• BigBenis@lemmy.world
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    1 hour ago

    Remember folks, the company reps you interact with are generally not the ones making the rules they are paid to abide by. They’re working for a living, just like us.

    With that, calling this an “act of terrorism” is an incredulous overreaction that just goes to show how badly they’re shitting their pants right now.

  • RangerJosie@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    They think they’re making an example. That this will have a chilling effect.

    They’re wrong. All this is going to do is radicalize even more people. As it should.

  • realcaseyrollins@thelemmy.club
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    2 hours ago

    According to the affidavit, 42-year-old Briana Boston used the phrase during a call with BlueCross BlueShield about a denied claim.

    “Delay, Deny, Depose. You people are next,” she allegedly said near the end of the call.

    The “You people are next” line certainly adds some context to this story.

    • Pazu900@lemmy.world
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      6 minutes ago

      A bit, but it still doesn’t explain how this warrants terrorism charges and $100,000 bail. A visit from the police and probation or anger management courses? OK I still don’t really agree but it makes some sense. But not prison time. She’s getting punished harder than many rapists and child molesters.

  • Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    This occurred in Deregulated Fucking Florida and I thought the damn MAGATs are for freedom of speech.

  • RoidingOldMan@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    “You people are next” does seem pretty threat-ish, however:

    After being charged with threats to conduct a mass shooting or an act of terrorism, a judge set Boston’s bond at $100,000.

    That is completely out of touch with what happened. “You people are next” not an act of terrorism.

    • na_th_an@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      It’s hard for me to agree this is a threat after media has spent years explaining why all of Trump’s language is actually never threatening or inciting violence, even after his language incited violence.

  • Kalysta@lemm.ee
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    5 hours ago

    May the first amendment suit she files after this gain her the money she needs for her healthcare. And may whatever insurance company this is be dissolved.

    • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.worldOP
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      6 hours ago

      I’m not convinced it’s a threat. She didn’t say she was DOING anything, just that nobody is putting up with their shit anymore…

  • pixelscript@lemm.ee
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    9 hours ago

    Regardless whether you support her general conduct, I think we can all rally around one tenet here:

    Don’t harass a shitty company’s T1 support out of priciples against the company in general.They’re in no better position to effect change in the system than you are. They exist only to be slightly more competent phone robots, turning your whiney noise into itemized actions, and filter those actions down to a restricted subset of system commands the company permits them to do.

    If anything, they’re on our level of the totem pole. Any outrage directed at them for actions of their broader company are a gross misdirection and wholly counterproductive.

    I don’t know who this lady was speaking to on the phone. But if it was some minimum wage phone bank slave who is just the ablative frontline of the customer support hotline, I don’t support her threat in that context.

    • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      This is a dumb take. Their frontline workers should take the brunt of what the public feels. That is the point as you can’t get to anyone higher up. Maybe people won’t want to work there anymore and they will have to pay much higher wages to attract people.

      Sounds like a win to me. Company goes under because no one wants to work for them knowing the public hates them or they will get paid enough they don’t care.

      In your world we can’t show hate because someone isn’t paid enough and it isn’t there decision. It’s not their fault. But then you can’t access the person who is at fault so there is nothing you can do. This is fundamentally broken concept and is akin to resignation.

      • lady_maria@lemmy.world
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        37 minutes ago

        Their frontline workers should take the brunt of what the public feels.

        Yes. That is the job. But the fact that they already take the brunt doesn’t justify anyone screaming/abusing/threatening/ect the CSR.

        Sounds like a win to me. Company goes under because no one wants to work for them knowing the public hates them or they will get paid enough they don’t care.

        A win for whom? What exactly do you get out of it? Satisfaction? Is it just some kind of flaccid moral victory or something?

        If this were actually the case, quite a lot of businesses would’ve gone under a long time ago. Most of them still pay shit wages.

        In the meantime, real people are negatively affected by the assholery of customers every single day.

        This is not a win for the workers. It’s hard enough being forced to spend most of your life working to make just enough money to scrape by, let alone being screamed at, insulted, condescended to, ect.

        But then you can’t access the person who is at fault so there is nothing you can do.

        except to berate the CSR, apparently. There’s definitely nooo way to voice one’s concerns while speaking like a respectful, emotionally competant human being.

        Wait, what does flipping out on them accomplish again?

  • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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    12 hours ago

    Attorneys have said the insurance industry uses a “delay, deny, defend” tactic to withhold health care services.

    Jailed for using words to describe what insurance companies do?

    Judge is trying to fill their year-end quota.

    • dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      10 hours ago

      “Delay, Deny, Depose. You people are next,” she allegedly said near the end of the call.

      Let’s be real, the “You people are next” is probably the reason for jail.

      • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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        9 hours ago

        “You people are next…”

        “… to hear from my lawyer!”

        “… to get bad press once I go to the newspaper.”

        “… <insert anything that doesn’t mean physical violence.>”

        I hope we don’t jail people based on what we think they meant.

        • dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          7 hours ago

          police jail people for even less than that, they will lie and frame innocent people to put them in jail

          She repeated the phrase written on the bullet casings used in the killing of an insurance CEO and then said “you people are next” on a phone call with her insurance - it’s clearly a threat given the context of the phrase and the killing. Denying that context is one of the less defensible positions here. What is more defensible is that her threat is clearly empty and the law has stricter requirements about what constitutes a crime.

          • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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            2 hours ago

            She repeated the phrase written on the bullet casings used in the killing of an insurance CEO and then said “you people are next” on a phone call with her insurance - it’s clearly a threat given the context of the phrase and the killing.

            Here’s the thing, at least this is how I view it:

            Is it reasonable to believe she can actually carry out this threat? If not, then jail is waaaaay overkill. Shit, we have violent offenders and drunk drivers around here who don’t see the inside of a cell at all.

            This woman, denied insurance for either a health matter that her or a loved one is going through. She’s a middle-aged woman who doesn’t own a firearm, and is likely very frustrated for being put in a health (or financial) crisis by the denial of her insurance provider.

            Did she say “you people are next” in reference to the putting down of another insurance company CEO? Of course. Do people say things like that all the time out of frustration with no way they could realistically or literally carry out the threat? ALL THE TIME.

            This is an example of the justice system taking the side of a business, and not a person. It’s shameful, and this judge likely hasn’t considered the harm caused by insurance companies - actual harm, that actually kills real life people!

            Anyway, I don’t agree that she should have been arrested and jailed. I can empathize with her frustration, because I have sick American friends who always get shit on by their insurance company, delaying treatment or arguing against their doctor’s recommendations.

      • Oijkuij@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        Let’s say an elected official or candidate (bless em if any would actually do this) says this phrase in a speech. Would they be arrested? Or would they be given an interview for them to explain themselves, where they deftly state “obviously I’m not talking about doing it myself - but generally speaking these companies are heading in a concerning direction”. There would be debates over it, some people would be upset, but the story would fade and the politician would likely move on as well.

        Say that phrase with Trump’s voice in your head and it sounds like much of his political speech.

        Regular folks must be a lot more careful with their speech in the US, far less of it is free.

      • 4lan@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        Sure that’s the reason but is it a justification?

        Do you know how many people are saying shit like this everyday all day?

        This is the police protecting corporate America over the working class.

        I guarantee they are taking orders from the oligarchs. Squash any talks of more execution

  • Spacehooks@reddthat.com
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    12 hours ago

    Nothing like jail time to radicalized someone more. Judge is playing 5d cheese by providing motivation.

  • Shardikprime@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    I don’t know about insurance but I worked once alongside a Google call center DB team, for adwords and they received lots of messages like these over inbound AND outbound calls, emails or chats.

    Google is EXTREMELY strict with threats issued to their own employees, even third party contractors, to the point they would ABSOLUTELY and without chance of appeals blacklist people like this person.

    To dimension the sheer scale of being blacklisted by Google, that means that every IP address they ever registered you using, be it by VPN or whatever, gets thrown in a black hole you can never escape

    Google services or accounts you linked using those IPs? Fucked forever.

    If you were part of the unlucky people who get a static IP set, get ready to start a lengthy process just to remove your account from being associated to that one.

    Marketing manager accounts? Screwed for life. Might as well say goodbye to your job and consider never advertising through adwords again.

    And I’m not even touching what happens with devices, payment processors, YouTube, educative domains and, worst of all, corporate compute instances.

    If Google didn’t destroy you in those cases, your company and your bank certainly will.

    So yeah, if Google takes that shit seriously, you bet a healthcare provider will do the same

    • piccolo@sh.itjust.works
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      7 hours ago

      That seems impossible to manage… you would cripple google by running a botnet tainting millions of IPs that will get cycled to legitmate users.