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Blog Anonymously

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Re: Blog Anonymously

#271

Post by hodgesrm »

DenisM wrote: post #223
hakka-nyu-su wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wow. Thanks for posting that.

Re: Blog Anonymously

#272

Post by hellofunk »

> Run your articles through multiple translation converters. Edit minor mistakes afterwards. This avoids engines and tools picking up on your writing style.

Sounds like a good opportunity for a tool that will do this for you -- send it through a bunch of different converters in a feed pipeline. Would be fun to see the results.

Re: Blog Anonymously

#273

Post by dredmorbius »

x1798DE wrote: post #218

One thing this doesn't address is how to build an audience anonymously. I have occasionally considered creating a pseudonymous blog, but I don't know how to acquire readers without leaking information about my existing social network. I feel like anonymous submissions to stuff like reddit and HN rarely get traction.

Post reasonably intelligent (or what the hell: insipidly viral) content, engage with others. Traction builds, though it can be slow-going.

Re: Blog Anonymously

#274

Post by lliamander »

triceratops wrote: post #258
lliamander wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-di…

> Religion is also a protected class, and that's not unchangeable. I have to disagree there. You can convert to another religion but unless you have genuine faith, it's not a true change.

As a religious person I absolutely agree that changing religion is not something one can do arbitrarily.

The thing is, no opinion can be changed arbitrarily. At least, no opinion of consequence.

Re: Blog Anonymously

#275

Post by joshuamorton »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #266
joshuamorton wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it doesn't mean we can't (or oughtn't) use our own free speech rights to criticize and protest it. I agree. But this goes in both directions. You can't claim to support free expression while saying that certain forms of speech are unacceptable. It is self-contradictory. Yet that's what harper's does. It criticizes certain forms of speech (criticism) while claiming to uphold the mantle of free expression. You ca…

> You can't claim to support free expression while saying that certain forms of speech are unacceptable. I'm not making this claim; I'm claiming that it's inconsistent with free speech ideals . I'm not working to prevent anyone from expressing speech which isn't consistent with free speech ideals, and I'm certainly not trying to get anyone fired for their anti-free-speech ideals.

Which ideals? The ideal that speech should be free from criticism is self-contradictory. Criticism itself is speech, and so the claim that speech should be free from criticism is itself a condemnation of forms of speech.

All we can settle for is that no speech is unlawful. Because of that, I don't claim to support any particular "ideal of free speech". None of them are resolvable without contradiction.

> and I'm certainly not trying to get anyone fired for their anti-free-speech ideals.

I don't believe I've seen anyone fired solely for their abstract support for free expression. Care to give examples.

Re: Blog Anonymously

#276

Post by nitwit005 »

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…

People will happily attack you without even reading what you have to say. People have done experiments with headlines which demonstrate as much: https://www.upworthy.com/comments-didnt-read-the-article

There have been a number of incidents where people have gone after individuals, only for it to be very clear later on they'd done nothing wrong.

Re: Blog Anonymously

#277

Post by joshuamorton »

dnissley wrote: post #238
hakka-nyu-su wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Regular folks who were "cancelled": - David Shor - Justine Sacco - James Damore - Adria Richards A full list would be a mile long

Of those, the last three didn't suffer any long term consequences (all three were employed relatively soon after they were fired), and the first happened too recently to really analyze.

Re: Blog Anonymously

#278

Post by llbeansandrice »

oefrha wrote: post #23

For "casual bloggers who wish to keep their identities hidden from the general public", a good number of suggestions seem totally unnecessary, e.g. using a burner device, or avoid home/work networks (when you're already using Tor). What's the attack vector here? Someone hacking into wordpress.com servers and getting your OS/browser signatures (both pluggable)? Then what? And assuming they can hack into wordpress.com…

Yeah most of this feels like a howitzer for someone just trying to stay away from directly linking their identity to their personal blog.

I guess it depends on your threat model though.

Re: Blog Anonymously

#279

Post by hodgesrm »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #61
fsflover wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>We currently live in a "there is only one correct opinion, all others must be canceled" culture. >We really, really aren't. Yes, we are. Example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22299156

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 downvote posts that are capriciously off-topic or intellectually lazy. People who post those kind of things regularly don't belong on HN in my opinion. Your post seems like an interesting view, especially given the argument that others share it.

(Just upvoted you. Thanks!)

Re: Blog Anonymously

#280

Post by karpierz »

Proziam wrote: post #262
karpierz wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Free speech isn't free if those who would cause you harm are free to do so at the slightest provocation, and without fear of punishment. It seems like what you're going for is that freedom of speech requires responsibility for consequences of speech, which I'm all for. I'm more worried about understanding how far those consequences stretch; if you share an article about race statistics that prompts a riot, are you…

> if you share an article about race statistics that prompts a riot, are you responsible? Entirely depends on if the statistics and any stated conclusions are true, and to what extent the article actually prompted the riot vs other factors. > Do you believe that if someone unknowingly published something that turns out to be false, they should be held legally liable for it? For example, if I share a news article that…

> If people say evil things that cause harm, go after them for the harm.

You'll need to define what an "evil thing" is. For example, in the race statistic example, you make it clear that depending on exactly what was said, you may or may not be responsible for the harm.

You'll also need to define "cause." In cancel culture, no one "forces" companies to fire people, they just put companies under economic pressure, much like boycotting.

I think the key issue is what you mentioned earlier:

> whether it's possible to know the content is false

Where there's some threshold of belief whether something is true or not; for example, it might be fair game to share a New York Times article, knowing that they're generally true. But someone on Twitter?

Also thanks for talking in good faith, it's refreshing to talk to someone who genuinely engages in discussion as opposed to trying to win.

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