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Trouble at the Koolaid Point

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Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#101

Post by michaelt »

McDoku wrote: post #43
deciplex wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if I told you that around 35% of the population is just terrible, and another 50% is too busy to do anything about it? Would that change your mind? I'm not claiming these are the numbers, just pointing out that there are numbers, and I'm wondering where you would draw the line, if you would draw it at all. That is, giving these people a forum where they can freely associate, normalize their behavior, and find sy…

Freedom of speech mean that these ideas can be challenged in the public sphere. Anything else is the department of arm chair theorist. Freedom ain't free. It calls for noble labour.

  It calls for noble labour.
I'm guessing, from your choice of words, that you've never tried to change public opinion in a forum like Reddit, Twitter, HN or 4chan?

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#102

Post by makomk »

cmdkeen wrote: post #65
kansface wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask where you are from? Free speech - bigoted, hateful, maybe untrue, or otherwise, is perhaps the one enduring (sacred) tenet of American society.

Harassment isn't. One of the big points of the article is that when law enforcement doesn't act that is justification that the action is legal and thus "free speech". Except that law enforcement almost never acts against online harassment. There are plenty of laws restricting free speech when it harms others, and I'd hope you agree that some of the examples in the article crosses the boundary into things that should…

The boundaries of harassment are very blurry and tend to favour the powerful. For example, some of the campaigns against online harassers look even more like harassment than the actions they're going after people for: http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/online-trolls-w... Except that because it's the press harassing people to the point of suicide, we don't see anything wrong with it.

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#103

Post by zimpenfish »

makomk wrote: post #102
cmdkeen wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harassment isn't. One of the big points of the article is that when law enforcement doesn't act that is justification that the action is legal and thus "free speech". Except that law enforcement almost never acts against online harassment. There are plenty of laws restricting free speech when it harms others, and I'd hope you agree that some of the examples in the article crosses the boundary into things that should…

The boundaries of harassment are very blurry and tend to favour the powerful. For example, some of the campaigns against online harassers look even more like harassment than the actions they're going after people for: http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/online-trolls-w... Except that because it's the press harassing people to the point of suicide, we don't see anything wrong with it.

> we don't see anything wrong with it.

Not entirely true - the reaction in the UK to this whole incident has been quite negative from what I've seen. Then again, we're not overly happy with our press at the best of times...

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#104

Post by EliRivers »

kansface wrote: post #42
iherbig wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not who you asked, but if I may step in? It bothers me for the same reason it bothers me that those things exist. They are terrible, and should not be given a platform. I don't feel that we, as a society, should tolerate terrible things in general, much less let them prosper.

May I ask where you are from? Free speech - bigoted, hateful, maybe untrue, or otherwise, is perhaps the one enduring (sacred) tenet of American society.

And like all religions, it ultimately becomes harmful.

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#105

Post by makomk »

deciplex wrote: post #9
jmduke wrote: post #3

This is an excellent, brave thing to write and I originally had a long comment highlighting a bunch of particularly poignant paragraphs that I deleted because really you should just read the entire thing. Neither I nor the vast majority of the people I know have ever been subject to online harassment and it makes me thankful that there are incredible people like Kathy out there. Lord knows I wouldn't have the courage…

>[^1]: I know, I peaked in like 2004. You joke (I think) but it's more like it went through a years-long period where it was really, really terrible. It's gotten better lately as far as I can tell. I'm posting there again after giving up on it years ago. But, they don't really have stringent moderation, I don't think. It's more that when they do moderate, it means something, because you can't just register another ac…

Also, complaining about how they moderate - including the lack of moderation - is against the rules over there, and they do enforce that rule. "If you do not like the mods or the moderation, feel free to not post here." So if anyone is unhappy about how Something Awful is moderated they can't really complain about it or tell if anyone else feels the same way. It seems to be a very effective tactic for them.

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#106

Post by DanBC »

jmduke wrote: post #3

This is an excellent, brave thing to write and I originally had a long comment highlighting a bunch of particularly poignant paragraphs that I deleted because really you should just read the entire thing. Neither I nor the vast majority of the people I know have ever been subject to online harassment and it makes me thankful that there are incredible people like Kathy out there. Lord knows I wouldn't have the courage…

Moderation is hard toget right and it leaves the door open to destructive trolling.

So, while I agree wth you that moderated spaces are better than unmoderated we need to rememberthat it's not a panacea.

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#107

Post by DanBC »

tomp wrote: post #85
iherbig wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the difficulties. However, just as I would not support a lawless society, I do not support the laissez-faire attitude of the reddit admins. And the reasons are much the same. We choose between letting everyone go free and dealing with the consequences, or restricting people and living with the consequences. There is no right answer.

> We choose between letting everyone go free and dealing with the consequences, or restricting people and living with the consequences. There is no right answer. There is no right answer, but restricting information is the wrong answer, primarily because it doesn't work. The leaked nudes are still available, even if not on reddit. You can still download pirated movies, even if it's not as simple as it used to be. Eve…

> The leaked nudes are still available, even if not on reddit.

That's the point - I can dump uuencoded blobs of text in HN that are stolen nudes. I'd be downvoted to hellban if I tried.

Online communities create their own standards. Reddit's standards exclude some groups of people. That's a weird choice to make - in the name of freedom of expression we're going to create an environment that is ridiculously hostile to large numbers of people to make sure they can't express their opinions.

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#108

Post by DanBC »

verroq wrote: post #98
iSnow wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>historically that has only served to push users to other services. But this is exactly what you want - get rid of the low-quality users and offload them somewhere else. reddit has gotten itself quite a questionable image tolerating pornographic jailbait, necrophiliac porn, stolen nudes and domestic abusers on its platform for very long.

And who is to say these users are inherently low quality? Enjoying any anything socially unacceptable doesn't preclude them from creating content you may enjoy in another subreddit.

While those users are creating and posting dog porn they are of low value to me. They're creating noise not signal; consuming resources; and creating negative brand associations. By asking them to take their dog porn elsewhere I risk losing them altogether (which currently isn't much loss) or they start posting other content.

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#109

Post by scribu »

Pitarou wrote: post #18
jMyles wrote: post #4

I don't want to downplay the significance of this writing - thank you for calling it out! I do want to gently call into question the danger of the attack surfaces that you have (I think accurately) spelled out: 1) "Doxxing with calls to action (that — and trust me on this — people DO act on)." For the most part, high-profile "targets" from the troll's perspective are already known to the public anyway. Those that are…

I don't know what the solution to the troll problem is, but I don't think anti-epilepsy filters are a part of it, any more than I think bulletproof vests are a solution to gun violence.

I don't know; I think anti-epilepsy filters can be a _part_ of the solution (at least for the epilepsy trolling sub-problem), among many other things.

Bulletproof vests aren't a solution to gun violence due to practical reasons (uncomfortable, expensive, only protect your torso, not your head etc.), most of which wouldn't necessarily apply to software.

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#110

Post by merrua »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #26

I only have one story of harassment, but it might be interesting. When I first started blogging, about 10 years ago, I would also post on slashdot. I started getting a lot of traffic. Along with that, I started getting harassed. It was some of the vilest stuff I've ever read in an online forum -- attacking me, my family, my personality, and so on. I found it quite disturbing, as if one of my friends was secretly insa…

http://www.ece.umd.edu/News/news_story.php?id=1788 http://www.enre.umd.edu/content/rmeyer-assessing.pdf http://nms.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/09/12/146144481245... (if you have login)
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