How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco's Life [telecom]

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How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco's Life

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The unique 21st-century misery of the online shaming victim.

Why am I not surprised?

I guess I am getting old: the current crop of up-and-coming youngsters seems to think that their actions don't have consequences beyond their pampered existence, just because they assume it is so; just because they grew up with these magic boxes that they think of as "telephones", but which are really time-division-multiplex digital transceivers.

Ha, ha, I'm "white" too. Oh, wait, that's not correct either: one of my great grandfathers was an African, who married a Cherokee and gave me the right to check the "two or more races" box on employment applications. Cherokees, to their credit, did not think skin color was something worth keeping track of, but there are other records, and other attitudes.

I remember being at a computer club meeting, at the Heath store in Wellesley, Massachusetts, about 1988, and on the way out after the meeting, I heard one of the attendees tell his friend that "AIDS" stood for "Adios, Indecent Dick Sucker". I'm ashamed to say that, although I didn't laugh, I didn't call him on it, either.

I've known men who died from Acquired Immune Deficiencies: it wasn't pretty, and it wasn't fair, and it wasn't because they were Caucasoid. A virus, unlike those it infects, has no prejudice.

Bill Horne Moderator