Life after an internet mob attack
pasquale.cool
Life after an internet mob attack
1–10 of 480 posts
Re: Life after an internet mob attack
#2Reading the list of "receipts" in the "wrongfully accused" link is heart-breaking. I can't imagine having to dig through my personal correspondence to submit to the court of public opinion, "see?! I wasn't a creep!"
Re: Life after an internet mob attack
#3The best solution here is to completely disconnect from social media or (at most) have an incredibly sanitized presence. Unless your job or livelihood revolves around needing to engage with a random internet audience (i.e. you're an influencer, entertainer, etc.) stay away from having a public persona on Twitter/Facebook/etc.
The only community I interact with candidly tends to be this one. I don't post on Twitter, Facebook, etc. because the vast majority of mainstream social media users (a) don't tend to have good-faith debates on any intellectually-interesting topics, and (b) will always find something to rip out of context and crucify you.
But this is easier said than done. Dopamine's a helluva' drug.
Re: Life after an internet mob attack
#4This is why your identity online should never be traceable back to your real name. It's a pretty scorched-earth opinion on privacy, but the internet ultimately doesn't change if you use an alias. If you do so, employers will come back empty-handed when they try Googling you, and they'll have a harder time finding "that dumb Twitter post" that jeopardizes your job.
None of this is to say that you should be a bad person online, or otherwise take advantage of anonymity. Being anonymous just gives you a healthy personal shield, and the option to "cash out" and walk away from that identity, if you so desire.
Re: Life after an internet mob attack
#5https://www.obsessivefacts.com/blog/2020-07-10-we-are-not-pr...
I found this compelling as a response to the idea of cancel culture.
It's kind of interesting, but I think if anybody wanted to cancel me, they'd have a hard time. I have almost no twitter/facebook presence, no linkedin at all, most of my close friends and family don't give a shit about what a bunch of Twitter randos think, and I work at a small enough company that I'd probably get my case heard.
I realize that some of that is luck and not just "positioning" but why give yourself a larger attack surface than you need to at a time when one wrong comment from 20 years ago can end you?
Just walk away from it all.
Re: Life after an internet mob attack
#6The best solution here is to completely disconnect from social media or (at most) have an incredibly sanitized presence. Unless your job or livelihood revolves around needing to engage with a random internet audience (i.e. you're an influencer, entertainer, etc.) stay away from having a public persona on Twitter/Facebook/etc. The only community I interact with candidly tends to be this one. I don't post on Twitter, F…
Social media is pure poison that exploits every frailty of human nature. And it is optimized to be this way, even if unintentionally, because that's what makes money.
Re: Life after an internet mob attack
#7The best solution here is to completely disconnect from social media or (at most) have an incredibly sanitized presence. Unless your job or livelihood revolves around needing to engage with a random internet audience (i.e. you're an influencer, entertainer, etc.) stay away from having a public persona on Twitter/Facebook/etc. The only community I interact with candidly tends to be this one. I don't post on Twitter, F…
I don't see how that would have helped OP. He wasn't called out for things he said or did on social media, barring a few people who piled on over extremely "sanitized" exchanges.
I think your "best solution" aligns well with what the OP appeared to be doing, and he still burned.
It's important to note that just because the mob forms on social media doesn't mean its consequences are limited to social media.
Re: Life after an internet mob attack
#8A relevant TED Talk I always think of when reading about these stories: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAIP6fI0NAI
Which makes me think: who are these people with enough time of their hands to be morality warriors on internet? Also who are these _friends_ who jumps on conclusion without allowing for a defense? I shouldn't be difficult, in this digitalized world, to provide solid proof of wrongdoing.
I may not be the most aware of social cues, or maybe it's a cultural thing, but some of these people seems like absolute sociopaths.
Re: Life after an internet mob attack
#9The problem is previously we didn't listen to victims, and allowed them to be silenced. Now the pendulum has swung the other way, and we are listening unconditionally, but (occasionally) bad actors are taking advantage of our good intentions. How do we find balance?
Re: Life after an internet mob attack
#10https://www.obsessivefacts.com/blog/2020-07-10-we-are-not-pr... I found this compelling as a response to the idea of cancel culture. It's kind of interesting, but I think if anybody wanted to cancel me, they'd have a hard time. I have almost no twitter/facebook presence, no linkedin at all, most of my close friends and family don't give a shit about what a bunch of Twitter randos think, and I work at a small enough c…
The issue is, as OP demonstrated, that this has nothing to do with your interaction with social media.
Social media was the connective tissue that gave rise to the internet mob, but neither the OPs behavior on social media, nor his response on social media, had any impact on the outcomes. Nor were the outcomes limited to affecting his social media presence. As per the original article, OP got nailed for comments from a twitter account he didn't run, and whose true owner publicly confessed to owning it.
That is, just because you walk away from social media doesn't mean that social media has walked away from you.