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>We should all be able to participate in online communities without the fear of being stalked or harassed. My priority is anonymity and freedom of expression.

>We should all be able to participate in online communities without the fear of being stalked or harassed. My priority is anonymity and freedom of expression. You're never going to be able to satisfactorily reconcile that with your priority of not making anyone feel uncomfortable. Doesn't it then make sense to stick to different kinds of internet communities? You stick to facebook and real names, I'll stick to twitter with freeform handles? Why try to force change on platforms clearly not made for you? Isn't that just naked greed? >Her troll made a fake Twitter account in the name of her dead father just to mock her. That's grotesque. How far does this go? Should we enforce 100 points of ID on letters to the editor of local newspapers, in case I pretend to be someone on the other side of the world and write mocking things? Surely at some point every sane person must learn to ignore things, or they'll have a heart attack trying to control every word spoken around them?

apozem 11y ago
I didn't elaborate on this enough in the previous post, but please do not assume I'm trying to make no one uncomfortable or enforce real names or remove anonymity. That's a pure strawman. Being uncomfortable is fine. Disagreeing is fine. Anonymity is fine. Living with people who say disagreeable things is part of life. I have issues with stalking, harassment and death threats. It's not anonymity or disagreement that are the problem, it's aggressive harassment that would get you a visit from the police if you did it in real life. Please don't think in simplistic, binary terms. We can have free speech, anonymity and argue all day without stalking and death threats. That's the happy medium I want. As for why be part of a platform "not made for you," I just explained why. Twitter is a useful tool that is indispensable for some jobs. I'd also ask you to flip your assumptions on their head. Why do you think Twitter shouldn't be changed? Isn't it more greedy of you to insist that certain people, usually women and minorities, continue suffering abuse? Isn't it selfish of you to not make a change?
- Sir_Substance 11y ago
  I guess I don't agree that twitter is as mandatory as you think it is.
st3v3r 11y ago
"My priority is anonymity and freedom of expression. You're never going to be able to satisfactorily reconcile that with your priority of not making anyone feel uncomfortable." I'm 10,000% positive that it is possible to satisfactorily reconcile "freedom of expression" with not allowing rape and death threats. If you can't, then maybe you need to do some serious self examination. "Surely at some point every sane person must learn to ignore things, or they'll have a heart attack trying to control every word spoken around them?" That is extremely easy to say when you haven't had this done to you.
- Sir_Substance 11y ago
  >That is extremely easy to say when you haven't had this done to you. You should check my comment history dude. There's a chap named "assocguilt" who on this very site spent about two months stalking every post I made here posting snarky comments because I suggested the software industry should refuse to employ people who have job histories working for dodgy government departments. He started making references to my home city and former employer about half way through the process. Everyone gets threatened and stalked on the internet. It's like getting burgled. It happens to pretty much everyone at some point. You can let it forever destroy your confidence, or you can recognize it as an essentially random happening and move on.
  - st3v3r 11y ago
    Why should we allow it at all? Why should people have to accept it?
    - Sir_Substance 11y ago
      Because it's beyond your ability to prevent, and your inevitable failure has terrible side effects. Are you seriously tell me that facebooks real name policy has made cyberbullying less hurtful?

apozem 11y ago

I didn't elaborate on this enough in the previous post, but please do not assume I'm trying to make no one uncomfortable or enforce real names or remove anonymity. That's a pure strawman. Being uncomfortable is fine. Disagreeing is fine. Anonymity is fine. Living with people who say disagreeable things is part of life. I have issues with stalking, harassment and death threats. It's not anonymity or disagreement that are the problem, it's aggressive harassment that would get you a visit from the police if you did it in real life. Please don't think in simplistic, binary terms. We can have free speech, anonymity and argue all day without stalking and death threats. That's the happy medium I want. As for why be part of a platform "not made for you," I just explained why. Twitter is a useful tool that is indispensable for some jobs. I'd also ask you to flip your assumptions on their head. Why do you think Twitter shouldn't be changed? Isn't it more greedy of you to insist that certain people, usually women and minorities, continue suffering abuse? Isn't it selfish of you to not make a change?

Sir_Substance 11y ago
I guess I don't agree that twitter is as mandatory as you think it is.

st3v3r 11y ago

"My priority is anonymity and freedom of expression. You're never going to be able to satisfactorily reconcile that with your priority of not making anyone feel uncomfortable." I'm 10,000% positive that it is possible to satisfactorily reconcile "freedom of expression" with not allowing rape and death threats. If you can't, then maybe you need to do some serious self examination. "Surely at some point every sane person must learn to ignore things, or they'll have a heart attack trying to control every word spoken around them?" That is extremely easy to say when you haven't had this done to you.

Sir_Substance 11y ago
>That is extremely easy to say when you haven't had this done to you. You should check my comment history dude. There's a chap named "assocguilt" who on this very site spent about two months stalking every post I made here posting snarky comments because I suggested the software industry should refuse to employ people who have job histories working for dodgy government departments. He started making references to my home city and former employer about half way through the process. Everyone gets threatened and stalked on the internet. It's like getting burgled. It happens to pretty much everyone at some point. You can let it forever destroy your confidence, or you can recognize it as an essentially random happening and move on.
- st3v3r 11y ago
  Why should we allow it at all? Why should people have to accept it?
  - Sir_Substance 11y ago
    Because it's beyond your ability to prevent, and your inevitable failure has terrible side effects. Are you seriously tell me that facebooks real name policy has made cyberbullying less hurtful?