Unmasking The Biggest Troll on Reddit • Hacker News Board

Re: Unmasking The Biggest Troll on Reddit

#21

Post by sentenza » Sat, Oct 13, 2012, 10:18 AM UTC

thaumaturgy wrote: post #17

tzs wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If poor content and dumb newbie votes is grounds for banning, why the heck are techdirt and torrentfreak not banned?

Because nobody's made a big enough issue of those sites yet. (I wouldn't mind if they weren't on HN, either.)

Torrentfreak I get, but what's so bad about techdirt?

Their "economics of free" series of articles is the single most useful online resource for dragging creative people into 21st century. You wouldn't believe how many musicians I know that spend their time worrying about selling CDs and getting a record deal... in 2012.

I consider them a valuable information source regarding the marketing and monetarization of zero marginal cost content.

Re: Unmasking The Biggest Troll on Reddit

#22

Post by thaumaturgy » Sat, Oct 13, 2012, 10:42 AM UTC

sentenza wrote: post #21

thaumaturgy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because nobody's made a big enough issue of those sites yet. (I wouldn't mind if they weren't on HN, either.)

Torrentfreak I get, but what's so bad about techdirt? Their "economics of free" series of articles is the single most useful online resource for dragging creative people into 21st century. You wouldn't believe how many musicians I know that spend their time worrying about selling CDs and getting a record deal... in 2012. I consider them a valuable information source regarding the marketing and monetarization of zero…

http://shomi.associatedtechs.com/#top+submissions+from+techd...

Looks like mostly political stuff, or stuff filling the void left behind by Valleywag.

I don't really care much one way or the other though.

Re: Unmasking The Biggest Troll on Reddit

#23

Post by shinratdr » Sat, Oct 13, 2012, 5:58 PM UTC

sauteedbiscuits wrote: post #10

For those saying hes a normal guy who just likes trolling, the article mentions "Michael Brutsch had sex with his step daughter" He was also the creator of subreddits that dealt with glorifying beating women and children. He has 100% of the right to live on the line and be a griefer and/or troll. He also has 100% of the right to feel the wrath of people he pisses off. As a internet free speech advocate, I am sad that…

> For those saying hes a normal guy who just likes trolling, the article mentions "Michael Brutsch had sex with his step daughter"

According to him, while trolling. Yeah, real solid source. Definitely grounds to ruin someone's life.

Also, since when is that a crime? Or even immoral? It could be a massive breach of trust and immoral, depending on the situation. However depending on the relationship between wife, daughter and the guy, it could be just regular cheating. Or not even that.

He didn't rape his stepdaughter, or coerce his daughter, or have consensual sex with his underage stepdaughter. What he did was have consensual sex with a grown woman he has no blood relation to and for all you know has no parental relationship with either.

Hardly the "case closed" indictment you want it to be, even if it allows you to string together the words "sex" and "daughter" in the same sentence to elicit a knee-jerk negative response.

Re: Unmasking The Biggest Troll on Reddit

#24

Post by shinratdr » Sat, Oct 13, 2012, 6:04 PM UTC

streptomycin wrote: post #4

gilgoomesh wrote: post #3

This action against violentacrez seems nasty and vitriolic. His only "crime" in the article is moderating/posting non-nude pictures of teenage girls -- while removing actual nude pictures of the same. This is not an actual crime and while society discourages non-nude pictures of teenage girls -- as it forms part of an unofficial no-go zone between adult pornography and pedophilia -- there are whole industries (modell…

It would be easier to prove his troll-ness if he didn't delete his account, but he was definitely a troll as well as a free speech advocate. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's not a crime.

> It would be easier to prove his troll-ness if he didn't delete his account

Anyone familiar with reddit personalities heard of VA and knows he's exactly that: A troll who rolls with the punches and does the opposite of what people expect to rile them up. 99% of the subreddits he moderated were created by others and then abandoned or handed off to him against his will.

He didn't create /r/PicsOfDeadKids or any of those weird one-offs. He did continue to post to them because reposting images from 4chan once and a while was easy and apparently the concept of someone actively moderating a subreddit like that amused him.

He never deserved this witch hunt, and he's not a cruel or unfriendly person. The only bad interactions I've seen him have with people were those that try and provoke him.

Re: Unmasking The Biggest Troll on Reddit

#25

Post by kennywinker » Sat, Oct 13, 2012, 6:49 PM UTC

shinratdr wrote: post #23

sauteedbiscuits wrote: post #10

For those saying hes a normal guy who just likes trolling, the article mentions "Michael Brutsch had sex with his step daughter" He was also the creator of subreddits that dealt with glorifying beating women and children. He has 100% of the right to live on the line and be a griefer and/or troll. He also has 100% of the right to feel the wrath of people he pisses off. As a internet free speech advocate, I am sad that…

> For those saying hes a normal guy who just likes trolling, the article mentions "Michael Brutsch had sex with his step daughter" According to him, while trolling. Yeah, real solid source. Definitely grounds to ruin someone's life. Also, since when is that a crime? Or even immoral? It could be a massive breach of trust and immoral, depending on the situation. However depending on the relationship between wife, daugh…

Woody Allen did the same. He took a lot of flack for it, but people still watch his movies.

Re: Unmasking The Biggest Troll on Reddit

#26

Post by decavolt » Sat, Oct 13, 2012, 7:13 PM UTC

ck2 wrote: post #2

You cannot say both of these things together and be a decent human being: I asked if he regretted anything he had posted, now that he'd be found out. No, he said. "I would stand by exactly what I've done." "My wife is disabled. I got a home and a mortgage, and if this hits the fan, I believe this will affect negatively on my employment," he said. "I do my job, go home watch TV, and go on the internet. I just like ril…

Free speech does not mean speech without responsibility.

Freedom of speech refers to the right to speak without fear of government reprisal or punishment. It has nothing at all to do with how private entities conduct themselves in regards to the speech of other private entities. People replying to your comment don't understand this, and seem to think freedom of expression equally applies to speech on a privately owned website. It doesn't.

Re: Unmasking The Biggest Troll on Reddit

#27

Post by basehead » Sun, Oct 14, 2012, 8:12 PM UTC

ck2 wrote: post #2

You cannot say both of these things together and be a decent human being: I asked if he regretted anything he had posted, now that he'd be found out. No, he said. "I would stand by exactly what I've done." "My wife is disabled. I got a home and a mortgage, and if this hits the fan, I believe this will affect negatively on my employment," he said. "I do my job, go home watch TV, and go on the internet. I just like ril…

What galls me the most about this is the celebration coming out of the centrist camps. Sure, we punished some sad nerds for gawping at women they'll never have.

Along the way, we made sure that "creeps" became a moral term-of-art and thereby conflated the yuck factor with legitimate qualms of ethics, used moral outrage and "think of the children" to make strong arguments against free expression, and not-so-tacitly affirmed that if there are pictures of you online (and you are a woman— "r/ladyboners" and Tubecrush don't attract similar sentiment) you will be probably be assaulted, and only through the actions of an unaccountable, anonymous, mostly male vigilante pseudo-police force can you be protected.