Life after an internet mob attack • Hacker News Board

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#331

Post by fastball » Thu, May 27, 2021, 2:32 AM UTC

yoz-y wrote: post #161

temp8964 wrote: post #60

After reading through the post on notion, I found it "impressive" that OP has dated with so many toxic persons over years. Is this normal? Or is OP self an outlier to have had so many toxic relationships?

Did I read the thread incorrectly? From there it seems that OP has dated exactly one person out of the bunch, another one was a friend and the rest acquaintances or passersby?

Rundown:

- dated @boop

- friends with @devonko_

- @ljmacfadyen is random twitter interaction

- dated @saskiakeultjes

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#332

Post by SilverRed » Thu, May 27, 2021, 2:32 AM UTC

fastball wrote: post #321

SilverRed wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in most of these cases, the accusations are correct. But some of them aren't correct and we must protect the innocent as well. And me, as an outsider on the internet, has no business trying to pick a side or work out who should be punished. That's the job of the legal system.

Why do you think most accusations are correct?

The majority of people are not malicious and would not make this stuff up. Some obviously are and will but my feeling is that these people are the minority.

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#333

Post by rkk3 » Thu, May 27, 2021, 2:35 AM UTC

valtism wrote: post #313

rkk3 wrote: post #295

He experienced an internet mob. But by calling out the people who made that happen in his "receipts" post, couldn't he be inadvertently sicing a mob on them?

He knows what he's doing. He's been harassing @boop for a long time now.

Her initial claim of harassment, which kicked off the whole mess, was based on assuming malice from a meme twitter account which was actually run by a random guy in England. Personally I'd rather not assume malice for any of the parties.

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#334

Post by fastball » Thu, May 27, 2021, 2:37 AM UTC

SilverRed wrote: post #332

fastball wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think most accusations are correct?

The majority of people are not malicious and would not make this stuff up. Some obviously are and will but my feeling is that these people are the minority.

Not sure the math makes sense on that.

Assuming a two-party interaction, for every person that makes a true accusation of abuse, there is one malicious actor (the abuser). For every person who makes a false accusation, there is one malicious actor (the accuser).

Regardless of the ratio of true to false accusations, the number of malicious people in the world remains unchanged.

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#335

Post by alsetmusic » Thu, May 27, 2021, 2:39 AM UTC

fastball wrote: post #324

ghostly_s wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

How come?

Scott Adam’s says some pretty bizarre things in public on his blog and on his podcast. He wrote about causing his readers to orgasm via his words.[0] The tone was not that of a person with a healthy attitude towards sexuality. I found it unpleasant and gross.

He’s also expressed some pretty odd ideas. From the same link:

> Regular readers know that I used my background in hypnosis to accurately predict nine-out-nine political events in 2015, while most political professionals got zero right. That makes me the best political pundit of the year.

The podcast QAnon Anonymous (which reports on conspiracy theories; it’s not pro-conspiracy thinking) did an episode about him.[1] It’s been a long time since I listened to it, so I won’t try to sum it up because I’d do so poorly. He came off as an unpleasant person who doesn’t seem admirable to me. I wouldn’t link to him in a post about character assassination.

[0] https://www.scottadamssays.com/2015/12/31/hypnotizing-you-to...

[1] https://m.soundcloud.com/qanonanonymous/episode-43-scott-ada...

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#336

Post by adolph » Thu, May 27, 2021, 2:39 AM UTC

hprotagonist wrote: post #145

... weirdly, the ones who adopted the sternest and most terrible Old Testament moral tone were the Modern Language Association types who believed that everything was relative and that, for example, polygamy was as valid as monogamy. The friendliest and most sincere welcome he'd gotten was from Scott, a chemistry professor, and Laura, a pediatrician, who, after knowing Randy and Charlene for many years, had one day di…

The thread of contemporary period people totally fell out of my mind. I need to pull it off the shelf and reread it. Thank you for the reminder.

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#337

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 27, 2021, 2:41 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#338

Post by kodah » Thu, May 27, 2021, 2:47 AM UTC

1123581321 wrote: post #105

lloydjones wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good and much more balanced/nuanced outlook. However (in my hypothetical scenario which was meant to challenge the utility of blanket statements of support), a message of support does effectively act as a counterweight to an accusation, and unless one possesses all of the facts it may have the effect of laundering the reputation of somebody who deserves criticism (though I’d argue that in most instances, ca…

I think that a culture of lovingly challenging our friends is part of the solution to that problem of that counterweighting. I should be the first to uncover the sins, if you will, of my friend, and urge repentance and restitution, temporarily withholding approval to achieve that end, and involving more people in that knowledge to the degree necessary with public shaming being a last resort. (In this example, the pro…

> I think that a culture of lovingly challenging our friends is part of the solution to that problem of that counterweighting. I should be the first to uncover the sins, if you will, of my friend, and urge repentance and restitution, temporarily withholding approval to achieve that end, and involving more people in that knowledge to the degree necessary with public shaming being a last resort. (In this example, the problem is not one requiring legal intervention.)

This sounds very Catholic

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#339

Post by caddemon » Thu, May 27, 2021, 3:02 AM UTC

zxzax wrote: post #245

caddemon wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the thing that concerns me most about "cancel culture" (of what I see) is people openly pushing back on the principle of innocent until proven guilty. It seems to be common to argue that there is nothing wrong with the court of public opinion putting the burden of proof on the accused. Usually this is combined with some comment about how horrible the accusation is versus how supposedly mild it is to be criticize…

I mean, to me that sadly is nothing new. I've known my share of people who just assume by default that people they don't know are jerks, and are hostile toward them. I don't know what you would call it. Untrusting? I can't see where you would cross that line and all of a sudden start calling it "cancel culture" or "consequence culture" or whatever. Is it because it's happening online now?

The part that is new, or at least recently en vogue again, is how this behavior is seen as a positive. It is explicitly encouraged by current social dynamics. It is even encouraged to some extent in academic or "intellectual" circles.

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#340

Post by brailsafe » Thu, May 27, 2021, 3:02 AM UTC

lloydjones wrote: post #32

cousin_it wrote: post #11

If/when any of my friends get attacked by the mob, I hope I'll have the courage to stand by them publicly. A good recent test was the doxing of Scott Alexander. I signed the open letter against it with my real name and was happily surprised to see the names of many people I know. We should have more of these small but visible acts of resistance that let like-minded people find you.

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…

This happened to a friend of mine recently. Some woman posted their conversation to an instagram story, saying all my friend wanted was sex and implying that people should stay away from him. It seemed like she thought she was doing something courageous, when in reality she's kind of a monster. The dude did nothing more than unfollow her on insta after she strongly hinted that there would be no possibility for romance after he invited her to hangout. Instead of just getting rejected for a pretty standard way to meet people, he gets shamed in front of potentially hundreds of people. So much for ostensibly sex friendly liberalism. Screenshots of DMs are hardly smoking gun evidence of anything if your audience is heavily inclined to pile on, nor does it matter because that's a shit way to communicate anyway and removes from someone any kind of recourse. I couldn't have done anything because she had a private account, but I couldn't have done anything to counter it anyway because it was just an outlet form of social media.

My point is that nobody did a bad thing until someone actually did a bad thing, and I think that's most people's gripe with 'cancellation'.