Current Event 5

The event that springs to mind when talking about social issues in computing is not the most current, but it's a story that impacted me strongly. The twitter frat party hit the news during the summer and was spread around my office at the time. This party was an effort by a single team within the organization, and yet because it was a part of the company it caused the company to be on the receiving end of lots of retaliation. The current state of social issues in computing is really due to the industry. The fact that there are big companies that drive the industry is where the attention of the industry lies. This leads to there being a necessary connect between the individual/team level of the company and the company itself. This is why quotas are set, and a team is attacked in an implicit poor representation of their company. This unity of all levels of the company are to protect the company. Ideally, those measures are in place out of a good heart, but as is seen from the article they also result from external pressure. The current state of social awareness in the computer industry is as much based on good will as it is on the artificiality that comes from being a large and influential company.