5 ms·

This is Internet Culture 101. The Internet is a bastion of free speech. Under the guise of pseudo-anonymity, people are free to post whatever content they see

by aes256 14y ago

This is Internet Culture 101. The Internet is a bastion of free speech. Under the guise of pseudo-anonymity, people are free to post whatever content they see fit, and people on the receiving end generally understand that it's just the Internet; it's not serious business. It is an escape from real life, where you don't have to kowtow to political correctness, fear the tyranny of the majority, and ultimately, and hide your true identity. 'Doxxing' is thus a direct attack on Internet culture.

tptacek 14y ago
Under the guise of pseudo-anonymity, people are free to post compromising photos of children for the amusement of their pseudo-anonymous peers? This just doesn't make sense. Why is the poster (who has deliberately decided to participate in an online forum) entitled to privacy, but the subjects of these photos aren't?
- aes256 14y ago
  What are you referring to here? /r/creepshots had nothing to do with compromising photos of children. At a stretch, /r/jailbait and the associated subreddits may have, but reddit took the decision to ban those a long time ago. It makes perfect sense. Both posting photos of people in public on the Internet and 'doxxing' someone who does this are legal. However, the former is in compliance with Internet culture (the free sharing of information, no matter how controversial) and the latter is not. The latter is an attack on the Internet.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    I feel like an easy way to win any argument involving the Internet is to just draw a line around your side of the argument, label the inside of that line "the Internet", and call the opposing argument an "attack on the Internet". I disagree that your argument makes perfect sense, but prefer not to repeat my argument.
    - aes256 14y ago
      You were seeking to draw a comparison between posting controversial content and doxxing, stating there is no "intellectual clarity" in the Internet steadfastly defending the former while rebuking the latter. I provided that intellectual clarity for you, by explaining how these prima facie inconsistent views are actually entirely consistent with the principles of Internet culture. Any questions?
      - tptacek 14y ago
        No. You're playing a semantic game, by shifting the frame from harmful content (or a discussion about whether/why content is/can be harmful) to controversial content. Nobody is arguing about controversial content. At issue here isn't whether militant creationists can find a forum on Reddit, or hard-right anti-abortion activists, or "god hates gay people" picketers, or the Ku Klux Klan.
        aes256 14y ago
        We are talking about controversial content. The content on /r/creepshots was not, generally speaking, illegal. I cannot fathom any way in which it was harmful. I'm sure you will disagree on this latter point, and I will be very interested to hear you articulate in what sense you thought it caused harm. You don't win the game by slapping the word "harmful" on controversial content.
        tptacek 14y ago
        I am not talking about controversial content. Surreptitious, candid, compromising photos of minors are harmful. They put a very public spotlight on people who have neither the life experience nor the cognitive development nor the emotional stability to handle it. The photos themselves are fed into the random social eddies an currents these people have to live in, which currents are made of similarly dysfunctional teenagers making a whole new set of bad decisions based on those photos. Every snarky, gross, nasty, or salacious comment posted on the public threads in which the subjects of those photos are objectified also feeds into the drama. At the same time, the practice of causing this harm solely for the amusement of groups of anonymous Internet commenters provides social reinforcement not just for the continued posting of harmful photos, but also for the fundamental sick ideas that animate those photos: that teenagers are not developing human beings with their own rights to privacy and personal space and well being, but instead objects for the amusement of strangers. We are just now beginning to comprehend how harmful peer-bullying is among teenagers. It seems to me that it shouldn't be difficult at all to wrap our heads around the harm caused by the bullying of teenagers by adults. How you know that there is at least some force to these arguments is, you're arguing on a thread that isn't simply about banning the posting of these photos, but rather about why it's inconsistent to tolerate those photos while banning the mere naming of the people who post them.
  - rmc 14y ago
    the free sharing of information, no matter how controversial So, it's OK to share the personal information of people on the Internet?

by aes256 14y ago

tptacek 14y ago

Under the guise of pseudo-anonymity, people are free to post compromising photos of children for the amusement of their pseudo-anonymous peers? This just doesn't make sense. Why is the poster (who has deliberately decided to participate in an online forum) entitled to privacy, but the subjects of these photos aren't?

aes256 14y ago
What are you referring to here? /r/creepshots had nothing to do with compromising photos of children. At a stretch, /r/jailbait and the associated subreddits may have, but reddit took the decision to ban those a long time ago. It makes perfect sense. Both posting photos of people in public on the Internet and 'doxxing' someone who does this are legal. However, the former is in compliance with Internet culture (the free sharing of information, no matter how controversial) and the latter is not. The latter is an attack on the Internet.
- tptacek 14y ago
  I feel like an easy way to win any argument involving the Internet is to just draw a line around your side of the argument, label the inside of that line "the Internet", and call the opposing argument an "attack on the Internet". I disagree that your argument makes perfect sense, but prefer not to repeat my argument.
  - aes256 14y ago
    You were seeking to draw a comparison between posting controversial content and doxxing, stating there is no "intellectual clarity" in the Internet steadfastly defending the former while rebuking the latter. I provided that intellectual clarity for you, by explaining how these prima facie inconsistent views are actually entirely consistent with the principles of Internet culture. Any questions?
    - tptacek 14y ago
      No. You're playing a semantic game, by shifting the frame from harmful content (or a discussion about whether/why content is/can be harmful) to controversial content. Nobody is arguing about controversial content. At issue here isn't whether militant creationists can find a forum on Reddit, or hard-right anti-abortion activists, or "god hates gay people" picketers, or the Ku Klux Klan.
      - aes256 14y ago
        We are talking about controversial content. The content on /r/creepshots was not, generally speaking, illegal. I cannot fathom any way in which it was harmful. I'm sure you will disagree on this latter point, and I will be very interested to hear you articulate in what sense you thought it caused harm. You don't win the game by slapping the word "harmful" on controversial content.
        tptacek 14y ago
        I am not talking about controversial content. Surreptitious, candid, compromising photos of minors are harmful. They put a very public spotlight on people who have neither the life experience nor the cognitive development nor the emotional stability to handle it. The photos themselves are fed into the random social eddies an currents these people have to live in, which currents are made of similarly dysfunctional teenagers making a whole new set of bad decisions based on those photos. Every snarky, gross, nasty, or salacious comment posted on the public threads in which the subjects of those photos are objectified also feeds into the drama. At the same time, the practice of causing this harm solely for the amusement of groups of anonymous Internet commenters provides social reinforcement not just for the continued posting of harmful photos, but also for the fundamental sick ideas that animate those photos: that teenagers are not developing human beings with their own rights to privacy and personal space and well being, but instead objects for the amusement of strangers. We are just now beginning to comprehend how harmful peer-bullying is among teenagers. It seems to me that it shouldn't be difficult at all to wrap our heads around the harm caused by the bullying of teenagers by adults. How you know that there is at least some force to these arguments is, you're arguing on a thread that isn't simply about banning the posting of these photos, but rather about why it's inconsistent to tolerate those photos while banning the mere naming of the people who post them.
- rmc 14y ago
  the free sharing of information, no matter how controversial So, it's OK to share the personal information of people on the Internet?