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Threats are not protected under free speech.
SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists
121–130 of 231 posts
Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a way of saying journalists can't report on anyone. After all, it's easy to offend someone , somewhere . And they might harass as a result!
They can report on people using pseudonyms by referring to the pseudonym. This is done all the time when referring to tweets, etc. And, yes, people certainly exist who get offended and decide to harass/threaten others as a result. There's no real downside to making it harder for people to do so.
That's ridiculous. When reporters discover the people behind pseudonymous lobbying fronts, they don't report only the pseudonyms to protect the real identities involved. Why do participants in Internet culture get special dispensation? Isn't this just Reddit's weird norms leaking into the real world?
Or is it just the case that, as one friend said on Slack, "doxxing is when someone you don't like posts information about someone you do like"?
Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about a phone system that does not allow random people to spoof numbers with little to no effort. That would be a nice start. Would also curb all those friggin spam calls I get from random numbers.
You can still buy a 10$ sim card and use a burner phone. Potentially a free VOIP app would work too. It's not super scalable (that's why numbers are spoofed instead) but for a couple calls it'd be no problem.
I mean in Australia you just can't do this. Burner phones aren't a thing. Prepay is but you have to activate it by providing ID.
Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then what do you propose, people give their names? But then they'll give fake names. So ask for proof of identity? Is that even possible, let alone expedient in an emergency? The solution is to take these reports seriously, but with a grain of salt. i.e. don't just shoot a guy that walks out of his house while confused.
Here in Germany you can anonymously call the police (using a pay phone or whatever), but it's not an issue because the police use the door bell and politely take a look instead of busting the door open and storming the place with drawn guns. I understand police in the US has to adapt to the assumption that everyone has a gun, but even when you suspect a hostage situation what's the problem with politely knocking and…
This. The problem is the existence of so many SWAT teams and public tolerance for SWAT tactics like “no-knock warrants”.
Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
“How’s the weather in ?” is not sharing a name and is most certainly covered (“we consider information like physical location to be a higher risk than other types of information.”) Even if the information is public, the policy also calls out intent as a factor and he was obviously sharing it in an attempt to intimidate them. Not to mention, according to his tweet it took him 6 hours to uncover; I think it’s debatable…
If he can point to a public source, it doesn't matter how long it took him to identify that source. If the city someone lives in is on their public LinkedIn profile, it's not secret. If you ask me how the weather is in Chicago, or even in the Austin neighborhood of Chicago, you're not violating Twitter's rules.
People are regularly banned for posting journalists’ home addresses under the doxxing policy even if it’s available other places online (for good reason.) Again, even if it’s public information the intent also matters.
Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Are you attempting to bring attention to the fact that doxxing is rarely prosecuted, even though it's illegal and there's boatloads of evidence that it is in fact a form of violence? We should really stop with the scope creep attempts around "violence".
Why? Technically speaking, it would be nice if there was another single word with the appropriate gravity and specificity that described the indirect destruction of people's lives and/or wellbeing, but practically speaking, there isn't, mostly because this particular kind of attack didn't exist in such a form in the past. Language evolves as society gets new stuff added to it.
> mostly because this particular kind of attack didn't exist in such a form in the past
This makes no sense. The "attack" of letting people know who a particular person is has always existed, but applied as an attack only in the very rare case where an exile came to your town and was later exposed. The norm was that everyone already knew exactly who everyone was -- in other words, that everyone was always and automatically subject to exactly the "attack" you claim didn't exist.
The attack of shaming has always existed and has generally been much more serious than it is now.
Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
If he can point to a public source, it doesn't matter how long it took him to identify that source. If the city someone lives in is on their public LinkedIn profile, it's not secret. If you ask me how the weather is in Chicago, or even in the Austin neighborhood of Chicago, you're not violating Twitter's rules.
People are regularly banned for posting journalists’ home addresses under the doxxing policy even if it’s available other places online (for good reason.) Again, even if it’s public information the intent also matters.
Brian Krebs does not appear to have posted Vincent Canfield and Jake Williams home addresses.
Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm trying to explain why de-escalation is not the preferred tactical response from the police when it comes to active shooter scenarios. I think it makes sense from a law enforcement point of view to take every threat as credible until proven otherwise. According the FBI there's been 250 between 2000-2017. https://www.fbi.gov/about/partnerships/office-of-partner-eng... I also think it's important to understand why t…
250 incidents in 17 years seems to hardly be an explanation to rule out de-escalation by default when interacting with the general population. Even in these cases, it's not like SWATting is a new phenomenon. As an alternative: Maybe invest in proper training for LEOs instead of military grade equipment, that would at least decrease the frequency of stuff like [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Wichita_swatti…
You mean surrounding a house with 20 guys with AR-15 rifles, with the right to shoot any moment the persons hands aren’t where various officers yelling at him at the same times wants them to be, isn’t a good deescalation strategy?
Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
They can report on people using pseudonyms by referring to the pseudonym. This is done all the time when referring to tweets, etc. And, yes, people certainly exist who get offended and decide to harass/threaten others as a result. There's no real downside to making it harder for people to do so.
That's ridiculous. When reporters discover the people behind pseudonymous lobbying fronts, they don't report only the pseudonyms to protect the real identities involved. Why do participants in Internet culture get special dispensation? Isn't this just Reddit's weird norms leaking into the real world? Or is it just the case that, as one friend said on Slack, "doxxing is when someone you don't like posts information ab…
>When reporters discover the people behind pseudonymous lobbying fronts, they don't report only the pseudonyms to protect the real identities involved
Apples and oranges are different, yes. A private individual communicating independently is a much different thing than a lobbying front.
>Isn't this just Reddit's weird norms leaking into the real world?
It could be that online culture might know a thing or two about the downsides of exposing people's identities, especially when done by journalists with large audiences.
>Or is it just the case that, as one friend said on Slack, "doxxing is when someone you don't like posts information about someone you do like"?
Do some people have double standards about doxing? Sure. Double standards are pretty common in general.
Re: SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right wing extremists have killed more people in the last ten years than any other political group.
This is true, though for awhile in the past few years, the Far Left was catching up, though the Far Right surged ahead in this year. However, in terms of numbers of events of violence, intimidation, and minor assault, the Far Left has been quite busy. The left leaning media just shows an extreme bias in discussing these events. All of that stuff is bad, and bad for us.
You're gonna need to provide citations for your claims. The data I've seen all indicates otherwise.