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Our digital pasts weren’t supposed to be weaponized like this

nytimes.com

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Re: Our digital pasts weren’t supposed to be weaponized like this

#91

Post by ceejayoz »

Udik wrote: post #76
blablabla123 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the future I suspect cancelling will be illegal: Which actions exactly should be illegal? I assume you don't want to make me force watching movies from certain producers that I don't like anymore. At the same time in some countries retail stores basically have to cater to everyone and already can be made liable if they don't sell something that they advertised for as long as customers stick to terms and conditio…

> Which actions exactly should be illegal? Firing an employee or terminating a contract in response to a twitter mob. You are of course free to boycott whoever you want- but my impression is that those threatened boycotts won't really cause much damage to companies. People keep saying that firings are meant to "limit damage" but I have yet to see proof of this. To me it is mostly virtue signalling on the part of the…

> Firing an employee or terminating a contract in response to a twitter mob.

So, all I have to do is hire a few Twitter bots once in a while and I’m permanently unfireable?

Re: Our digital pasts weren’t supposed to be weaponized like this

#92

Post by jimmydorry »

shadowgovt wrote: post #71
JackMorgan wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was discussing an individual being attacked for personal thoughts posted in the past. If a company supports things you don't, sure, just don't support that company. But when a group tries to get a person fired for something unpopular that they said in the past, then using a mob to get them fired is vigilante justice.

But a group trying to get someone fired for what they did or said in the past is the individuals in the group exercising their own protected political speech. It's difficult to see how that can be made illegal without curtailing political speech itself.

It is indeed difficult to see how cancelling can be made illegal without curtailing political speech itself.

If there was an easy solution though, it would probably already be in place.

Re: Our digital pasts weren’t supposed to be weaponized like this

#93

Post by hackinthebochs »

shadowgovt wrote: post #71
JackMorgan wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was discussing an individual being attacked for personal thoughts posted in the past. If a company supports things you don't, sure, just don't support that company. But when a group tries to get a person fired for something unpopular that they said in the past, then using a mob to get them fired is vigilante justice.

But a group trying to get someone fired for what they did or said in the past is the individuals in the group exercising their own protected political speech. It's difficult to see how that can be made illegal without curtailing political speech itself.

If firing for speech is made illegal, then a boycott will be ineffectual and thus not happen. You don't have to outlaw the speech of the mob, just the ability for a company to fire someone over someone's past statements.

Re: Our digital pasts weren’t supposed to be weaponized like this

#94

Post by _ktx2 »

JackMorgan wrote: post #59
tobesure wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the situation is far more dire. The same types of political ideologues are taking over FAANG and other tech spaces, and other information outlets, like Wikipedia, where only "approved" or "authoritative" sources are typically accepted. Corporate and social culture have been hijacked by a sort of soft, insidious, growing authoritarianism and the consequences for the future of the west are severe, especially be…

Considering the Overton window, the argument could be made that today's "right of center" would have been considered dangerously extremist by the right a few decades ago, and that growing extremism is causing previously right leaning groups to apear to "change sides" and "ganging up" when they're not actually changing their stances at all, they're reacting to what they perceive as growing extremism. When a minority g…

I don't think so. A decade ago was the tea party, that was effectively a Libertarian action by Democrats and Republicans. Libertarian being very "right of center" and combined support indicates some level of popularity. In my experience as formerly labeling myself Libertarian was the only shitty time to be one was around elections because Democrats and Republicans like to blame their failings on you.

Re: Our digital pasts weren’t supposed to be weaponized like this

#95

Post by ashtonkem »

cornel_io wrote: post #35
kragen wrote: post #9

Ironic that this is being posted by the NYT (though not as an editorial, I guess), who fired Quinn Norton within 24 hours because she'd embedded herself in Anonymous and consequently used the word "fag", years earlier. The mob framed her as anti-gay despite her having had an outspokenly bisexual life partner around that time.

Right, there are only three consistent positions here: 1) this type of firing is unfair and bad, 2) this type of firing is fair and good ("consequence culture"), or 3) "I'm a partisan who just wants my enemies to burn" Maybe 80% of the people that opine on this subject are in category 3), 19% are in 1), and only 1% actually believe this sort of thing is great even when it hits someone that's on their team. Unfortunat…

I’m a bit baffled why were treating “cancel culture” as one, monolithic thing, when it’s pretty clear that each case is a bit different.

Someone losing their job for having a public melt down is not the same as a celebrity getting criticized, and that’s not the same as someone clearly losing some sort of nasty office politics war. Treating this as a monolithic block is silly.

Re: Our digital pasts weren’t supposed to be weaponized like this

#96

Post by rolandog »

monkeydreams wrote: post #80
JackMorgan wrote: post #51

In the future I suspect cancelling will be illegal: the same way vigilante justice is illegal now. Causing a person to be fired/doxxed by a mob for an action that isn't even illegal (free speach) is no more morally noble then going and beating them up over a suspected crime. If a person commits a crime, then let courts decide, otherwise it's just mob rule and vigilante "justice". That said, I think it's going to take…

> In the future I suspect cancelling will be illegal: the same way vigilante justice is illegal now. Will it be illegal at the point of expressing an opinion online? Will it be illegal at the point of agreeing or liking an opinion expressed online? Will it be illegal at the point where one is purchasing a product or service and determines where their money will go based on an opinion they hold? People are allowed to…

Well, I recently was permanently suspended on Reddit, but I've been unable to determine why (also, no previous announcement).

I haven't been permanently banned from any subreddit (no message in my 14 year old history indicated this)... but I've been unable to get any human to tell me what exactly I did was against the Reddit Content Policy.

The curious thing for me was that my alt account (the one I use to try to have some semblance of free speech) was also permanently suspended.

This, to me, felt like I may have been censored in some way (though I really don't know the motive; maybe I was too outspoken against an oppressive government?).

It certainly has had a chilling effect on my online activity.

Re: Our digital pasts weren’t supposed to be weaponized like this

#97

Post by jhgb »

ashtonkem wrote: post #90
AstralStorm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Political speech, in particular, is supposed to be protected from this kind of treatment. Most importantly, accusations of bias are also not a valid reason to fire a journalist. There's also an intermingling of private and public sphere, and firing someone for private legal behavior because some internet hive mind started a smear campaign also should not be lawful. Of course, America has the coercive institution of a…

> Political speech, in particular, is supposed to be protected from this kind of treatment. No, it is not. It is supposed to be protected from the government punishing you over it, any other requirements are purely made up. > There's also an intermingling of private and public sphere, and firing someone for private legal behavior because some internet hive mind started a smear campaign also should not be lawful So yo…

> any other requirements are purely made up.

Protection from the government punishing you over political speech is "purely made up" as well. All laws in all countries are "purely made up", humans made them so.

Re: Our digital pasts weren’t supposed to be weaponized like this

#98

Post by hooande »

JackMorgan wrote: post #51

In the future I suspect cancelling will be illegal: the same way vigilante justice is illegal now. Causing a person to be fired/doxxed by a mob for an action that isn't even illegal (free speach) is no more morally noble then going and beating them up over a suspected crime. If a person commits a crime, then let courts decide, otherwise it's just mob rule and vigilante "justice". That said, I think it's going to take…

Imagine you start a company and one of your employees says or does something reprehensible. Investors fear a boycott and threaten to pull out of a fundraising round. You either fire that one person, or the whole company goes under and everyone that works for you could lose their job (including you).

If you make it illegal to fire that person, then any one employee could do considerable damage to dozens of other people and you'll have no recourse.

It seems like a better system would be one where everyone is responsible for their own behavior.

Re: Our digital pasts weren’t supposed to be weaponized like this

#99

Post by scrps »

In a weird way I think cancel culture/doxxing/call out culture has given a massive boost to privacy awareness at least for people who aren't in highly visible jobs.

Over the past couple of years but especially 2020 I've had more non-tech family members, friends and friends of friends ask me for advice on preserving their privacy and anonymity and political speech seems to usually be in the top 5 reasons when I ask them.

Re: Our digital pasts weren’t supposed to be weaponized like this

#100

Post by bigbillheck »

Udik wrote: post #76
blablabla123 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the future I suspect cancelling will be illegal: Which actions exactly should be illegal? I assume you don't want to make me force watching movies from certain producers that I don't like anymore. At the same time in some countries retail stores basically have to cater to everyone and already can be made liable if they don't sell something that they advertised for as long as customers stick to terms and conditio…

> Which actions exactly should be illegal? Firing an employee or terminating a contract in response to a twitter mob. You are of course free to boycott whoever you want- but my impression is that those threatened boycotts won't really cause much damage to companies. People keep saying that firings are meant to "limit damage" but I have yet to see proof of this. To me it is mostly virtue signalling on the part of the…

> Firing an employee or terminating a contract in response to a twitter mob

Weird way to end 'right to work' laws, but any port in a storm I guess.

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