An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself; and if you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into you. Other aphorisms as appropriate.
Seriously, your suggestion makes me picture the whole internet as a permanent war zone. How is that better than the law enforcement approach?
Sorry I missed it and Phasma had an excerpt from the NYT with that as well.
Even though the article presents data showing that women get most of the harassment, I donāt know many women who want to end internet anonymity. Itās a great freedom to not always be gendered. Also, if your name is something along the lines of āMichael Williams,ā your 'nym may identify you better than your legal name. My real name, on the other hand, which Iām using here to serve as an example, is a bit different.
Citation expletive deleted needed. Pretty much all my experience with driving trollies were people actually totally meaning it, and any tongue-in-cheek attitude was just apologetics meant to portray offended people as spoilsports or censors.
One of the many reasons this is a bad idea is that the worst trollies, both in terms of their personal actions and in terms of inciting others, are resistant or immune to such attacks. Theyāre unlikely to be bothered by verbal/textual harassment, since (a) theyāre sociopaths and (b) they know first-hand how empty internet threats are; and Weev himself had no fixed address but traveled around the country living out of hotel rooms and couch-surfing, which makes doxing, attacking his friends/family/job, etc. pointless.
As a side note, Iām actually flabbergasted that the gummint didnāt try to charge him with anything else. Heās independently wealthy and bragged about earning it through crime. He was vague about the specifics, but at the very least his own admissions shouldāve been enough to try for criminal-harassment charges.
It seems to be getting to the point that anyone who expresses any sort of opinion online or does something controversial seems to get death threats nowadays. Some examples from the last month:
Thatās just the first 2-3 pages of Google results for death threats reported in the news in the past month. Iām sure a similar list could be made for rape threats. None of these examples seem to be the common āI hope you die in a fireā comments that you get somewhere like YouTube, but rather more specific threats that affected peopleās sense of their own security and that of those around them.
I think in addition to the sense of anonymity that people feel when online, trolls also have a sense of how insignificant they are and how incapable they are of contributing to the discussion in a reasonable manner. Plenty of other people are commenting, so they feel that they need to be louder, more aggressive and more threatening to be taken seriously. I think flagging and moderation can help, along with constant reinforcement from forum participants of the fact that this kind of behavior is completely unacceptable at any level. Threats are actions as well as words, and you need to have an online culture where these sorts of threats are taken much as you would take someone hitting their wife or child in public. At some point, these kind of threats should absolutely be referred to the police. Resorting to 4Chan style vigilante groups would just reinforce the idea that the internet is different from reality and normal rules donāt apply here. One thing we can do is help build a case if the law takes this kind of threat seriously.
This is just a monkeysphere/Dunbarās number and social acceptability issue.
Freedom of speech does not need to mean āfreedom to be a jerkā. Itās a manufactured social problem that never needed to exist.
The fact that our culture gives them advantages is a flaw in itself, itās not like itās SUBTLE or anything. Theyāre the opposite of stealthy!
It IS important not to create our own pain, Iāll agree there.
But itās also important to allow people who are willing to NOT be jerks to have the majority of the virtual and real space belong to them. āNot being a jerkā and āNot throwing tantrumsā and āNot stalking peopleā should kind of be considered mandatory parts of being treated like an adult.
This simply isnāt mature behavior, the fact that itās treated as a sort of āit sucks but some people do itā is a sign of cultural madness. If I walked up and peed on somebodyās baby, it would be treated as properly outrageously awful. We need that to apply even more to actual mean-spiritedness and cruelty.
Thereās nothing BAD about raising the bar, is there?
It seems to me that a lot of the problem here lies with law enforcement. Death threats are, as far as I know, illegal. (If someone made one to you in person, you could legally shoot them in most states) It is not difficult to track down the perpetrators, and simply making one of those threats ought to be good for at least a few years in prison. Maybe we need some lawsuits against law enforcement agencies that wonāt enforce the laws in these cases, to convince them that itās a better use of their time than harassing stoners and beating up black people. Another option could be some kind of a specialist PI agency you could employ to track the perpetrators down and collect evidence, which could then be turned over to a law enforcement agency that might not have the resources or skills to investigate online crime for prosecution.
Absolutely. Threatening people online is no more a freedom of speech issue than spousal abuse is a property issue. Not accepting abuse has nothing to do with eroding your rights. Itās a cultural issue, and those supporting abusersā ārightsā are helping to create an abusive culture.
I wonder if this has to do with the ongoing attack on ālogicā and āreasonā?
Thereās certainly nothing reasonable here, is there? Thereās nothing wrong with saying āWe WANT thoughtful views that challenge us, especially the controversial onesā while including ābut donāt be an ass about itā
I figure that one should be civilized if they expect to enjoy the benefits of civilization.
In the Esquire article on phone phreaking that made him famous, John āCapān Crunchā Draper bragged about being able to eavesdrop on the telephone conversations of a woman that he was interested in, without her permission. Result: he becomes a hacker hero. Itās not just creepy when the government does it.
Iāve suddenly thought of a good use for the NSA:
Terrorism is defined in the Code of Federal Regulations as āthe unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectivesā (28 C.F.R. Section 0.85).
ā¦Domestic terrorism is the unlawful use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual based and operating entirely within the United States or Puerto Rico without foreign direction committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof in furtherance of political or social objectives.
(Yes, getting the NSA involved would probably be a terrible idea. Still, itās not like the US government is short of people who could enforce this as part of their existing mandate.)
(And I forgot I was posting with initials, not my full name. Oh well, the initials make almost the same point.)
Or false-flagging in a victimās name will become a predominant form of trolling. Imagine trying to deal not only with sociopaths like Weev, but ALSO having a tsunami of misdirected Reddit vigilantes gunning for you.
Thatās how.
ā¦You did read the part where a woman got raped to death with a knife-sharpener because her ex posted an ad about her, right? Weāre reading the same articles?
Charming when he wants to be is the hallmark of a manipulative personality. Whether clinically definable as āsociopathā or not, sounds like heās in that neighborhood at least.
Ignoring them, banning them, none of it works
You can set up honeypots for trollies and with some work (and luck) determine who they are. Thereās much pleasure to derive from contacting a trolley IRL and letting them know youāre going to break their legs. Iāve trolley-hunted for myself and others over the years. It can be a rewarding experience when it doesnāt lead to dead ends.
They should do a tv show called āto catch a trolleyā or something.
And it would take abusers less than 30 seconds to start using this process to get the hounds to attack their victims for them. Think about how haters of all flavors use YouTube DMCA and bad-content complaints to suppress videos posted by people they want to harm.
