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Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep identities secret

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Re: Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep identities secret

#81

Post by naasking »

belltaco wrote: post #70
naasking wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social media platforms literally were suppressing news of the story. That's literally, verifiably true, and the suppression was indeed a bigger scandal than the original story. All of the reasons other media outlets touted for not covering it, and social media touted for suppressing it, are obviously nonsense, as is clear by coverage of literally any other story based on leaked or hacked materials over the past 20 ye…

Good. The extreme spread of fake news and misinformation on the right will have consequences like this where a somewhat legit story(with a lot of false exaggerations) gets buried because of the other times things like this were fabricated. Boy who cried wolf and all that.

I might be inclined to debate that fairly if left wing misinformation were also treated equally (is Trump really a compromised Russian asset since the 80s?), or if the establishment media actually took responsibility for this sad state of affairs where half of the country doesn't trust mainstream news. Journalists have spent years breaking public trust on honesty and partisanship, then cried foul when Trump beat them at their own game.

You seem to want to blame the people on the right for this situation, but they are the symptom, not the cause. If you're interested in fixing this, then stop compounding the problem, like suppressing stories that make your favoured side look bad.

Re: Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep identities secret

#82

Post by FeepingCreature »

ashtonkem wrote: post #38
FeepingCreature wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Freedom of Speech isn't just the First Amendment.

Sure. The issue is that you’re implicitly trying to find a way to say that these people’s speech should be protected, while the free association rights of their bosses and colleagues should not be. There is no principled way to consider racist trolling free speech, but not also those calling for their firing to also be considered free speech. I think Popehat says this best. > Private consequences are something else.…

> The issue is that you’re implicitly trying to find a way to say that these people’s speech should be protected, while the free association rights of their bosses and colleagues should not be.

Yes, that is what I am saying - I personally value right to choice of business association lower than right to speech.

> There is no principled way to consider racist trolling free speech, but not also those calling for their firing to also be considered free speech.

You can call for anyone's firing. That too is protected speech. Of course, firing is not speech.

Re Popehat, there is a difference between legal obligation and moral obligation.

Re: Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep identities secret

#83

Post by Arnt »

Arnt wrote: post #54
zpeti wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single person who ever did business with Epik and has had their details released is a doxxing troll? Really?

Your sentence has two clauses: "did business with Epik" and "had their details released". AFAICT, the people who have been combing through that database and releasing details on people on the net, in a readable format have been selective about who they look for and release details about. So the answer (still AFAICT) is yes, if by release you mean in a human-friendly and/or googleable manner. If, on the other hand, yo…

I want to add to this.

Sometimes governments or other organisations that are required to publish things choose to publish bad news late on Friday before a three-day weekend, or on another day when most people won't notice and the publication will be ineffectual.

In my heart I don't consider that publication. It is the minimum required by law, but in my heart I don't see it as real. I suspect that most people feel as I do.

Because of that, I also don't see publishing Epik's customer list as a 150GB database dump as real publication. Having to downloading 150GB, loading it into the right DBMS and figuring out the schema is enough to keep the data away from the general public. De jure it's public but de facto it's buried.

Re: Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep identities secret

#84

Post by mavhc »

zpeti wrote: post #30
mavhc wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying releasing the names of trolls who doxxed people is not funny?

Every single person who ever did business with Epik and has had their details released is a doxxing troll? Really?

No, they're just idiots who signed up to a hosting company run by dodgy people. Who knew that people who love Nazis aren't the smartest people.

The ones who had their details released by the newspaper are the trolls

Re: Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep identities secret

#85

Post by bildung »

naasking wrote: post #81
belltaco wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good. The extreme spread of fake news and misinformation on the right will have consequences like this where a somewhat legit story(with a lot of false exaggerations) gets buried because of the other times things like this were fabricated. Boy who cried wolf and all that.

I might be inclined to debate that fairly if left wing misinformation were also treated equally (is Trump really a compromised Russian asset since the 80s?), or if the establishment media actually took responsibility for this sad state of affairs where half of the country doesn't trust mainstream news. Journalists have spent years breaking public trust on honesty and partisanship, then cried foul when Trump beat them…

Trump literally said so on TV. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates...

Re: Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep identities secret

#86

Post by h2odragon »

belltaco wrote: post #68
molbioguy wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Violating their expected privacy, fostering moralistic vigilante justice against them, and creating an environment where they have to fear expressing opinions -- that's "poisoning the well" in a far worse way.

Do you think a political opinion like 'taxes are too high and should be lowered" is on the same moral footing as misinformation like 'the holocaust did not really happen' ?

They may well be. You can make that judgement for yourself; but you haven't the right to make it for me.

I have personally known people who honestly believed the Holocaust had been exaggerated in scope. They were wrong, but telling them "shut up!" wasn't going to help educate them. Showing them some of the stuff linked from here [1] did.

[1] https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/combating-...

Re: Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep identities secret

#87

Post by ashtonkem »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #82
ashtonkem wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. The issue is that you’re implicitly trying to find a way to say that these people’s speech should be protected, while the free association rights of their bosses and colleagues should not be. There is no principled way to consider racist trolling free speech, but not also those calling for their firing to also be considered free speech. I think Popehat says this best. > Private consequences are something else.…

> The issue is that you’re implicitly trying to find a way to say that these people’s speech should be protected, while the free association rights of their bosses and colleagues should not be. Yes, that is what I am saying - I personally value right to choice of business association lower than right to speech. > There is no principled way to consider racist trolling free speech, but not also those calling for their…

I find the idea of being forced to associate with someone whose speech I find repugnant because you value their speech over my free association rights disconcerting.

Re: Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep identities secret

#88

Post by naasking »

bildung wrote: post #85
naasking wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might be inclined to debate that fairly if left wing misinformation were also treated equally (is Trump really a compromised Russian asset since the 80s?), or if the establishment media actually took responsibility for this sad state of affairs where half of the country doesn't trust mainstream news. Journalists have spent years breaking public trust on honesty and partisanship, then cried foul when Trump beat them…

Trump literally said so on TV. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates...

Trump literally said he was a Russian asset and has been compromised since the 80s? Please quote what he said and where he said that and/or what part of that wikipedia page documents that.

If you can't quote that or anything even remotely like it, then this counts as exactly the kind of misinformation that I'm talking about.

Re: Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep identities secret

#89

Post by ryandrake »

strken wrote: post #50
h2odragon wrote: post #4

> The Post publicizes material obtained through hacking with caution, only after verifying its authenticity and ascertaining that there is news value in bringing such information to light. Sure you do. So let me just check here: Political purity as an employment requirement... Firing people for this is fine, right? What happens when the popular politics change? The "Moral Majority" folks were accused of wanting to be…

It's been the case for a very long time that a sufficiently offensive political opinion would get you fired if brought to the attention of your boss. I think the difference between "business as usual" and McCarthyism or the current purges is how much more effort people are willing to put in to dig up dirt, and how much less offensive the dirt has to be. That being said, the examples given in the article aren't very s…

I'd love to know the list of companies actually willing to hire someone who owns web sites like whitesencyclopedia.com, and theholocaustisfake.com.

Re: Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep identities secret

#90

Post by ashtonkem »

h2odragon wrote: post #86
belltaco wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think a political opinion like 'taxes are too high and should be lowered" is on the same moral footing as misinformation like 'the holocaust did not really happen' ?

They may well be. You can make that judgement for yourself; but you haven't the right to make it for me. I have personally known people who honestly believed the Holocaust had been exaggerated in scope. They were wrong, but telling them "shut up!" wasn't going to help educate them. Showing them some of the stuff linked from here [1] did. [1] https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/combating-...

> but you haven't the right to make it for me.

That’s why they were asking, not stating a fact. You also dodged the question.

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