Jezebel reports:

In another example of the ongoing wonderful, incredible, super duper “new niceness” internet phenomenon, another teenage girl has killed herself after repeatedly being called a slut and a “fuckin ugly ass hoe” by internet commenters.

Friends of 16-year-old Jessica Laney, who hanged herself on Sunday, “say bullying through social media played a major role,” according to WPTV.

Do you see the connection here with my last post?

A TV meteorologist, Rhonda Lee, is the victim of looks based/ internet harrasment/ sexism and she defends herself. She says that she does so in order to protect girls and teach them not to be victims. She gets fired for speaking up.

Supposedly, Lee was fired because her employer KTBS, has a policy, one Lee never saw, that employers not respond to comments. Do you think that policy might not make much sense in the year 2012?

Here is Gawker’s analysis  of it:

Regardless, the Lee story seems to be further evidence that many companies still have no idea how to navigate the complexities of social media, despite obviously drinking the Kool-Aid when it comes to the idea that social media is an integral part of success nowadays. The result is a company getting a Facebook page in order to facilitate community engagement while simultaneously hampering its employees from engaging even slightly with that community. Essentially, they’re stripping all the “social” out of “social media,” and then firing employees who push back at all against their archaic policy.

 

Please sign this petition demanding that Rhonda Lee get her job back.