I do agree that having one's life ruined over this sort of thing is disproportionate, and that's something worth talking about. But we've got to be careful not to overreact to this sort of thing, which just results in shouting matches.

Let's remember that it's one thing to 'make a foolish joke', and it's another thing to 'make a foolish joke in front of millions of people.' One of the issues here is the lack of understand that people have about the act of publishing, and I think we'd be better focusing on that.