September 3, 2010

Dealing with Social Media Sexism

SF Weekly

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Ladies, how many times has an anonymous troll on the internet told you to “make him a sandwich” in response to even the most vaguely female-related post or comment? As the social media maven for Mother Jones, the answer to that question for me is A LOT. In fact, it seems these days you can’t throw a whale out of a window without it landing on a sexist tweeter. What to do? My newly-launched social media advice column at SF Weekly, Dear @nna, tackles how to deal with sexism in the penis party known as Digg. Excerpt:

The worst thing about Pigg users is they have all the time in the world to fight with you on the Internet. It’s impossible to have a thoughtful argument with someone who plays World of Warcraft for eight hours a day. Such trolls don’t deserve your time. Pity or block them if you must. But while public shaming has its merits, it will also likely incite more hatefulness. Also, Digg isn’t exactly a space for starting a dialogue on the hypocrisy of religious fundamentalism (or equivalent Serious Issue), it’s for sharing articles on Steven Seagal’s new energy drink, open source software that you can jerk off to, and the revelatory details of Tiger Woods’ divorce.

Read the rest at SF Weekly. Got social media etiquette questions for future columns? Leave them below in comments.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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