Trouble at the Koolaid Point
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Trouble at the Koolaid Point
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Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point
#2God is the point. I have God's official temple.
God's world is perfectly just.
Hey, nigger? What's a random number?
Scientists have mocked religion. God's world is perfectly just . Guess what happens dumb shit. Hey nigger? What's a random number, nigger?
I'll bet God doesn't give you time of day, LOL.
Cain and Abel biotch.
Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point
#3This 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 for something like this.
In interest of actually fostering a discussion: I think there's a lot of merit in bringing back moderation, as suggested in the article, as sort of an internet cultural norm. Maybe it's confirmation bias: the highest-quality communities I've ever spent time in, MetaFilter and Something Awful [^1], both use incredibly stringent moderation -- but I feel HN has had a huge uptick in overall quality since the comments and content moderation has stepped up over the past months.
I think that Twitter and Reddit have sort of made their bones on the idea that as long as you aren't doing anything that threatens the company in any way then you're given carte blanche. Twitter's ineffectiveness with dealing with harassment et al requests is notorious; and Reddit, as much as I love it at times, is a cesspool by default. [^2]
At what point does the value proposition flip the other way?
[^1]: I know, I peaked in like 2004.
[^2]: I know this is not a popular opinion, but is growing increasingly painful to visit a site that willingly allows to exist subreddits devoted towards domestic abuse and snuff .
Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point
#4I 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 aren't, and who want to stay anonymous, have a big job doing so - not just from trolls, but from the NSA and corporate advertising culture.
2) "Swatting (look it up). That nobody has yet been killed in one of these “pranks” is surprising. It’s just a matter of time."
This is purely a political problem. Clearly there's a flaw in the system when police can enter a home by the say-so of someone they haven't verified to be in that home. A sensible solution here is to work to abolish (or nearly abolish) so-called "SWAT" teams. For those that remain, obviously their standard of probable cause needs to change so that the scope no longer includes phenomena that are so easy to defraud.
3) Physical Assualt
In a general sense, this is already illegal under law that is widely supported. It's worth adding sexual assault as well.
The example that you give, which is disgusting of course, seems solvable by some kind of client-side solution that prevents machines from activating photosensitive epilepsy.
At the end of the day, there's not that much that somebody can do from a world away. To the extent that there is, I assert that the solutions are largely political, social, and cultural.
Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point
#5After reading this, I'm battling the urge to suggest technical solutions to social problems. Except that in this case the social problems are caused by the fact the internet is a house built on sand and the underlying protocols don't support authentication or accountability to anything like the degree traditional public conversations did. That said, the choices that were made in the 1980's and early '90s to support pseudonymity and to allow the flexibility that meant that tools like NAT and anonymous forwarding could be developed and deployed may have been the right ones for that time.
I suspect that one outcome of the wave of vicious trolling that has been building the last few years will be stronger laws against online stalking and harassment, possibly even a national quick response network to ensure that the Department of Homeland Security can protect American citizens from these "lawless online thugs".
I don't have an answer for you; but I know that I am saddened that some of the smartest and most technically adept people I know are viciously harassed for their public participation in the technical community. If you think being a woman in public justifies rape threats or death threats; I have no respect for you. If you think that sort of thing is just a game, you need to grow up. And if you think the current situation can go on indefinitely without winding up in one of a number of drastic failure modes; you're fooling yourself.
Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point
#6This 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…
>willingly allows to exist subreddits devoted towards domestic abuse and snuff
Serious question: why does this even bother you?
Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point
#7This 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…
Freedom of speech. The one jerk of a teacher I had, made me realize this.
It is better they are out in the open, that they are confronted publicly. Those standing to be counted are not the dangerous ones.... it is the 10 more who agree silently.
If it is driven to silence it does not disappear but is spoken in whispers. It is better that they are challenged in the open.
Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point
#8This 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…
>willingly allows to exist subreddits devoted towards domestic abuse and snuff Serious question: why does this even bother you?
That's a completely valid question, and the answer isn't something concrete. I think on one hand it's just overall indicative of the site's priorities (and again, I completely acknowledge that it's those same priorities which also helped foster the subreddits that I love) -- on the other hand, I think it's just the sense of heebie-jeebies, like being a pro bono lawyer for the mob or something -- as though my presence there is somehow contributing to something that I desparately don't want to exist.
More broadly speaking, I would be very willing to bet that an internet community that places harsher standards on acceptable content would result in a better environment for those involved -- but Reddit's stance during the celebrity photo stuff reinforced their position of 'Reddit as a platform', and I don't see that going away.
Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point
#9This 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 account and back to business as usual. Being an asshole costs money there, and most assholes are apparently not willing to pay the price.
I don't know how to duplicate it without getting the critical mass first. It would be interesting if reddit suddenly switched to a paid model, but I really doubt that will ever happen.
Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point
#10Wow, this is even worse than I ever imagined. It is unbelievable how far trolling can go and what the costs are in life for the victim. I don't know you personally Kathy but I really feel sorry for you. You deserve respect for having the courage writing up these thoughts despite of everything that has happened to you and your family in the past 10 years. What's even worse how easy it has become for us to judge from the sideline with smug remarks on Twitter. Sad, really sad.