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If you insult someone on the street, or in their home, what do you think the reaction would be? Insulting someone is harassment. If you made it your mission to

by jarcane 12y ago

If you insult someone on the street, or in their home, what do you think the reaction would be? Insulting someone is harassment. If you made it your mission to relentlessly insult one of your co-workers, how long do you think you'd keep your job? Why is it that the internet deserves 'special consideration' for the allowance of verbal abuse? Nobody owes you the right to call them a cunt.

nailer 12y ago
People argue over seats on a train. Someone calls the other person a 'selfish prick'. Does the insulted person have the right to remove their 'harasser' from the train? Do you think they should? If you or a member of your side insulted someone, would you support yourself/them being banned from Twitter?
- jarcane 12y ago
  The train conductor reserves the right to eject passengers who are being disruptive or abusive of other passengers in that scenario. There is indeed a good shot the insulting party might find themselves moved to another car or asked to leave. Painting this matter of protocol as some 'abuse of power' on the part of the insulted party is an absurd strawman.
  - nailer 12y ago
    > The train conductor reserves the right to eject passengers who are being disruptive or abusive of other passengers in that scenario. That's correct. So is the person who took the seat disruptive, or the person who insulted the person who took the seat disruptive? Where there are only insults, and not threats involved, this is not a clear matter of right vs wrong. Both sides are saying things about the other that the other side doesn't like. And repeating the question: If you or a member of your side insulted someone, would you support yourself/them being banned from Twitter?
josephlord 12y ago
The "relentless" part is critical for whether insults (or even just continued asking of questions or repeating points) are harassment. Especially if the insult isn't profane - e.g. "idiot". To what extent is it OK to tell someone they are being an "idiot" or "are an idiot" when they say something idiotic. Some people have even taken to being insulted by being called "sexist" or "racist". The difficulty comes when someone is relentlessly harassed by a large group such that each individual's insults on their own wouldn't be harassment. The recipient is being harassed but I'm not sure what the correct response is in this case. Also it is difficult to see the size of the group and who is actually involved if there are many throwaway anonymous accounts. There is also a hard to make distinction between a large group responding to something and calling it out following it being retweeted (which might briefly feel like harrassment) and a group organising and deliberately trolling people or jumping into every conversation they have. These are tricky questions and I don't have answers to everything. Threats of violence while horrible are at least a simple and clear cut case that can be responded to (ideally with at least a police visit/warning rather than just a ban from the service). That does not make them the only sort of real harassment but it is in a way easy to deal with.
- jarcane 12y ago
  The "relentless" part is critical for whether insults (or even just continued asking of questions or repeating points) are harassment. Especially if the insult isn't profane - e.g. "idiot". To what extent is it OK to tell someone they are being an "idiot" or "are an idiot" when they say something idiotic. Some people have even taken to being insulted by being called "sexist" or "racist". This is another sort of claim that pops up a lot in freeze peach[1] debates, where we pretend that reasonable people do not exist, and treat all claims as somehow equal and thus intractable. This is complete nonsense, and something the sane society largely doesn't have as much of a problem with as the internet does, at least as argued by those still desperate to defend the right to an audience for invective. [1]http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2013/05/free-speech-vs-freeze-peach/ http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2013/05/free-sp...
  - josephlord 12y ago

by jarcane 12y ago

nailer 12y ago

People argue over seats on a train. Someone calls the other person a 'selfish prick'. Does the insulted person have the right to remove their 'harasser' from the train? Do you think they should? If you or a member of your side insulted someone, would you support yourself/them being banned from Twitter?

jarcane 12y ago
The train conductor reserves the right to eject passengers who are being disruptive or abusive of other passengers in that scenario. There is indeed a good shot the insulting party might find themselves moved to another car or asked to leave. Painting this matter of protocol as some 'abuse of power' on the part of the insulted party is an absurd strawman.
- nailer 12y ago
  > The train conductor reserves the right to eject passengers who are being disruptive or abusive of other passengers in that scenario. That's correct. So is the person who took the seat disruptive, or the person who insulted the person who took the seat disruptive? Where there are only insults, and not threats involved, this is not a clear matter of right vs wrong. Both sides are saying things about the other that the other side doesn't like. And repeating the question: If you or a member of your side insulted someone, would you support yourself/them being banned from Twitter?

josephlord 12y ago

The "relentless" part is critical for whether insults (or even just continued asking of questions or repeating points) are harassment. Especially if the insult isn't profane - e.g. "idiot". To what extent is it OK to tell someone they are being an "idiot" or "are an idiot" when they say something idiotic. Some people have even taken to being insulted by being called "sexist" or "racist". The difficulty comes when someone is relentlessly harassed by a large group such that each individual's insults on their own wouldn't be harassment. The recipient is being harassed but I'm not sure what the correct response is in this case. Also it is difficult to see the size of the group and who is actually involved if there are many throwaway anonymous accounts. There is also a hard to make distinction between a large group responding to something and calling it out following it being retweeted (which might briefly feel like harrassment) and a group organising and deliberately trolling people or jumping into every conversation they have. These are tricky questions and I don't have answers to everything. Threats of violence while horrible are at least a simple and clear cut case that can be responded to (ideally with at least a police visit/warning rather than just a ban from the service). That does not make them the only sort of real harassment but it is in a way easy to deal with.

jarcane 12y ago
The "relentless" part is critical for whether insults (or even just continued asking of questions or repeating points) are harassment. Especially if the insult isn't profane - e.g. "idiot". To what extent is it OK to tell someone they are being an "idiot" or "are an idiot" when they say something idiotic. Some people have even taken to being insulted by being called "sexist" or "racist". This is another sort of claim that pops up a lot in freeze peach[1] debates, where we pretend that reasonable people do not exist, and treat all claims as somehow equal and thus intractable. This is complete nonsense, and something the sane society largely doesn't have as much of a problem with as the internet does, at least as argued by those still desperate to defend the right to an audience for invective. [1]http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2013/05/free-speech-vs-freeze-peach/ http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2013/05/free-sp...
- josephlord 12y ago