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You were seeking to draw a comparison between posting controversial content and doxxing, stating there is no "intellectual clarity" in the Internet steadfastly

by 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.
    - aes256 14y ago
      How does any of this relate to /r/creepshots? Photos of women, predominantly of age, seen in public. Statistically, and by virtue of the photos being taken covertly, very few of the women featured would have known there was a photo of them floating around on the Internet. Very rarely is a name put to a photo, and reddit specifically prohibited the posting of personal details on the site. Even if the subjects did find out, so what? I'd be flattered if someone had taken a photo of me in public and posted it online saying they'd like to have sexual relations with me, that I have a nice ass, etc. I'd be a little creeped out, but not to the point where I'd be calling for the banning of the activity.
      - tptacek 14y ago
        I am talking about compromising photos of minors.
        aes256 14y ago
        Well that's great and all, but sexually suggestive photos of minors are already banned on reddit (and are prohibited by law in a bunch of places) This thread is about the /r/creepshots debacle, which has nothing to do with compromising photos of minors.
        tptacek 14y ago
        There were compromising photos of minors on creepshots in addition to jailbait, which is another subreddit that prompted the outing of "violentacrez".
        aes256 14y ago
        There were very few on /r/creepshots from what I saw. Making the discussion about creepshots one about "compromising photos of minors" is disingenuous and grossly misleading. I don't see how /r/jailbait is relevant to this discussion. violentacrez's involvement in that subreddit does not somehow justify his doxxing. Besides, there was nothing wrong with most of the content on /r/jailbait either. Almost all of it was legal, rarely were any photos sexually suggestive, and actual child pornography was strictly prohibited. Reddit only shut it down because the media furore over it was threatening to damage the reddit community as a whole.

by aes256 14y ago

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.
  - aes256 14y ago
    How does any of this relate to /r/creepshots? Photos of women, predominantly of age, seen in public. Statistically, and by virtue of the photos being taken covertly, very few of the women featured would have known there was a photo of them floating around on the Internet. Very rarely is a name put to a photo, and reddit specifically prohibited the posting of personal details on the site. Even if the subjects did find out, so what? I'd be flattered if someone had taken a photo of me in public and posted it online saying they'd like to have sexual relations with me, that I have a nice ass, etc. I'd be a little creeped out, but not to the point where I'd be calling for the banning of the activity.
    - tptacek 14y ago
      I am talking about compromising photos of minors.
      - aes256 14y ago
        Well that's great and all, but sexually suggestive photos of minors are already banned on reddit (and are prohibited by law in a bunch of places) This thread is about the /r/creepshots debacle, which has nothing to do with compromising photos of minors.
        tptacek 14y ago
        There were compromising photos of minors on creepshots in addition to jailbait, which is another subreddit that prompted the outing of "violentacrez".
        aes256 14y ago
        There were very few on /r/creepshots from what I saw. Making the discussion about creepshots one about "compromising photos of minors" is disingenuous and grossly misleading. I don't see how /r/jailbait is relevant to this discussion. violentacrez's involvement in that subreddit does not somehow justify his doxxing. Besides, there was nothing wrong with most of the content on /r/jailbait either. Almost all of it was legal, rarely were any photos sexually suggestive, and actual child pornography was strictly prohibited. Reddit only shut it down because the media furore over it was threatening to damage the reddit community as a whole.