The message is, “If the president highlights your sad, nasty little meme, then you might end up getting fucked.”
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Yup, still works perfectly:
WILL THE EURO SCROUNGE OFF YOUR PENSION?
ARE THE GERMANS BURGLING YOUR MORTGAGE?
HAVE IMMIGRANTS GIVEN MIDDLE BRITAIN DIABETES?
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Isn’t it common for news organizations to name the people they are reporting on? I keep seeing the word “doxxing” but as far as I can tell they simply said they would name the creator. In any other case a news outlet would name the creator of a video in a given story. As far as I can tell, the ‘threat’ is to behave like a news outlet reporting on a publicly released video. Am I wrong in this view?
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Freedom of speech isn’t just a right though, it’s also an ideology. You’re right in a legal sense, but Americans also tend to believe in some level of open speech for the purpose of discourse. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences, but we also balk at piling consequences onto people just because we disagree with them. That’s the ideology of free speech, and how far that ideology goes differs between people. Places like Twitter take the ideology to an extreme, and basically refuse to police their content at all. Other places, like, apparently, the subreddit for Donald Trump, will happily shut you down for failing to agree with them. Most of us agree that doxxing someone is not an appropriate consequence in most if not all cases, while a minority will dox at the slightest provocation.
Because these things are not covered by the law, because it’s our responsibility to draw the guidelines for free speech, the entire debate, and the need for consistency in personal ideology with regards to freedom of speech, are incredibly important.
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Do threatening online posts truly correlate with violent real-life behavior? That is, are those who engage in violent crime frequently found to have made such posts online beforehand? And are their posts more or less vitrolic than those who do not engage in violent crime?
(If the day comes when any kind of measurable fraction of the nasty posts out there becomes clearly linked to real-life violence, I think we’re all thoroughly screwed, in the “pack it in, civilization is over” sense.)
When did that start? I don’t remember any time that you could say anything you wanted to without consequence. It seems only in the last couple of years that people have been claiming their ‘free speech’ is under attack just because they were being mocked and silenced by other people.
Doxxing? Did they threaten doxxing or did they say they would name the source of the video? Don’t most news stories also report on who the source is when it’s known?
I suppose I just can’t get behind the “ideology” angle and be upset along with you. I remember the KKK marching and everyone lining up to boo and make fun of them and it still feels like the right thing to do when faced with Cult45.
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FWIW “Blocked By Popehat” is a badge of honor in certain Twitter circles,
as always, “Fuck 'em if they can’t take a joke.”
What? No. That’s not what I said at all. It’s not that you can say anything without consequence. It’s that you can say some things people disagree with, without consequence, in the interests of an open discourse and exchange of ideas. There is a line of course. Typically it’s okay to voice your support for a political party. Obviously voicing your support for genocide is not acceptable. Somewhere in there is the line between “I disagree with you, but respect your viewpoint” and “This form of speech is harmful and unacceptable.” Thus it’s important to debate where that line is, and once you decide where it is, you should be consistent in your application. That’s why the debate is important.
You’re assuming I have an opinion that I don’t have, and didn’t express. I am emphatically not saying that all forms of speech are always acceptable. Rather the opposite. I’m saying that there IS a line at which certain forms of speech become unacceptable, and thus it is appropriate to dish out social consequences. The problem is, everyone disagrees on where that line is. Typically expressing an opinion about tax rates is something seen as acceptable without major consequences, while open racism is not. But there’s a whole lot of grey area in between those two. Hence, the discussion is important. I’m not defending any one side in this discussion, while I do have one. I’m defending the validity of the debate itself.
It’s a little more complicated than that I think. If they had named the creator, like a normal news outlet, that would be fine. If they had decided not to name the creator, but reserved the right to do so if they deemed fit, that would have been fine. What they said instead was “If the creator fails to do X, then we will do Y.”
Hence why some people are comparing it to blackmail. If a person has evidence of wrongdoing it’s not only acceptable, but laudable, to bring that evidence to the authorities. If a person has evidence of wrongdoing and states they will release it if conditions are not met, it’s blackmail. In both cases it’s not the release of information that’s the problem, it’s the coercion that’s the problem. In this instance if you wanted to call CNN’s actions blackmail, while also being angry at them for not releasing the name, that would be perfectly logically consistent, just like how a blackmailer both should not have have made threats against their victim, and should have done the action they threatened to do at the same time.
I am not going so far as to say that this was or was not blackmail on CNN’s part, but that is the argument as I understand it.
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[quote=“Mankoi, post:70, topic:104076”]
If they had decided not to name the creator, but reserved the right to do so if they deemed fit, that would have been fine.
[/quote]How did they not do this?
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If they had said “We declined to publish the actual name of the creator but reserve the right to do” that would be fine. What they instead said was “He promised X, so we didn’t publish his name, but if he fails to live up to X, we might.” Which is, instead, a threat. One is a simple acknowledgement that, for journalistic reasons, they may need to publish the name, even though they aren’t now. The other is a threat that if a person does not behave accordingly, they will retaliate. There is a difference.
No it really is not. Do you notice a large amount of cess* here? There are many places on the internet that aren’t filled with metaphorical sewage. Admittedly, this tends to take a lot of work (thank you @orenwolf and any other moderators here). But i suspect that one of the reasons that the dank corners of the internet have seemingly grown is that we excuse them like this and imply that their behavior is more natural for the internet.
If we didn’t do that, if we properly called out this behavior as socially maladjusted and as having real effects on real people, we’d have tons less bleed-over into our parts of the internet, the majority of good citizenry. The mildew of trollish fascism would recede, never completely gone, or at least not for a long time, but more of an annoyance than a trouble.
* Not an actual thing (other than in Scotland, Ireland and India where it means “a tax or levy” and in early 90’s rap where it refers to marijuana). This basic chart of the etymology of cesspool is interesting.
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I completely disagree. No amount of debate will establish a legitimate and useful “line” for public discourse. Each person gets to decide for themselves where that line is. Therefore, debating the specifics of where that line is for public discourse is a fruitless exercise in mental masturbation. Attempting to dictate what a person can and cannot say is no different from dictating when a person can and cannot dish out social consequences in reaction to the speech of others. You are not defending the validity of the debate but rather are attempting to create a narrative in which the debate exists as a valid exercise.
To put it another way, you are promoting the idea that some speech cannot be shouted down by the choir because it does not reach some imaginary level of unacceptable which is to say that there is or should be some consensus as to what is and is not acceptable and that such a consensus can be reached by debating the subject. I know of no such social contract and reject the premise on its face.
And what is Y? Is it simply academic what Y is or is it that Y is naming the creator of the video which would have been normally done already? I can’t agree that publishing the name of the creator of a publically released video is any sort of threat. Instead I would say that CNN offered reciprocity and allowed the creator to remain anonymous in exchange for a concession from them. It could only be considered blackmail if CNN were to hold back something that would publically damage the creator and there is no way I can consider a name to be publically damaging information.
Any place with out a concerted moderation effort, and has a large audience, will eventually get more and more shitty. Reddit is pretty free range, with limited moderation (usually depends on subreddit.)
I used to run a pretty large, 12K user, paintball forum, and we kept it pretty decent. BB is pretty well moderated. But Reddit and Facebook and twitter and youtube and the very large groups don’t have the manpower or interest in running a well moderated ship.
I don’t think it is an excuse, I think it’s the nature of the beast. It isn’t JUST the internet. The more people you have, the more bad behavior there will be, because there is always a certain percentage of assholes in a group, and at some point there will be enough to make shit start to go down hill. This is how you get riots and vandalism after sports teams win/lose, violence at large concerts, and other group think gone amok.
I don’t think the current issue can be understood without looking at the broader picture. Like we can’t talk about free speech unmoored from the larger reasons why this situation came up in the first place. Sure this was shitty journalism, but it illustrates how the mainstream media can’t even properly cover a president who is incredibly hostile to them because they retain their usual deference to power. Why go after some rando who made the anti-CNN meme Trump tweeted when CNN could hit the president where it hurts by doing proper journalism?
Excuse me, but why do you think Daesh uses those channels?
If you truly believe that propaganda has no effect, and does not endanger the person or group targeted I suggest you go through the exorcism of reading a history book.
Well if you have to misrepresent what was said, then yeah you can make it sound a lot different.
“We declined to publish the actual name of the creator…”
“… but reserve the right to.”
So the only part you actually have a problem is is saying “should any of that change” or providing context to the reason they didn’t publish his name - of which seemingly genuine remorse seems pretty justifiable. Assuming it’s the “should any of that change clause,” it’s awkwardly worded but you have to perceive it as a threat requires inserting additional meaning into the text that would make any mention of further retribution at CNN’s choosing be deemed a threat.
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I never said the debate would be solved, but, as each person gets to decide for themselves, the exchange of viewpoints, IE, a debate, is useful, no? Otherwise people are deciding in a vacuum.
Yet here you are debating me. Either it’s a valid exercise, or you too are engaging in mental masturbation. Personally I see debate as useful. I’ve changed my mind on topics due to debate, or due to witnessing debate between others. If you disagree, all right… though it does make me confused as to what you’re doing here in the first place.
Well here’s another issue. Shouting down is… well not really even a consequence, but more of a reaction. So there’s also an issue of proportionate response. We typically don’t demand people be fired over their tax views, even if we do disagree with them in public.
Really? Because it’s generally accepted that we don’t criticize people based on, say, what their favourite day of the week is. We do not say that anyone who likes grapefruit is stupid. We all absolutely abide by the idea that if you start raining down fire on someone because they disagree with you on something of no import, or on something purely subjective, then you’re the one at fault. There’s a level at which we go from polite disagreement (which is what you and I are having, and which I consider universally acceptable, saving extreme subjectivity) to social consequences (mockery, ostracizing, etc) to more tangible consequences (say, being fired from a job, or losing university acceptance). Of course we’ll never agree on what merits what action, but that’s why it’s important to talk about it. That way we’re informed and aware of all viewpoints, and we can make informed rational decisions. This is why the “echo-chamber” is usually regarded as a bad thing.
… I’m sorry, this must be your first day. Welcome to the Internet.
In all seriousness though, giving out someone’s name to the open internet can be damaging in all sorts of ways. That’s why people are comparing this to doxxing. When people get doxxed, their livelyhood and sometimes lives are put in danger. Look at what some of the people targeted by Gamergate had to put up with if you don’t believe me. I hesitate to call CNN’s threat a dox, because, as you say, reporting the name would be normal practice. If they had just reported the name, I don’t think anyone would have an issue. But because the consequences carry the same weight as a doxxing, CNN’s threat has weight.
Yep. We have the clear example in THIS thread of someone saying “but you can’t say the president always says racist stuff because I only remember one example”. Well, this is another example. It’s called journalism. Someone posted something. Ok, that’s interesting - who is this someone? What is their history? Who do they hang out with?
Those are all relevant questions, and their answers bear on the significance of drumpf retweeting it. The actual name of Mr Shitlord doesn’t currently matter much, and if he finds something useful to do with his life then he’ll quietly fade away. But if in 6 months Drumpf retweets another of his memes, maybe one in which it’s made to look like cnn strangle kittens, then posting shilord’ s actual name alongside something like “Mr Namerevealed was also responsible for the drumpf punching cnn meme back in july 2017” is completely valid.
Edit: also worth pondering are the similarities and differences between this and what happened to Kathy Griffin.
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You are trivializing the highest office in the US. Trump stopped being just another TV show host a while ago, remember?
Trump is quite consciously destroying diplomacy, on many levels. Domestically as internationally. And this is breathtakingly dangerous.
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