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Life after an internet mob attack

pasquale.cool

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Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#371

Post by eyelidlessness »

fn-mote wrote: post #355
imgabe wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that you are telling the truth. Do you understand that sometimes people do not tell the truth? The question is what level of consequence are you saying we should inflict on people before some kind of evidence beyond an accusation is required? If it's "I tell my friends about what happened, and then they turn down opportunities to work with that person". I don't think anyone would or could sue for libel a…

This is a very challenging interaction. I will try to keep a very even tone in this message. The parent's last paragraph seems to set up a strawman, an extreme that seems to me to covered by current libel laws. (Is it not? Explain if I'm wrong.) It is _possible_ that current libel laws don't "accurately delineate that point", but I am looking for a stronger argument in favor of change. Based on the posts here, I thin…

Thank you for this. I think you’ve expressed a lot of what I didn’t have emotional space to say, with at least as much skill and patience. I appreciate you joining in

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#372

Post by lmm »

zxzax wrote: post #248
TrispusAttucks wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Innocent until proven guilty by a fair trial. Not the other way around. The entire point of justice was to be less tribal. Social justice now is the opposite. It's who has the biggest tribal cannon they can point at someone they disagree with. Not whether the facts support the claim.

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…

- Social media should not allow the broadcasting of unproven allegations that individuals have committed crimes, just as conventional media is barred from doing so until the cases have been heard in court.

- Utility-like services should not be allowed to refuse service to individuals without clear reason.

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#373

Post by didibus »

bendbro wrote: post #241
philwelch wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever the talk of “consequences” starts, I’m reminded of a quote: “There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech.” —Idi Amin

Yeah, the "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" response that some liberals give has always puzzled me. It is internally inconsistent for a liberal ideology. 1. They believe that "wage slavery" exists. That is, an employee may freely agree to employment conditions under a capitalist view, but under the liberal view, they have not freely agreed since various coercive forces exist that force them a…

If you're interested in learning about the values held by liberals, as one myself, I recommend you read the UN declaration of human rights https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma... as I think it does the best job at summarizing the general values held by liberals.

Now don't get fooled by what you've been told. Internet Mobs and liberals are unrelated groups, but there are politically inclined groups who are pushing an agenda to discredit liberals by association, this is a fallacy, if you want to learn more about that here's the wikipedia entry: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy

> the argument attacks a person because of the similarity between the views of someone making an argument and other proponents of the argument

So please, don't fall for this, there is no way to know what political values the people refered too in the article that were part of the mob had, lots of internet mobs are conservative, libertarian, communist, socialist, etc. just as well.

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#374

Post by wolverine876 »

ryandrake wrote: post #282
jiofih wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

What if the people you know are reading it, and it affects your friendships, your job, your business partners, your reptuation?

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#375

Post by lmm »

zxzax wrote: post #213
exporectomy wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about more employee friendly labor law so people can't get fired because of public pressure? Without teeth, this mob justice will be less of a real world problem and more contained to social media.

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?

It would look like France, Japan, or, y'know, most industrialised countries. Employers would be required to give cause for any firing, and follow a documented process in which the employee has certain rights (e.g. the right to be assisted by a union representative, see the evidence against them, respond to allegations).

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#376

Post by kodah »

1123581321 wrote: post #369
kodah wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 p…

Yep. :) I tried to generalize the philosophy but apparently didn’t cover my tracks well enough. I’d like to think that the principles would work for anyone.

They definitely don't. These things are easily manipulated and abused. Leaving the church was one of the best things I ever did, but now the moralistic tone makes sense. Thanks for your honesty.

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#377

Post by 1123581321 »

kodah wrote: post #376
1123581321 wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. :) I tried to generalize the philosophy but apparently didn’t cover my tracks well enough. I’d like to think that the principles would work for anyone.

They definitely don't. These things are easily manipulated and abused. Leaving the church was one of the best things I ever did, but now the moralistic tone makes sense. Thanks for your honesty.

Sorry to hear. I really tried to make clear that the whole point is to fight abuse from within as hard as possible, for those in any particular group.

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#378

Post by lmm »

lloydjones wrote: post #68
cousin_it wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My view is more like "a true friend would help you hide a body", or the short story "Friends in San Rosario" by O.Henry. If I abandoned a friend to the mob due to "screenshots of lewd DMs", I'd have a hard time living with myself afterward.

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.

Our actual legal system is adversarial, and for good reason. The best way to get to the truth is to have devoted partisans on both sides.

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#379

Post by imgabe »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #349
imgabe wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that you are telling the truth. Do you understand that sometimes people do not tell the truth? The question is what level of consequence are you saying we should inflict on people before some kind of evidence beyond an accusation is required? If it's "I tell my friends about what happened, and then they turn down opportunities to work with that person". I don't think anyone would or could sue for libel a…

No, I don’t think that’s reasonable. In the spirit of “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”, I don’t think adding more legal liability serves anyone. Moreover, it serves even less people who already have few resources to redress wrongs. It’s not like this concept of “mob ruined my life” is some new concept, it’s something victims of abuse experience or withhold their stories to a…

So is there any point at which you would say it matters whether an accusation is true or not? Is it only if there’s a criminal investigation?

> People who’ve been hurt by others don’t need to be legally scrutinized for saying so.

The point is that not every person who makes an accusation is someone who has been hurt by others. If there is no scrutiny allowed, how are we supposed to tell which is which? You're looking at this from the perspective of the person making the accusation, where you can know with certainty that is true. Someone on the outside doesn't have that ability.

Re: Life after an internet mob attack

#380

Post by dang »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #304
dang wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.)

Didn't know that. Won't do again. Thanks. Passionate topic.

Appreciated!
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