[robomartin]

In many ways, the issue here boils down to what happened to these guys in the context of having joked around with each other in a private conversation. And what happened is tragic. Someone got fired for it. Someone's livelihood was affected by this. Not to mention the emotional shock this surely caused.

What's right and what's wrong? Sometimes the answer isn't easy. Private conversations between friends have been known to have content that surely someone, somewhere is bound to find offensive.

The other effect is that there are people who hear what they want to hear --or read what they want to read-- rather than what was actually said or written. All you have to do is watch Fox News, CNN or, for that matter, any news show to see this effect.

HN is perfect proof of the fact that this happens. I've seen it a bunch of times and I've experienced it myself.

A joke is a joke. A dumb comment is a dumb comment. It happens. And, if it hasn't happened to you (plural) yet it surely will at one point or another. I don't know any perfect people.

What saddens me in this case is the firing. I think that was wrong. Way wrong. And absolutely unfair.

One thought that went through my mind is the idea of surveillance cameras picking up private conversations. One could argue: Well, be aware of it and act accordingly. Then there's the question, perhaps legal, of what actually constitutes a private conversation protected by privacy laws. Does one have the right to publish the contents of someone else's private conversation, whether it was overheard or picked-up via intentional or unintentional surveillance? I don't know. It's a bit disturbing because of the potential implications on the assumption of privacy in otherwise public settings. Now you have to look around before having any kind of a conversation because you don't know if anything you say, offensive or not, might come back to pummel you on the Internet.

I would not be surprised if lawyers are involved at this point. I'd certainly go talk to one right away if I was on the receiving end of something like this and it affected my job.

[mst]

Once, sat in the audience at OSCON with people I knew, a particularly inappropriate joke occurred to me that I thought the friend sat next to me would appreciate.

I sent it to him via private message using my laptop.

That way, the conversation was -actually- private, rather than 'private plus whoever else sat near me overheard what I said'.

This is not a difficult concept for me, though my primary motivation was 'not distracting the people around me' rather than what they might have thought of the content.

[protomyth]

> That way, the conversation was -actually- private

Except if the person in the seat behind you took a screen shot of you or your friends computer screen and then posted it on twitter. There are enough epic fail photos of people playing games during lectures / senate voting to make that a real possibility.

[mst]

If they lean over my shoulder and read my screen intentionally, they've taken a specific action to do so and I'm comfortable defending myself on the basis that in that case I had an expectation of privacy, and if they were offended by what they read while they were violating it that was their problem.

[protomyth]

As public figures (celebrities, politicians) have found out, once the information is out there, how it was obtained seems to be unimportant except in court. It won't really matter what your expectations were when it goes public.

I do find this tragic but the way it is these days.

[tbrownaw]

Private conversations between friends have been known to have content that surely someone, somewhere is bound to find offensive.

We were short on cubicles a while back, and about half a dozen people from the team I'm on were sharing a conference room as an office. They kept a counter on the wall, for "number of times we would have been called to talk to HR today, if we left the door open and were overheard".

Then there's the question, perhaps legal, of what actually constitutes a private conversation protected by privacy laws. Does one have the right to publish the contents of someone else's private conversation, whether it was overheard or picked-up via intentional or unintentional surveillance? I don't know.

I looked into this a little bit, from what I remember it more-or-less corresponds to whether the people in question know (or could reasonably expect) that they're in public and is about the same as the rules regarding eavesdroppers and peeping toms (or maybe it's exactly the same and the laws don't care about technology?).