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Curt Schilling Fights Back Against Daughter’s Twitter Trolls

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Re: Curt Schilling Fights Back Against Daughter’s Twitter Trolls

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is coming perilously close to victim blaming. When these horrible tweets are made, there's always a contingent who says that the target should ignore them. You probably should if they are completely anonymous. But if they aren't - have at 'em!

Can you help me to understand victim blaming? Is it victim blaming to say someone was exercising poor risk management? I think of taking precautions online as being like defensive driving (or any kind of risk management really). If Alice gets sideswiped on the highway because Bob was on his cell phone and didn't check his blind spot, Bob maybe gets charged with failure to maintain the lane or something like that. Doe…

> Can you help me to understand victim blaming? Is it victim blaming to say someone was exercising poor risk management?

Er, yeah, it is. The victim always knows they exercised "poor risk management", to some degree. You don't need to reinforce that point. It's not what the takeaway lesson should ever be. It detracts attention (and implicitly averts blame) from the perpetrator.

We don't aspire to live in a world where "risk management" becomes the takeaway lesson from events perpetrated by conscious actors (i.e. you should always exercise risk management when it comes to things like hurricanes).

Because then you start saying things like:

"She shouldn't have been walking alone at night."

"She shouldn't have been wearing that dress."

"If he didn't want to get raped he shouldn't have gone to prison."

Re: Curt Schilling Fights Back Against Daughter’s Twitter Trolls

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Streaking near a playground without knowing of it and threatening to rape someone's daughter are completely different things. Telling anyone that they want their daughter to bleed into their underwear because you raped them is sickening, intimidating and frankly sexual violence . Since when did this become acceptable?

Hold your horses. There are many crimes that don't put people on a life-ruining sexual predator list. Murder for example. That doesn't make them 'acceptable'. I don't think this crime should go on that special list. I think a reasonable maximum for this crime is a few months in prison, similar to misdemeanor battery.

I don't think the register is justifiable at all, to be honest. We don't have it where I live (Australia) and we don't have higher levels of sexual assault than the U.S. (our rates are still too high).

If that was the point you were making, I apologise as I misunderstood you.

Re: Curt Schilling Fights Back Against Daughter’s Twitter Trolls

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is coming perilously close to victim blaming. When these horrible tweets are made, there's always a contingent who says that the target should ignore them. You probably should if they are completely anonymous. But if they aren't - have at 'em!

Can you help me to understand victim blaming? Is it victim blaming to say someone was exercising poor risk management? I think of taking precautions online as being like defensive driving (or any kind of risk management really). If Alice gets sideswiped on the highway because Bob was on his cell phone and didn't check his blind spot, Bob maybe gets charged with failure to maintain the lane or something like that. Doe…

In your analogy the fault entirely lies with Bob. Ann is expected to pay attention to the road - a pedestrian may step out suddenly; there might be debris in the road; and she's expected to pay attention to other drivers - someone might overtake and cut back in lane suddenly. Ann is not expected to monitor the actual drivers of other vehicles to see if they're eating or dancing or talking on their cellphone. Those other drivers are expected to not be so fucking stupid.

Re: Curt Schilling Fights Back Against Daughter’s Twitter Trolls

#124
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we stop dragging gamergate into this? (Or might I suggest you read up on KotakuInAction on reddit and tell me how it is anywhere borderline close to this?)

KotakuInAction is one of the major GamerGate organizing sites – that's like telling someone to go to the Scientologist Temple for opinions on Dianetics. … and, yes, it's rather relevant: GamerGate started with a bunch of people on 4chan attacking a stranger on social media at the behest of her ex-boyfriend but it escalated quickly to coordinated harassment on a bunch of different forms of electronic media and attempt…

Quite the opposite, Zoe Quinn herself has been discovered to have played a role in SWATing her critics [1]. Incidentally, KotakuInAction has been featured elsewhere today [2]. I agree with your last sentence.

[1] http://www.crimeandfederalism.com/2015/01/gamergate-swatting...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/subredditoftheday/comments/2yb80x/m...

Re: Curt Schilling Fights Back Against Daughter’s Twitter Trolls

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is coming perilously close to victim blaming. When these horrible tweets are made, there's always a contingent who says that the target should ignore them. You probably should if they are completely anonymous. But if they aren't - have at 'em!

Can you help me to understand victim blaming? Is it victim blaming to say someone was exercising poor risk management? I think of taking precautions online as being like defensive driving (or any kind of risk management really). If Alice gets sideswiped on the highway because Bob was on his cell phone and didn't check his blind spot, Bob maybe gets charged with failure to maintain the lane or something like that. Doe…

> Is it victim blaming to say someone was exercising poor risk management?

This is a delicate issue. The answer to your question has to be: No, not per se...

However there are some other things to keep in mind:

() If one suggests that the victim's poor risk management absolves the perpetrator of responsibility in the slightest degree, then one is definitely blaming the victim.

() Sometimes that subtext -- that the perpetrator is not fully responsible -- is present but not stated explicitly. So I think people are often right to be aware of the possibility that that's underneath what is being said.

() On the other hand, sometimes that subtext is absolutely not intended, but is heard anyway. A lot of people have trouble with the notion that two parties to an interaction are both 100% responsible for their own choices. And someone recently victimized may not be emotionally ready to look at how they allowed it to happen. So one must be careful here; but sometimes, if one wants to get the point across, it's necessary to emphasize that the perpetrator is still totally responsible for their own actions.

So in your example, if you were to suggest that Bob's fine should be reduced because Alice could have prevented the accident, that would be victim blaming. But if you're only saying that Alice could learn from this (to be more alert, to try to stay out of other people's blind spots, and to watch out for nearby drivers using cell phones) then that isn't victim blaming.

Re: Curt Schilling Fights Back Against Daughter’s Twitter Trolls

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If these things were said in person, I think you would feel differently. It's easy to pass off actions that take place on the internet as being without consequence, but they can still do real damage. I think this same sense of detachment from consequences is what allows people to do things they would never do if they could see the recipient. I don't know what punishments are just, but it seems to me that returning a…

Any of these said in person, I would not feel differently. Almost all of them make some reference to a baseball comment and then try to make a joke about Kurt's daughter based on that. They are simply assholes making poor jokes. Unless Kurt didn't post the most extreme ones (e.g. someone said "I'm going to rape your daughter when she gets here"), I feel like none of them even border the line of a creditable threat. A…

You aren't most people then. If most fathers were told to their face that their daughter's hymen was about to be shredded, I can assure you that person would be in danger of serious injury!

Re: Curt Schilling Fights Back Against Daughter’s Twitter Trolls

#127

And here folks I guess we have a real case of harassment. I think there is a line to be drawn somewhere between here and pycon (two men talking privately about something that could be understood as offensive). That said I am surprised about two things: * People trying to argue that this should not be punished because everyone would do if they were safe from repercussions. I strongly believe that a big chunk of the au…

Adria Richards really was harassed, by people that were extremely angered by something that should have been easily dismissed as a mistake. She got all sorts of nasty shit on twitter, threats, the whole works.

I don't think her initial reaction was a good one, but it certainly didn't justify all the stuff that followed. Her apparent pattern of reacting loudly to small offenses ( https://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/ ) also isn't something to become angry and outraged over. I'm not sure how to handle that, but I'm sure it won't involve death threats.

Re: Curt Schilling Fights Back Against Daughter’s Twitter Trolls

#128
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The incident at PyCon: Conversation interloper becomes offended on behalf of non-present female children by the contents of a conversation that she was interloping. PyCon staff of course will be sycophantic with upset guests because they hate bad press. The PyCon incident was a moment of incalculable oversensitivity and probably should just be forgotten when considering the spectrum for which you hope to draw a line…

PyCon staff of course will be sycophantic with upset guests because they hate bad press. All the PyCon staff did was talk to the developer in question, mention that the comments had offended someone, and left it there. That's pretty much exactly what I would expect them to do. That was confirmed by the developer in question: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5412553 There were plenty of overreactions in that case;…

Thanks for defending PyCon. That sounds reasonable.

Re: Curt Schilling Fights Back Against Daughter’s Twitter Trolls

#129

A lot of people feel these threats should be taken seriously, and the law should be involved. I don't know what to think of this situation, but I want to ask you a question. Without irony or snark: How do you feel about the threats of violence made by Curt against those people?

His replies sounded like he was defending his family to me.

I was going to say the same thing, he is just a father protecting his family. I think any father would do the same or say the same thing in this type of situation.

Re: Curt Schilling Fights Back Against Daughter’s Twitter Trolls

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is coming perilously close to victim blaming. When these horrible tweets are made, there's always a contingent who says that the target should ignore them. You probably should if they are completely anonymous. But if they aren't - have at 'em!

Can you help me to understand victim blaming? Is it victim blaming to say someone was exercising poor risk management? I think of taking precautions online as being like defensive driving (or any kind of risk management really). If Alice gets sideswiped on the highway because Bob was on his cell phone and didn't check his blind spot, Bob maybe gets charged with failure to maintain the lane or something like that. Doe…

Victim blaming is a legitimate complaint when discussion of the victim's choices distracts from the way they have been victimized. E.g., "Well, what the hell was she doing in a dark alley at 3 a.m., anyway?" You have to judge whether something amounts to victim blaming by its impact on the discourse.
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