How just 1 tweet got popular Nigerian developer removed from Google Developer Expert program

Public shaming could be described as a form of castigation whose main feature is dishonouring or disgracing a person, especially in a public place. It is very rampant on social media in recent times – some call it online shaming.

Online shaming, and all forms of unguarded utterances on social media, have caused so many people lucrative opportunities across the globe.

The world is growing increasingly, if not dangerously, liberal every second. Thus, any form of derogatory statement, or that appears so, against any person, race, sexual orientation, political affiliation, etc. is frowned upon.

To avoid being dragged into the murky waters of online shaming, so many corporate entities have regulations that guide the behaviour of their employees online and even go to the extent of putting in place mechanisms to monitor the employees’ online activities.

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In an article published by The Telegraph on online shaming, Dr Guy Aitchison, an Irish Research Council Fellow at University College Dublin, explains that in today’s era of smartphones and social media, it takes just a few seconds to upload an accusatory photo or video for the world to see, but the ramifications for individuals can last a lifetime.

“People have long been called out and criticised publicly for breaching social norms,” he told The Telegraph.

“If someone jumps the queue in the supermarket, say, they can expect to incur the displeasure of those waiting in line. Arguably, some of this is necessary.

“What's new today is that technology allows this to be immediately recorded and shared with millions of other unknown internet users thanks to smartphones and social media.

“A whole global audience is then invited to join in with ridicule and abuse and this often spills over into the target's personal life with calls for them to be fired and disciplined at work and so on.”

Dr Aitchison explains this can soon “escalate to a form of social ostracism” and often a 'punishment' that is “wholly disproportionate to the original offence”.

A typical victim of online shaming is Prosper Otemuyiwa (AKA Unicodeveloper), a prominent young Nigerian developer.

Prosper, apart from being a renowned developer, is also a great tutor and speaker. He was an early member of the Andela team and has taken part in several developer conferences across the world.

In 2016, Prosper became a Google Developer Expert under Google Developer Expert (GDE) program in 2016.

A Google Developers Expert (GDE) is a person recognized by Google Inc. as having exemplary expertise in one or more of their Google Developers products.

GDEs are awarded through the Google Developers Experts program established and administered by Google.

GDEs have a tenure of one year which can be extended through re-interview.

A Google Developers Expert cannot be a Google employee whilst a member of the program.

By May 2018, Prosper, obviously doing well, was still a member of the Google program until he“responded to a silly tweet that was also a response to a Twitter thread made by an ex-Andela software developer.”

Prosper’s Google Developer Expert journey “came to a halt abruptly because of a tweet. Yes, a tweet! I’ll repeat that….A TWEET!!!,” he said in an article on his Medium page titled "2018 In Review: Shattering Expectations".

The tweet:

This was a lady's response to the tweet:

Upon seeing the response, Prosper said he “got really angry" and immediately responded with the following tweet:

Shortly after tweeting the response, Prosper had a change of mind and deleted it.

He explained that his outburst was as a result of the recurrent atrocities committed by operatives of the Special Anti-robbery Squad (SARS) against Nigerians, especially the youths.

The atrocities led to a social media campaign tagged #EndSars.

In August 2014, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, then as acting president, directed the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, to immediately overhaul the management and activities of SARS.

Following Osinbajo's order, the IGP swiftly came with a new arrangement to address complaints and allegations on human rights violations against some of the personnel of the special operatives.

"I have been a victim of police harrassment several times because I am a young Nigerian male, driving a decent car, dressing in shorts and T-shirts and using a Macbook. I’m still alive. Many others have died, because they were falsely accused of being fraudsters," Prosper wrote.

But Prosper later changed his mind and deleted the tweet.

He continued: “5 minutes later or so, I looked back at my reply and sensed that twitter folks might misinterpret it or take it out of context. I went ahead to delete it.”

But it was too late. Someone had seen the tweet and screenshot it. Now, this person, reportedly a Googler from the US, did not share the screenshot online to shame Prosper. He went far ahead: he sent it over to the Google team in California.

"Apparently my instincts were right. A Googler from USA took a screenshot of my tweet before deletion and quickly sent it over to the team in California. Then, the regional rep in Kenya set up a call with me and asked for the details of what happened," Prosper recounted.

"A couple of days later, I had a shocking second meeting with the rep where I was told that I would be removed from the Google Experts program. Ah!!!

"After the meeting, this mail came in:

"I cringed. I paced the room like a Pogba fan under the curse of Mourinho. I didn’t know how to feel after this happened. I was a pretty active, and excellent Developer Expert. I spoke at different DevFest summits in Nigeria, Kenya, and beyond, taught several folks how to use web technologies, Google products and also become better software developers generally, helped agencies become better via workshops held in Johannesburg.

"I was literally everywhere in and out of Africa at a certain point. Hundreds of developers reached out to me and made it a goal to become a Google Developer Expert. I also adore and respect women so much. So, where the hell did I go wrong?

"I did a little introspection and asked myself a couple of questions:

"Did I offend a certain Googler before now? If anyone found it offensive, why didn’t the person reach out to me via DM first?

"Why was I not asked to defend the context of the tweet in front of a team of folks? I literally took it down because I figured that it might be taken out of context because people rarely read to understand nowadays.

"Did someone actually think I’d call another human a whore?

"Did all the good things I did as an Expert or Advocate not count for anything if I mistakenly erred?

"A lot of things were on my mind and I had sleepless nights blaming myself for that tweet. After a while, some soothing thoughts crossed my mind that made me get over the nauseating feeling I had for days and nights.”

After all is said and done, Prosper said he has learned his lesson.

“As a leader or someone of importance of any kind, every word you write, speak or action you take is scrutinized by many, so take heed to examine every single act before activating the “Go!” button. I learned a huge lesson and took my L like Arsenal fans before their recent bounce back! ” he wrote.

But many believed Prosper didn’t do anything wrong while others are of the opinion that the so called Googler that reported him could have reached out to him first if he found the tweet offensive.

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Here are some reactions on Twitter:

Now, calling people out on social media in order to correct their social misdeeds may not be outright bad, but it may do a lot of good if one tries to find out what really happens before rushing to the social media for public/online shaming.

You may be wrongly shaming someone and the shaming can also backfire on you! There are two appropriate instances to cite here:

Recently, a lady shared footage online of a couple eating at a popular restaurant located in Abule Egba, Lagos while they abandoned their alleged maid.

The lady, without saying anything to the girl or the family, recorded the scene and shared it on Facebook, calling the couple out for allegedly abandoning their maid.

"Some Nigerians are just so cruel , the Government is not only the problem of the country, the people also are. Why do this to a child on boxing day? We are the most religious and most ungodly people on earth. Chai feel like kicking that table," she wrote.

The video went viral and generated a lot of responses from Nigerians. Some of the comments were harsh, spiteful and very much addressed to the family who had supposedly committed this atrocious act.

Shortly after the video went viral online, the wife of the family who had been branded with the accusation finally stumbled on the video. The woman, identified as Folawuyo Oluwabunmi Abiola Adegboye, took to her Facebook page to clearly state her side of the story.

Folawuyo explained that she does not have a housemaid, much less have any sort of affiliation with the girl who had sat afar from their table.

She was greatly annoyed at the offence that had been levied against her. She demanded an apology from the lady who had put up the video.

The question is: Why couldn’t the lady verify the whole story before rushing to the social media to call them out?

Another instance is found in an article published by New York Times titled “How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life” by Jon Ronson.

Ronson, in the piece, shares a particularly interesting example of how public shaming can backfire.

A male developer made a joke to another male developer during a conference. “Something about a fictitious piece of hardware that has a really big dongle, a ridiculous dongle. . . . It wasn’t even conversation-level volume.”

After the said joke, a woman sitting in front of them stood up and took their picture. She claims to consider the joke sexist and immediately posted the picture of both male developers on Twitter to her over 9,000 followers, saying: “Not cool. Jokes about . . . ‘big’ dongles right behind me.”

Ten minutes later, he and his friend were taken into a quiet room at the conference and asked to explain themselves.

The next day, the developer who made the joke got fired when he got to his office.

“I went outside to call my wife. I’m not one to shed tears, but” — he paused — “when I got in the car with my wife I just. . . . I’ve got three kids. Getting fired was terrifying.”

And the lady who thought she had done the right thing by publicly shaming him, soon felt the wrath of the crowd herself.

“The man responsible for the dongle joke had posted about losing his job on Hacker News, an online forum popular with developers.

"This led to a backlash from the other end of the political spectrum. So-called men’s rights activists and anonymous trolls bombarded Richards with death threats on Twitter and Facebook. Someone tweeted Richards’s home address along with a photograph of a beheaded woman with duct tape over her mouth. Fearing for her life, she left her home, sleeping on friends’ couches for the remainder of the year.

"Next, her employer’s website went down. Someone had launched a DDoS attack, which overwhelms a site’s servers with repeated requests. SendGrid, her employer, was told the attacks would stop if Richards was fired. That same day she was publicly let go,” Ronson wrote.

#ENDSARS or #REFORMSARS? Nigerians blow hot | Legit TV

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