Live data from Hacker News

Life after an internet mob attack

pasquale.cool

271–280 of 480 posts

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#271
post #253
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> strengthening our libel laws This nearly always advantages businesses and the wealthy, especially in false or ambiguous situations, and whistleblowers of all kinds. Litigation is incredibly expensive and slow. Do people really want to spend a house worth and several years on this kind of fight? (This is why the US felt it necessary to pass laws against UK libel judgements being enforced, it was infringing on US sta…

Truth is always an absolute defense to libel. If you can back up what you’re saying, libel isn’t a concern. And if you can't prove what you're saying is true, then why are you saying it?

Really? You've never talked about something that happened to you without photographic evidence of the event? Really?

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#272
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what is the solution there? Should twitter and facebook have their own internal legal system, decided upon by democratic vote as I was just describing? What would make it inherently less tribal if they did that? Would that stop large groups of people from all deciding to vote as a block and criticize one person all at once? Or is the goal something else? Surely, if this problem were theoretically solvable by a soc…

The legal system goes to great lengths to prevent it being everyone just voting who is guilty. Democracy is not for individual cases. Jury selection throws out 95% of people because there are so many biases that make democracy terrible for this kind of analysis.

So to allow any post through, twitter should have a process that randomly selects an unbiased jury of other twitter posters, and have them judge the post before it becomes public? And that process will be administered by democratically elected representatives who ultimately decide on the 5% that doesn't get thrown out? What if you are a person who just happens to hold strong preconceived opinions about a lot of things, wouldn't you be seen as "too biased" for any jury, and get totally excluded from this process? Would that be the system being fair, or would it be another example of "cancel culture" stopping people from being jurors? I don't know, I'm just spitballing here, I'm not a legal expert or anything, but I do know that jury stacking/tampering is a real thing that happens.

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#273

I wouldn't call OP's post "receipts", but rather "his curated receipts." What makes more sense? Some dude has been creepy and only showed the positive side in his defense, or three random unrelated women -- who he claims only ever had lovely, adoring exchanges with him -- decided to destroy his life for no apparent reason. I mean, the former case has a precedent for happening almost habitually in the past, you'd have…

You know, this seemed like an interesting case study right up until he quoted Scott Adam's take on "being cancelled."

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#274
post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what would that look like? Would employers no longer field public complaints about potential problem employees, under any circumstances? In effect, they would be required to always side with the employee in case of a dispute?

Perhaps it would exclude complaints about what they do in their job but firing someone for things they do that are unrelated to their job could be protected, like what happened in their personal relationships or what they posted on the internet if it's not part of their work.

That seems to hinge a lot on having a specific and consistent definition of what "related to the job" and "part of their work" means that won't unfairly affect some companies, maybe there is an established legal definition of that somewhere?

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#275
post #271
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truth is always an absolute defense to libel. If you can back up what you’re saying, libel isn’t a concern. And if you can't prove what you're saying is true, then why are you saying it?

Really? You've never talked about something that happened to you without photographic evidence of the event? Really?

With the intent of siccing a mob of people on someone to harass them online? No, never. In the article, the problem is not that the women discussed the fact that they had received harassing emails, but that they attributed those emails to a particular person without any proof that that is true.

"I received an anonymous harassing email" - true statement, not libel

"I received an anonymous harassing email and it was definitely from this guy" - if you can't prove it, could be libel.

See the difference?

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't judge people on what your emotions tell you is most likely what that type of person usually has a reputation for doing according to the selectively reported news. That's how racism works, or in your case, it's sexism.

That's not at all how racism and sexism work. Racism and sexism depend on power imbalance, and calling out centuries of existence of either when exploring if there is a power imbalance at play is not related. Saying "This race is inferior" is vastly different than saying, "This race was and is still exploited by power structures." Do you understand difference?

Racism depends on making assumptions or judgements about other people based on their skin color. It has nothing to do with power. Minorities don't have a free pass to be racist towards White people, and women don't have a free pass to be sexist towards men.

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post, and your comment, IMO wrongly frames this as courage .vs. cowardice in standing up for friends. However, that fails to take into account any context of the particular “cancellation”. eg, A situation with damning screenshots of lewd DMs are pretty ‘smoking gun’, and the barometer of “good friends would publicly support me” feels like an insane expectation when (in this hypothetical instance) the person did a…

I think an interesting question is: can you support people and wish the best for them even if they've done a bad thing? With the exception of some particularly abhorrent things, I'm not sure I'd consider myself a friend to someone if I'm not willing to support them even if they're in the wrong. That doesn't mean lying for them or trying to pretend it wasn't bad, but I would expect myself to push back on mischaracteri…

> I would expect myself to push back on mischaracterizations of them (positive or negative!) and help them navigate the consequences.

The thing is, what tell you it's actually mischaracterizations. You can believe me, I'm not the same in front of my parents, versus in front of my boss or in front of my friends. I'm not saying I'm doing anything bad, but there's trait that I'll show more or less depending on the involved party.

It can also pretty easily change between public and private settings, I don't have much situation for which it happens for me, except obviously my SO, but I have known people that does adapt to my more relax personality when they are alone with me. Nothing nefarious in my case, but a good example on how in private someone may act differently based on the other party.

So sure I agree that you may support them, tell your own story about that person, but you still need to understands that it's only your story, that has nothing to do with anyone else story.

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#278
post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it would exclude complaints about what they do in their job but firing someone for things they do that are unrelated to their job could be protected, like what happened in their personal relationships or what they posted on the internet if it's not part of their work.

That seems to hinge a lot on having a specific and consistent definition of what "related to the job" and "part of their work" means that won't unfairly affect some companies, maybe there is an established legal definition of that somewhere?

The legal system manages to work out vague definitions. Here's an excerpt from New Zealand's employment law regarding unjustifiable dismissal:

"The test is whether the employer’s actions, and how the employer acted, were what a fair and reasonable employer could have done in all the circumstances at the time the dismissal or action occurred."

How's that for specific and consistent! Yet it still provides protection against capricious firing.

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#279
post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For social media outrage, women seem to have more power than men (eg. this article), so your claims about men are sexist due to the power imbalance. I'll also demonstrate the equivalence of your statement to racism by changing some words: "What makes more sense? Some black person has been violent and only showed the positive side in his defense, or three random unrelated white people -- who he claims only ever had lo…

all major social media companies are literally owned and run by men

Can you connect that claim with a conclusion using some logic? For example - and I know this probably isn't what you're implying but I don't know what it actually is - "They are run by men and the sex who's members run them is the one with the most power, therefore all men have more power than all women.

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just like any false accusation: it has to go to court What? This makes no sense. There is no crime being alleged here. No one is trying to send this guy to jail, so what would there be to try in court? Someone said this guy was creepy. Guy says he isn’t creepy and provides some evidence. Everyone is free to look at the situation and make their own judgement. The idea that we are only allowed to believe things prove…

> Everyone is free to look at the situation and make their own judgement. Except people who believed the accusers. Those people are an "internet mob" who must be condemned. You forgot that part. Only the guy who wrote the blog post is supposed to be believed. It sounds like a joke, but there's a real "it's only bad to believe people without evidence when YOU do it" vibe to the posters here.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN