I felt my jaw dropping when I saw the whole world
(well..., almost. Like, the online part of it) united over one single tweet. A
tweet meant for joke, carelessly tossed, has managed to draw sensation, laugh,
and absurdly, ire.
I'm sure that those of you who've been following the news
have known the story. Unfortunately, my country is on the shortlist of places
who are not *in* the rage. Can't blame 'em, though. What with the case of
Banten ex-governor in a graft scandal dominating the national news.
For the sakes of those of us who don't really know the
whole story, here... Let me polish my story telling skills and relay it to you.
On Friday, 20 December 2013, a PR executive for
InterActiveCorp (IAC) tweeted the tweet in the picture above, just before she
took off in an 11-hour flight to South Africa (She came from London). She only
had less than 200 followers, but one of BuzzFeed's reporter, Andrew Kaczynski,
got wind of it. He re tweeted it to his considerably larger followings - being a
reporter and all.
And there began the whirlwind. Users on twitter were
responding with a normal scale of bash and incredulous-ness, at first. Questions
like, "Is this tweet for real?" and "Are you stupid"' were
thrown around. But those were within the boundary of good ol' Internet
shaming-joking. Then, began the appearance of
intolerable-police-of-the-internet individuals. Of course, in the name of all
that's good and holy, such (jokingly) racist tweet like this is tolerable,
right? Maybe no.
While the PR executive was probably lounging comfortably
inside her plane, she was unaware, that the anti-AIDS activists were directing
their "crusading" at her. Granted, it was a slow Friday night. No
horrible disaster. No breaking news immediately to be taken notice. As the
consequences, even major news outlets like Business
Insider had sniffed out the building storm. A woman in Miami picked up an
ingenious inspiration in the form of #HasJustineLandedYet.
Needless to say, it was like sugar for hungry ants who would eagerly prey
on boring Friday nights.
Justine's landing would become positively historic by
now, articulately worded by this person below.
I don't think America has watched a landing this closely since Apollo 13 re-entered the earth's atmosphere in 1970. #HasJustineLandedYet
Parodies were
being made. This one's my favorite.
As usual, there
HAS to be some people who were just opportunists by nature. AIDS organizations
immediately drew sympathizers to donate, even to the point of establishing
www.justinesacco.com as a fundraising page.
This incident
has been covered by The New York Times,
CNN, ABC, and other news outlets; became a joke among pilots ("Pilot on our flight
just told us we had a time to send last minute text or tweet before takeoff but to
remember to 'be careful, kids'."); used by GoGo the wireless internet on flight
provider as a means for their marketing (which was withdrawn later on); made a
point in the forever-waged war between conservative vs. liberal; and catapulted
Sacco's fame beyond international superstar Justin Bieber's in search box.
When her flight
landed, Justine suddenly found herself in a terrible predicament: she lost her
job, received backlash from her boss and the rest of the world, effective
immediately became a national pariah in the country she was stepping her feet
on.
It was funny,
alright. I have to admit that. But my personal take on this one is that it only
reflects how much the social media has power over us all.
An article I
read put it the best of all.
"Her life was destroyed while she was out of touch
with the world and couldn't defend herself."
It was a form of journalistic assassination.
If a regular joe twitter user like Justine Sacco with
even less then 200 followers can be such a worldwide target, then how can we
all be safe? I've heard that the NSA spying has dramatic backlash from around
the world. Even the newspapers in my country have campaigned heavily against
the Indonesia-Australia spying scandal which is one of the implications of the
NSA whistleblower. People are offended when having their privacy disturbed. We
shouted foul at NSA for doing that to us. Then, we've gone and done the same
disturbance of privacy to Justine Sacco.
Are we sure we are completely innocent of any thoughts
about racism?
What happened to freedom of speech? What happened to
giving someone a benefit of doubts?
I express my sympathy over what happened with Justine
Sacco. However, with all the articles that I am seeing on my google search
result now - about how people are now expressing their regrets over the
recent event - I think it's fair to say that I have great hopes!
Justine Sacco shouldn't have deleted all her accounts
just because of this mishap. I can't imagine what she must be going through, but I'm
sure the Internet (and the world) will give her a second change.
Right, guys?
PS: In relation to journalism (yeah, because I can't bear to not mention the J-word in this post. Unreasonably.), lo and behold this is how one journalism's negative spotlight can (possibly) destroy a person's life. One good thing, though. More attention on the AIDS sufferers from around the world. More donations, too.
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