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Trending: Exposing racists and getting them fired, the vigilantes policing the internet

Exposing Racists and Getting Them Fired

17/01/2015

Exposing racists and getting them fired, the vigilantes policing the internet

BBC World Service - Trending, Exposing racists and getting them fired, the vigilantes policing the internet

From policing to trolling. Can online vigilantes go too far?

The Spanish video satirist accused of mocking victims of terrorism; and the virtues and excesses of the online morality police.

Does this offend you? 
This week in Spain, #YocanFacu (I am with Facu) was trending in support of the satirist Facu Diaz. He has been accused of mocking victims of terrorism in an online video sketch, which uses the iconography of the Basque armed organisation ETA. 

His detractors say that he has overstepped the limits of freedom of expression - while he claims that he is actually being targeted for his close ties with the growing opposition movement, Podemos. So which one is it? BBC Trending’s Anne-Marie Tomchak went to Madrid to investigate.
 
Fired for being Racist
We meet the man in Texas whose racist Facebook posts inspired a whole community to get him fired. 

Racists Getting Fired (and Getting Racists Fired!) is the name of a blog that does exactly what it says on the tin. People are encouraged to find and share incidents of racism online, from memes to tweets to quotes, and expose the apparent racists. The community are then encouraged to call, and email the racists employer until they are fired. It’s online vigilantism, or digilantism, that dares to impact the real world, and it’s not the first. 

The complexity of regulating the online world has left a vacuum for people to take moral policing  into their own hands. But if just one comment on a public platform can result in harassment and losing your job, have vigilantes gone too far? We speak to Chris Rincon, who lost his job when his Facebook status was aired on the blog. We also hear from the man behind the retweeting moral policing machine @YesYoureRacist.

(Photo: An office worker gets fired by his senior manager. Credito: Shutterstock)

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