots of people do that. I identify the university I work at in my twitter profile. Obviously I do not tweet on behalf of my university; it's just a way of describing what I do in my day job. Sometimes I tweet negative things about people. It's just words; you know, people talking to other people. Sometimes they even do it in public, like we're doing right here.
It's not obvious who you represent when you have list an employer in your title or bio. The point of listing it is that you're adding that affiliation and connection. Worse are not "just words". If that were true, libel wouldn't exist.
Libel can cause significant damage and the connection between your twitter account and your employer makes them a target. So you might want to ask the University's legal department before you assume that they're ok with being connected to you on twitter.
Yes, I recognize there are some narrow exceptions such as libel, and I'm perfectly fine being held accountable for libel. If I post something which actually libels someone, i.e. something which a court will hold me accountable for having posted, then that's fair, and I'll take full responsibility.
What seems to be in question here, however, is whether people may post truthful comments on twitter, which under U.S. law are by definition not libelous.
It's more than just libel though. While truthful, your employer might not like being associated with the opinions that you're sharing. That's why employers have social media policies - to protect themselves by educating their employees so that they understand that the employee can be held accountable for the opinions shared via social media if that employee is identifying themselves online as being associated with that company. It is extremely common, and I would suspect your University does have an opinion on the matter - especially if it's a State funded school. Then especially, you're a State employee and are representing that larger group too.
are you seriously arguing that if you mention your place of employment on your personal website or blog, they then have the right to police everything you post there?!
Nope. What I'm saying is that once you do that, you run a much higher risk of alienating your employer by saying or doing controversial things. They certainly can't control what you do or say, but they may well opt not to employ you because of the choices you make. There's a distinction there, and it matters.
(Also, in this case, I do believe that she used her twitter feed for 'official'/work-related duties, so that does genuinely blur the line between personal and professional)
I unfortunately don't have time to expand on this right now, but I definitely disagree with you on this.
In the current day & age, for better or worse, you have to be very acutely aware of your "surroundings" -- that includes what you post on any social media website, and especially if you explicitly name your employer.
IMO, and again, for better or worse, this does currently apply to both personal and business accounts as long as they're visible...
Agreed. And was she not at the event in an official capacity?
If someone's job is to be a public figure or spokesperson for a given company then everything they do publicly online is relevant (I'm a huge advocate of using pseudonyms and anonymous communication online over personally identifiable communication.)
As a tech evangelist Aria is the public face of her employer; she is of sufficiently high profile for her person to be indistinguishable from her role as employee. Most everyone agrees that she also picked a fight to raise her visibility - the sexism incident was addressed appropiately by Pycon, at least no one has said anything to the contrary. Her employer made the correct decision in firing her.
Yeah, to be honest, I hadn't been following all the details until today but it was just a childish little temper tantrum. That seems dismissive but if this was genuine, which I don't think it was, she could have handled it in a much more adult way than just taking pictures of people, and making potentially libelous statements.
My take on the issue is that she tried wearing two hats, the hat of feminist activist and the hat of company spokesman, and found that the two are quite incompatible.
Aria will be fine, she has quite an audience, as her blog shows, and she will be continue to be invited. I am just not sure that I like her methods.
The whole point is we're trying to protect people from offensive behavior. The definition of what's offensive is vague at best. Common approach - if someone was offended, it's offensive - assumes that we trust victims accounts that they were in fact offended.
While context is important, it is much harder to believe that someone would be seriously offended by a joke when they make the same kind of a joke themselves. That's why the tweet is relevant.
The only problem with this reasoning is it seems dangerously close to the "they were asking for it" argument. If you are raising concern for something, the entire history of your life does not automatically come into question; this is just an unfortunate side effect of the record-everything technological society we now live in. Corollary to the upcoming ubiquity of Google Goggles, what if the recordings of one's personal home life was scrutinized because they were harassed at work?
And quite often, we find that something that wasn't offensive yesterday can very well be offensive today.
There's nothing wrong with the logic of "they were asking for it" in some contexts. Rape, violence, etc. of course not, but I think when it comes to being insulted, saying that someone was asking for it is fair. I've been attacked verbally before, and often I was asking for it or deserving of it.
That said, I don't think this is a case of her asking for it. It's just pointing out hypocrisy, which is a perfectly OK thing to do. It's less extreme but analogous to pointing out someone who complains about domestic violence being themselves an abuser.
That's a slippery slope fallacy, and no, it's not dangerously close to that. If you make a certain kind of joke, I would have a very hard time believing you were offended by that same kind of joke when those two events happened within hours of each others.
As far as I've seen, people's atitudes towards crude jokes do not change in the space of a few hours. Maybe they might change that quickly if something significant were to happen in that space of time, but I doubt it in this case.
That's a valid concern in general, but I don't think it applies here for the following reasons:
First, being part of a minority group and claiming offense gives you a lot of power to inflict damage on others. You are leveraging both, the legal system and very strong social stigmas. There is a reason why you are granted this power, but with power comes responsibility. If I walk on a sidewalk and bump into someone, I say I'm sorry and we go about our business. If I'm driving a 18-wheel truck and bump into someone, it's an entirely different story. We don't have a magic gauge to measure your emotional state, so we have to take your word for it. I think scrutinizing your past to ensure that what you say is at least consistent with what you do is a reasonable measure to prevent people from abusing the aforesaid power.
Second, if something wasn't offensive to you yesterday, but suddenly is today - even if I'm most sincerely trying to avoid offending you, how do I keep up with the "list of things that offend you" du jour? Do you have a protocol in mind?
It's relevant because it proves that she wasn't really offended, and that she just felt like throwing a tantrum. Her tantrum got someone fired, so people can and should call her out on her hypocrisy.
Wow that's out of touch with reality in a major way. It's not like her twitter feed was private. She's a public "evangelist." I suppose you think the inane tweets from republicans like Michelle Bachman or Sarah Palin are irrelevant to them or their party's message as well. Her twitter account was used as part of her job. As well, you're idea that the only people that see her tweet are those that have explicitly chosen to do so .... REALLLY?? Most of us are not her subscribers and we have seen it ... huh? I'm flummoxed.
> Whatever she says on her own personal twitter feed is wholly unrelated to what happens at a professional event.
And why doesn't that logic hold for the two people who were joking amongst themselves? The parallel is : just as her twitter feed is public, and other people can "hear" her speak, these guys were making private jokes at a public event, and that is none of her business.
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