This document discusses issues around venting and self-censorship on social media. It provides examples of individuals from various professions who were fired or disciplined due to offensive social media posts. It also discusses tensions between protecting free speech versus maintaining civility. The document advocates for prevention through education about social media properties and establishing forums for employees to vent, as well as considering alternatives to dismissal like due process, restorative justice, and modifying policies.

1. “Should I say that?”: Venting,
Repercussions, and Self-censorship
on Social Media
Andrew J. Roback
andrew.roback@gmail.com
@andrew0writer

2. Who uses social media?
• How many of you have a Facebook account?
• Twitter?

3. How many people use social media?
Chart of global population, 1960-2012. Data from World Bank (view
chart)

4. How many people use social media?
Chart of global population, 2004-2012. Data from World Bank

5. How many people use social media?
Chart of global population, 2003-2012. Overlay: Facebook registered
monthly users

6. How many people use social media?
Chart of global population, 1960-2012. Overlay: Facebook registered
monthly users

7. What is a social networking site?
• Create a user profile
• Make connections
• View and traverse those connections
boyd and Ellison (2006)

8. Content properties on SNS
• Persistence
• Searchability
• Replicability
• Invisible audiences
boyd (2007)

9. Content properties on SNS
• Persistence
• Searchability
• Replicability
• Invisible audiences
• Ghosts from the past
• Unintended reach
• Rapid dissemination
• Your boss
boyd (2007)

10. What do I mean by “venting”?
• Catharsis theory
• Freud and the “hydraulic model of anger”
• Does it help?
Bushman (2002)

11. Venting in the academic workplace
• As public academics
– Steven Salaita / Saida Grundy
– Bigotry?
– The case of Justine Sacco; reading intent
Flaherty (2015); Ronson (2015)

12. Venting in the academic workplace
• As instructors
– Venting and the notion of place
• Which policies will prevail?
– “Academic freedom” / 1st Amendment
– “Civility in discourse”
– Worst case: social media silence
Stommel (2015); Flaherty (2014); Leiter (2014); Wise (2015)

13. Venting in the private sector
• Right to organize under National Labor
Relations Act, §7
• Counterproductive behavior versus “concerted
action”
• NLRB finds concerted actions --> firings
reversed
• NLRB finds only “venting” --> firings upheld
Hispanics United (2010); Greenhouse (2013); Soloman (2011)

14. Protections afforded Inherent tension(s)
First amendment Unpopular or offensive
speech
Minimal enforcement
NLRA §7 Right to organize -- At odds with workplace
policies
-- Concerted action v. gripes
Academic freedom Research, teach, and
correspond without fear of
firing
At odds with policies that
stress civility
Consideration of
context / intent by
reader
Possible justification of
solitary offensive remark
-- Easy to make snap
judgment
-- Much harder to evaluate
speech in context
Measures to protect online speech and associated tensions they create

15. Interventions
• Katie Duke
– Nurse, NY Presbyterian Hospital (and reality TV
celebrity)
– Captioned OR photo on Instagram with “Man v. 6
train”
• Response
– “If you hung around nurse’s station and heard the way we talk about
injuries, life and death you might get the wrong impression but it’s just
a coping mechanism.”
– Claimed photo originally posted by doctor, and he was not
reprimanded
Neporent (2014)

16. Interventions
• Katie Duke
– Nurse, NY Presbyterian Hospital (and reality TV
celebrity)
– Captioned OR photo on Instagram with “Man v. 6
train”
• Response
– “If you hung around nurse’s station and heard the way we talk about
injuries, life and death you might get the wrong impression but it’s just
a coping mechanism.”
– Claimed photo originally posted by doctor, and he was not
reprimanded
FIRED
Neporent (2014)

17. Interventions
• Richard White
– IBM employee, union member
– Complained that layoffs left gaping hole in
workforce experience – said business was being
“tanked” by management
• Response
– Appealed termination to NLRB, and won!
Andrews (2011)

18. Interventions
• Richard White
– IBM employee, union member
– Complained that layoffs left gaping hole in
workforce experience – said business was being
“tanked” by management
• Response
– Appealed termination to NLRB, and won!
Andrews (2011)
FIRED

19. Interventions
• Ted Bishop
– Head of Professional Golfers Association of
America (PGA)
– Compared golfer Ian Poulter to a “little girl
squealing at recess” for publicly criticizing more
accomplished golfers
• Response
– Apologized for his tweet to his daughters and all offended parties
– Asked permission to address governing board and explain/apologize
Associated Press (2014)

20. Interventions
• Ted Bishop
– Head of Professional Golfers Association of
America (PGA)
– Compared golfer Ian Poulter to a “little girl
sqealing at recess” for publicly criticizing more
accomplished golfers
• Response
– Apologized for his tweet to his daughters and all offended parties
– Asked permission to address governing board and explain/apologize
Associated Press (2014)
FIRED
&
BANNED FOR
LIFE

21. Interventions
• Britt McHenry
– ESPN reporter
– Filmed berating the clerk at a towing company
– Film went viral
• Response
– Issued an apology via Twitter

23. Britt McHenry
• Collected 3,379 replies to apology tweet in
(close to) real time
Word n Sentiment
apol- 316 Apology not genuine / apologize to person you
hurt
fire 152 McHenry should be fired
• 10 instances of negation or rhetorical Q
sorry 98
Only sorry because you got caught
caught 77
human 66 Stress humanity of victim / human fallibility of
McHenry
everyone 65 Everyone has bad days / (small) McHenry thinks
she’s better than everyone

24. Britt McHenry
Word n Sentiment
bitch 122 Directed at McHenry
class- 77 McHenry has no class
looks 50 McHenry got job due to looks / not right to
criticize others based on looks

25. McHenry - Outcomes
• Suspended for one week (less than some
other ESPN personalities)
• Did not “feed the trolls”
• Returned to Twitter

26. McHenry – 16 days later

27. McHenry – 16 days later
• beauty? But he's missing teeth!?!
@Syracuse_Bills
• It's a good thing none of them have to
lose any weight :-)
@coachyerma
• I heard the team bus got towed away.
@yanks25wsc

28. McHenry – 31 days later

29. McHenry – 31 days later
• Winnie Cooper: Better than you. Smarter than
you. Hotter than you. More talented than you.
More respectful than you.
@petternorthug82
• she has all.her teeth and aint a fat poor
person
@Premo74
• Ya think she has a degree? Gets towed and
throws classless tantrum??
@jasonjdmha

30. McHenry – 82 days later

31. McHenry – 82 days later
• Did she get a college degree?
@BuschSports
• you should have been fired
@nadeaua75

32. Interventions
• What is the real effect of suspension?
• Suspensions are reactions
“They resolve absolutely nothing. They prepare people for
absolutely nothing. They reform the organization and the
disciplined party in no way whatsoever. The mere act of
sitting on the sidelines, for instance, doesn’t make McHenry
— poof! — a better, more sympathetic person.”
Wemple (2015)

33. Prevention
• Educate in classroom
– Professional writing
• Persistence, searchability
– Rhetoric and comp studies
• Replicability, invisible audiences
• Discuss in workplace
– Division of individual and organizational
representative
– Acknowledge venting is real (forums /
alternatives)

34. How we’re behaving
• “Spiral of silence”
• Fear of shaming
“I suddenly feel with social media like I’m tiptoeing
around an unpredictable, angry, unbalanced parent
who might strike out at any moment. It’s horrible”
Does social media content represent “us” anymore?
Did it ever?
Hampton et al. (2014); Ronson (2015)

35. Alternatives to summary dismissal
• Due process
– Hearing
– Restorative justice
• Recursive practices
– Modification of policies
– Better training
• Recognition of place
– Stop reading employees social media
– Social media as the corner pub (Andrews, 2011)

36. References
• boyd, d., & Ellison, N. B. (2008). Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship. Journal of computer‐mediated communication, 13(1), 210-230.
• boyd, danah. (2007) “Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life.” MacArthur Foundation Series on
Digital Learning – Youth, Identity, and Digital Media Volume (ed. David Buckingham). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Bushman, B. J. (2002). Does venting anger feed or extinguish the flame? Catharsis, rumination, distraction, anger, and aggressive responding.Personality
and social psychology bulletin, 28(6), 724-731.
• Stommel, J. (2015). Dear Chronicle: Why I will no longer write for Vitae. Retrieved from: http://www.jessestommel.com/blog/files/dear-chronicle.html
• Hispanics United of Buffalo (18 Nov. 2010). Case before the National Labor Relations Board, case number 03-CA-027872.
• Greenhouse, S. (2013). Even if It Enrages Your Boss, Social Net Speech Is Protected. The New York Times.
• Solomon, L. (2011). Report of the Acting General Counsel Concerning Social Media Cases. Memo from the National Labor Relations Board.
• Flaherty, C. (2015). Twitterstorm. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/
• Ronson, J. (2015). So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. New York: Riverhead.
• Flaherty, C. (2014). The Problem With Civility. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/
• Leiter, B. (2014). University of Illinois Repeals the First Amendment for Its Faculty. Huff Post College. Retrieved from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com
• Wise, P. (2014). The Principles on Which We Stand. Chancellor’s Blog. Retrieved from: https://illinois.edu/
• Neporent, L. (2014). Nurse Firing Highlights Hazards of Social Media in Hospitals. ABC News. Retrieved from: http://abcnews.go.com/
• Andrews, L. (2011). I Know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did: Social Networks and the Death of Privacy. New York: Free Press.
• Associated Press (2014). PGA Impeaches Ted Bishop. ESPN.com. Retrieved from: http://espn.go.com/golf/
• Wemple, E. (2015). A rehabbed Britt McHenry returns to ESPN!. The Washington Post. Retrieved from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-
wemple