Racism and internet vigilantism

KingGorilla wrote:

Or they will get some flames until they have the sense to disable or go private online.

Unless one of the people with the info posted is able to get the police (or a prosecutor) involved.

Can I get a quick clarification from the people who are equivocating racists with gays, Muslims, and black people, just how they are connected?

In the case of the meatstick from Maryland, he works for Pepco, the power company. That's close enough to being a critical public service position that yes, I called him out to his bosses.

jdzappa wrote:

Let me just play devils advocate for a moment - is the real outrage here over the racism or the death threats being leveled against the president? I think it's perfectly reasonable to call into question someone committing treason - aka threatening assassination. On the other hand, inviting the public to harrass and possibly harm or kill perfect strangers for stupid racist comments is just wrong. IMHO this website is essentially inviting open season on anyone posted there. Are comments on Facebook really worth somebody getting a baseball bat to the head or a bullet in the chest over?

And before I get dismissed with "yeah those angry liberals are going to throw lattes at them," I'm not worried about your average law abiding democrat going after these guys. I am worried about another kid at the local high school doing something stupid and blowing his classmate away over this website. Having grown up in the South, I've seen way too many stupid incidents were a racial slur leads to a deadly confrontation between white and black teens.

I've been trying to figure out my thoughts on this matter, and you pretty much nailed it, right down to my experience growing up.

Look, I hate racism. Hell, I despise racists (and other bigots in general), and would be happy to see them bit by the karma snake. However, unless some moves from making racist comments to making actual threats of bodily harm to another person (not just the president, but anyone) is where it switches from despicable behavior to worthy of reporting to authorities. It is at that point when it can be appropriate to get their personal information and use it for that purpose; not for the purpose of posting publicly.

H.P. Lovesauce wrote:

In the case of the meatstick from Maryland, he works for Pepco, the power company. That's close enough to being a critical public service position that yes, I called him out to his bosses.

So you actually contacted the company?

A comment from the site creators, posted at the top of the page:

Let me be clear - do not harm or hurt anyone. Accountability is one thing. Notifying employers and schools about the hate speech and violent tendencies of employees is to be expected, and authorities when necessary. Go for it. This is not meant to hunt someone down and hurt anyone - but simply to have their names and their hateful words linked, so that they, individually, be responsible for owning up to them. Let the racists do the work on figuring out their own err - you don’t really have to do anything - it’s on them.
Nevin73 wrote:
H.P. Lovesauce wrote:

In the case of the meatstick from Maryland, he works for Pepco, the power company. That's close enough to being a critical public service position that yes, I called him out to his bosses.

So you actually contacted the company?

Contacted PR people, yeah. Figured that's the weakest point.

Seth wrote:

Can I get a quick clarification from the people who are equivocating racists with gays, Muslims, and black people, just how they are connected?

Since I was one of the people bringing this up, I will clarify. No, they are not equivalent. My entire point is that if you think internet vigilantism is okay when it's something you disapprove of, what happens when someone uses the same tactics against an innocent group?

There's nothing stopping the racists from making an equivalent list of people they don't like, and I don't think anyone would approve of that.

I can't buy the equivocation. Racists and innocent groups are so fundamentally different that I don't think it's a helpful analogy to discuss how we react to them as though they were similar. Me disapproving of racism is not the same as racists disapproving of black people.

I remain conflicted on this, though. I do like seeing people who say terrible things be forced to take responsibility for what they say -- I strongly believe in freedom of speech, not freedom from consequences of speech. But there's an undercurrent here that is vaguely and disturbingly reminiscent of thoughtcrime, and it makes me very uneasy.

Seth wrote:

Me disapproving of racism is not the same as racists disapproving of black people.

That's not what I'm saying, even remotely.

I am saying that I don't appreciate this particular brand of disapproval in general. I think if you say it's okay to direct at racists, then what's stopping anyone from directing it at anybody else?

It's the same logic by which I don't approve of physically beating people who say something you disagree with, even if it's incredibly vile.

This sort of list isn't as bad as physically beating people, obviously, but I don't think it's good precedent to condone.

I guess I'm just a bit jaded at the stupidity of the human race, and racist drivel by itself doesn't particularly shock me. There is all sort of hateful stuff that Americans say to each other both online and in person that's socially acceptable. This includes:

Insulting people for their weight (especially women)
Hating people for their job (man I wish we could set every Wall Street banker on fire!)
Hating fans of your rival team (ever see Red Sox and Yankee fans go at each other?)
Hating political rivals (Rush Limbaugh and Bill Maher never seem to lose their current positions no matter what they say)

So I'm not sure what's the point of calling out people for one particular type of stupid prejudice when as a culture we don't address our general problem of violence and hatred for people who are not exactly like us.

Finally, the "this site is for informational purposes only and we don't condone violence" caveat is the same lame attempt as the abortion doctor hitlist web masters made in court. Granted, those abortion websites were more militant in nature, but if anyone gets hurt over the racist website the owner will likely be criminally liable.

Demyx wrote:
Seth wrote:

Me disapproving of racism is not the same as racists disapproving of black people.

That's not what I'm saying, even remotely.

I am saying that I don't appreciate this particular brand of disapproval in general. I think if you say it's okay to direct at racists, then what's stopping anyone from directing it at anybody else?

We are perhaps having the most epic of miscommunications, then, because I am literally unable to divine a difference between what I'm saying and what you're saying.

Is it the physical act of listmaking that is causing your unease? The aggregation of people who have done something terrible -- with terrible being defined by an outside party?

There's a lot of hypotheticals being tossed around, particularly ones that don't apply to this particular site. The site is not telling people to harass these people. It's not telling the internet to "go get em." It's collecting and reposting public information.
While I can see why people are wary of this sort of site, there's nothing illegal or wrong about it. To make it illegal would give us the same sort of system the UK has, where celebrities and public figures will sue people for publishing facts about them. Claims of ignorance aren't allowable since both Twitter and Facebook have it in their terms & conditions that what you make public is viewable by everyone, and that posting something as public serves as consent for people to associate you with it.
From Facebook's terms and conditions:

When you publish content or information using the Public setting, it means that you are allowing everyone, including people off of Facebook, to access and use that information, and to associate it with you (i.e., your name and profile picture).

From Twitter's terms and conditions:

You are responsible for your use of the Services, for any Content you post to the Services, and for any consequences thereof. The Content you submit, post, or display will be able to be viewed by other users of the Services and through third party services and websites (go to the account settings page to control who sees your Content). You should only provide Content that you are comfortable sharing with others under these Terms.

From the site's About page:

ALL information gathered here, is/was completely public at the time gathered. None of it was private, but totally publicly available information, voluntarily put forth by these individuals. All are things that people posted, identifying themselves with their own names and faces. I am just bringing it all to a place where they may be responsible and (hopefully) understand the consequence of their words (and hopefully their parents, schools, and employers too).

And from the latest post (tannhausered while writing):

Let me be clear - do not harm or hurt anyone. Accountability is one thing. Notifying employers and schools about the hate speech and violent tendencies of employees is to be expected, and authorities when necessary. Go for it. This is not meant to hunt someone down and hurt anyone - but simply to have their names and their hateful words linked, so that they, individually, be responsible for owning up to them. Let the racists do the work on figuring out their own err - you don’t really have to do anything - it’s on them.

There was a link in the election thread (iirc) to a story in which a reporter contacted the schools of people that made racist and/or threatening tweets/posts about Obama winning, which they found via the same methods the tumblr owner used. The reporter also listed the full name and the name of the school the person attended for each instance. I don't remember any sort of a deal being made over that (it's possible it got lost in the ACA derail though).

I'm with Seth, Demyx. I'm not really sure what you're getting at.

Also, I'd like to congratulate HP Lovesauce. Contacting an employer or school or whatever is the best course of action if you are sufficiently distraught by the comments. Maybe it'll teach some of the teenagers something and maybe it'll help the adults come to an understanding. If it doesn't, what does it matter? They were already racist. If 1 person takes a deeper look at their feelings and has a change of heart then that's a net positive.

I'm wondering at the long term consequences of this for the nimwits posting these. A lot of them seem to have jobs that won't require a background check, but there quite a few that are in college. When they apply for jobs, the normal Google/Facebook search will commence. Will this come up? Will they have taken down their dumbass comments on FB by then? Will it cost them an opportunity? I'm curious at how employers will react. Will Pepco fire the guy H.P. Lovesauce called out?

Vector wrote:

I'm with Seth, Demyx. I'm not really sure what you're getting at.

My guess is that there are times you don't deploy a weapon even when your enemy deserves it because you don't want to break the taboo against using that weapon? Right now we live in a society where we generally don't inform on each other over random acts of douchebaggery. Once we start using this, we're talking about transforming the way society works, because I don't see any way of restricting this to simply racists and sexists and such. Do we want to contribute towards making that transformation occur and having to live in that society? I wonder if that is what Seth means by an undercurrent of thoughtcrime.

Nevin73 wrote:

I'm wondering at the long term consequences of this for the nimwits posting these. A lot of them seem to have jobs that won't require a background check, but there quite a few that are in college. When they apply for jobs, the normal Google/Facebook search will commence. Will this come up? Will they have taken down their dumbass comments on FB by then? Will it cost them an opportunity? I'm curious at how employers will react. Will Pepco fire the guy H.P. Lovesauce called out?

If Pepco does fire that guy, will H.P. Lovesauce be okay with whatever happens to him as a result of that? Not to get all Philosophical Xzibit here, but remember that all speech has consequences--even speech that is meant to be consequence for someone else's speech.

Maybe that's the issue here: maybe it's the question of whether the people doing this are taking responsibility for the consequences of their actions. Hey--if you're okay with they guy getting fired over this, then that's another discussion but it's a decision made in good faith. Maybe what is troubling is the possible lack of forethought going into whether to do this to someone.

Demyx wrote:

There's nothing stopping the racists from making an equivalent list of people they don't like, and I don't think anyone would approve of that.

Are we talking approve as in "think it's a good thing for them to do" or approve as in "think it's legal for them to do"?
I think it's with their right to keep a list of people they don't like (along with their reason for not liking them), and even share that with others. If someone they've shared it with uses it to harass the people on it, that's the fault of the harasser, not the original author (unless there's reasonable evidence of incitement).

Stengah wrote:

The site is not telling people to harass these people. It's not telling the internet to "go get em." It's collecting and reposting public information.

There's a kind of cognitive dissonance running through this thread and this statement seems to capture it nicely. If the goal isn't a clearing house for counter-harrassment, why publish the information at all? I'm not saying that collating this information isn't legal, but I don't think you can sit there and pretend it has any other purpose.

Vector wrote:

Also, I'd like to congratulate HP Lovesauce. Contacting an employer or school or whatever is the best course of action if you are sufficiently distraught by the comments.

You're saying that someone who expresses an opinion (on their own time) that personally offends you essentially deserves punishment from their school or employer. How is that in any way acceptable?

Vector wrote:
NormanTheIntern wrote:

Also, I'd like to congratulate HP Lovesauce. Contacting an employer or school or whatever is the best course of action if you are sufficiently distraught by the comments.

You're saying that someone who expresses an opinion (on their own time) that personally offends you essentially deserves punishment from their school or employer. How is that in any way acceptable?

Does that same employer or school need to be hamstrung by retaining a person who publicly makes racist and seditious remarks? They then become associated with that person for harboring them. They become the school that hates Obama or the Wal-Mart...OK that last one was a bad example.

You're saying people who hold and express ideas you don't agree with don't deserve jobs or education.

That's wrong.

KingGorilla wrote:
Vector wrote:

Also, I'd like to congratulate HP Lovesauce. Contacting an employer or school or whatever is the best course of action if you are sufficiently distraught by the comments.

You're saying that someone who expresses an opinion (on their own time) that personally offends you essentially deserves punishment from their school or employer. How is that in any way acceptable?

Does that same employer or school need to be hamstrung by retaining a person who publicly makes racist and subversive remarks? They then become associated with that person for harboring them. They become the school that hates Obama or the Wal-Mart...OK that last one was a bad example.

If the remarks are that widespread and well-known that they're hamstringing a business, wouldn't the people at the business know about the comments already?

I can see some cases where an employer might have a blind spot, but on the other hand we can't pretend that everything anyone says on the internet anywhere has this kind of consequence for their employer.

NormanTheIntern wrote:

You're saying people who hold and express ideas you don't agree with don't deserve jobs or education.

That's wrong.

Your comfortable with a racist being a Judge?.. Public Defender?

NormanTheIntern wrote:
Vector wrote:

Also, I'd like to congratulate HP Lovesauce. Contacting an employer or school or whatever is the best course of action if you are sufficiently distraught by the comments.

You're saying that someone who expresses an opinion (on their own time) that personally offends you essentially deserves punishment from their school or employer. How is that in any way acceptable?

No, I'm saying if you are offended by something take a constructive action. Whether that actions leads to consequences is irrelevant.

NormanTheIntern wrote:

You're saying people who hold and express ideas you don't agree with don't deserve jobs or education.

That's wrong.

He's not saying that and this very comment is an example of why I choose not to participate in P&C.

Vector wrote:
NormanTheIntern wrote:

You're saying people who hold and express ideas you don't agree with don't deserve jobs or education.

That's wrong.

He's not saying that and this very comment is why I choose not to participate in P&C.

I think it brings up a difficult question: are there certain areas where there are no longer 'two sides' to an issue. Does being a racist make you a..."social outlaw" is maybe a good way to put it? Having to wrestle with questions like that is, actually, why I continue to participate in P&C.

Actually Norman, I am saying that a person who makes these sorts of statements in a public forum for the world to see may suffer consequences as a result at school or work. And our Supreme Court has not found this to violate the 1st amendment. Punishing people for the bad acts that they DO is not thought crime.

CheezePavilion wrote:
Vector wrote:
NormanTheIntern wrote:

You're saying people who hold and express ideas you don't agree with don't deserve jobs or education.

That's wrong.

He's not saying that and this very comment is why I choose not to participate in P&C.

I think it brings up a difficult question: are there certain areas where there are no longer 'two sides' to an issue. Does being a racist make you a..."social outlaw" is maybe a good way to put it? Having to wrestle with questions like that is, actually, why I continue to participate in P&C.

Well there is this.

While I don't agree that people should be fired for their personal opinions (in most cases), my opinion is almost irrevelant. The fact is that you can be let go if your employer finds things online that they do not like. It could be drunk pics, speaking out against corporate policy, whatever. That some people are racists...well if you are a diverse organization then racism will cause problems. If the person is advocating violence against the president or government, then yes, as an employer I would absolutely let them go. If they were stupid enough to be racists and a seditionist online, in a public forum, then I would think they are too stupid to be employed in my place of work.

Edit: Either I can't find him or they took the post down about the Pepco guy. That is interesting.

CheezePavilion wrote:
Vector wrote:
NormanTheIntern wrote:

You're saying people who hold and express ideas you don't agree with don't deserve jobs or education.

That's wrong.

He's not saying that and this very comment is why I choose not to participate in P&C.

I think it brings up a difficult question: are there certain areas where there are no longer 'two sides' to an issue. Does being a racist make you a..."social outlaw" is maybe a good way to put it? Having to wrestle with questions like that is, actually, why I continue to participate in P&C.

I enjoy reading P&C but accusing people of saying things they didn't say, putting words in peoples mouths, hyperbole, and sometimes pure crazy (there isn't any of the crazy in this thread) restricts me to reading rather than posting.

Racism is very regional. The meaning and perception is completely different depending on where you live. It's a difficult subject, like most, because it is incredibly difficult to look at racism from the speaker's perspective. Then you add in age (teenagers say a lot of stupid things) and other factors. It's why I think it would be okay to report these people to whatever authority is most appropriate. There's a chance that they don't even really consider their words that racist.

This happens a lot whenever this comes up, but for clarification:

We are discussing public statements made by individuals, not private remarks made on one's property.

We are discussing reactions to those statements by private and semi-public entities (businesses and schools) -- not a government attempt to silence speech.

There seems to be a cloud of assumptions that is muddying these two facts.

Vector wrote:

No, I'm saying if you are offended by something take a constructive action. Whether that actions leads to consequences is irrelevant.

But that type of thinking leads to McCarthyism, and "if you are offended by something" is an inherently subjective line in the sand. People in the past have faced secular reprisals in the workplace and school for expressing unpopular ideas such as pacifism or athiesm. Now obviously the ideas involved are vastly different, but sure you can see that the underlying pricnciples here are equally flawed?

NormanTheIntern wrote:

You're saying people who hold and express ideas you don't agree with don't deserve jobs or education.

That's wrong.

He's not saying that and this very comment is an example of why I choose not to participate in P&C.

I hope you continue to participate but that *is* essentially what some of you are saying.