Author Topic: James Gunn Fired for Offensive Tweets  (Read 15938 times)

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Offline davedan

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Re: James Gunn Fired for Offensive Tweets
« Reply #30 on: July 22, 2018, 07:15:08 pm »
Mike Cernovich also tried to get Sam Seder fired by MSNBC as a contributor by taking a tweet he made about Roman Polanski out of context. Even the briefest look into Cernovich would convince you the author of the gorilla mindset was not someone acting honestly.

Offline Murdin

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Re: James Gunn Fired for Offensive Tweets
« Reply #31 on: July 22, 2018, 09:40:53 pm »
Justine Sacco: yep, that's a pretty definite case of social media-fueled bandwagoning horrorshow that's at least somewhat comparable to Gunn's situation. Still, I'm not sure how "hard left" that particular outrage mob really was. If a similarly offensive tweet about, say, veterans had gone viral, whould the resulting mob have qualified as "hard right" just for spiraling out of control?

Michael Rectenwald: literally wrote an article to gloat about the results of his so-called "experiment", wherein he would use his pulpit as a professor along with a thin cover of anonymity to argue in bad faith  and get the reaction he wanted from his students... aka plain dumb trolling. This entire story is manufactured outrage on every level, from the students' efforts to "silence" his sockpuppet, to his feigned indignation over what little consequences he faced for his actions, to the inevitable right-wing bandwagon around a fresh case of "campus craziness". Rectenwald is now hanging out with the "Intellectual Dark Web", a group of stupid man's intelligent people usually paid through Patreon to rant against PC and identity politics while selling right-wing clichés disguised as revolutionary new ideas.

Brett Weinstein: holy hell, opinion piece gotta opine. In the real world, the leaked e-mail didn't exactly spark a spontaneous revolt among triggered SJW students. Instead, the situation took several months to escalate as related and unrelated incidents were added to the mix, while partisan and/or sensationalist media outlets kept fanning the flames. The resulting campaign of threats, harassment and fascist vs antifa protests affected students and faculty far beyond Weinstein himself, who milked the controversy for all he could before resigning from the university with a $500k settlement. He then joined the aforementioned "Intellectual Dark Web" as a Patreon-funded culture warrior.

As for centrist outrage machines, what about the Wall Street Journal's war on PewDiePie over a bunch of offensive jokes that also got him dropped by Disney? I have other examples in mind, but they're a bit more controversial and this one was too fitting to pass up anyway.

Offline Askold

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Re: James Gunn Fired for Offensive Tweets
« Reply #32 on: July 23, 2018, 12:31:51 am »
I notice with some amusement that Lana us using a classic troll tactic here, she's seamlessly morphed from someone who's presented something that others find contentious to the final arbiter of right and wrong. The phrase "you're going to need more to convince me" keeps coming up as if truth needs her stamp of approval or it just won't fly.

Truth =/= What Convinces Lana. Just sayin'.

Note how Lana started the thread being all judgemental and when people asked what is this about they gave a cryptic "you'll see" answer. Now they claim that they have no idea who Cernovich is and suddenly the amount of evidence needed to believe that he is a Neo-Nazi keeps going up up up.

Gunn making dead baby jokes = Horrible person who must be crucified.

Cernovich being a Nazi = I don't see it.
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
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Offline Tolpuddle Martyr

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Re: James Gunn Fired for Offensive Tweets
« Reply #33 on: July 23, 2018, 12:51:58 am »
So you reckon that when Justine quipped that white people were unable to get AIDS people getting annoyed at her, well-that was dead unfair?

Your alt-right crush is showing!
« Last Edit: July 23, 2018, 12:56:15 am by Tolpuddle Martyr »

Art Vandelay

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Re: James Gunn Fired for Offensive Tweets
« Reply #34 on: July 23, 2018, 02:03:03 am »
So you reckon that when Justine quipped that white people were unable to get AIDS people getting annoyed at her, well-that was dead unfair?

Your alt-right crush is showing!
Getting annoyed is perfectly fine. Destroying her entire life over it, not so much.

Honestly, people need to calm their tits and get the fuck over themselves. When you think it's perfectly justified to get someone fired just because you're offended by a fucking joke, you've probably got just a wee bit of an inflated ego.
« Last Edit: July 23, 2018, 03:33:47 am by Art Vandelay »

Offline Askold

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Re: James Gunn Fired for Offensive Tweets
« Reply #35 on: July 23, 2018, 07:17:52 am »
Fact is that the whole "online outrage" complaint is hypocritical.

What does it even mean? Massive online outrage caused Star Wars actor to delete her online presence when people were threatening to rape and murder her because they didn't like the character she played onscreen. Massive online outrage caused companies to fire people who were rapists. Massive online outrage lead to Kathy Sierra canceling her Etech appearance and lead to her ending her career completely because a Neo-Nazi doxxed her and spread malicious rumours leading into massive harassment and death threats.

Which type of "online outrage" are we talking here anyway if the examples I previously posted don't count. Heck, putting non-white and non-straight characters in a video game will still cause online outrage and harassment, maybe we should be talking about that too...
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

Offline RavynousHunter

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Re: James Gunn Fired for Offensive Tweets
« Reply #36 on: July 23, 2018, 10:11:35 am »
Fuck it.  To hell with the whinging cunts, doxxing should be a felony, and online harassment should be punished the exact same as in-person harassment.  Classify it as a federal offense, since most of the time, this shit crosses state lines.  Hit them hard and never stop.  Either they realize that doing a stint in a steel cage isn't worth it for stroking their worthless egos, or they'll be put exactly where they belong.
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Offline Lana Reverse

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Re: James Gunn Fired for Offensive Tweets
« Reply #37 on: July 23, 2018, 10:21:02 am »
I notice with some amusement that Lana us using a classic troll tactic here, she's seamlessly morphed from someone who's presented something that others find contentious to the final arbiter of right and wrong. The phrase "you're going to need more to convince me" keeps coming up as if truth needs her stamp of approval or it just won't fly.

Truth =/= What Convinces Lana. Just sayin'.

Note how Lana started the thread being all judgemental and when people asked what is this about they gave a cryptic "you'll see" answer. Now they claim that they have no idea who Cernovich is and suddenly the amount of evidence needed to believe that he is a Neo-Nazi keeps going up up up.

Gunn making dead baby jokes = Horrible person who must be crucified.

Cernovich being a Nazi = I don't see it.

Because I didn't know. I do now. Now I believe he's alt-right.

Honestly, how can I trust you to moderate if you miss stuff like this?

Fact is that the whole "online outrage" complaint is hypocritical.

What does it even mean? Massive online outrage caused Star Wars actor to delete her online presence when people were threatening to rape and murder her because they didn't like the character she played onscreen. Massive online outrage caused companies to fire people who were rapists. Massive online outrage lead to Kathy Sierra canceling her Etech appearance and lead to her ending her career completely because a Neo-Nazi doxxed her and spread malicious rumours leading into massive harassment and death threats.

Which type of "online outrage" are we talking here anyway if the examples I previously posted don't count. Heck, putting non-white and non-straight characters in a video game will still cause online outrage and harassment, maybe we should be talking about that too...

What about the type that drives people to suicide?

https://www.timesofisrael.com/civil-servant-commits-suicide-after-facebook-accusations-of-racism/

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/august-ames-dead-brother-cyberbullying-cost-sisters-life-a8101816.html
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Offline Askold

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Re: James Gunn Fired for Offensive Tweets
« Reply #38 on: July 23, 2018, 11:11:05 am »
Lana, you really need to just come out and make your point. Yeah, bullying people to commit suicide is bad, but did it take long for you to find a story where EEEEEEEVIL SJWs bullied someone?

Besides, my comment was more about your initial reaction. I find it hard to believe that you'd know who Cernovich is and still be surprised that he's a Nazi.
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

Offline Murdin

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Re: James Gunn Fired for Offensive Tweets
« Reply #39 on: July 23, 2018, 05:33:23 pm »
So you reckon that when Justine quipped that white people were unable to get AIDS people getting annoyed at her, well-that was dead unfair?

Social media distorts normal human interactions into something unrecognizable. It gives the "opportunity" for millions of people to become sincerely, personally offended by the words or attitude of a complete stranger, while at the same time hampering their ability to conceptualize this stranger as an actual person.

Every person who participated in the Twitter outrage was, from their point of view, doing the equivalent of throwing a rock in the direction of some pest rummaging through their garbage bin.

On the other side of the aisle, the offender has essentially no choice but to experience it as a public stoning.


What about the type that drives people to suicide?

People who are trying to "win" a debate or discussion have little reason to back down from their own fallacious arguments if they can help it, so it's not exactly uncommon for them to serve additional helpings of whataboutism to their audience even after having been explicitly called out on it.

Literally starting them with the phrase "what about", however... *that* takes a special kind of person.

As for the argument itself, I'll say that the motives behind someone's suicide are rarely as simple and straightforward as they are made out to be, and that using those deaths for the sake of making a political point is... ethically questionable.

Kind of off-topic, but... what horrifies me the most about those two cases is how small-scale they actually were. A few thousand reactions is next to nothing on the scale of the Internet, and whatever media impact the original incidents may have had has been completely eclipsed by the resulting tragedies. This really helps put into perspective the multi-million-strong "memeization" campaigns that have long been taken for granted as part of "Internet culture".

Offline Tolpuddle Martyr

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Re: James Gunn Fired for Offensive Tweets
« Reply #40 on: July 23, 2018, 05:45:48 pm »
Outrage on the internet is something, let's face facts, most of us do. Anybody here ever got into a heated discussion online or said something in anger? A lot of people here. I'd definitely count passive aggressive trolling along with openly angry posts. Either way it's not something you can stop.

What's a more interesting discussion is when is it ethical, is it ethical to ask people to hold back their anger if they feel something is in violation of their basic principles? If someone says something racist what's wrong with saying "you racist shithead?"

Where's the line that says "too far?" What about numbers? When a million people do a thing does that have the same impact as one person doing it? How much personal responsibility do people have for the actions of a group that sings the same song? Because "none," while it feels convenient it doesn't cut it. Yeah, I remember Gamergate too. Cernovich and co. weaponize public outrage like  they always have.

And when should the law step in? Private companies clearly don't want to know if people are sending death and rape threats and similar threats against targets friends and family. They'll only act if the publicity gets too noxious or John Q. Law tells them to pull the fuck up. Which brings us full circle, one of the most effective ways to get private enterprise to act on public outrage mobs is via a public outrage mob. And here we are.

So you reckon that when Justine quipped that white people were unable to get AIDS people getting annoyed at her, well-that was dead unfair?

Your alt-right crush is showing!
Getting annoyed is perfectly fine. Destroying her entire life over it, not so much.

Honestly, people need to calm their tits and get the fuck over themselves. When you think it's perfectly justified to get someone fired just because you're offended by a fucking joke, you've probably got just a wee bit of an inflated ego.

Well, sure if the "you" in that sentence is "me," I'm not offended and can take the joke. But then I'm an Anglo-Celtic Aussie whitey, not a black South African who's been affected by AIDS or even an equally enraged white person who's been affected by AIDS. I've got the luxury of being able to hang back and say it's no biggie.
« Last Edit: July 23, 2018, 05:57:44 pm by Tolpuddle Martyr »

Art Vandelay

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Re: James Gunn Fired for Offensive Tweets
« Reply #41 on: July 24, 2018, 04:36:23 am »
Well, sure if the "you" in that sentence is "me," I'm not offended and can take the joke. But then I'm an Anglo-Celtic Aussie whitey, not a black South African who's been affected by AIDS or even an equally enraged white person who's been affected by AIDS. I've got the luxury of being able to hang back and say it's no biggie.
General you, not you personally. In any case, I can't really say I buy that. Mob justice is frowned upon even for actual criminals. Forming an e-mob for the purpose of ruining someone's career should be no different, especially over a joke. Personally, I hate people who spread woo. If I saw someone promoting Christianity, or Wicca, or crystal healing, or homoeopathy, or whatever else, would that justify me gathering a mob of like-minded individuals for the sake of harassing that person's boss into firing them? If not, why is that not okay when being sufficiently offended by joke is totally justifiable? Pomoting bullshit is objectively far more harmful than merely pissing someone off through the power of dark humour, after all.

Personally, if you (again, general you) find someone else's brand of humour offensive, then don't engage with them. Well, call them a dickhead if you really must, but don't try to fuck with their lives for the crime of not complying with your sensibilities. Just block them if it's that triggering. It's not hard. It's a standard feature on pretty much all social media for a reason. As I said, you're just another nobody on the internet, not the sole arbiter of what's acceptable and what isn't. Sit the fuck down and get the fuck over yourself.
« Last Edit: July 24, 2018, 05:13:00 am by Art Vandelay »

Offline Tolpuddle Martyr

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Re: James Gunn Fired for Offensive Tweets
« Reply #42 on: July 24, 2018, 06:55:20 am »
Thing is Art, right or wrong it's not gonna happen that every time someone says something shitty people are gonna STFU about it. Yeah, mob online outrage can be a shitty thing but people from all across the political spectrun have witnessed that this shit works. It breaches the line from cyberspace to real life.

The Me Too movement and BLM took off for exactly the same reason shitty movements like Gamergate and butthurt fanboys of a million stripes did. The internet is one hell of an organising tool when you add outrage.

The pertinent question is when is it ethical to do this and what is ethical do once the ball gets rolling which, lets face facts, is fucking difficult to control, because people.

And yeah, I think someone like Pew Die Pie is just an annoying dork but if I had a friend who offed themselves in a suicide forest or a relative who'd survived Auchswitz it'd be hard to suppress the desire to yell a lot worse at his various accounts. I'm not so I don't.

But I find it hard to judge someone for whom his fuckery is a lot closer to the bone too harshly for doing just that.
« Last Edit: July 24, 2018, 07:06:17 am by Tolpuddle Martyr »

Offline Askold

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Re: James Gunn Fired for Offensive Tweets
« Reply #43 on: July 24, 2018, 07:22:27 am »
I think it is also important to note the difference between sending messages online to ask a company to fire a guy and sending messages to that person and telling them to kill themselves or to threaten them with rape and/or murder.

Yesterday I saw a lot of guys upset that in the new She-Ra cartoon the main character isn't sexy enough. Because the great tragedy of today is that there aren't enough characters in childrens cartoons that middle aged men can use as wank material. But apart from the other people in the FB group getting disgusted by the few complainers no harm was done. Even if they complain to Netflix that the teen character should have bigger boobs this is not really an issue. It's if they start sending out threats and harassing people that they cross the line from "gross" to "criminal and dangerous."
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

Offline Tolpuddle Martyr

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Re: James Gunn Fired for Offensive Tweets
« Reply #44 on: July 24, 2018, 07:30:39 am »
I don't have problem with that. There's a world of difference between "you're a dick" and "I'll cut your dick off!"

What's interesting to me is that the ones motivated to do the worst of online mobbery, the rape threats, the doxxers and the swatters aren't motivated by their claimed outrage but by a far deeper hatred of a class of people and what they represent which is why they front with "ethics" or Cernovich's deep, utterly sincere concerns.