Social Media Trouble

Let's say someone posted an offensive picture or said a joke that is controversial, should their life be ruined for it? Well Friedersdorf, Conor doesn't believe it should in the article she wrote A Social-Media Mistake Is No Reason to Be Fired in the article she discusses the issue with companies that give in to internet bullies to fire a person for something they posted in their social media account. She sees that many of the people who are accused and harassed by the internet don't have many people defending them. She against people being fired from their jobs because of an online post.

She believes this isn't right and suggests that companies should have a policy that prevents an employee to be fired based on their social media post. She mentions a lady that posted a picture on Facebook that seems to be making fun of the sing in a cemetery and a few weeks later she was fired from a job that helps disabled adults because of that post. Another example is one of a young woman dressing up as a victim of the Boston Marathon for Halloween and posted the picture on twitter, a victim found the picture and replied to her picture shaming the 22-year-old lady she was fired from her job. She wants to get exposure to these types of stories because she feels like it will stop people from joining these online harassing bandwagons and to think about the persons in question situation. She thinks it's not worth getting a stranger fired from her/his job for something that will be forgotten in a week or so.

In the article, she doesn't seem to provide that many stories, but in the few, she did there were all about women and not one about a man. Her argument is relatable and relevant to what's happening right now. A few things I like about this article is that she explains how internet shaming has an effect on people lives and what happens when they get exposed. She seems to capture the cruel reality of the internet with their life threats and so on. One thing I dislike from this article she has no flow-ups on the people affected by the internet shaming, did they ever recover? What happened to them? Are questions I kept asking myself.

Another thing that I disagree with is that companies should put a policy the prevents employs from being fired from social media controversy, but the problem for me is that what if they say something threating or harassing on social media then the company fires the employee and if they do then the companies will come under scrutiny or get into legal problems. She had good evidence but not as much as I would like, her supporting argument was really conversing it should that she really cared about the topic. I agree with the author that companies should not give in the demand of the public when it comes to employees mistake. People should think about what they are doing to someone before typing something to harass that person. This article makes me wonder how many people have been affected by this, and how many of them recover from mistakes that revolved around social media. One more thing that this article makes me think about is what percentage of the people that complain care and are there just to bully.

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