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Have you thought about the reverse side of your argument? Someone falsely accusing you or your persons of insert-your-favorite-harm and then having your life up

Have you thought about the reverse side of your argument? Someone falsely accusing you or your persons of insert-your-favorite-harm and then having your life upended by the social justice mob or corporate actions? It needs to go through a trial. That's what its for.

striking 4y ago
Of course I have thought about the reverse side of this. Everyone involved in the matter on my end treated it with the seriousness it deserved. And for what it's worth, I too used to believe that words couldn't hurt people and that justice was out there for those who do get hurt. Having experienced it firsthand, I know that to not be the case. Good luck serving the subpoenas on Large Faceless Internet Giant(tm) and John Does 1-100, especially when you don't have anything near the standard of evidence necessary to do that or the law degree necessary to make such filings. Good luck doing anything less than that, because no one actually cares as long as the money keeps flowing. The only way I could prove malice was by infiltrating their community. The only way I could shut them down was to sow enough distrust that they couldn't operate and to expose their malice to the world. And you know what? Our coordinated effort won out. We only had to fight an uphill battle against complete strangers, with our real lives put at risk. And they aren't so much as banned from the platform. They just know well enough not to mess with us again. Just the one group, because any other group could swing by and make our lives hard again. And I'm not even the person who was being attacked. I'm privileged enough that I could have turned away and told them they were on their own. Just like some folks running some companies that help these folks do their dirty work. I didn't, because helping someone without any other recourse was the right thing to do.
Natsu 4y ago
> Have you thought about the reverse side of your argument? Someone falsely accusing you or your persons of insert-your-favorite-harm and then having your life upended by the social justice mob or corporate actions? I doubt they'd be as happy if sites that host speech critical of MTG were being held responsible for contributing to the three SWATings she had recently, to name the most recent example, but this is too emotional and I think people want the corps to respond because they know that the law is harder to change.
- joshuamorton 4y ago
  I mean, given that most signs point to the culprit site there being kiwifarms, yes, yes! More generally, swatting people is bad (and also illegal!), people should not do it. Sites that encourage it should not be supported. No equivocation there.
  - Natsu 4y ago
    > I mean, given that most signs point to the culprit site there being kiwifarms, yes, yes! So, when someone does a thing that's designed to hurt both Kiwifarms and MTG and your assumption is that KF is responsible? > More generally, swatting people is bad (and also illegal!), people should not do it. I'd agree, anyone caught doing this should be imprisoned for attempted murder. I worry more about people trying to expand this list to anyone adjacent to them or critical of that person who does not engage in such harassment or any platform they use to speak, even when that platform removes anyone doing such things. That said if we do go down that road, FB, Twitter & co. should be first on the chopping block and I won't miss them. > Sites that encourage it should not be supported. I don't visit KF, except that I read their response earlier regarding the byuu thing (when they were being DDoS'd which prevented them from responding much) and it didn't seem like the platform had meaningfully encouraged this or interacted with byuu in any way. It's a sad loss, because I was loosely acquainted with byuu and byuu's work and you can see some of those comments between us here on HN. I also did what little I could to try to help find that package of lost video games, not that I actually was able to contribute anything, but I tried. Despite KF getting lots of blame, I didn't actually see any proof of them participating in that in any meaningful way. Maybe I missed something, because again, I don't actually use that site and I only went there to look at what was going on with the story since it involved byuu. But the response was pretty clear that there was a small thread with people not even interacting with byuu and it's hard to see a link between that and driving someone to suicide. None of the articles I read about the whole thing actually did anything but quote someone who said there was a link, so with no evidence but some person I don't know's say-so, I'd say that case is rather weak by people who already hate KF. Feel free to point to more showing that KF is bad, because to me they're just another angry part of the internet, kinda like FB or Twitter, that I tend to avoid for that very reason. I'm suspect that they in particular should be deplatformed compared to the other platforms, though, because to me they're all angry nasty things that have driven people to suicide. And I'm pretty sure that on FB in particular, someone was successfully sued for that, which already puts them a level worse than what I've seen proven of KF so far.

striking 4y ago

Of course I have thought about the reverse side of this. Everyone involved in the matter on my end treated it with the seriousness it deserved. And for what it's worth, I too used to believe that words couldn't hurt people and that justice was out there for those who do get hurt. Having experienced it firsthand, I know that to not be the case. Good luck serving the subpoenas on Large Faceless Internet Giant(tm) and John Does 1-100, especially when you don't have anything near the standard of evidence necessary to do that or the law degree necessary to make such filings. Good luck doing anything less than that, because no one actually cares as long as the money keeps flowing. The only way I could prove malice was by infiltrating their community. The only way I could shut them down was to sow enough distrust that they couldn't operate and to expose their malice to the world. And you know what? Our coordinated effort won out. We only had to fight an uphill battle against complete strangers, with our real lives put at risk. And they aren't so much as banned from the platform. They just know well enough not to mess with us again. Just the one group, because any other group could swing by and make our lives hard again. And I'm not even the person who was being attacked. I'm privileged enough that I could have turned away and told them they were on their own. Just like some folks running some companies that help these folks do their dirty work. I didn't, because helping someone without any other recourse was the right thing to do.

Natsu 4y ago

> Have you thought about the reverse side of your argument? Someone falsely accusing you or your persons of insert-your-favorite-harm and then having your life upended by the social justice mob or corporate actions? I doubt they'd be as happy if sites that host speech critical of MTG were being held responsible for contributing to the three SWATings she had recently, to name the most recent example, but this is too emotional and I think people want the corps to respond because they know that the law is harder to change.

joshuamorton 4y ago
I mean, given that most signs point to the culprit site there being kiwifarms, yes, yes! More generally, swatting people is bad (and also illegal!), people should not do it. Sites that encourage it should not be supported. No equivocation there.
- Natsu 4y ago
  > I mean, given that most signs point to the culprit site there being kiwifarms, yes, yes! So, when someone does a thing that's designed to hurt both Kiwifarms and MTG and your assumption is that KF is responsible? > More generally, swatting people is bad (and also illegal!), people should not do it. I'd agree, anyone caught doing this should be imprisoned for attempted murder. I worry more about people trying to expand this list to anyone adjacent to them or critical of that person who does not engage in such harassment or any platform they use to speak, even when that platform removes anyone doing such things. That said if we do go down that road, FB, Twitter & co. should be first on the chopping block and I won't miss them. > Sites that encourage it should not be supported. I don't visit KF, except that I read their response earlier regarding the byuu thing (when they were being DDoS'd which prevented them from responding much) and it didn't seem like the platform had meaningfully encouraged this or interacted with byuu in any way. It's a sad loss, because I was loosely acquainted with byuu and byuu's work and you can see some of those comments between us here on HN. I also did what little I could to try to help find that package of lost video games, not that I actually was able to contribute anything, but I tried. Despite KF getting lots of blame, I didn't actually see any proof of them participating in that in any meaningful way. Maybe I missed something, because again, I don't actually use that site and I only went there to look at what was going on with the story since it involved byuu. But the response was pretty clear that there was a small thread with people not even interacting with byuu and it's hard to see a link between that and driving someone to suicide. None of the articles I read about the whole thing actually did anything but quote someone who said there was a link, so with no evidence but some person I don't know's say-so, I'd say that case is rather weak by people who already hate KF. Feel free to point to more showing that KF is bad, because to me they're just another angry part of the internet, kinda like FB or Twitter, that I tend to avoid for that very reason. I'm suspect that they in particular should be deplatformed compared to the other platforms, though, because to me they're all angry nasty things that have driven people to suicide. And I'm pretty sure that on FB in particular, someone was successfully sued for that, which already puts them a level worse than what I've seen proven of KF so far.