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Blog Anonymously

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Re: Blog Anonymously

#221

Post by celestialcheese »

hakka-nyu-su wrote: post #219
tristor wrote: post #187

I have often considered blogging anonymously because I do not feel free to write my nuanced philosophical views about the world anymore, as nuance is mostly dead in the public discourse and anything I write could easily offend someone and cause me problems. But I decided that if I believed something and I was willing to say it aloud, I should be willing to write it down with my name attached. In the end, it has had t…

As I understand the term "cancel culture", it mostly relates to celebrities who were already controversial or polarizing in some way, that were finally able to be organized against. And in many cases, the same celebrities are still able to have a career that is sometimes even boosted by their ability to campaign against "cancel culture" generally. Do you have any books/articles/resources for thinking about "cancel cu…

"so you've been publicly shamed" by jon ronson goes into this, I don't remember if there's specific stories about personal bloggers, but there's stories from normal, everyday people.

Re: Blog Anonymously

#222

Post by luckylion »

godelski wrote: post #173
kbenson wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, its visibility gets reduced. It's not invisible. You can see that it's there, it's slightly harder to read. Flagging a comment can make it invisible, and even then, only if you haven't set your account to show dead comments. Flagging and down voting are different, and flagging a comment because you disagree with but is otherwise not breaking any rules it is considered inappropriate here, while down voting is not.

There's often a confusion between this. Disrespecting and disagreeing is not canceling. downvote = disagree flag = attempt to cancel Which there are good reasons to flag: trolling, breaking rules, doxing, etc. Does flagging also get abused? Yes! The same is with "cancel culture." Do we boo people off stage that say stupid stuff? Yes. Do people try to prevent trolls from speaking at a school? Also yes, who needs someo…

> But it is also important to remember that flagging is a form of speech too.

Is a bullet a form of speech as well? Because flagging will essentially kill your account if done often enough, that's the same on every platform, that's why there's coordinated flagging. First you will get limited ("can only post once an hour"), then you'll get timed out ("can't post for a week"), then you get (shadow) banned: your posts are flagged by default, but you can't tell as long as you're logged in. All of this is pretty straight unless you have a hand protecting you in the form of moderators rejecting flags, but you don't want to rely on that, because political opinions of both you and the moderators might change - a modern state based on law is much more reliable than staying on the good side of the local war lord.

"But others can theoretically still read it if they set showdead=true, so you're not rally deplatformed" isn't a valid argument against it. You can theoretically generate your own electricity and get your water delivered by truck etc if the local utility companies decide that they don't want to do business with you because of arbitrary reasons. But we've pretty much all decided to ignore those "well, technically you can [but practically you can't]" and just force the utility companies to not discriminate.

Re: Blog Anonymously

#223

Post by DenisM »

hakka-nyu-su wrote: post #219
tristor wrote: post #187

I have often considered blogging anonymously because I do not feel free to write my nuanced philosophical views about the world anymore, as nuance is mostly dead in the public discourse and anything I write could easily offend someone and cause me problems. But I decided that if I believed something and I was willing to say it aloud, I should be willing to write it down with my name attached. In the end, it has had t…

As I understand the term "cancel culture", it mostly relates to celebrities who were already controversial or polarizing in some way, that were finally able to be organized against. And in many cases, the same celebrities are still able to have a career that is sometimes even boosted by their ability to campaign against "cancel culture" generally. Do you have any books/articles/resources for thinking about "cancel cu…

There you go, a truck driver didn't even write anything: https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/sdge-worker-fired-ove...

Also think about this: people who were not in the limelight and were "cancelled" would never appear on your radar simply because they were not in the limelight.

Re: Blog Anonymously

#224

Post by femiagbabiaka »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #184
femiagbabiaka wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I believe the majority of trans-identified people not only pose zero threat to others, but are vulnerable for all the reasons I’ve outlined. Trans people need and deserve protection. Like women, they’re most likely to be killed by sexual partners. Trans women who work in the sex industry, particularly trans women of colour, are at particular risk. Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I…

> As far as Paul goes, I wonder who exactly he sees to be the powerless? Why are only millionaires your candidates for who people who could be powerless in this situation instead of the vast majority of the non-millionaire population? As for JK Rowling's essay, it's one of those things everyone should read for themselves. The vast majority of people reading it will not come to the conclusion that Rowling is anti-tran…

> Why are only millionaires your candidates for who people who could be powerless in this situation instead of the vast majority of the non-millionaire population?

I don't believe that's who Paul is advocating for, that's precisely the point. This piece by Osita Nwanevu is quite good on this point: https://newrepublic.com/article/158346/willful-blindness-rea....

> As for JK Rowling's essay, it's one of those things everyone should read for themselves. The vast majority of people reading it will not come to the conclusion that Rowling is anti-trans, and they probably agree with her.

That's the exact purpose of the language she uses. Morality is not as simple as gentle and convincing rhetoric, designed to play on the fears and sympathy of people who know nothing about trans people. The rhetoric that China uses to describe the Uighur population to the rest of the Chinese populace is quite similar.

> I'm not a fan of the "dogwhistle" accusation fad. I just see it as a fashionable way to accuse someone of saying something that they didn't say. Like people claiming the Harper letter is clearly anti-trans when the only "trans" in it is "transgression".

There's quite an extensive field of research into dogwhistle politics. Not reading into it doesn't mean it isn't real: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics.

The claims that the letter itself is transphobic are people over-reacting and over-extrapolating. But what precisely do you think Rowling signed the letter in service of?

Re: Blog Anonymously

#225

Post by bun_at_work »

This is a terrible idea. Anonymity online encourages people to be highly inflammatory, and in the US, this has led to a massive cultural divide (not the only cause, though).

Human social pattens and behaviors have led humans to correct bad social behavior through a mechanism based on reputation. If you say/do terrible things (what the group disagrees with), your reputation suffers, which discourages saying/doing those things. However, with anonymity, we become victim to the dopamine feedback loops available in online patterns. In the case of anonymous blogs, the stronger signal will be traffic on the blog, regardless of why that traffic is there. Unfortunately, saying inflammatory (prejudiced) things will generate traffic. Othering will generate traffic. Being reasonable and nuanced with drive traffic away in an online environment that provides dopamine hits for much less effort than understanding a complex topic.

This means online anonymity for the masses is largely a bad thing for society as a whole, which is evident with a cursory glance at the anonymous parts of the internet (4chan, for example). It's also evident in less anonymous, but still anonymous places like Reddit, which sees nearly as much trolling as 4chan, but reputation is part of the Reddit system, and Hacker News system as well (just the reputation of your account instead of your real identity).

I should qualify my opinion here: I don't think anonymity is always bad, but in aggregate online, I think it's causing more damage to our society than good. People in a functional society need to be help accountable to the society for their actions, and anonymity removes that social accountability.

Re: Blog Anonymously

#226

Post by throwaway894345 »

matthewh806 wrote: post #156
giancarlostoro wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something ironic about your post being downvoted or cancelled depending on your point of view. I think to an extent we seem to be heading towards a thought police society as evident by people losing their jobs over things they do or say that go viral online (if you need references I'll be happy to pull some up, but here in the USA at least its happened a number of times), this is often called cancel culture. We see i…

I don't really see how the example you've given of being downvoted can be equated to cancel culture. You had and clearly still have the ability to express your views on this website so in what sense are you "cancelled"? If people don't like what you say they're free to downvote it. It can be helpful if someone gives you some feedback on why they downvoted you, but its certainly not an obligation

I agree with this. I detest cancel culture, but downvoting isn't cancel culture. Cancel culture is about fostering a climate of fear that chills speech (specifically fear of harassment a la a concerted effort to petition one's employer to have one terminated). Downvoting is an expression of disagreement at worst, and it's perfectly consistent with free expression ideals.

EDIT: This is cancel culture: https://twitter.com/wokal_distance/status/128148065056698777...

Re: Blog Anonymously

#227

Post by ojnabieoot »

tristor wrote: post #187

I have often considered blogging anonymously because I do not feel free to write my nuanced philosophical views about the world anymore, as nuance is mostly dead in the public discourse and anything I write could easily offend someone and cause me problems. But I decided that if I believed something and I was willing to say it aloud, I should be willing to write it down with my name attached. In the end, it has had t…

[flagged]

Re: Blog Anonymously

#228

Post by lliamander »

triceratops wrote: post #183
senderista wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if I’d rather not associate with Black folks at my work, I have the right to refuse to hire them? I’ll have to say, this is the first time I’ve heard the freedom-of-association argument against civil rights laws coming from the left.

Race is a protected class. It's a protected class because it has been used to discriminate in the past and it's unchangeable. Speech or opinions aren't a protected class for discrimination. So your analogy isn't apt.

Religion is also a protected class, and that's not unchangeable. Political affiliation is also a protected class in California, and it's certainly possible that it could be made so at the national level.

But in any case, the comment by M2Ys4U was making an argument based on the idea of freedom of association. I'm generally for that freedom, but making an argument from freedom of association without addressing anti-discrimination laws can at least appear opportunistic and cynical (though it may not be).

Re: Blog Anonymously

#229

Post by DenisM »

dijit wrote: post #4

This goes into the how, but to me the more interesting question is the 'why'. Why should someone interact with something that the author doesn't throw his/her/their name into? I only have one example of why; I'm a genuinely curious and open person and I like having my beliefs tested, some of my beliefs are nuanced enough that I sometimes break down my current beliefs and my reasons into blog posts. Things that I thin…

What is your opinion on "The Meritocracy Trap:..." by Daniel Markovits? I was recently told this would be a good reading to question meritocracy, or at least to understand those who do.

Re: Blog Anonymously

#230

Post by femiagbabiaka »

efa wrote: post #120
femiagbabiaka wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JK Rowling is a good example of quite the opposite — someone who uses flowery language to insinuate pretty heinous things about trans people, and then pretend she’s said something innocuous. At any rate, you can’t cancel a multi-millionaire.

example?

I wrote out a graf with an example downthread, I'd copy over, but posting the same thing twice feels a little redundant.
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