It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what. - A quote by Stephen Fry
Free speech is one thing, but abuse of free speech is another. When you perform an action that negatively affects the sales of a company and if you expect to benefit from it, in return for which the company doesn't allow you, I think it's fair.
You can't say Mc Donald's sucks and eat a burger from them (that would be hypocrisy). Well, whether Mc Donald's should let you buy a burger from them AFTER you just said that is solely their choice. I'm sure it must be buried in some TOC bs of theirs somewhere. But you can't be a hypocrite and expect sympathy for it, either. In all fairness, if his money wasn't refunded, then it's probably fair that he fights with them. Otherwise, if he had been refunded already, it's just hypocrisy at best.
And being a hypocrite and being offended doesn't give you any special rights either. Just saying.
Stop thinking of the airlines as someone else and imagine if it was YOUR company. Imagine if you ran a cloud services company and this guy wrote a blogpost about why your company sucks (which negatively affects your sales) and then bought a dozen cloud servers from you (secretly, because you're his only option). I would have no problem in refunding his money and revoking his service with a polite smile and a "Sorry", if it was my company.
Well, whether Mc Donald's should let you buy a burger from them AFTER you just said that is solely their choice.
That's a different situation. Once you've bought a ticket, then you have already entered into a contract with the airline, and have certain contractual and statutory [1] rights. In the EU at least, being denied boarding means at the minimum a refund, cash compensation for the inconvenience, and assistance with/while procuring alternate transportation.
Furthermore, EasyJet's terms and conditions [2] only allow them to deny you boarding where this is "justified by circumstances beyond our control or for reasons of safety". While these criteria can be stretched a bit, it is very doubtful that either would cover being criticized on Twitter.
And being a hypocrite and being offended doesn't give you any special rights either.
Aside from the fact that you may not be a hypocrite (I've flown with more than one airline I wasn't particular fond of because I didn't have a choice), even being a hypocrite doesn't mean that you lose your statutory rights.
> Free speech is one thing, but abuse of free speech is another. When you perform an action that negatively affects the sales of a company and if you expect to benefit from it, in return for which the company doesn't allow you, I think it's fair.
EasyJet is not a charity; it is a business I.E. Company.
When services were not rendered as expected when the soldier mentioned in the article couldn't be on time, this gentlemen publically stated (the Tweet) that the company was derelict in its obligation to the customer. Now he was at his queue expecting to see the completion of services he has already paid for.
If I'm at McDonalds and the service sucks, I will voice as such and since I've already paid, I still expect my hamburger to be delivered to my satisfaction. Or a refund. That analogy actually doesn't apply in this case, since the service is transportation, not fast food. If people's appointments cannot be kept and connections not completed, that is well within the realm of legitimate criticism, pending services be damned.
If free speech doesn't apply when critiquing company service by customers (prior to, during and post rendition of services), then sites like Yelp should be shut down.
> hen services were not rendered as expected when the soldier mentioned in the article couldn't be on time...
Granted they weren't on time but EasyJet's T&Cs do say that they don't guarantee their schedule at all:
15.1.1 Without prejudice to any applicable passenger rights pursuant to any international or domestic laws, times shown in timetables, schedules or elsewhere are not guaranteed and form no part of the contract of carriage.
Agree that there are two parts - whether they'd have to sell him a ticket in the future and what happens with the current flight but there may be something in the small print that would allow them to prevent him boarding (though almost certainly subject to suitable compensation).
If you are cleared for check in and then the airline denies boarding, you have a set of rights and the airline is required to inform you of those rights. [0]
There is very heavy regulation regarding flight, and thankfully so.
Recently my girlfriend was in a similar situation (minus the tweets) with easyjet, and she's currently pursuing compensation through the EU [1].
If anything like this happens to you: know your rights!
That's not really capturing the nuance of the situation.
It's not like he said "Easyjet sucks", he said, referring to a nearby passenger, "Flight delayed 90min. Soldier going to miss last connection & @easyjet refusing to help pay for him to get to Portsmouth. Get right into em!"
That's just commentary. He'd already bought the ticket; he was already at the airport; he wasn't being hypocritical.
He's a lecturer in Internet law and has a couple of thousand followers on twitter. This is more like the earlier story about the hearing impaired Delta passenger who happened to be a social media consultant than it is Steven Fry's comments.
In fact, you've taken Steven Fry's comments completely out of context too. Leiser wasn't tweeting because he was offended.
> Free speech is one thing, but abuse of free speech is another.
You can't have it both ways, it's a logical contradiction.
Furthermore, the idea that by entering a contract with a company for providing you a service to you implies any loss of free speech rights on your part is inane.
In the great scheme of things, we are just witnessing the birth if the Internet. I have noticed a horrible trend wherein, month after month, more consequences become apparent for expressing your opinion freely -- even between friends on some social network. At the same time, the majority of human communication is converging to the net. Can't you connect the dots and realize we might be heading to hell?
Wow, at first I was with you until it became clear that you think the journalist was acting offended, not the company. You got it completely backwards! It must be possible for people to criticize big companies, and I believe the companies do at least have to take it (ideally they'd listen to the feedback as well). It should not be legal for a huge service company to refuse said service because they feel offended. Companies, especially huge ones, can't act like people whenever they feel like it. It seems they're switching roles whenever it suits them.
You can't say Mc Donald's sucks and eat a burger from them (that would be hypocrisy).
You can't? Who's going to stop you.
A complaint tweet is one thing - if that was the end of it, no one would have heard of this incident. Barring a person for a complaint tweet has made it a much bigger media issue.
> You can't say Mc Donald's sucks and eat a burger from them (that would be hypocrisy).
Would it? I would have thought that saying "nobody should ever eat at mcdonald's" and then eating there would be, but what's wrong with acknowledging that something sucks and doing it anyway, presumably because it's the least bad option at the time?
> Free speech is one thing, but abuse of free speech is another.
Is it abuse of free speech to report factually on what you see? Seems to me like this is what Mr Leiser did, and IMHO it is not an abuse at all. Quite the opposite, it is a good use of free speech.
Just because EasyJet don't like what he said does not make it abuse. I cannot emphasise this strongly enough. If I say "I just saw neya step on a puppy" it is not abuse of free speech, even neya does not like me saying this, even it if is objectively detrimental to neya. It is not abuse of free speech unless it is not true.
I know that we have only Mr Leiser's word so far; if EasyJet want to dispute the facts of the matter that would be different. However, if I was their PR department I'd really prefer to leave well enough alone and not attract further press attention; unless they can prove that something utterly different was what actually happened.
You can't say Mc Donald's sucks and eat a burger from them (that would be hypocrisy).
Of course you can. You may not enjoy it because it sucks, but you might be really hungry. Easyjet sucks massively, however sometimes you just need to get on a plane at a certain time, or someone else might be paying and you get little choice.
As far as your point about negatively impacting sales, criticism from a continued customer doesn't hurt sales nearly as much as banning people from buying from you for being critical. That isn't business, that is just being immature.
The applicable section would be: 19.2 Right to refuse carriage and the closest there is to any reason would seem to be:
"19.2.7 You have used threatening, abusive or insulting words to, or have behaved in a threatening, abusive or insulting manner towards, a member of easyJet staff, crew or Airport Staff or a fellow passenger;"
Even that seems to be a major push.
If they'd wanted to be petty they could probably get away with a detailed check of his documentation or whatever that might make him miss the flight but to do that they'd probably have needed to not say anything about it being linked to the tweet.
>It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what. - A quote by Stephen Fry
Well, as a quote it's quite uninsightful.
Would you say the same thing to a woman that said she was offended by you creepily staring at her at a conference or making sexist jokes in her presense? Would you say the "n" word to an African American and not care if he would be offended? It's just a word after all.
Offending people can be a real problem, not just some imaginary whine. That's because feelings are real too -- not just actions ("sticks and stones", etc).
>Free speech is one thing, but abuse of free speech is another. When you perform an action that negatively affects the sales of a company and if you expect to benefit from it, in return for which the company doesn't allow you, I think it's fair.
What exactly is fair about it?
Have you thought this through? If you live in a rural area where only AT&T has coverage, albeit spotty, and you tweet that "their coverage is dreadful here" should they cut you off from their service altogether?
What you basically say is that companies should be allowed to punish people (even paying customers), for speaking out about them?
>You can't say Mc Donald's sucks and eat a burger from them (that would be hypocrisy).
No, hypocrisy is saying one thing and doing another. In this case, saying "I would never eat McDonalds" and then eating.
Saying they sucks and then eating it, it's perfectly normal. Heck, I think they suck, and I've eaten several times from them. Lots of reasons.
For one, I was in a country were I ocassionally needed home delivery and McDonalds was the only chain that offered.
Second, sometimes it's the nearest fast food restaurant, or the only one in some small town.
Third, their food might suck, but you find the prices great, compared to the alternatives (or vice versa).
>Well, whether Mc Donald's should let you buy a burger from them AFTER you just said that is solely their choice.
No, they should serve someone who criticizes the same as any other customer. You might not be able to shout it inside their restaurants (that's their business), but they should have no right at all to refuse you based on what you say to your twitter or blog or whatever.
>And being a hypocrite and being offended doesn't give you any special rights either. Just saying.
You keep using that word, "hypocrite". I don't think it means what you think it means.
There was nothing hypocritical about what he did. The guy was scheduled to flight with EasyJet, noticed some bad thing happening a few days before related to the company and twitted about it.
Being critical of a service doesn't mean you are a hypocrite of using it. That's the silliest notion I've heard all day.
New Yorkers are critical of the status of their subway service all the time, but they still use it. And people are critical and complain about the products they bought ALL the time. That I find a fault with iPhone 4 and tweet about it, shouldn't mean Apple shouldn't sell me iPhone 5.
That is what moves a market forward.
What you're saying essentially amounts to people not being able to critisize products and services they use, for fear of being denied them by the company.
It's completely bollocks.
>Stop thinking of the airlines as someone else and imagine if it was YOUR company. Imagine if you ran a cloud services company and this guy wrote a blogpost about why your company sucks (which negatively affects your sales) and then bought a dozen cloud servers from you. I would have no problem in refunding his money and revoking his service with a polite smile and a "Sorry", if it was my company.
Are you kidding me? People talk about Linode and Heroku and AWS all the time, posting the problems they find using them, how this or that sucks, etc.
If that's your idea of running a company, throwing out customers who complain publicly instead of fixing the issues, then I wouldn't want to be your customer.
>If that's your idea of running a company, throwing out customers who complain publicly instead of fixing the issues, then I wouldn't want to be your customer.
You misinterpreted my reasoning and took it somewhere else :)
>No, they should serve someone who criticizes the same as any other customer. You might not be able to shout it inside their restaurants (that's their business), but they should have no right at all to refuse you based on what you say to your twitter or blog or whatever.
If you do something that negatively affects my company, without giving my company a fair chance/benefit of doubt, but ironically try to benefit from it, then I would have no problem revoking you of my services. Even If I'm the only available option to you. Of course I am welcome to constructive criticism and bashing me on your blog is totally fine. I will try to fix my mistakes. But it is different if you mis-inform your readers that I'm a bad company and if you use my company's services behind the scenes because it's one of the best options for you, then that is hypocrisy and the day when I find out it's basically game over for you. Because what you essentially did was:
1) Abuse of power. (You had hundreds of followers on your blog and negatively marketed my company to them on purpose)
2) Absolutely zero journalistic integrity. (for the same reason as 1)
>Third, their food might suck, but you find the prices great, compared to the alternatives (or vice versa).
3) Backstabbing and hypocrisy. (You betrayed your readers, my company and tried to benefit in the process).
At the end of the day, every company needs to profit. If you seem to be in it's way, I don't think it's wrong to get you out of it's way. And companies don't need such customers either. It would be shooting in their foot, literally.
>Saying they sucks and then eating it, it's perfectly normal.
Seriously? If that's not hypocrisy, I don't know what else is.
First off, strawmen really don't cut it when trying to refute another persons points.
Yes, anyone should be able to refuse you service if your actively denigrating their work except where prohibited by law.
If you tell me my service sucks, I will correct it if I think the criticism is warranted. I am under no obligation to consider it valid until I have researched the issue at hand. Pretty much it comes down to this, if you don't like the service then don't use it, however don't expect me to render service knowing your predisposition to label it as inferior or worse.
> It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase.
With an attitude like that, how can anyone explain racism, sexism or
_any kind_ of offensive behavior to you? I mean, you've basically declared the word "offensive" means nothing to you. So if someone said they were offended by something you did, you wouldn't even consider their point of view; nor would you have any empathy observing such a situation as 3rd party witness or as a reader of an article describing such a situation between 2 parties. Do you see anything wrong with this?
Being 'offended' runs a whole spectrum from legitimate outrage of a betrayal of vital social norms through to mildly inconvenienced that not everyone agrees with my personal world view. The problem is many people use 'offense' in the latter sense to ram through their personal beliefs onto others.
I have been known to be in the company of men to whom I am not related. Some consider this offensive. They can explain to me that its immodest. I can explain that I find the suggestion insulting beyond belief. Who is objectively 'right'. Am I not empathetic or are they?
> Being 'offended' runs a whole spectrum from legitimate outrage of a betrayal of vital social norms through to mildly inconvenienced that not everyone agrees with my personal world view.
I agree & this is already more than what Neya is willing to believe, given what I quoted from him. At least you believe being offended actually exists. Neya's comment seems to suggest that being offend is just whining and should never be considered at all, ever.
It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what. - A quote by Stephen Fry
You're a brave soul for standing up against the "take offense-industrial complex"
In order to stop replies like this, I've stopped using the word "offensive" or "offended". Instead, I use phrases like "you belittled me", "you're trying to marginalise me" etc. "offended" puts the 'blame' on the person who being offended, must better to say that the problem is with the person doing the margalisation.
I can't stress how much I disagree with your comment, in my humble opinion, you have it all wrong.
> 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what. - A quote by Stephen Fry
In my viewing, it's the airline that got "offended" and is acting about, so that quote would apply more to the airline than to the reporter, as a company, you have to expect criticism, specially in this days.
> Free speech is one thing, but abuse of free speech is another. When you perform an action that negatively affects the sales of a company and if you expect to benefit from it, in return for which the company doesn't allow you, I think it's fair.
You can't abuse free speech, there are some things that are not guaranteed by free speech (you yell bomb on a plane, you can't accuse free speech afterwards), that said, I think this has little to do with free speech, that would be if there is a legal consequence but that is out of the question. Of course you know that your words can have consequences, but that in any way justifies the company's reaction, more on that next.
> You can't say Mcdonald's sucks and eat a burger from them (that would be hypocrisy).
How come not?? I don't like the service later, IMO the quality has gone down and I know that it is quite unhealthy, even so, every now and then, I want a burger from them, hypocrite would be to say I will never touch and mcdonalds again, boast about it and secretly eat it once a week.
> Stop thinking of the airlines as someone else and imagine if it was YOUR company. Imagine if you ran a cloud services company and this guy wrote a blogpost about why your company sucks (which negatively affects your sales) and then bought a dozen cloud servers from you. I would have no problem in refunding his money and revoking his service with a polite smile and a "Sorry", if it was my company.
So, that's you advice? Whenever you get criticized, you react by pushing back and "attacking" your (potential) customer and possible leader of opinion? Does this also apply when the criticism is true??
You are a public company, you are going to be criticized, probably the worst thing you can do is start fighting them back, if you screwed something up, you apologize and you try to make up for it, if it's unfunded criticism, the you try to explain that this is not the case, whatever you do, you do not confront and be aggressive.
>Imagine if you ran a cloud services company and this guy wrote a blogpost about why your company sucks (which negatively affects your sales) and then bought a dozen cloud servers from you.
I would try to give him so go and service that he would eventually write good things about me if he has any intellectual honesty, or to at least stop writing bad things about me, I can't see how childishly fighting back to help to achieve any of this?
Note: This comment may sound a little pedant, but it was not the intention, cordial discussion was the intended tone.
Apparently EasyJet DID treat him better because he was a journalist (well actually because he taught law) Apparently if he was just a lay person they wouldn't have let him on the flight. So you decide if it was a real complaint or not.
Free speech is one thing, but abuse of free speech is another. When you perform an action that negatively affects the sales of a company and if you expect to benefit from it, in return for which the company doesn't allow you, I think it's fair.
You can't say Mc Donald's sucks and eat a burger from them (that would be hypocrisy). Well, whether Mc Donald's should let you buy a burger from them AFTER you just said that is solely their choice. I'm sure it must be buried in some TOC bs of theirs somewhere. But you can't be a hypocrite and expect sympathy for it, either. In all fairness, if his money wasn't refunded, then it's probably fair that he fights with them. Otherwise, if he had been refunded already, it's just hypocrisy at best.
And being a hypocrite and being offended doesn't give you any special rights either. Just saying.
Stop thinking of the airlines as someone else and imagine if it was YOUR company. Imagine if you ran a cloud services company and this guy wrote a blogpost about why your company sucks (which negatively affects your sales) and then bought a dozen cloud servers from you (secretly, because you're his only option). I would have no problem in refunding his money and revoking his service with a polite smile and a "Sorry", if it was my company.