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Life after an internet mob attack

pasquale.cool

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Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#281

Post by vxNsr »

pstuart wrote: post #195
notacoward wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lost as much respect for Scott Adams as anyone, so I'd agree that quoting him is ill advised, but the underlying sentiment is not wrong. Mobs do cause harm, not least because they make redemption harder than it already is. In a way, treating a Scott Adams quote as an automatic disqualifier is only making the OP's point.

The quote presents as self-deprecation but reads as a non-apology (at least to me, and I too must confess having lost respect for Adams as well). Edit: for fun I checked out Adam's twitter posts -- and have no respect left at all.

Adams is very much not trying for an apology here he is mocking cancel culture and the inevitable non-apology that public figures will distribute.

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#282

Post by ryandrake »

jiofih wrote: post #141
wolverine876 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best solution here is to completely disconnect from social media I've thought about that, but your reputation is being destroyed. You'll offer no defense? You'll let everyone who you value get that impression of you? You'll allow it to become permanent, public record for anyone who ever looks you up with a search engine?

I think he’s saying you should disconnect before any of that happens. There is no defense against the barrage of a Twitter mob, doesn’t matter how hard you try. It also seems that the better the reputation you have, the more difficult it is to recover.

If you are not part of the platform it can’t hurt you. I’m not on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, any of these services, so the mobs can’t really get to me. They could be flaming me there right now and I’d have no idea and it wouldn’t bother me at all! Excising social media altogether pretty much removes this vector of harassment.

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#283

Post by mkishi »

cortesoft wrote: post #266
MispelledToyota wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can tell someone what good criteria are for wines, why not forming opinions? They're not obligated to listen to you, but I don't get saying that you can't advise. Beyond that though, when our opinions have consequences, we have an obligation to form them carefully when they affect others. Not being able to force someone to behave well doesn't mean there aren't reasonable criteria available for them.

What consequence does my choosing to believe either side in this story have? Now, if I (or someone else) harass the guy over the accusation, then that is a problem (and there should be consequences), but belief is personal.

What do you call a mob of people piling on someone and causing them to lose friends, opportunities and a healthy state-of-mind? A belief system?

You're free to believe whatever you want, but if you are wrong and they didn't do it, someone was just publicly executed for the wrong reasons.

You're also free to not care about any of that, but some people want to be cautious not to pile on without evidence.

Are you really arguing it's fine if I accused you of something and convinced everyone of that, without ever providing any evidence? And when you said "no, I didn't do that, here's some evidence," people should shrug it off because why does if matter what side they believe? After all, they are free to judge you based on anything they want, as long as they're not threatening your life or firing you, right?

No one was arguing you can't judge people based on any arbitrary thing you can come up with. It becomes an issue when you use that belief to actively destroy their life, possibly for no reason at all.

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#284

Post by [deleted] »

newacct583 wrote: post #270
Manuel_D wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Person A accuses Person B of sending creepy text messages. Person B shows a message history of what they claim to be the entire conversation between them, with no creepy messages in it. Person A refuses to share any text messages. How is it sexist to believe that Person B is innocent? I think someone is being sexist or racist in this situation if their judgement changes depending on the race or gender of persons A an…

> How is it sexist to believe that Person B is innocent? Good grief. It's not! For exactly the same reason that it's not sexist to believe Person B is guilty, as exporectomy did above and as zozbot234 and you defended. Judgement calls aren't sexism. But FWIW: by typical preponderance of evidence rules, multiple corroborating testimonies by unrelated witnesses sit way higher than "here's a screenshot of an unrelated e…

[deleted]

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#285

Post by donw »

zzzeek wrote: post #269
exporectomy wrote: post #226

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

Yours is neo-nazi thinking: "Look at all those banks and media companies, so many Jewish last names..."

Anti-black racists have the same mindset: "Hmmm... what do all those looters and criminals have in common?"

Of course, your mindset totally ignores the millions of people that don't fit your stereotypes.

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#286

Post by SyzygistSix »

Zababa wrote: post #260
SyzygistSix wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I find anyone of any political stripe that acts and posts like he does to be reprehensible.

And I'm fine with that. If this was the comment I replied to, my reply would be "Could you elaborate on what you find reprehensible on the way he acts and posts?" to try to understand better what's the issue here, but that's it. I don't find your comment biaised against right-wingers.

His twitter feed for a start.

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#287

Post by _carbyau_ »

drknownuffin wrote: post #124
lloydjones wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn’t feel like a worldview that would result in a fairer society or better personal conduct. If defending a person, in the face of prima facie evidence, has the result of preserving their reputation and status (and keeping the reputation and status of the accuser in their original state) then it doesn’t feel useful or good.

I have a little kid. When we watch cartoons, they might point at the villain of the piece - e.g., Jafar - and say "he's a bad man!" And I take the opportunity to nudge them and ask, "They did a bad thing. Does that mean they're always bad? Can they make things better? Should we forgive them? How do we know when to forgive them?" (not in a single tirade; these are just questions I drop over time.) Because, in anticipa…

While I agree with your worldview as presented here there is a difference between:

1. helping a friend hide the body

2. telling your friend they are in the wrong and you will help them through the consequences IE likely charges, court, gaol time, life rebuilding etc.

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#288

Post by blast »

cortesoft wrote: post #246
Manuel_D wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then she should share receipt of the alleged creepy messages. The burden of proof is on the accuser, not the accused.

Burden of proof for what? To charge him with a crime? Sure. But random people are free to make whatever conclusions about him that they want, with as little or as much evidence as they personally require to render their judgement. You don’t get to tell other people how they should form their opinions. It isn’t fair, but there is no other way for the world to work. Everyone has their own criteria for judging people...…

We're in a weird space that previous models don't map very well to. For example, the legal system doesn't map because virtually none of the things people are doing on social media are illegal, and probably shouldn't be. On the other hand, the previous social models, such as gossip ("random people freely making whatever conclusions they want") don't apply because their potential for destructive effects are relatively circumscribed.

Maybe one analogy would be the way that gossip and rumour in a very small town could harm a person, such as by affecting their livelihood, their family, and so on. Now that we have the global village, the "small town" is basically everybody. I see the current debates about "cancel culture" or whatever as a messy attempt to work out norms for this new space. We're probably still in the early stage of those getting worked out.

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#289

Post by MispelledToyota »

cortesoft wrote: post #266
MispelledToyota wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can tell someone what good criteria are for wines, why not forming opinions? They're not obligated to listen to you, but I don't get saying that you can't advise. Beyond that though, when our opinions have consequences, we have an obligation to form them carefully when they affect others. Not being able to force someone to behave well doesn't mean there aren't reasonable criteria available for them.

What consequence does my choosing to believe either side in this story have? Now, if I (or someone else) harass the guy over the accusation, then that is a problem (and there should be consequences), but belief is personal.

The question was about how someone should form their opinions, and whether we can tell others how they ought to do that. Lots of our opinions do affect others (e.g., if they should be hired, if one should help them, how we treat their reputations), so it's appropriate to point out what good and bad criteria are.

If an opinion being held doesn't have any practical ramifications for others, it's not really a big deal to have opinions formed on a questionable basis, except that good judgment tends to be a habitual process, so doing it with bad criteria with low stakes could affect how we form them when the stakes are higher.

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#290

Post by dang »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #163

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…

> EDIT: Watching the points on this comment swing from negative to positive in the span of minutes is telling.

Please follow the site guidelines. You broke the second-last one: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

(Btw, it's not "telling" of anything but that the topic is divisive, which we all know already.)

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