Ellen Pao: The Trolls Are Winning the Battle for the Internet • Hacker News Board

Re: Ellen Pao: The Trolls Are Winning the Battle for the Internet

#171

Post by imron » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 6:30 PM UTC

ewzimm wrote: post #86

lhnz wrote: post #31

Does anybody remember when trolling was a term used to describe an activity in which users wielding enough understanding of other's perspectives would attempt to give other's cognitive dissonance? It seems that one of the most powerful online political classes have lumped hatred and abuse in with disagreement, mockery and satire. I don't think it's good for the conversation between the group of user's that dislike wh…

I miss those days when I was proud to be a troll, when it meant tricking people into thinking in ways that they normally wouldn't. People used to love trolls! Of course, it didn't just mean that. There were also troll raids when friends would get together and make silly comments on every thread they could find, crashing the party but having fun with it. The incendiary ones used to be called flamers, but I think that…

> People used to love trolls!

No they didn't.

> crashing the party but having fun with it.

I'm sure you and your friends were having fun with it. The people whose parties you crashed? Probably not so much.

Re: Ellen Pao: The Trolls Are Winning the Battle for the Internet

#172

Post by anthony_romeo » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 6:31 PM UTC

Many of responses I read here are infuriating because many are deliberately ignoring the issue of harassment by claiming it's a free speech issue. In the US you do not have 100% freedom of speech. If you deliberately incite violence against another person through speech, you can be charged with a crime. You can face a lawsuit for assault without touching the victim. You can be charged for, say, harassing others in the workplace. You certainly have the right to speak your mind, but if you think you have the right to deliberately cause severe mental distress, not through mere discussion of your points, but through repetitive and abusive language and getting your cohorts to join you in the assault, you are absolutely mistaken. Even if we were to assume some enshrined right to harass individuals, perhaps it's not the best way to go about a disagreement.

Further, people are choosing to get angry over the false binary of freedom vs harassment, and choosing to ignore the third option of choosing empathy, tact, or clear and fair discussion over slinging barbs at others.

I'm reading comments along the lines of 'well, it couldn't have been that bad' or 'I don't know enough about the extent of the harassment, but I'm going to comment about semantics or the 100 percent accuracy [as opposed to, say, 90 percent] of her claims anyway!' Your comments are pointless and dance around the actual issue of abuse. You fail to feel any sort of empathy because you yourself are not the victim.

I hear people making fun of the concept of 'microaggression' because they fail to adequately understand its meaning. The point is that it's really easy to throw a one-line insult to someone, but in aggregate it can cause great distress, because the throwaway comments of a thousand people can feel like one very persistent stalker. People dismiss this by saying 'oh it's normal' and recommend they just ignore it. Frankly, the point is that it should not be normal, and some people have difficulty ignoring it.

And I know some will deliberately choose to misconstrue what I'm saying here. No, I'm not saying that we should censor the Internet and ban all controversial discussion. I would just hope that more people become aware that it is a real issue that people face, and that commenters should be aware of their own actions and reevaluate how they choose respond to conflicts.

Re: Ellen Pao: The Trolls Are Winning the Battle for the Internet

#173

Post by sssilver » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 6:31 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #117

songshu wrote: post #29

Misquoting Bart Simpson "If you never experience the abuse, you'll never get desensitized to it", and with that in mind, and talking here only about written abuse, these are my favorite three outcomes for, let's say, my daughter: 1) No one abuses her online 2) People abuse her, she dismisses it as noise 3) People abuse her, and she reacts and attempts to control it I think we should be aiming for number 2.

We absolutely should be aiming for number 1. I think I get your point, that it is healthy to be able to deal with the world as it is, but that doesn't mean that we have to accept or embrace it as it is.

What her daughter may perceive as "abuse" can be very subjective. That's why censorship in general is never a good idea. Learning to "dismiss" it as noise is a more scalable and elegant approach, and doesn't limit anyone's freedoms in a subjective way.

Re: Ellen Pao: The Trolls Are Winning the Battle for the Internet

#174

Post by keedot » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 6:32 PM UTC

danielweber wrote: post #139

keedot wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Christie Blatchford's skew is quite heavy in this reporting. I've seen the other side of the argument with some of the behaviours and tweets in question, and it's not so clear cut. I would definitely feel harassed by this individual, and in Canada, we do not claim to have the free speech as defined in America. Hate speech is not tolerated here, and most Canadians are in agreement with this. You can have a difference…

> if you attack someone with words, there are legal consequences. What a horrible country. I hate it deeply.

You're fully within your rights to do so. It's a pretty great place to live, to be honest.

Re: Ellen Pao: The Trolls Are Winning the Battle for the Internet

#175

Post by babygoat » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 6:33 PM UTC

istvan__ wrote: post #164

babygoat wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the point of interacting with other people if you don't feel anything?

Gaining knowledge for example. What is the point of interacting with others if you continuously offended?

Do you think you could gain knowledge without using slurs and ad hominems? The only reason to do that is to provoke and hurt feelings.

Re: Ellen Pao: The Trolls Are Winning the Battle for the Internet

#176

Post by keedot » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 6:34 PM UTC

lingben wrote: post #165

keedot wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Christie Blatchford's skew is quite heavy in this reporting. I've seen the other side of the argument with some of the behaviours and tweets in question, and it's not so clear cut. I would definitely feel harassed by this individual, and in Canada, we do not claim to have the free speech as defined in America. Hate speech is not tolerated here, and most Canadians are in agreement with this. You can have a difference…

'hate speech' has a very high bar and from the court details there is zero evidence that the defendant engaged in anything remotely approaching harrassment, never mind hate speech. by their own admission and by the evidence, the plaintiffs however did engage in a pattern of behavior and organized others into the same pattern which resulted in a person not only being harassed but also losing their job. it is not enoug…

Right, which is why we have courts to determine the validity of the claims.

Re: Ellen Pao: The Trolls Are Winning the Battle for the Internet

#177

Post by josefresco » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 6:37 PM UTC

kyoji wrote: post #93

josefresco wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Pao had thousands of people calling her a ching-chong cunt." Is this a known/established fact? I see in the article a paragraph about how she received thousands of positive notes/emails but nothing about the # or volume of hate. It may not be documented here, but I'm curious if it was actually as widespread as implied.

The front page of Reddit was littered with derogatory Pao posts for days on end following the shutdown of /r/fph and firing of Victoria. I'm sure she also received a large amount of private hate messages too.

I saw the front page, and many (most?) were not of the "ching-chong cunt" variety. I witnessed a lot of misplaced hate (we now know is "misplaced" after the fact) but there's a difference between "flaming" someone and using racist/bigoted language.

Re: Ellen Pao: The Trolls Are Winning the Battle for the Internet

#178

Post by georgemonck » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 6:37 PM UTC

pekk wrote: post #129

tdees40 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SJW is just a lazy slur. It's time to retire it.

As someone with sympathy for many causes that are attacked as "SJW," I agree. I never thought the term was reasonable. It's as embarrassingly hokey and strident as Christian evangelists self-describing as "spiritual warriors." It would be just as annoying to have all Christians dismissively labeled as "spiritual warriors" for their belief. Framing advocacy as warfare is inaccurate and unwise. Appealing to people with…

The thing is, there is no big yellow line between aggressive politics and warfare. If someone gets me fired from my job, that is actually worse for me than if I get punched in the face. And while many SJW's don't engage in violence themselves, they do play the role of trumpeter, and the trumpeter should be considered a type of warrior - http://www.bartleby.com/17/1/79.html And there are plenty examples of the left either using the state to engage in violence to further left-wing causes, or in tying the hands of the state to allow left-aligned mobs to engage in violence.

The defining trait of SJW is not that they are activists for a cause. If they were just trying to win hearts and minds so they could win at the ballot box, that would be one thing. The defining trait is that they use any means at their disposable to defeat their enemies: naming and shaming, purging, getting people fired, getting people banned from communities, lawsuits, criminal complaints, etc. That is the mentality of warfare, and deserves to be called as such.

Re: Ellen Pao: The Trolls Are Winning the Battle for the Internet

#179

Post by yellowapple » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 6:38 PM UTC

babygoat wrote: post #155

pdeuchler wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nobody wants to take away your right to free speech, we're just trying to create social norms that discourage, or hinder, the freedom to express views we don't like. Ignore the fact that social norms inevitably become codified in law."

Reddit does not owe you free speech. You can say whatever you want, and they can choose not to broadcast it to millions of people.

That's a non-sequitur to the claim that social norms (of the variety that Reddit is attempting to establish) tend to become codified into law, for better or worse.

Of course, that's a non-sequitur to the claim that Reddit is an entity that has no obligation to be a platform for entirely-uncensored expression, though even that is a cop-out argument against those who cite Reddit as having a reputation of free expression.

Basically, this whole discussion is gibberish.

Re: Ellen Pao: The Trolls Are Winning the Battle for the Internet

#180

Post by ewzimm » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 6:40 PM UTC

Nadya wrote: post #137

ewzimm wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is debating that extreme insults are normal when people get angry. What people are saying is that it needs to stop being normal.

I'd much rather eradicate murder. Murder sucks. It needs to stop being a normal day-to-day occurrence in our lives. Someone, somewhere will be murdered today. How can you continue with your life knowing that will happen? Worse - it will be more than one person! Multiple people will be murdered today, tomorrow, and every day in the future too! Most of them are total strangers, but maybe one day it will be someone you…

Social norms change. Samurai used to ride around and slice people in half just because they could. Public hangings and lynchings used to happen all the time. Most places in the world have eradicated that sort of murder out in the open, and the ones that haven't are making concerted efforts to stop it.

There's nothing about human culture that's consistent except its inconsistency and adaptability. It might not be obvious within a few decades, but big changes do happen.