Would you report offensive message in a group work chat?

[ChilliPB]

As the title says really. A pretty offensive meme sent as ‘banter’ (not funny and genuinely offensive). It was sent in a group chat - a non-official WhatsApp chat with over 50 people, used for social chat. We have a separate more official group chat for work related stuff.

Options are to pick it up individually with the person (who I don’t know and have never met). Or flag direct to HR. Or flag up to HR but not disclose what was said or who said it and hope they could send a stern but general reminder about behaviour and conduct and the individual wouldn’t actually be identified.

Appreciate its a non-official chat but even so. Really likely to offend some of the members there and also it’s the sort of job where if it came out it would look awful, and I’m worried those that don’t report it could also be in trouble as complicit.

What would you do?!

This thread has reminded me of something that happened to me at work after I challenged someone for being offensive. Back in the day, when I was a young woman in my 20s, I worked in an open plan office and in my line of sight sat a colleague who drank his tea from a big mug in the shape of naked breasts with big pointy nipples. It was disgusting and vulgar to me and offensive to women. One day I walked over to him and asked him if he could place the mug in a more discrete place on his desk and his response was to laugh at me and then place it deliberately on show from there on after where it could be seen by all and sundry. He told all the lads in the office what had happened who then in turn mocked and humiliated me every opportunity they got. These were men in their 30s and 40s. To them it was just banter but it was horrific being called homophobic slurs every day because they assumed I was a lesbian and that’s why I had objected. My female colleagues told me, yes it was disgusting, but I was being sensitive and no harm was meant by it. But I stood my ground and asked him every day to move the mug and then one day he did and I never saw the wretched thing again. I saw in that moment who these people really were - ignorant, ill educated, weak people who were afraid of me because I stood up to them. Their attempts to humiliate me into submission and compliance with their workplace culture didn’t work. I can’t tell you how empowering that felt not to be one of ‘them’ and to this day I continue to challenge when colleagues cross boundaries. I couldn’t give a shit if people think I’m a ‘grass’ or ‘snowflake’. I’ll still sleep well at night.

An employment tribunal would disagree with you.

The number of people on this thread who think that unless you are firebombing an asian neighbour's house, you are not really a proper racist is ridiculous and concerning, It's just bantz and only snowflakes (i.e. normal decent non-racists) will be bothered and actually the person that reports the racism is the bad guy and should lose their job for being a 'grass'. I feel like I've gone back to the 1970s.

that kind of dick view isn't any better for being posted twice.

being sent to coventry is workplace bullying.

I guess that's what you get when you ask for advice on social media.

Yes, terrible. How awful their fathers must feel, knowing it was their active membership of the terrorist group Hezbollah that caused their children's death.

But the vast majority were not children, but were terrorists. You didn’t mention them.

@MrsBennetsPoorNerves
We can't know what a tribunal would think as we don't know what the person has posted nor has this been considered as each tribunal is uniquely

So you entered a work place and started demanding what others who's worked there years can and can't do. Great 🙄

I'm a lawyer and this is absolutely correct. Employees communicating via messaging platforms IS an extension of the workplace!

The new sexual harassment legislation coming out on 26th October is going to make chats like these even more important to police. Employers will need to take a proactive approach to preventing sexual harassment so lots of training for employees on their digital policies is going to be crucial.

I'd ignore this advice.

A lot of the time the people calling others 'snowflakes' are the same ones who want a free pass to be offensive and have no consequence. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

Do you have a whistleblowing policy, can you send in the information anonymously with screenshots and then you've at least done something without singling yourself out. It's hard being the person who is decent.

True. But I do have a duty to call out hate speech when I see it. And the OP has said that she thinks this is hate speech, so she should report.

People don't have a right not to be offended but they do absolutely have the right to expect that their employer will take action against discriminatory behaviour in the workplace.

I don't post offensive stuff, but this is why I am not in any work group chats. They are not friends they are work colleagues and I can't be dealing with the drama of this stuff. What would you do if this was a friend's group chat? Would you call out the person? If you would then do that for this as it's an unofficial group and nothing to do with work in that sense. Or would you go to your friends workplace and show them what they posted in your friends chat?

If you want the other person fired for gross misconduct (most companies have a bringing the company into disrepute clause in contracts) then go to hr.

gosh this thread is the gift that keeps on giving.

No wonder the world is going to hell in a handcart.

Many of those memes were hilarious.

I particularly liked the one of Hassan Nasrallah looking nervously at his electronic toothbrush.

Poor bloke probably didn’t realise there were people at his workplace who take the side of
fhe terrorists.

What’s really shocking is the outright antisemitism that happens at the hate marches. People outright supporting Hamas and October 7th, and the police refusing to do anything against it. Perhaps OP could petition to get the law enforced there instead?

The workplace can absolutely get involved in private chat groups if it involves their employees. In the same way they can get involved if an employee posts something questionable on their locked down SM profiles.

There were innocent people killed, including children, many more injured, and an entire community of civilians terrorised.

If you find that funny, as I said, that’s your prerogative- you are allowed to think anything you like-

but it’s just plain stupid to advertise it by publishing it and sending it to 50 random and diverse people. Why would you not expect some backlash from that?!

Especially when they are work people and pretty much every work place has policies about this stuff.

@Differentstarts And I don’t regret it one bit. ☺️

We don't need to know what the person has posted, that's irrelevant to the question of whether or not this is a private chat or a work issue.

Hezbollah has been firing thousands of rockets at northern Israel terrorising the people that live there and forcing tens of thousands to leave their homes. They also killed 12 Druze children. So please spare us your crocodile tears for suffering innocents!

@Brefugee the world is going to hell on a handcart for many reasons beyond our control... snowflakes and the snowflake generation doesn't help either

@mrschocolatte I won't quote your long post, but just to say what an inspiration you are, to have called out harassment in your workplace in your 20s and with no backing or moral support.

nowadays if you'd reported Mr Mug's behaviour to management and they turned a blind eye you'd have a very strong case at tribunal, especially as all the other men in the office were jumping on the same misogynist bandwagon. You'd have the law on your side on that one!

Absolutely staggered by the number of people who think this is not a workplace issue, ergo, not a HR issue.

With this kind of thing, I always think.... if this ends up in some kind of tribunal in a couple of years (which could easily include an overall 'culture' of islamophobia or racism or whatever, as well as specific direct comments), what would I as an individual wish to advise the me of today, and what would my organisation have expected me to have done at this point?

What people also don't seem to be recognising is that, despite the narrative in some parts of society (usually the parts who aren't happy about having their stinking attitudes brought to attention), it's actually quite easy not to be offensive. It really is.

Re the comments saying the workplace can get involved. We don't know what was said, it is also opinion. Given we are told this was related to the Middle East people do have different views . An employer is not there to tell us what we should think.

Report a racist comment. Totally inappropriate

How on earth are you defending the "right" to have a sexualised mug on your desk at work?
I also love how they assume only a lesbian would object - don't quite get the logic of that one!