I wake up from a nap and have to think about this???
1. Zoom ethics? I don’t understand this story at all.
The New Yorker suspended legal reporter Jeffrey Toobin because he—wait, WHAT?—exposed himself during a Zoom call last week between members of the staff and WNYC radio.
Huh? Toobin has long been one of Ethics Alarms’ least favorite legal commentators dating back to his excuse-making for Bill Clinton during the Monica madness, but I thought he was just despicably biased, not insane. What’s going on here?
Toobin said in a statement: “I made an embarrassingly stupid mistake, believing I was off-camera. I apologize to my wife, family, friends and co-workers. I believed I was not visible on Zoom. I thought no one on the Zoom call could see me. I thought I had muted the Zoom video.”.
See you doing what, and why??? Was it a bathroom Zoom call? The New Yorker says: “Jeffrey Toobin has been suspended while we investigate the matter.” What’s there to investigate? If he exposed himself accidentally, it’s a Zoom mistake, and it should have been ignored and forgotten, because Zoom is evil. EVIL!!!! On the other hand—okay, bad choice of metaphors—If he whipped it out and ran around the room on camera singing “My Ding-a-Ling,” Toobin needs to be hospitalized.
Toobin is also CNN’s chief legal analyst. The network said in a statement, “Jeff Toobin has asked for some time off while he deals with a personal issue, which we have granted.”
The story presents me with a professional and ethical challenge. Deep down, I want to laugh my ass off. But that would be wrong, because this could happen to …actually, it couldn’t happen to most people. I still don’t see how it happened to Toobin. Somehow, I can’t picture Jonathan Turley having this problem….
I really don’t understand this story.
2. Never mind. I can’t follow that. In fact, I may be incapacitated for the rest of the day.
Ethics Alarms 
It sounds like a joke gone wrong. In reading between the lines, I think he thought the video portion of the zoom chat was off and exposed himself to be stupid, believing no one could see him.
If so, he deserves to be fired. From my call center days, I can tell you that anyone who works with a headset or a microphone must assume that he or she can be heard even if the mute button is on. People are going to have to assume they can be seen on Web conferences and not do dumb things.
The cynic in me wants to conclude that Ol’ Jeff was otherwise “occupied” while on his zoom call and forgot that computers can perform many, many tasks at once and keeping his naughty website window open at the same time he was WNYC radio (it was a radio station, after all, not a TV spot so the video screen was unimportant) zooming may have caused this most unfortunate incident.
The more compassionate, understanding fellow in me suspects that he was hacked by the Russians, who have been inundating the entire country with disinformation campaigns in hopes of throwing the 2020 election to Clinto . . . erm . . . Biden.
jcb
Unsure what happened, was Toobin actually…um…rubbin’ one off on camera; if so…SHEESH>/i>!!!
Who gets frisky during a staff meeting?
Toobin’s meeting turned into a beating…
The National Post in Canada is reporting that Toobin was, in fact, masturbating.
Like you have to treat a gun like it’s loaded, you have to treat a camera like it’s always on, or could be. I was thinking this might have been a bathroom break gone wrong, but apparently he was indeed bopping his banana/choking the chicken/flogging the bishop/spanking the monkey/waxing his hood ornament/playing solitaire/polishing his knob/fishing for zipper trout/shaking hands with the unemployed/dialing “O” on the little pink telephone.
Playing a five on one pickup game, feeding the ducks, engaging in hand to gland combat, distributing some free literature, mixing up some batter, tugging his horn.
Yeah, this thread is heading south in a hurry…
Almost as fast as Toobin’s hand does!
Sorry–the shortest distance between me and a conversation is a straight line.
Unfortunately, like Wiener’s wiener, this brings out everybody’s inner 7th grader.
Yeah, supposedly during an election polling breakout session he was masturbating.
As someone who shut down twitter for the week mentioned:
Toobin was just pulling the lever for Joe Biden.
I just can’t process this. A 14-year old boy, maybe. Stelter, Cuomo, Lemon, Toobin. What an all-star team CNN has…
I’ve got nothing.
Maybe one reason the Left is so neurotic to find male abusers and toxic masculinity and general perverts throughout American society is because Leftists only hang out with leftists and they assume everyone has their character flaws.
Well Michael, they appear to assume all convicted felons will vote Democratic.
I don’t even know what to call someone, a professional, a lawyer, an journalist who has to hold the public trust, who is in a business meeting and can’t resist the compulsion to do THAT while online…it’s disrespectful to his colleagues, it shows a lack of commitment and seriousness; it’s the conduct of an irredeemable, infantile asshole. The man is 60! What the hell.
I don’t see how he comes back from this, and he SHOULDN’T come back from this.
He needs to be put on a suicide watch. How much humiliation can a man stand?
How do you describe something that is more than disrespectful. It’s not just a lack of commitment and seriousness…it’s whatever is in the negative of a lack of commitment and seriousness…whatever is beyond that. It take an active descriptor…not an assertion of merely lacking…that while lacking those qualities is true…there is something else there…an active disdain.
Yes.
I don’t know. I think he might actually keep his job or get one at another network. If he were a Republican, he would have been arrested for sex crimes already, but I think when this blows over, his career might not be over. I mean, Democrats don’t care if Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy, and/or Joe Biden sexually assaulted women. They really don’t. They don’t care if there is child pornography on Hunter Biden’s laptop. They just don’t. I don’t know if it because Democrats are just all perverted amoral/immoral people or if they idolize their elites to the point that they are willing to accept any behavior from their betters.
Think about it. I haven’t heard anything about a sexual harassment complaint about this, despite the fact that there were women on the call.
Simple, Democrats almost never turn on their own as long as there is some kind of plausible deniability. In order for them to turn on one of their own there must be incontrovertible evidence of guilt, the person’s use to the left’s cause must be limited or compromised, AND the person must not be well-connected enough to justify defense. That’s why those guys didn’t get touched and Al Franken got thrown under the bus.
I’m sure one (or more) of the usual suspects will give air time or column space to some #MeToo activist who will tell us boys are raised to believe this is okay – a learned “fact” that will come as a shock to anyone who was or has raised a boy.
Jeff evidently mistook the election simulation for an erection stimulation.
Ok, shut down Ethics Alarms for the week.
Well I’m definitely whipping this out the next time a date asks why I have a problem with porn.
The Zoom video calls circus has caused me to reflect on just what the hell was going on during the thousands of ‘regular’ phone calls I’ve made in my life…
Is there a subset of humanity that view masturbation, or fondling themselves, as a normal part of a business call? Should this be recognized as a sexual preference or orientation? Or at the very least, a form of non-traditional communication? Is it white oppression to flog your mule while talking to someone on a video call, or is it patriarchal colonialism to condemn (or at least be surprised!) by those who have an irresistible urge to whip it out?
Why did Toobin feel compelled to apologize to his wife? Will he be going to rehab for this? Wouldn’t that be sexuality reprogramming? Is this a lifestyle? Do people call each old friends and companionably masturbate while chatting?
More broadly, is this part of the new normal that we’re all expected to get used to? Because I’d really rather not.
It probably reflects how boring all these calls are.
And now, consider for a second the amount of online classes going on in high schools around the country.
YIKES! (Gotta get the popcorn ready…)
If only Toobin were quicker, he would have come up with a better excuse. How about “Wait! There’s a bug in my pants!” Or “Hold it! I’m on fire here!”
Or, “Down Spot! Down!”
What is it with these guys and masturbating in front of people? Harvey Weinstein. Louis CK.
I really depends. Was this a 3-hour marathon meeting that he had little input on, and simply changed his clothes to get ready for an appointment right after, not realizing the camera was on? Is it the case that he wasn’t wearing pants to a meeting, and got up and things “came loose”? Was he disgruntled and tried to symbolically expose himself while a hated boss was speaking (and failed to turn off the camera, thus making it more than discreetly symbolic?). Did he purposely expose himself, and try to hide behind “oops!”
Without knowing the context, it could be anything from innocent to malicious.
https://nypost.com/2020/10/19/jeffrey-toobin-was-masturbating-in-front-of-new-yorker-bigs-report/
NY Post?
It won’t make the social media sites now.
A little too much input, as it turns out.
What would be even more embarrassing is CNN investigates and drops it over “Lack of evidence.”
This dude always has been creepy. And, he was masturbating. Yech.
I always cover up my camera with a piece of blue painter tape when I am not on a Zoom call. Of course, the only thing I ever worry about is someone seeing me without my make-up.
Does make-up matter on Zoom?
It depends on the person and the Zoom call.
Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if very stagey makeup comes into style because it shows up well on Zoom.
I’ve seen a few of my female colleagues without their makeup. It matters.
On ZOOM? I’m not even sure noses matter.
Indeed, the video quality on Zoom is generally pretty awful. Maybe that’s Toobin’s Hail Mary: he can say that what they saw on camera was just him with his pet hairless rat in his lap. With Zoom’s terrible video quality, that might be plausible deniability…
You owe me a keyboard. “pet hairless rat”….