New York Times racism row: how Twitter comes back to haunt you

Sarah Jeong is the latest public figure to pay the price for postings on Twitter that are resurfaced years later

Less than 24 hours after it was announced that Sarah Jeong was to join the editorial board of the New York Times, the reporter was embroiled a row over the nature of racism. Old tweets in which Jeong, a reporter for the tech website the Verge who is of Korean heritage, criticized and made jokes about white people were resurfaced on a rightwing blog run by Jim Hoft.

One of the tweets said: "oh man it's kind of sick how much joy i get out of being cruel to old white men". Another read "are white people genetically predisposed to burn faster in the sun, thus logically being only fit to live underground like groveling goblins".