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Game Over

antirez.com

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Re: Game Over

#41

Post by kefs »

ahelwer wrote: post #36
kefs wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we continue to censor ourselves, it will destroy us. Hence, the title of OP's post. It was all really inevitable though.. The collective code we write spawned this. We make it increasingly simple for humans to share.. and equally as easy for humans to collaborate. These forces will combine for good and/or evil. Take this past week on reddit as an example... If you don't know it, one of their most prolific users,…

"Simply sharing controversial photos"... nice disingenuous way to say "creating a platform and framework for sharing sexualized pictures of preteens and photos of women taken without their consent, for years, while doing everything in his power (and mostly succeeding) in normalizing the process". Honestly, it's like when people say "free speech" they really mean "be able to do anything I want no matter how horrible w…

If it's against the law, report it to the police; Don't take the law into your own hands. It makes you no better than what you're trying to expunge.

Re: Game Over

#42

Post by dacilselig »

Perhaps it's just me (and the irony of me saying this will be obvious after reading this post) but if you are writing blogs, isn't it obvious that eventually you will get negative feedback and in some cases verbal harassment? My perspective on such things is that say you have 1000 followers of your blog and you write on a topic. Odds are that out of the 1000, 75% of them will likely not give any feedback, 10% will give positive, 8% will give negative and then there's the 2% that may verbally harass you because they are offended. Does this mean that they are bad people for doing something like that? Well I guess it's up to you to decide whether they are.

However, try to remember that there are people out there who were not taught or never picked up on the idea that you should be courteous when talking to over individuals. Maybe they were never taught it, taught the opposite, or have difficulty in controlling their anger. They can also believe so strongly in something to the point of doing something unethical. The point is not to take things personally when people attack you directly versus your ideas. Instead why not ask them why they felt it was necessary to talk in that fashion?

Apologizing for offending them can also help in alleviating any direct attacks as it makes them aware of how they are acting. A little social engineering is a good thing to know. Don't just run away from it. There are so many better ways of going about it.

Re: Game Over

#43

Post by nhebb »

kefs wrote: post #31
blackhole wrote: post #8

Some people are going to say that he was in the right, and some will argue this is a consequence of being wrong, but this doesn't matter. What this illustrates is the dangerous precipice that the world of blogging is hanging on to, where the violent hatred that spews forth when anyone writes a remotely controversial opinion threatens to silence any opinion that sways too far from mainstream consciousness. The fact th…

> If we continue to censor ourselves, it will destroy us. Hence, the title of OP's post. It was all really inevitable though.. The collective code we write spawned this. We make it increasingly simple for humans to share.. and equally as easy for humans to collaborate. These forces will combine for good and/or evil. Take this past week on reddit as an example... If you don't know it, one of their most prolific users,…

I read the Gawker piece [1] on Violentacrez, and I think saying that he was "simply sharing controversial photos" is a bit of an understatement.

[1] http://gawker.com/5950981/unmasking-reddits-violentacrez-the...

Re: Game Over

#44

Post by _delirium »

kefs wrote: post #41
ahelwer wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Simply sharing controversial photos"... nice disingenuous way to say "creating a platform and framework for sharing sexualized pictures of preteens and photos of women taken without their consent, for years, while doing everything in his power (and mostly succeeding) in normalizing the process". Honestly, it's like when people say "free speech" they really mean "be able to do anything I want no matter how horrible w…

If it's against the law, report it to the police; Don't take the law into your own hands. It makes you no better than what you're trying to expunge.

I don't think we have to behave positively towards all behavior that falls short of illegality. In Violentacrez's case, he was long-term harassing people, posting creepy photos without their consent, etc. It may not have risen to the level of a crime, but I don't see any reason people shouldn't strongly criticize his behavior, including criticizing him by his real name, if they can discover that name through legal means. Why should him posting sexualized photos of people (including kids) without their consent be tolerated, but suddenly one violates some threshold of civility to say: "I've discovered that the guy posting these photos is Michael Brutsch, and I would like him to stop."

Re: Game Over

#45

Post by Aldebaran »

The gist is basically "People should be treated the same way regardless of gender/race/...", which I agree to entirely, people who are trolling are probably incompetent women or sexually frustrated nerds afraid of losing the few female interactions they are exposed to in the workplace.

Re: Game Over

#46

Post by kefs »

_delirium wrote: post #44
kefs wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's against the law, report it to the police; Don't take the law into your own hands. It makes you no better than what you're trying to expunge.

I don't think we have to behave positively towards all behavior that falls short of illegality. In Violentacrez's case, he was long-term harassing people, posting creepy photos without their consent, etc. It may not have risen to the level of a crime, but I don't see any reason people shouldn't strongly criticize his behavior, including criticizing him by his real name, if they can discover that name through legal me…

I'm not defending anyone.. other than Voltaire's quote.

I don't really have an opinion on the situation at reddit.. I was just mentioning it as a related current topic.

Re: Game Over

#47

Post by antirez »

Jach wrote: post #35
blackhole wrote: post #8

Some people are going to say that he was in the right, and some will argue this is a consequence of being wrong, but this doesn't matter. What this illustrates is the dangerous precipice that the world of blogging is hanging on to, where the violent hatred that spews forth when anyone writes a remotely controversial opinion threatens to silence any opinion that sways too far from mainstream consciousness. The fact th…

This isn't about censorship, but sensitivity. I don't see how you drew from this that the world of blogging is in peril--if you write things that generate tons of hate comments, and you don't want to read those comments, disable comments. The discussion will continue elsewhere regardless. The haters aren't even censoring themselves (I guess you could make a case that their existing biases prevent them from seriously…

I'm not closing my blog, where I think I'll post more controversial stuff, as I've a controversial indole. Also I'm not sensible at all, the problem is, I'm realising that Twitter is becoming mostly low content replies. Among the trolling replies I got, a lot were from respectable developers, sometimes even of products somewhat related to Redis. If it's so low quality why should I stay in an environment where that's the level? I'm quitting based on quality, not as I'm offended or alike.

Re: Game Over

#48

Post by venus »

There seems to be a very specific pattern where someone says a problem is not as bad as it's made out to be, and they are immediately jumped on as an enemy who is not "serious" about the issue by those wishing to position themselves as being "tough on X" for whatever reason. It doesn't seem to happen in the other direction much, ie there seems to be little negative consequence about getting too excited about a particular problem.

One sees this all the time:

- outrage about someone saying that, all things considered, paedophiles are not a particularly large risk to children

- outrage about someone saying that terrorists are not the huge threat they are made out to be

- outrage about someone saying we should consider a more nuanced, pragmatic approach to drug strategy

- outrage about someone saying that maybe the IT industry is not solely comprised of misogynistic psychopaths out to crush every woman under their boot at every chance

I really hate this pattern. Needless to say there is little nuance to any of the smears, it's all just claims of "terrorist sympathiser" or "he's just sexist too". Is there a name for it?

Re: Game Over

#49

Post by dmix »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #37
dmix wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free speech still applies even if it's offending another person.

No, thats defamation/libel, and it is a civil offense, even a criminal offense in some cases. Free speech is not an unconditional right, it places responsibilities on those who exercise it.

Defamation laws are one of those laws that skirt on a thin-line of interfering with free speech rights (similar to hate crime laws).

It's also not simply offending language that equals defamation.

From wikipedia:

"Opinion is a defence recognized in nearly every jurisdiction. If the allegedly defamatory assertion is an expression of opinion rather than a statement of fact, defamation claims usually cannot be brought because opinions are inherently not falsifiable."

also

"In Common Law it is usually a requirement that this claim be false."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation#Defences

Re: Game Over

#50

Post by _delirium »

kefs wrote: post #46
_delirium wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we have to behave positively towards all behavior that falls short of illegality. In Violentacrez's case, he was long-term harassing people, posting creepy photos without their consent, etc. It may not have risen to the level of a crime, but I don't see any reason people shouldn't strongly criticize his behavior, including criticizing him by his real name, if they can discover that name through legal me…

I'm not defending anyone.. other than Voltaire's quote. I don't really have an opinion on the situation at reddit.. I was just mentioning it as a related current topic.

I guess my point was that if you really take a hardline free-speech view seriously, as in the (attributed) Voltaire quote, then "doxxing" people etc. also has to be defended, as long as there wasn't a crime committed to obtain the information—because the Gawker article is just more speech, after all. It's speech that can have a negative effect on a person, but then so were the original postings he was being criticized for. I do think both violate some kind of a right to privacy, but I'm not really comfortable with unilateral disarmament, so to speak. I would be interested in some kind of broader privacy norm, if something coherent could be defined.
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