STL Social Media Guy - Latest Comments

Re: Post a vulgar comment at work, lose your job

Ron — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:13:07 -0000

I don't know why the comments were closed on the STL site, but I'm amazed at all the folks who think you were in the wrong. As a few have mentioned, it was that person's choice to post the vulgar word.. twice.. and they are responsible for their own actions. I think its the fact that most people can't accept responsibility for their actions that drives them to blame someone, in this case you. At any rate, as you are well aware, you acted entirely appropriately in this case.

Re: Post a vulgar comment at work, lose your job

cnn-8c7613d7e09cc4505cd4498652 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:55:18 -0000

How far down the slope is it to where a reporter sends a post about someone's unpopular political beliefs to an employer ? This could cause real problems for people in some communities or over some issues. Kurt, that you would do this, and then crow about it, shows you lack the judgment necessary to be a journalist. You are the one who should lose his job over this incident.

Re: Follow up: The vulgar comment & the school

Norman — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:28:43 -0000

You haven't learned that you made a mistake and should apologize.

The headers, with enough date and time information to identify the person to his employer, is personal information.

You violated the ST's privacy policy and cost somebody his job.

Re: Post a vulgar comment at work, lose your job

Brian G — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:07:41 -0000

While I'll agree with you that this user's post was inappropriate given the context, you ruined someone's life because they posted a word that only conservative, utterly repressed people without even the slightest sense of humor would ever consider "offensive." Then you felt it necessary to brag about your actions on your blog, indicating to everyone that your extreme overreaction to one inappropriate comment was perfectly rational.

While I don't know you, Mr. Greenbaum, this is one of the most small-minded actions I've ever seen any individual take. It's truly disappointing you won't face any sort of justice for what you've done, and I can't see how you can possibly consider yourself a "director of social media" when you are so clearly disconnected from the public you claim to represent.

Re: Post a vulgar comment at work, lose your job

Jay Rehak — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:59:01 -0000

Not really your job to do what you did. I think you crossed an ethical line. This is not to say I support the person who wrote the vulgarity, but it certainly is not your job to investigate where comments come from. This is very disappointing and I think you should be fired.

PS I am a teacher, not working at the present moment. I would prefer not to be tracked by you or anyone in your news organization.

Re: Post a vulgar comment at work, lose your job

Proud STL Resident — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:22:55 -0000

Kurt,

Thank you for getting our small local paper so much global attention! I'm sure STLToday.com is grateful to have a (slightly better than high-school level) journalist calling around and having their readers' jobs put in jeopardy. Good for you.

Now that you've told everyone about it, so that they can all see the stellar example of a human being that you are, I bet you'll soon be the most popular man in the city (if not the state, or the country). You're a national hero for saving those children from that evil juvenile teacher. Maybe a meeting with the president is in order (though I'm sure you would turn it down, because you're above even him in morals, right?).

Don't worry about what you did, being that it wasn't legal or anything (I'm concidering your privacy policy). The rightous always overcome.

Re: Follow up: The vulgar comment & the school

Bill — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:15:17 -0000

My guess is you just opened up the paper to a lawsuit due to the violation of the posted privacy policy. That's what happens when someone that knows very little about social media gets a job as a director of social media. If you don't want anonymous posters then disable it - if you want to institute some conservative speech constraints then add it to the T&C's and if you want to be able to track down and report people for what they post then include it in your privacy policy

Re: Post a vulgar comment at work, lose your job

KB — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:14:17 -0000

I had no idea profanity came in degrees of offensiveness. Here I was under the impression that profanity is profanity. Some people may find profanity humorous while others do not. The important thing to remember is that people have varying sensibilities. On a personal site, profanity might be accepted, however, not so on a professional one. In both cases, being invited to comment on a website is like being invited to comment in someone's living room. In such a setting, would the anonymous commentator still have blurted out the word in question?

While Kurt's reaction may be construed as extreme, there are other points to consider:

* The commentator is culpable. He should have used better judgement when commenting, especially while at work (when he should have been *working*).

* If there was a defined comment policy, the commentator should have kept his comments in line with such. The website was not his to deface and, if it is not allowed, a vulgar comment can be seen as defacement. (Free speech doesn't extend to *someone else's* website unless the website owner says so.)

* The comment *was* deleted and the commentator posted it a second time. Logically, most people would realize that their comment being deleted a first time would mean it should not be re-posted unless requested, but apparently jobless-fellow is not to be included in that group.

* The commentator was not fired, he quit when confronted. On some level, he knew and understood what he'd done to be wrong. Granted, he may have acted hastily in resigning because the headmaster may only have reprimanded him for the behaviour. But, ultimately he has no one to blame but himself.

What people, especially in this day and age, fail to realize is that all actions have consequences--whether good or bad. People can say that Kurt abused his power, but the same can be said about anonymous commentators. When does this cycle end?

Frankly, this world be a far better place if people learned to exercise a bit more respect for one another and look at a given situation from more than a single point of view.

Kurt did not need to confront the commentator's employer, but the commentator did not need to leave the comment (multiple times). And the fact that he was at a school--an institution of learning--only makes it worse; what are our children learning nowadays?

Re: Follow up: The vulgar comment & the school

Mr. Geek — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:57:21 -0000

The thing is, you broke the ToS (as many others have said). And again the phrase "jackass". Why? Why the double standards? You can say something "vulgar" yet another person can not?

Re: Post a vulgar comment at work, lose your job

sam — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:15:07 -0000

"""
We will not share individual user information with third parties unless the user has specifically approved the release of that information.
"""
-- http://www.stltoday.com/help/privacy-policy

Do you often ignore your own policies? Why bother making such claims in the first place then?

I hope the now unemployed person has a lawyer friend.

Re: Follow up: The vulgar comment & the school

GaryB — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:02:34 -0000

Kurt sez about reveling private information >
"No. I had none to reveal and wouldn’t have if I had it. From me, the school learned three things: ...<indirectly exactly who the guy was>"

But, you make excuses. What you first said was:
Kurt first said>
"I’m not identifying the guy who posted the comment because, obviously, I don’t know who it was."

The obvious implication was that the only reason you didn't out and out expose his identity was because you (thankfully) didn't find it out. NOT that you'd never do that.

Re: Follow up: The vulgar comment & the school

tom — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:37:17 -0000

More than once you have stated:
"Did I reveal private information? No.... The school knows its own IP address."

Quite simply, you are being dishonest. Perhaps your motivation is just to be defensive against the full frontal attack from your readers.

In order for your statement to make any sense at all, your phone call would have to have gone as follows:
"Is this xxyyzz school?"
"Yes it is."
"I just wanted to tell you that your IP address is xx.xy.zyx"
"Oh, thank you, but we already know this. Is there anything else you have to tell us?"
"Of course not. I would never divulge any private information from anyone posting anything to our newspaper, especially when they have an expectation of anonymity. For example, it would be extremely unethical for me to tell you that at exactly 3:47:03pm someone from your school put a supposedly anonymous post on this paper's site that I found offensive."
"Yes it would. Did you say 3:47:03pm?"
"Yes"
"Well, there's only one person here who was using a computer at that time, but of course you never really gave me any information that would let me identify that person or what he or she posted at your site, did you?"
"No....of course I didn't. All I told you was your IP address, which you already knew anyway!"

Re: Follow up: The vulgar comment & the school

Joanne — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:12:23 -0000

Maintaining trust extends beyond your interpretation of the newspaper's privacy policy. It was clearly violated--it is for the public to decide, and we clearly have decided--and it clearly cannot be reestablished with your bizarre defense of your actions. People have the right to be vulgar in this country. Privately typing a vulgar word on a computer located in the confines of a school is in no way a crime, and you have absolutely no business accessing IP addresses because of two (2) inappropriate and readily editable remarks. That you *can* track the man down and punish him for being immature does not relieve you of your moral obligation to not be such a complete fascist. Completely appalling behavior on your part and completely appalling that the newspaper is taking such a light stance on one of their employees using newspaper resources to punish a man who used the newspaper as a public forum for speech, however unwelcome. If I ever had anything to do with the paper, I certainly wouldn't now. Lord willing, it will be out of business sooner than the rest.

Re: Follow up: The vulgar comment & the school

SN — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:28:18 -0000

If everyone hasn't realized yet, the Internet is full of trolls who will say horrible things wherever they find the ability to make a comment.

Trolls don't represent the silent majority.

Violate the spirit of the Internet, however, and that silent majority will show you a backlash of epic proportion.

Trolls aren't going to stop trolling. You knock one down, another will pop up. Guaranteed.

Greenbaum, being a "director of social media" should have known this. There are a few simple ways of eliminating trolls. Turn off comments altogether (unlikely), or moderate, moderate, moderate.

Making a call to punish a troll might provide some short term gratification, but in this public world of the Internet, breaking the social contract of Internet conversations (policies be damned) will only get you bitten.

Re: Post a vulgar comment at work, lose your job

twitter-15043373 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:51:09 -0000

Hi Kurt: I'm curious. Did you really not know what they could do with the information included in the email? Maybe you didn't want what happened to happen, but you had to have some idea of what the IT department could do, right? I deal with this kind of thing all the time as the ME of UGC at a news organization but I have a team of moderators who approve and disapprove comments in real-time. i know you were frustrated but why not just ban the guy? Believe me, I'm no advocate for trolls by a long shot but did you consider contacting him directly or just denying him posting privileges?

Re: Follow up: The vulgar comment & the school

Mr Magority. — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:45:29 -0000

Read your own privacy policy: "We will not share individual user information with third parties unless the user has specifically approved the release of that information"

Re: Follow up: The vulgar comment & the school

Edward Denny — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:53:56 -0000

By email feed, I have received several Comments that are not appearing here. Is the blog owner deleting these? Hopefully, it's a time lag and they will eventually appear. One of interest was from Paul N. A segment of his comment was:

"For other commenting: there's no need to generalize this beyond Mr. Greenbaum when it comes to media or trust of journalists. What you've done, Mr. Greenbaum, is so far from what almost any other jounalist would have done that you are nothing but an outlier, not worthy of generalization. You're a cautionary tale."

That may be so, but where does that put the Post-Dispatch? Should they continue to employ Mr. Greenbaum if in fact he has violated their policies? Or does he get a second chance? The school teacher certainly didn't have that option.

Re: Follow up: The vulgar comment & the school

Paul N. — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:20:41 -0000

This guy should never have posted that comment. He should have also realized that what you post on the internet is not exactly private. The guy is an idiot. But he should not have assumed, according to your own Terms Of Service, that he would have a retaliatory effort made against him. It appears no where in your Terms that you would contact an employer but only a a proper public official which wasn't the case here.

Mr. Greenbaum, you call this guy a "jackass" in one of your tweets that's posted to this page. I'm not sure how that vulgarity is at all different from what the user posted. Could you explain that?

I also find it hard to believe that you are doing nothing different than trying to have your comments seen in a better light. It's pretty obvious that you had a gloating if not gleeful tone directed at this "jackass." The IT administrator "took a shine to the challenge"? Sounds like a fun little game. That you now say you "should take pains to measure my language carefully" tells me that there is a separation between what you really think (the gloating) versus what you want to convey to others. That's quite a bit different than saying that you weren't gloating in the first place.

To your point about not giving out private information about this person. Imagine this scenario: Someone calls into a radio station call-in show and says a vulgarity. The DJ notice that the Caller ID is from a local school. The DJ calls the main school number, gives the specific telephone number (which is traceable to only one phone) and the time of the call to an administrator. Mr. Greenbaum, you may not have given out someone's name but it's hard to argue that you didn't given out "private" information (as you argue). At least you certainly gave out identifiable information. And, really, is there a difference?

Also, it appears that a large motivation for your actions was to teach a lesson, a "teachable moment" to this person, because they were at a school. How do you decide what kind of person should be taught a lesson or not. How is that your job? Should it just be those that work with children? Since when did you get to become the final arbiter of what is decent in what context? What if it had come from a library; what about a church; what about a local government office; what about a private home that also runs an afterschool daycare? I'm not sure that's a decision you want a journalist making independent of anyone else. You make decisions about your moderating your own comments but it's entirely different to carry that moderation back into someone's job.

You say one of the lessons you've learned is that you "Should have walked the idea around the newsroom a little more before calling the school." Would others have advised that you do something different? You say we'll never know because you "couldn't know without asking." Well, that begs the question: what are they saying now? Surely, you could ask others in the newsroom what they would have done. And should be. Perhaps you should share that as part of your comments.

You strike a slightly more conciliatory tone now but you were aggressive and defensive for the first several days after you posted this. It seems you are only changing now because you realize you "were utterly surprised by the reaction" and not because you actually feel different about what you've done. That's pretty self-serving.

What's done is done but Mr. Greenbaum your issues seems much more to do with process than outcome. At several points you have shown that you ignored normal procedures, didn't solicit the advice of others, and were truculent about your decisions in the face of overwhelming reader critiques. It seems like in this instance, it's not about what the man did but what you did and didn't do in return.

For other commenting: there's no need to generalize this beyond Mr. Greenbaum when it comes to media or trust of journalists. What you've done, Mr. Greenbaum, is so far from what almost any other jounalist would have done that you are nothing but an outlier, not worthy of generalization. You're a cautionary tale.

Re: Follow up: The vulgar comment & the school

cmgrantham — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:12:19 -0000

Kurt, it doesn't matter how you feel or think. The fact is you violated your own newspaper's privacy policy. have you read it? It clearly states, as most do: "We will not share individual user information with third parties unless the user has specifically approved the release of that information."

You shared information about a user only your paper had with a third party and cost the person their job. All you had to do as an editor is delete the comment, but you allowed your emotions to guide your decisions instead of clear policy. And if you are actually a "Social Media Director," why is it you do not have the word that offended you so greatly on your WordPress "banned word" list?

You've been in journalism since the 80s, but this technology must be brand new to you because what you've done is so juvenile and unprofessional by most respected blogger standards, not to mention your own explicit policy.

Re: Follow up: The vulgar comment & the school

Tom — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:10:22 -0000

Mr. Greenbaum,
Certainly, the original poster was being crude. Certainly it was within your perview to ban his comment. Both times.

What were you hoping to achieve by calling the school? If it had been a student, s/he most likely would have been suspended and probably had their computer priviledges revoked. Is it better to have our children in school or at home playing video games and not learning? You mentioned you called the headmaster and I went to a very nice school in W. County with a headmaster. Were you trying to teach that rich, snob kid a lesson?

But instead of teaching that rich punk a lesson, you got someone fired (and make no mistake, this person’s “resignation” was in lieu of being fired). You claim you have no trouble sleeping at night, but you should have trouble looking yourself in the mirror. This person lost their job over a dumb internet joke…if someone called my boss everytime I made a dumb joke on the internet I’d never keep a job. Since you’re culpable in this person’s unemployment - and hey, s/he can’t collect unemployment now since it was a “voluntary resignation” - are you going to help s/he find a new job?

To top it off, the original title of your blog entry shows the satisifaction you felt getting this person fired. “Post a vulgar comment while you’re at work, get fired.” How else are we, as readers, supposed to interpret this other than what’s been said a 1,000 times before: do something I don’t like, I’ll get you!?!

Honestly, you’re not qualified to do your job. And I don’t say that as a reflection on your editorial choices. You don’t understand how Wordpress works, you don’t understand how to curtail vulgarity throughout your comment sections and you don’t understand your own internet policy. You can claim, “but I didn’t know his name” but you knew when you called the school that providing the time of transmission could lead their IT department to the specific computer and user (thus outing the person). Therefore, you KNEW your actions would cause an adverse action onto the poster. And if you didn’t know all this…THEN YOU’RE NOT QUALIFIED TO DO YOUR JOB!

Re: Follow up: The vulgar comment & the school

Paul — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:05:57 -0000

A "teachable moment"? How condescending. "It was easy"? Well, that makes it the right thing to do then, doesn't it?

Social Media Guy FAIL.

Suggested tags: holier_than_thou, say_something_i_dont_like_and_i_will_tattle_on_you, nonapology

Re: Follow up: The vulgar comment & the school

rich727 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:43:49 -0000

I read the privacy policy of the site, which was violated by this action. There is one paragraph about what an IP address is, and what you state that you area allowed to do with it - measure traffic, tailoring interests. It states nothing about tracking down the IP address source in order to cut off comment abuse at the source.

http://www.stltoday.com/help/privacy-policy

The Voluntary Submission section, or any other section makes it clear that those types of actions will not be taken.

I suppose what you have done is some sort of veiled apology, but do not try to get around the fact that you used an IP address in a way not specified by your privacy policy. It's a black eye on your business, and you'll probably find that this draws attention for precisely the reason it should - it's misuse of personal data, despite the origin.

If comment abuse is an issue, word filters are relatively easy to set up. Require accounts for comments and ban on the email address used to set up the account. Since you're already using cookies, ban on the cookie issued to the offending computer. Put up "abusive comment" links next to every comment. There are much better ways to accomplish your goal, rather than IP vigilante justice for something as tame as the comment left.

Re: Follow up: The vulgar comment & the school

twitter-15418228 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:40:34 -0000

<quote>This isn’t new, but it reinforces what I have always known: Your trust is paramount. I did not and would not violate our privacy policy. I regret that this episode may have cast doubt on that. We take our privacy policy seriously.</quote>

Are you sure you didn't violate your privacy policy? Would the person who resigned from their job agree with this assessment? Do Lee's attorneys?

As I said on your previous post about this, racism (both blatant and subtle) seem to find their way into the comments of every controversial story on stltoday.com and are usually allowed (probably because the more lively the debate, the more page views - but that's just the cynic in me), but one idiot makes a vulgar comment and the school is contacted because of fear about what exactly? The children?

I don't buy it. I think you got upset and since it was convenient you forwarded along hoping to punish the person involved. You got your wish and this person lost their job.

Re: Follow up: The vulgar comment & the school

Jenniferwhatnot — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:19:25 -0000

What bothered me about the incident was that you took it back to the person, rather than dealing with it on your site. I should be able to participate on sites without worrying that my employer is going to have my comments emailed to them. Yes, obviously they can scan their own logs and monitor every site I visit, then click on it to see what I wrote there - but most won't. You took it from the realm of disciplining me on your site to notifying my employer. THAT is the privacy issue people are concerned about - including me! I have some leeway from my workplace to post online, so long as I don't represent myself as speaking on my employer's behalf; but now I don't even want to do that for fear that the P-D will randomly decide that my post - that female-anatomy-word isn't NEARLY as offensive to me, a female, as all the racist crap that gets left on the P-D every single day - is too much and alert my employer. Eesh, it gives me the shivers!

Re: Post a vulgar comment at work, lose your job

Kevin Mitnick — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:46:01 -0000

Uh oh, here comes trouble!

What you just did undermines the concept of journalistic integrity or the idea of freedom of speech. Even if you had just deleted the comment and gone about your day whistling dixie, you wouldn't have to deal with the oncoming barrage of internet users that are about to come your way. You are the "director of social media". This is the internet! Anyone can say whatever they want! But you gave him attention... this is going to get worse before it gets better...