NBA Strips Photographer’s Credentials Over Offensive Facebook Post

I looked at the setting on his post and it was to his "friends" only. So apparently the person that complained was one of his "friends". But he might be one of the people who has a thousand friends on Facebook. And so even if you limit it to your friend group, it's still like making it totally public, as John says. Anyway, I guess my point is, OldCorpse, you're not crazy for staying off Facebook. Also in this case, he did not have to sit down and type it. One of his friends shared it, and then he just clicked Share to re-post it. It doesn't take much to drive right off the edge of the road.
 
DLD said:
My artist friend from Belarus - who had a long career as a set designer on the Soviet/post-Soviet TV - posted a fairly recent photo of herself in an old Soviet era military uniform. I share little fondness for the old Soviet era (Belarus still has its police and the military in the same uniforms while many streets still have names from the USSR era, though most regular folks dislike that) and replied quite caustically ~ "Goosestepping to the regime? Heil Hitler!"

My post then gets taken off by Facebook for "Nazi propaganda".
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Probably an algorithm immune to irony
 
DLD said:
That was likely a munitions factory.

As to the 'offensive" meme, it's offensive to some. It's dumb to others. It's hilarious to others still.
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The people he worked for did not find it hilarious. If the guy was shooting for another organization, he may not have been fired.

The issue in this specific instance is he invoked a common slur/stereotype about Black women and he happens to work with/for the very Black women he just degraded who then exercised their power to have him fired. Perfectly reasonable chain of events. If he were working for a talk radio show, he might have been promoted instead.

Or take what Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets, tweeted in support of Hong Kong anti-government protests. His tweet was "offensive" to China and he essentially had to apologize for it. Why? Because the NBA was doing a big new business venture in China broadcasting games there and China chose to pull the plug because of his tweet, costing the NBA hundreds of millions of dollars. Lebron James criticized his statement publicly.

I don't support the photographer who called Kamala Harris a hoe, especially since my wife is biracial and I've witnessed the disrespect she receives. But it does make me uneasy that corporations and governments wield so much coercive power over people's freedom of expression.

However, Daryl Morey comported himself professionally and with dignity whereas the fired NBA photographer did not
 
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ahalpert said:
This is my larger problem with the internet - for some reason, it turns everyone into a gremlin. Some say it's because you dont get emotional feedback online as you do in in-person conversation, so people's empathy isn't triggered the same way. Then there's the bandwagon effect of like-minded people egging each other on and becoming a mob.

I spent a month or so on twitter earlier this year and it was a pretty negative experience. Once I made a comment trying to agree with someone that was misinterpreted as disagreement and I felt the full torrent of communal anger bearing down on me. It's an echo chamber and the echoes get progressively nastier.

I feel like the internet has ruined everybody. Everything's on there, but it's turned everyone into an a-hole
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The internet has been going down hill since the Eternal September, (1993) It was great before then. The rot really set in when you got Myspace, Bebo facebook and Twitter.
 
JAMedia said:
The internet has been going down hill since the Eternal September, (1993) It was great before then. The rot really set in when you got Myspace, Bebo facebook and Twitter.
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When Freindsreunited took off was the moment I noticed it change.
 
combatentropy said:
The novel thing about the Bill of Rights....
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What "Bill of Rights"? the problem is that the internet is global. Anything you post is global as are those reading it. This is also a problem with policing it. Who's laws apply? Those where the poster resides, where they were when they posted it, where the server(s) are, where the platform company is registered etc. IF you upset some one in country z do the laws of country Z apply because it was "published" there.

Facebook whilst nominally being a US company has servers and subsidiaries all over the world. SO if a poster in country A posts something defamatory about some one in country B and by chance the original server is in country C (none of which are the USA) who's laws apply?

What the youngsters (and it seems older people) don't realize is that employers will look at your social medial pages before hiring you ( for a permanent job ) .

I know one employer who was interviewing a short list of university students for their industrial year. He went to the Uni campus to do this but also asked to see half a dozen students who didn't make the short list. This was to tell them unless they deleted their Facebook accounts immediately and did not start another FB page until they left university they would never work in the industry (not media). However for one student he had to tell them they had sent the screen grabs of his Facebook account to the company he had spent the previous summer with. Also to the Police. He was told there was probably little point in finishing his degree as he was not going to ever work in the industry and probably not several other related sectors.

As noted by others: posting on social media (of which DVXuser is a part) is publishing and all the laws of liable do apply. DVXuser is social media it just has a smaller readership than Facebook. Like a local newspaper compared to a National Newspaper.
 
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Liam Hall said:
. Everyone has a right to show what a dickhead they are. When it becomes an incitement to hate and commit hate crimes is where I draw the line. Did this guy do that?
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It probably depends on if you interpret his post to be a personal slight against Harris specifically or a racist/sexist slur against Black women, which is how it was interpreted by the WNBA player who brought attention to it.

I would certainly think twice about hiring someone who posted that they had been "Jewed out of" something, which I understand to mean cheated
 
ahalpert said:
I would certainly think twice about hiring someone who posted that they had been "Jewed out of" something, which I understand to mean cheated
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For sure, I'm not going to hire racists or antisemites. But I'd be a liar if I said I hadn't had to bite my tongue on a more than a few occasions with people I work with.
 
DLD said:
There are unnamed TV "comedy" programs alleging a certain well known fgure has engaged in a certain behavior at a certain hotel in a certain town in Eastern Europe. Rings a bell?
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I think the significance of that implication was that Russia might have leverage over Trump if they had the "pee pee tape." But it was definitely a prurient and demeaning line of inquiry pursued without regard for the dignity of Trump. The same treatment was given Bill Clinton.

Saying awful things about opposing politicians and violating their private lives is old hat. But what was said of Trump and Clinton did not play into and perpetuate racist/sexist stereotypes. Millions of people did not suffer because Clinton was slut-shamed or Trump was called a whore-hiring adulterer
 
Liam Hall said:
For sure, I'm not going to hire racists or antisemites. But I'd be a liar if I said I hadn't had to bite my tongue on a more than a few occasions with people I work with.
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Because of something they said? Or something you wanted to say but thought it might offend?
 
I guess my feeling is that we all have the right to express ourselves, but there are basic standards of politeness and decency that should be universally followed. Then you won't ever get in trouble. But the internet rewards shock and sensationalism, so it cultivates "provocateurs"

Kathy Griffin lost her position at CNN and perhaps some other work after she posted a photo of herself holding an effigy of Trump's severed head. I thought that was an offensive and potentially threatening thing for her to do and obviously violated social norms of conduct. Now - she's a comedian so it's hard to take the gesture seriously and not just as a metaphor for how she feels about him. Nevertheless, I wouldn't do the same thing to anyone except maybe Hitler or someone of that ilk
 
Liam Hall said:
For sure, I'm not going to hire racists or antisemites. But I'd be a liar if I said I hadn't had to bite my tongue on a more than a few occasions with people I work with.
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For me, that is kind of the whole point of it all. Biting one's tongue or holding back does not seem to be general practice in many online forms of communication. It shows the beliefs or behavior is latent in human beings and being online lets it show a lot more than when we are face to face. I believe in treating people with respect at all times. Basically, don't act up and you won't get fired.

Having said that, I also do not like the cancel culture movement either. But I do not see this situation as cancel culture. There is a taking for granted for many large institutions' because folks like what they offer and the unprecedented access that is shown today. But in the end, they are private organizations that are 100% allowed and expected to do what they desire. If they do not want to let somebody who is of the mind to post certain things into their world, that is their right. That is reality. Not sure if this was spun online as the poor photographer or not, but if some entitlement can get cancelled along with the other stuff we would be better for it as well.
 
I interpreted the meme as a jab at KH's character and morality, not her ethnicity or sex, as there are equivalent terms for males.

Sometimes things like this are cut-and-dry, and sometimes things are misunderstood, misquoted, or falsely asserted, and the outrage can be eerily similar to McCarthyism.
Free speech is a double edged sword, but I think we should err on the side of freedom or else cancel culture will have the potential to outlaw a sense of humor.

A few years ago I made a video response to an illogical article, which asserted that my vote belonged to the author's favored candidate, because of my religious views.
I was respectful, logical, and well reasoned, in my response, but I still changed the video to unlisted before I applied for my current job, as I didn't want someone with a millisecond attention span to misinterpret it.

I'm a Millennial, but I'm not a fan of social media. I'm on FaceBook, but only friends can view my posts, I only friend people who are actually my friends, and I average one post a year.

The USA has laws against slander and libel, but in practice its been open season on public figures for as long as I can remember.
 
Imamacuser said:
I interpreted the meme as a jab at KH's character and morality
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By saying she’s a prostitute. Quite the jab isn’t it ?


It’s a bit tone deaf at best given there’s a fairly significant movement by the gender that’s barely even represented on these boards to call out and change this kind of language. It was a woman “friend” of his that called him out. I guess she didn’t think it was just a “jab” either.

Imamacuser said:
, not her ethnicity or sex, as there are equivalent terms for males.
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Interestingly she was singled out in this allegedly all in good fun prank. The woman was the one disparaged.

Imamacuser said:
The USA has laws against slander and libel, but in practice its been open season on public figures for as long as I can remember.
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Often the defence for those that are faced with a libel, slander or defamation case is that the comment was truthful. I wonder if he’d be able to show that it was in fact the case the KH was a prostitute. The threshold / burden is much higher for those that are public figures though.

JB
 
Liam Hall said:
Because of things other crew members have said. Often I work with an international crew and sometimes I work with idiots.
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I work with and communicate with people from many countries and the problem is "normal" and "professional standards" are not fixed. They vary from place to place. What is normal in one place is OTT in another yet tame somewhere else. Some countries have unfathomable cultures where things that are abhorrent in the majority of the world are "normal" but attitudes to other things that are globally "normal" are almost censored.

It makes life interesting.
 
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Imamacuser said:
I interpreted the meme as a jab at KH's character and morality, not her ethnicity or sex, as there are equivalent terms for males.
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On some level, the intent may not matter as much as the effect. If you perpetuate a harmful stereotype, you are hurting people whether you mean to or not.

I also think you're on very shaky ground if you say, "I don't think all ____s fit this stereotype, I just think THIS one does."

At any rate, the WNBA player who saw it interpreted it as a slur, writing, "It’s amazing how people will smile in your face but eventually their true colors will show."

Something similar happened at the NYT recently where they published a political cartoon of Trump dressed as a blind Jew being led by Netanyahu, depicted as a seeing eye dog with exaggerated Jewish features. After the ensuing uproar, they published an apology and fired the responsible editor.

You could say that the cartoonist was making a comment about Netanyahu's character and didn't mean to perpetuate harmful stereotypes. But does it matter? Involuntary Manslaughter is a lesser charge than murder but it's still a crime.
 
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