Unless you have been living under a rock the last days you have probably heard about Kurt Greenbaum, the journalist and blogger who got someone to resign from his job because of an innocent word posted as a comment.
You can read a very brief recap at a website called: “Kurt Greenbaum Is A Pussy!“
I am not going to retell a story that has been perfectly summed up at ‘Kurt Greenbaum Is A Pussy!’ and that has probably been repeated over and over again in different online forums. At the moment I am more interested in exploring if the online vigilance directed at him is acceptable or as low as what he did to the person who lost his job.
I do have to be a bit brief, so bear with me. Greenbaum got offended by the word ‘Pussy’, tracked down the poster which resulted with him losing his job and then gloating about it.
That is of course the short story of the whole brouhaha.
Being a journalist, a blogger and wearing the title; Director of Social Media, he seems to be absolutely clueless what goes on online. I am not shocked at all about what has happened. People have tracked down all is publicly available information and posted it online.
Based on some comments, people have contacted his boss and even his home.
This is of course a typical example of how a mob works. They see something they disagree with it and retaliate how they see fit, regardless if it is legal or not.
Keep in mind that Greenbaum asked: “What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever eaten? And did you like it?” Most people who have been online for a while know that at least one person will post something juvenile.
So is this as bad as what Greenbaum did to this poor guy who probably just wanted to be silly?
Let us compare what has happened to these two.
The Pussy-Guy posted anonymously and obviously in jest; not thinking he would lose his job OR that Greenbaum would violate his own ToS regarding sharing personal information with a third-party.
Greenbaum gloats about getting the Pussy-Guy resigned and also calling him a jackass (which some find offensive); which results in a majority of people trying to explain to him that what he did was extremely rude, and people collects and repost publicly available information online. With this information readily available people start to contact him.
Personally I honestly don’t see anything wrong with what has happened with Greenbaum. He made the bed and he should now lie in it too. It is of course almost like a ‘eye for an eye’ revenge against Greenbaum; but how else could this have been dealt with?
People are probably giving him and his boss a lot of grief at the moment, but personally I don’t see how that iss any worse or comparable to someone losing their job. Especially when the economy in the USA is not so good at the moment.
I can also only assume that it is not just how Greenbaum handled this incident, but how the state of privacy is at the moment. Online it has been assumed that if you use a pseudonym you should have some level of privacy. You will never have 100% privacy; unless you get offline and live in the woods, but you have probably some type of paper-trail since your were born anyway. Privacy is still something you don’t try to take from someone, and this is what Greenbaum did. Privacy is becoming more and more of a luxury item, so when someone tries to limit your privacy and anonymity more, people get angry; and that is what happened here. Greenbaum couldn’t respect the ToS privacy part and people just saw red.
Of course, gloating about having someone resigned from their job isn’t really that popular either.
As most people who don’t like Greenbaum now I also hope he loses his job. Of course, I honestly don’t see that happen now, but at least he will have a really bad reputation online and remembered as the jackass who got someone fired for posting the word ‘pussy’ online and later gloating about it.
This is my lousy two cents about this.
Kurt Greenbaum, you sir are a pussy!
Shelley
21/11/2009
I don’t think there was anything wrong about contacting Greenbaum or his boss, but I do disagree with putting out his home info. He’s married, has kids — they would have been impacted by people calling his home. They didn’t do anything wrong.
Sad to say, from a TV interview on the local news last night (I live in St. Louis), the St. Louis Today site is now milking the attention for all of its worth.
xen
21/11/2009
I agree on that, it is unfair to his family might be affected by this, but not surprising. This is of course something he should have taken precaution against. If I worked as a journalist I would see to it that my personal information would be kept secret. I even do it now, because I prefer being safe than sorry.
In general, if you have a family and a job that might piss off someone so much they will try to do something to you a warning light should turn on in your head. It is common sense, but based on how he is acting he seems to have some kind of god complex. He completely ignored the ToS, he gloated about the guy losing his job and refuses to admit what he did was wrong.
I don’t know how his wife is reacting, but I know if my wife had put me in a situation like he has put his wife in I would be furious. Probably so furious she would be more concerned about me than the angry mob.
So even if it is very unfortunate that the mob has maybe affected his family in a negative way, he is in the end the only one to blame.
I honestly think if he had apologised in his second post, instead of gloating even more, I think people would have calmed down. Some would probably still post his info in the comments, but he would probably have a much greater number defending him as he had apologised.