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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

#101

Post by Chris2048 »

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...

I can't find anything about Trump saying this on TV, or in that WP article.

Also: https://www.justsecurity.org/63660/is-trump-a-russian-agent-...

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

#102

Post by ashtonkem »

Chris2048 wrote: post #99
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 free association rights of their bosses and colleagues should not be I'm not sure "free association" applies to employment. If someone chooses not to have any friends that aren't the same race as themselves, racist as that might be, it's not illegal. But if they start a business they cannot filter either customers or employees based on race; in that sense they aren't free to choose who to associate in a busines…

> I'm not sure "free association" applies to employment. If someone chooses not to have any friends that aren't the same race as themselves, racist as that might be, it's not illegal.

> But if they start a business they cannot filter either customers or employees based on race; in that sense they aren't free to choose who to associate in a business sense.

This is not an argument that businesses don’t have free association rights; this is an argument that they have limits that the state has a compelling interest in.

This argument is like saying that we don’t have free speech rights because there are laws against incitement. It’s obviously silly; “free” never meant “without any limits whatsoever” in either case.

Furthermore, while I agree it wouldn’t be legal to make employment decisions based on protected characteristics, forcing businesses to keep nazis on the payroll against their will strikes me as both absurd and a socially undesirable outcome.

> I wouldn't say firing someone is merely an "expression" of speech, it's also the ending of an actual contract.

Given the nature of at will employment, this actually weakens your argument.

I’d also consider terminating someone for their behavior to be a matter of free association, not free speech. I thought I’d made that clear.

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

#103

Post by PeterisP »

mavhc wrote: post #23
PeterisP wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent post seems to be saying that employers firing someone for their disagreeable political actions (at least outside of their workplace) is wrong. Agitating contrary to the majority sociopolitical opinion should not make one unemployable; Firing people for inappropriate or immoral political opinion is not new, USA has already been there with e.g. Hoover's Red scare and the 1980s "Moral majority", but in hindsi…

It's not a political opinion though, that's the point. No one's firing him for saying that taxes are at the wrong level.

I'm not sure about what exactly he's been saying and I don't really care to read that because it's likely to be stupid, but I'd consider even stupid and extreme opinions and suggestions (in both directions!) on public health policy, pandemic solutions, elections, geopolitics, immigration policy, religion, human rights, LGBT rights, workers rights, voting rights, socioeconomic equality, affirmative action, education policy, gun policy, healthcare, reproductive care, etc all as political opinions.

Crimes, harassment and libel are another issue, but for that we generally want a legal process to determine the guilt and appropriate punishment; simply firing accused suspects is not a proper response because it's not sufficient if he's guilty and far too much if he's not.

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

#104

Post by dang »

notanzaiiswear wrote: post #96
dang wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you're after here, but between your comments in this thread, the trollish username, and the fact that your account has been using HN primarily for ideological battle (or close), I've banned the account. Would you please not create accounts to break HN's rules with? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[flagged]

> I picked the username because it was only a matter of time until somebody would accuse me of being a nazi - as is the norm these days for anybody who doesn't adhere to the mainstream leftist ideology.

That confirms both that the username is trollish and that your purpose is to use HN for ideological battle, which is against the site guidelines.

We ban accounts that break the site guidelines. If an account uses HN primarily for political battle we're going to ban it regardless of which politics you favor or disfavor.

As for the Holocaust, at at minimum you're concern trolling about it, which is obvious flamebait.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#105

Post by mavhc »

PeterisP wrote: post #103
mavhc wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a political opinion though, that's the point. No one's firing him for saying that taxes are at the wrong level.

I'm not sure about what exactly he's been saying and I don't really care to read that because it's likely to be stupid, but I'd consider even stupid and extreme opinions and suggestions (in both directions!) on public health policy, pandemic solutions, elections, geopolitics, immigration policy, religion, human rights, LGBT rights, workers rights, voting rights, socioeconomic equality, affirmative action, education p…

If he was wrongly fired he can fight that in court.

Sane public health policy: X is more dangerous that Y.

Insane publish health policy: secret government fake pandemic

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

#107

Post by dariusj18 »

user-the-name wrote: post #94
dariusj18 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a certain sense to that. If it is effective for the worst of society who are constant targets, it will work for grandma. However that is assuming the technology can become user friendly/cheap.

No, there is no sense to that. The worst of society have a lot of tools that are effective for them, that your grandma has absolutely no use for. The worst of society will also put up with using some pretty weird things as long as they will help them break the law, that are incredibly awkward to use for anyone else.

My point was that if a solution was battle tested to withstand the scrutiny that the ne'er-do-wells encourage, then random person who knows nothing can feel comfortable that their use of the technology is also secure. It's kind of like calling something "military-grade". In addition I also qualified the statement to ensure that your second point was covered, that overhead could restrict it's use.

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

#108

Post by dariusj18 »

naasking wrote: post #79
dariusj18 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except they are proving difficult to keep in check. January 6th was pivotal because 1. It's very lucky it didn't go in the other direction, 2. People watching learned a few lessons for the next time.

I disagree that they are difficult to keep in check. Jan 6th was a failure of capitol police and other law enforcement agencies. The mob that breached the capitol was around 800 people, which is easily managed by a small police force. They had ample evidence that these protests would be in the tens of thousands. I'm sure you've seen the police presence for BLM protests, so I think the response here speaks for itself.…

That's part of the issue though. Difficult to keep in check means militarizing our Capitol. That's not a good thing and is bad on many levels.

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

#109

Post by naasking »

dariusj18 wrote: post #108
naasking wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree that they are difficult to keep in check. Jan 6th was a failure of capitol police and other law enforcement agencies. The mob that breached the capitol was around 800 people, which is easily managed by a small police force. They had ample evidence that these protests would be in the tens of thousands. I'm sure you've seen the police presence for BLM protests, so I think the response here speaks for itself.…

That's part of the issue though. Difficult to keep in check means militarizing our Capitol. That's not a good thing and is bad on many levels.

Why? There are over 1,500 capitol police officers. That's more than enough. Militarizing the capitol the way they did was total overkill; security theatre that they used to get a bigger budget.

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

#110

Post by PeterisP »

mavhc wrote: post #105
PeterisP wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about what exactly he's been saying and I don't really care to read that because it's likely to be stupid, but I'd consider even stupid and extreme opinions and suggestions (in both directions!) on public health policy, pandemic solutions, elections, geopolitics, immigration policy, religion, human rights, LGBT rights, workers rights, voting rights, socioeconomic equality, affirmative action, education p…

If he was wrongly fired he can fight that in court. Sane public health policy: X is more dangerous that Y. Insane publish health policy: secret government fake pandemic

There's nothing to fight in court, in USA it's completely legal to fire someone for their political beliefs in the "at will employment" states. The argument against similar actions during Red Scare and Moral Majority is not that they were illegal but that now in hindsight we see that they were wrong, despite fitting the governing moral/political desires of the time, so similar acts should be avoided in future and perhaps even restricted, in which case there would appear a way to fight this in court.
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