16 ms·

Be anonymous. Be obscure. Stop talking to people on the internet.

by nsxwolf 5y ago

commandlinefan 5y ago
That is - stop using the internet as the disruptive communications network it way designed to be.
- eurasiantiger 5y ago
  Originally, the Internet (including, but not limited to, the World Wide Web) was a place where nobody was interested in who you were as a person. It was and is geared towards structuring and disseminating knowledge. In that sense, the entire somesphere is a tumor to the Internet.
  - qbasic_forever 5y ago
    That's a very tunnel vision view of the early web. You're ignoring BBS's, AOL, usenet, IRC, etc. which were all created with the explicit purpose of people connecting and talking to other people. You can go even further back to things like Community Memory and the Homebrew Computer Club--computing has firmly been embracing people connecting to other people since the early days.
    - FeepingCreature 5y ago
      None of those need, or benefit from, your real name.
    - nsxwolf 5y ago
      I was huge into the BBS scene for years. I had a handle. Only a few close personal friends knew my name. I think most of us here are anonymous.
    - eurasiantiger 5y ago
      Sure you could connect with people, but you wouldn’t connect with Firstname Lastname, you would connect with some nickname that you were associating with some cool stuff they had written about. It was not inherently about people, it was about what those people managed to bring into virtual existence that was interesting, and it was that you wanted to connect with.
qbasic_forever 5y ago
Alternatively, don't be a sexual predator that assumes it will never lead to any consequences later in life.
- yummybear 5y ago
  What would you suggest you do when you have been behaving incorrectly? You can’t change the past.
  - qbasic_forever 5y ago
    That's an odd strawman. I... wouldn't behave incorrectly in the first place. It's not a difficult concept to understand for most people I hope, especially with sexual harassment.
    - jrochkind1 5y ago
      Everyone makes mistakes, behaves incorrectly, and causes harm though. Everyone has. You, me too.
      - qbasic_forever 5y ago
        I don't follow your logic. So like, because I ran through a red light once we should forgive all sexual predators?
        jrochkind1 5y ago
        No. Because we all behave incorrectly and cause harm -- most of us at some points in our life, serious, grave, harm even -- we should not cast out anyone who has from society and say "well, if you don't want to be cast out from society don't behave incorrectly." Because we all would be. (Someone that runs a red light can run over a pedestrian, and sometimes do, it's not thing separate from causing grave harm...) This isn't talking about "forgiving" at all, in fact. i think the only person who can "forgive" someone who has done harm is the person they have done harm to, that's not even in the capacity of anyone else to do, is it? This is, by the way, very related to "abolish prisons/policing" stuff. When someone has done grave harm, and the recommended response is to try to keep anyone else from employing, doing business with, or even socializing with them -- what is the goal, what do you expect to accomplish? Preventing them from doing further harm? Repairing the harm done to those who had harm done to them? Making it less likely others will do harm? Just pure vengeance? Which of these are accomplished, how well, by this technique? What kind of community or society is creating, knowing that we will all do harm and all have harm done to us?
rvz 5y ago
So that worked well for 'slatestarcodex' didn't it? It is not enough. The first step is to delete your Twitter account. Downvoters: So the New York Times did NOT TRY to de-anonymize SSC? Are you sure? [0] That is the extent of this issue and it is gone beyond universities and it is now dangerously in the workplace and used against those who want to remain anonymous. Flaggers: Why is this now flagged? Is it because it is true? [0] Oh dear. So privacy is dead then and it is now a 'crime' for people like SSC (somewhat accepted opinion of HN) to remain anonymous? OK. Let the cancellations continue then and we'll see what happens if we like it or not. [0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/22/nyt-is-threatening-my-safety-by-revealing-my-real-name-so-i-am-deleting-the-blog/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/22/nyt-is-threatening-my-...
xook 5y ago
Doesn't take an online interaction, either[0]. Say nothing, ever. [0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/how-dongle-jokes-got-two-people-fired-and-led-to-ddos-attacks/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/how-dongle-jokes...
tshaddox 5y ago
That's not compatible with people whose livelihood directly or indirectly relies on having a large and/or dedicated audience on Twitter or other social networks, or people who by the nature of their livelihood are public figures even if they're not active on social media. Which isn't to say that your advice is poor advice!
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  A YouTube personality I follow got cancelled not long ago. They responded by exiting Twitter, but there were complications. One of the things they mentioned that had never occurred to me is that as a published author, they had a contractual agreement with their publisher to maintain an online personality. They had to come to special terms with their publisher to modify contract because the nature of cancellation is such that at the time, there was basically nothing they could say that would improve their "brand," so the purpose of the contract stipulation had become counterproductive. But as parent notes, this is a real problem some people have, depending on their profession.
- wvenable 5y ago
  If your job requires you to put on a public performance on social media -- do exactly that.
  - a1369209993 5y ago
    Key word there being "performance". Lie.
    - wvenable 5y ago
      The key word is definitely performance. But people generally don't call actors liars for doing their job. One should not pretend that social media is a place to broadcast your unedited inner-most feelings. It's media. Even if you are honest, it doesn't mean you're good enough at expressing yourself that what you intend to come across actually does. If you don't feel you'd be confident expressing yourself millions of people on prime-time television, you shouldn't feel confident expressing yourself to millions of people on twitter.
chickenpotpie 5y ago
I don’t understand your comment. He was cancelled over actions IRL. Whether he had a Twitter or not, other people do and they know his name and where he works.
- gambiting 5y ago
  He was cancelled because he wrote a public apology on Twitter and that's how people found out about him. Twitter is completely to blame here - maybe along with being so naive to think that writing an apology on Twitter is a good idea.
  - chickenpotpie 5y ago
    I think there’s a bit of selection bias here. There’s no evidence he wouldn’t have been fired for his actions if he didn’t publicly apologize. Many people are fired for the same actions, we just don’t hear about it.
  - lightgreen 5y ago
    > Twitter is completely to blame here Don't blame knives for killing people, blame people who kill people. I think the issue here is that Twitter came too quickly into our lives, and people did not have time adapt to the new reality. Three hundreds years ago people would happily join a mob on a square trying to burn a woman because she is a witch or a traitor or unfaithful. Today people would just tell them they are coo coo and continue with their business. After a couple of years people will learn to react to Twitter cancelling mob the same.
    - gambiting 5y ago
      Sorry I should have said "Twitter culture" not Twitter. And I do hope you are right about it eventually fading away.
lalaland1125 5y ago
What does internet anonymity have to do with this? He was cancelled was what he did in real life?
fration 5y ago
Noah Bradley did not get cancelled for online behavior, he got blacklisted in the art industry for being a sexual predator.
- newbie789 5y ago
  I find it a little odd that in the original apology he refers to himself as a sexual predator but in this blog post he was a “womaniz[er]”. The term womanizer generally refers to people that have lots of sexual encounters with different women, and has a strong connotation of “I’m very attractive to the opposite sex and am sometimes careless about which sexual advances I accept” “Sexual predator” on the other hand indicates the use of force or coercion in order to initiate sexual contact, the use of professional or financial pressure to obtain sex, unwanted sexual behavior directed at folks that don’t want it, etc. The wording in this article kind of seems like he got canceled for being too cool and getting laid too much, which is what he meant to say but accidentally wrote “shitty, creepy sexual predator”(0) in his apology instead. What a typo! 0 https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2020/06/noah-bradley-admits-to-being-a-sexual-predator-at-art-industry-events/ https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2020/06/noah-bradley-admi...
  - jandrese 5y ago
    The term Sexual Predator has been expanded to cover a lot more in that circle. It's similar to how anybody who has sex with a celebrity is technically raped because of the power difference. It's impossible to give consent when your partner is more important than you are. You might think this sounds insane, but it's a real thing: https://www.nsvrc.org/i-ask-how-power-impacts-consent https://www.nsvrc.org/i-ask-how-power-impacts-consent The handouts on here handwave the issue at the end "consider how holding a position of power might influence the situation" but some people advocate that any power imbalance inherently makes consent impossible and they will attack people on Twitter over it.
    - newbie789 5y ago
      From his apology: “I preyed on them. I ceaselessly hit on them. I pressured them into sex. I got too drunk and did all manner of dumb things. Yes, I was one of those shitty, creepy sexual predators you hear about.” I do not get the impression that he apologized for having sex with people while also being guilty of being prominent in his industry. I’m not entirely clear how “any sex with a celebrity is rape” is a salient point here.
njharman 5y ago
yeah, just go sit in the back of the bus, don't be uppity, it should be enough we gave you rights, don't throw that back in our face by exercising those rights.

Be anonymous. Be obscure. Stop talking to people on the internet.

commandlinefan 5y ago

That is - stop using the internet as the disruptive communications network it way designed to be.

eurasiantiger 5y ago
Originally, the Internet (including, but not limited to, the World Wide Web) was a place where nobody was interested in who you were as a person. It was and is geared towards structuring and disseminating knowledge. In that sense, the entire somesphere is a tumor to the Internet.
- qbasic_forever 5y ago
  That's a very tunnel vision view of the early web. You're ignoring BBS's, AOL, usenet, IRC, etc. which were all created with the explicit purpose of people connecting and talking to other people. You can go even further back to things like Community Memory and the Homebrew Computer Club--computing has firmly been embracing people connecting to other people since the early days.
  - FeepingCreature 5y ago
    None of those need, or benefit from, your real name.
  - nsxwolf 5y ago
    I was huge into the BBS scene for years. I had a handle. Only a few close personal friends knew my name. I think most of us here are anonymous.
  - eurasiantiger 5y ago
    Sure you could connect with people, but you wouldn’t connect with Firstname Lastname, you would connect with some nickname that you were associating with some cool stuff they had written about. It was not inherently about people, it was about what those people managed to bring into virtual existence that was interesting, and it was that you wanted to connect with.

qbasic_forever 5y ago

Alternatively, don't be a sexual predator that assumes it will never lead to any consequences later in life.

yummybear 5y ago
What would you suggest you do when you have been behaving incorrectly? You can’t change the past.
- qbasic_forever 5y ago
  That's an odd strawman. I... wouldn't behave incorrectly in the first place. It's not a difficult concept to understand for most people I hope, especially with sexual harassment.
  - jrochkind1 5y ago
    Everyone makes mistakes, behaves incorrectly, and causes harm though. Everyone has. You, me too.
    - qbasic_forever 5y ago
      I don't follow your logic. So like, because I ran through a red light once we should forgive all sexual predators?
      - jrochkind1 5y ago
        No. Because we all behave incorrectly and cause harm -- most of us at some points in our life, serious, grave, harm even -- we should not cast out anyone who has from society and say "well, if you don't want to be cast out from society don't behave incorrectly." Because we all would be. (Someone that runs a red light can run over a pedestrian, and sometimes do, it's not thing separate from causing grave harm...) This isn't talking about "forgiving" at all, in fact. i think the only person who can "forgive" someone who has done harm is the person they have done harm to, that's not even in the capacity of anyone else to do, is it? This is, by the way, very related to "abolish prisons/policing" stuff. When someone has done grave harm, and the recommended response is to try to keep anyone else from employing, doing business with, or even socializing with them -- what is the goal, what do you expect to accomplish? Preventing them from doing further harm? Repairing the harm done to those who had harm done to them? Making it less likely others will do harm? Just pure vengeance? Which of these are accomplished, how well, by this technique? What kind of community or society is creating, knowing that we will all do harm and all have harm done to us?

rvz 5y ago

So that worked well for 'slatestarcodex' didn't it? It is not enough. The first step is to delete your Twitter account. Downvoters: So the New York Times did NOT TRY to de-anonymize SSC? Are you sure? [0] That is the extent of this issue and it is gone beyond universities and it is now dangerously in the workplace and used against those who want to remain anonymous. Flaggers: Why is this now flagged? Is it because it is true? [0] Oh dear. So privacy is dead then and it is now a 'crime' for people like SSC (somewhat accepted opinion of HN) to remain anonymous? OK. Let the cancellations continue then and we'll see what happens if we like it or not. [0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/22/nyt-is-threatening-my-safety-by-revealing-my-real-name-so-i-am-deleting-the-blog/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/22/nyt-is-threatening-my-...

xook 5y ago

Doesn't take an online interaction, either[0]. Say nothing, ever. [0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/how-dongle-jokes-got-two-people-fired-and-led-to-ddos-attacks/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/how-dongle-jokes...

tshaddox 5y ago

That's not compatible with people whose livelihood directly or indirectly relies on having a large and/or dedicated audience on Twitter or other social networks, or people who by the nature of their livelihood are public figures even if they're not active on social media. Which isn't to say that your advice is poor advice!

shadowgovt 5y ago
A YouTube personality I follow got cancelled not long ago. They responded by exiting Twitter, but there were complications. One of the things they mentioned that had never occurred to me is that as a published author, they had a contractual agreement with their publisher to maintain an online personality. They had to come to special terms with their publisher to modify contract because the nature of cancellation is such that at the time, there was basically nothing they could say that would improve their "brand," so the purpose of the contract stipulation had become counterproductive. But as parent notes, this is a real problem some people have, depending on their profession.
wvenable 5y ago
If your job requires you to put on a public performance on social media -- do exactly that.
- a1369209993 5y ago
  Key word there being "performance". Lie.
  - wvenable 5y ago
    The key word is definitely performance. But people generally don't call actors liars for doing their job. One should not pretend that social media is a place to broadcast your unedited inner-most feelings. It's media. Even if you are honest, it doesn't mean you're good enough at expressing yourself that what you intend to come across actually does. If you don't feel you'd be confident expressing yourself millions of people on prime-time television, you shouldn't feel confident expressing yourself to millions of people on twitter.

chickenpotpie 5y ago

I don’t understand your comment. He was cancelled over actions IRL. Whether he had a Twitter or not, other people do and they know his name and where he works.

gambiting 5y ago
He was cancelled because he wrote a public apology on Twitter and that's how people found out about him. Twitter is completely to blame here - maybe along with being so naive to think that writing an apology on Twitter is a good idea.
- chickenpotpie 5y ago
  I think there’s a bit of selection bias here. There’s no evidence he wouldn’t have been fired for his actions if he didn’t publicly apologize. Many people are fired for the same actions, we just don’t hear about it.
- lightgreen 5y ago
  > Twitter is completely to blame here Don't blame knives for killing people, blame people who kill people. I think the issue here is that Twitter came too quickly into our lives, and people did not have time adapt to the new reality. Three hundreds years ago people would happily join a mob on a square trying to burn a woman because she is a witch or a traitor or unfaithful. Today people would just tell them they are coo coo and continue with their business. After a couple of years people will learn to react to Twitter cancelling mob the same.
  - gambiting 5y ago
    Sorry I should have said "Twitter culture" not Twitter. And I do hope you are right about it eventually fading away.

lalaland1125 5y ago

What does internet anonymity have to do with this? He was cancelled was what he did in real life?

fration 5y ago

Noah Bradley did not get cancelled for online behavior, he got blacklisted in the art industry for being a sexual predator.

newbie789 5y ago
I find it a little odd that in the original apology he refers to himself as a sexual predator but in this blog post he was a “womaniz[er]”. The term womanizer generally refers to people that have lots of sexual encounters with different women, and has a strong connotation of “I’m very attractive to the opposite sex and am sometimes careless about which sexual advances I accept” “Sexual predator” on the other hand indicates the use of force or coercion in order to initiate sexual contact, the use of professional or financial pressure to obtain sex, unwanted sexual behavior directed at folks that don’t want it, etc. The wording in this article kind of seems like he got canceled for being too cool and getting laid too much, which is what he meant to say but accidentally wrote “shitty, creepy sexual predator”(0) in his apology instead. What a typo! 0 https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2020/06/noah-bradley-admits-to-being-a-sexual-predator-at-art-industry-events/ https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2020/06/noah-bradley-admi...
- jandrese 5y ago
  The term Sexual Predator has been expanded to cover a lot more in that circle. It's similar to how anybody who has sex with a celebrity is technically raped because of the power difference. It's impossible to give consent when your partner is more important than you are. You might think this sounds insane, but it's a real thing: https://www.nsvrc.org/i-ask-how-power-impacts-consent https://www.nsvrc.org/i-ask-how-power-impacts-consent The handouts on here handwave the issue at the end "consider how holding a position of power might influence the situation" but some people advocate that any power imbalance inherently makes consent impossible and they will attack people on Twitter over it.
  - newbie789 5y ago
    From his apology: “I preyed on them. I ceaselessly hit on them. I pressured them into sex. I got too drunk and did all manner of dumb things. Yes, I was one of those shitty, creepy sexual predators you hear about.” I do not get the impression that he apologized for having sex with people while also being guilty of being prominent in his industry. I’m not entirely clear how “any sex with a celebrity is rape” is a salient point here.

njharman 5y ago

yeah, just go sit in the back of the bus, don't be uppity, it should be enough we gave you rights, don't throw that back in our face by exercising those rights.