Justine Sacco Case Provides Solid Handwringing

The Internet is simultaneously perfect for both vile comments and for people who insist on having their outrage over those comments acknowledged. When IAC PR Chief Justin Sacco’s racist tweet about The AIDS hit the Internet last Friday, it only took minutes before she was shredded around the world, a few more minutes for the obligatory defenders of amorphous free speech concepts to counter, then maybe a half-hour before the English majors started penning essays about what this all meant to us as a people. Before Justin Sacco had even landed in South Africa, four unauthorized biographies had been published and The Daily Beast deleted six separate long form pieces when they remembered that Justine worked for their parent corp. For her part, Sacco issued a short apology about being insensitive to the plight of people with The AIDS, then got fired, then went with her family to hock a loogie on Mandela’s new grave for Christmas. Where did it all go wrong for Justine? Just ask the Internet.