Denise Helms, who will probably not look like this the next time you see her if she knows what’s good for her.
My position would usually be this: for an employer to use a privacy setting Facebook post as justification for firing an employee is unfair. That applies to vacation photos of an elementary school teacher holding a beer and looking bleery-eyed at a pub, a Sunday school teacher doing a strip tease at a bachelor party, and political posts of a radical, vulgar or offensive nature. Two factors can change the equation, though. Action may be justified if the posting reasonably calls into question the trustworthiness of the employee in his or her job duties, or if the posting becomes public, subjecting the employer to embarrassment or undermining the employee’s ability to do her job, as in the naked teacher cases.
Denise Helms, the idiot referenced in the title above, posted this on her Facebook page, intended only for her closest, presumably most racist or most idiotic friends:
She is, as I noted, an idiot. But this post alone, on her own Facebook page, protected by a privacy setting, is none of her employer’s business, any more than the stupid and offensive things she undoubtedly says at the gym or at the breakfast table. She managed a store for a creamery company, a job that was hardly high-profile or requiring the IQ of a rocket scientist. If an employee brought me the news that he had read that post as one of her designated friends, and I was her supervisor, I would have told him to keep it out of the workplace. She is entitled to be an idiot, if she does it on her own time.
But Denise Helms, not surprisingly, has accumulated a vindictive creep for an ex-boyfriend, and since he was inexplicably allowed to view Denise’s post (did I mention that she’s an idiot?), he decided he had an opportunity to get revenge on her for heaven knows what, and took a screen shot of the comment above. He then posted it on Twitter, and a few million tweets and links later, Denise was 1) the nation’s favorite racist 2) fired 3) the object of hate posts from a lot of the same crazy people who were trying to lynch George Zimmerman and 4) being investigated by the Secret Service.
Denise’s vicious ex also gave her a chance to display her idiocy in the media, telling Fox News, for example,
“I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal. The assassination part is kind of harsh. I’m not saying like I would go do that or anything like that, by any means, but if it was to happen, I don’t think I’d care one bit.”
Good job, Denise!
Later, after insisting that she had done nothing wrong, Denise tried her version of an apology, saying she wished she could take it all back. I’d say her life is effectively ruined, at least until she changes her name and moves to Tahiti. I’m sure the ex is giving high-fives all ’round.
She did not deserve this, however. Oh, she’s despicable, all right, and once evidence of her vile opinions and stupidity had gone viral on the internet, the creamery had no choice but to fire her. She was accountable, and responsible, and her words and sentiments were ugly and hateful. The real ethics villain, however, is the ex-boyfriend. He was not acting as a public-minded citizen, protecting the President from a plausible threat. He was not a helpful ally of the creamery company, alerting it to a problem employee for its own protection; indeed the publicity caused by his screen shot caused a public relations nightmare for the company. No, he was motivated by revenge, and devised a brilliant way to destroy another human being—an idiot, certainly; a racist, probably; and a disappointing girlfriend perhaps, but not someone so dangerous and black of heart that she deserved to be nationally humiliated and vilified for a single private Facebook post.
If you have no sympathy for Denise, I ask you this: If the most ill-considered, mean, hateful and offensive thing you have ever written or said became viral on the internet because someone who was angry at you seized on it and posted it, what would be your fate, and would you deserve it?
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Sources:
Graphic: Daily Dot
Ethics Alarms 
I will cast the first stone.
If you’re posting a comment on a social network site under your real name and picture it is not the same as venting verbally to a friend on the phone or in person (even if the facebook comment is tagged/secured as “private”)
If you use racial slurs and have opinions about a subject that are questionable in general, then you have to be aware of the fact that other might object. And if you’re stupid enough to put these opinions into “written word” on the internet and crowning that glorious deed by not censoring your words with ” * ” – then you deserve no pity.
And I have to object:
“you have ever written or said became viral” – it’s not what she said to a friend on a night out in the pub… but what she wrote. On the internet.
I don’t have a lot of pity for her. As I said, she’s an idiot, and one of the factors that led to this was her idiocy. But my comparison holds. Normal comments, or evil breathtakingly stupid ones, usually don’t do harm unless someone sets out to make them do harm. This one wouldn’t have. The harm was caused by the ex, not the idiot. Just because she loaded the gun didn’t mean he had to shoot it.
Jack, what differs between this episode and Ozzie Guillen’s comment about Castro that was taken out of context? If I apply your explanation to Ulrike, Guillen was ‘breathakingly stupid’ but ultimately Time magazine had a responsibility to accurately report the quote and not ‘shoot’ the gun he loaded.
Related to this general issue was this interesting analysis of where the racist (i.e, using “Obama” in conjunction with “nigger” or “monkey”) tweets were coming from. I guess Helms was one of the few lone red dots in California.
I’d say the difference between a public figure giving an interview to a national news publication, knowing well the proclivity of reporters to try to take the most controversial statement and run with it isn’t in the same solar system as a private citizen making an offensive statement intended for friends. A closer analogy is the Pat Rogers fiasco, where an obvious joke was intercepted and intentionally sent to the people most likely to be offended by it, even thought the joke was not offensive by any reasonable standard. Denise doesn’t have THAT defense, obviously.
I think Time could have been kinder to Ozzie, but its conduct was what I would now call the industry norm. But the Marlins comparison to the creamery is certainly valid.
I am waiting, perhaps overly optimistically, for culture to catch up with information availability and develop new ways of handling privacy outside of responding to information when it is made public, regardless of the source or context for that information. Everyone says/does something particularly unwise/unwell/without grace during their life. Technology is getting to the point that these moments, rather than being forgotten or a story told among friends, are fairly permanently in the public record. (The Interent is public, whatever Facebook settings attempt to convince you.)
As people, we’re going to have to figure out how to deal with this – our elementary school teachers are adults with adult parts of their lives, our pastors get tired and can say something snippy, the sound bite that cannot be taken out of context has not been invented yet. We have to find a way to compartmentalize this information and better store it in ourselves logically rather than respond emotionally every time something from a private sphere of life leaks to a public one. The information is going to be out there, on everyone, for everyone. We have to figure out better ways of handling that.
In short, an idiot saying something idiotic should get a quick once over by the Secret Service (they have to check) and then roundly ignored by everyone else. If she spouts racist, idiotic threats at work, yes fire her. If she is only a racist idiot on her own time, the consequences should be limited to social consequences. As such, I am sure I do not want to invite her for dinner.
The Comment of the Day!
Well, when looking for how society ought to respond to this, how would society respond this hypothetical:
At a town hall meeting or a large gathering of people at a public event – “Vindictive Individual” broadcast’s the identifiable voice of “Private Citizen”, or plays on a big screen a secret recording of “Private Citizen”. The “Private Citizen” makes the same comment as above, while in the privacy of the person’s home.
How would “private citizen” be treated? Likely the same…fired.
However, “Private Citizen” i think would have a right to sue “vindictive Individual”
Everything I’ve written is already public. If I’m spiteful, mean, or nasty, I want my friends to tell me that, so I can correct myself. Sometimes enemies are even better for this, but when I thank them for the favour they’ve done me, some get upset, others often turn into friends,
However…
Is it ethical to hold others to the same standard as I hold myself? My attitude is so unusual – not to say priggish and arrogant – that in all good conscience I don’t think it is. What’s good for me may not be good for others, it may well be wholly inappropriate under their circumstances.
I’m a systems engineer, specialising in safety-critical systems. If I screw up – and I will</b: screw up, because I'm human – people will die unless my mistake gets corrected.
It's therefore neither easy, nor I think desirable, to separate this attitude from my personal behaviour. Others have different situations, so it may not be applicable to them.
See typo above for a screw-up. Had someone been there to tell me I’d made a formatting mistake with the brackets, it would have been more readable.
No, it wasn’t deliberate to illustrate my point, unfortunately.
I’m sure that Denise is angry about the tax on indoor tanning.
The media is all over this girl and it seems that the big scoop is that the girl is a racist. Is this really a worthy news story? Unfortunately, we have racists in our country and they say and write stupid things just like she has. What is so special about this girl? I don’t care what this girl thinks or has to say and she never intended for me to read what she wrote on her Facebook wall. So why am I now privy to this information? Oh! The boyfriend! Somehow his role has gotten lost in the media frenzy to expose this idiot as the racist that she is ALONG WITH her hyped up assassination tendencies. I really don’t get this whole thing. Am I supposed to be grateful that this girl (I forgot her name) has been exposed just in case I come in contact with her and don’t know how to identify a racist? If so, then why is there not more mention of the boyfriend? Being an informant is a dangerous job at times. The boyfriend should definitely get some type of award for his bravery and courage in taking this sordidness public. And I know where he can put it.
I don’t think this should be a news story at all. It’s just not newsworthy that one particular nonfamous person in a nonprominent job said something racist. Why have I heard of this woman? So as well as saying the boyfriend is unethical, I’d say that any news media that reports this story is also being unethical.
I do feel sorry for her, partly because she’s so young. I’m prepared to forgive a lot of relatively harmless stupidity if the person being stupid is under 25. And everyone is better than their single ugliest moment (or worst facebook post).
I think everyone can draw from it a useful lesson. It is in fact a cautionary tale for all and therefore to some extent newsworthy.
Too bad SHE did not learn any lessons from Andrew Adler.
I’ve always felt that Obama is the safest, most secure President who could walk down Pennsylvania Ave without his Secret Service security team in full daylight because of two words that strikes fear in the hearts of EVERY American — President Biden.
Yup, same reason that Obama’s treasonous behavior in Benghazi, voter fraud in Ohio and elsewhere, abuse of the Constitution and third-finger salute to the rule of law will never result in his impeachment.
They can fire her if they want. CA is an at-will employer.