Racism and internet vigilantism

NormanTheIntern wrote:

I think it also factors into the moral decision here that sites like these are probably trivially easy to game. Create a twitter account, link it to an existing facebook, create a facebook with an existing person's details, hack an existing account - in some ways, taking internet posts and assigning them to a real person is less credible than overhearing something in a bar.

That is already illegal, and if such a situation occurs, the owner of the tumblr should take down / post a retraction of the false information.

And to connect to some of the posts that came while I was replying:

If you personally harass the person by calling them up, calling their employer, etc., that's the moral equivalent of standing up on the bus and telling everybody "THIS GUY IS A TOTAL RACIST" in a loud voice.

If you post the guy's name to a list like this, that's the moral equivalent of sharing name with a group of people dedicated to finding racists and telling everybody "THIS GUY IS A TOTAL RACIST" in a loud voice.

And I agree that racism is bad and being gay is fine.

But... well, let's take a *very* relevant example. Would you say that pedophiles are bad? Is it okay to share a list of pedophiles on the Internet, so that people can protect their children and run them out of town? What about people who are "gold star" pedophiles who are attracted to children, but never [em]ever[/em] act on it. And they struggle with that every day? (As one of our community members shared about a family member recently.) When people don't understand that such a concept exists, what happens to them? Do they get protected? I mean, everybody knows that gays and pedophiles are different, that gays are okay and pedophiles are bad. "Everybody" "knows". Right.

Jonman wrote:
Seth wrote:

edit to clarify -- I consider the moment anything is available on the Internet to already be broadcast. aggregating and pointing those broadcasts out to others is...well no different than buzzfeed or failbook.

This is precisely my take. The act of aggregation is tantamount to pointing at something that already exists. Nothing more.

How about Badabing!?

Ok, so this app made me feel really dirty when I downloaded it. It’s called Badabing! and it basically goes through your friends’ photos on Facebook to pull out the ones of them at the pool or beach. In other words, we’re talking about scantily clad photos here.

edit: oh, and of course:
Girls Around Me is a standard geolocation based maps app, similar to any other app that attempts to alert you to things of interest in your immediate vicinity: whether it be parties, clubs, deals, or what have you. When you load it up, the first thing Girls Around Me does is figure out where you are and load up a Google Map centered around your location. The rest of the interface is very simple: in the top left corner, there’s a button that looks like a radar display, at the right corner, there’s a fuel meter (used to fund the app’s freemium model), and on the bottom left is a button that allows you to specify between whether you’re interested in women, men or both.

It’s when you push the radar button that Girls Around Me does what it says on the tin. I pressed the button for my friends. Immediately, Girls Around Me went into radar mode, and after just a few seconds, the map around us was filled with pictures of girls who were in the neighborhood. Since I was showing off the app on a Saturday night, there were dozens of girls out on the town in our local area.

Hypatian wrote:

And to connect to some of the posts that came while I was replying:

If you personally harass the person by calling them up, calling their employer, etc., that's the moral equivalent of standing up on the bus and telling everybody "THIS GUY IS A TOTAL RACIST" in a loud voice.

If you post the guy's name to a list like this, that's the moral equivalent of sharing name with a group of people dedicated to finding racists and telling everybody "THIS GUY IS A TOTAL RACIST" in a loud voice.

And I agree that racism is bad and being gay is fine.

But... well, let's take a *very* relevant example. Would you say that pedophiles are bad? Is it okay to share a list of pedophiles on the Internet, so that people can protect their children and run them out of town? What about people who are "gold star" pedophiles who are attracted to children, but never [em]ever[/em] act on it. And they struggle with that every day? (As one of our community members shared about a family member recently.) Do they get protected? I mean, everybody knows that gays and pedophiles are different, that gays are okay and pedophiles are bad. "Everybody" "knows". Right.

I was going to ask the pedophile question. Isn't the list of registered sex offenders publicly available? Once you're on the list isn't it impossible to get off?

NormanTheIntern wrote:

I think it also factors into the moral decision here that sites like these are probably trivially easy to game. Create a twitter account, link it to an existing facebook, create a facebook with an existing person's details, hack an existing account - in some ways, taking internet posts and assigning them to a real person is less credible than overhearing something in a bar.

This is a really lucid point. In fact when Jezebel did this exact same thing a week ago, the first thing many of those twitter accounts did was tweet some version of "I was hacked bro" before shutting their twitter feeds down. Now I have a hard time believing them in that case, but you're absolutely correct in pointing out that it could be used as a weapon in the wrong hands.

It wouldn't take much for someone to make a @SethMichigan handle and start spewing bigotry all over the internet, and attempt to link it back to me. And I would have a hell of a time explaining that to anyone. So I absolutely concur that it's a risk.

edit -- looks like Stengah helped assuage my concerns a bit. Thank you Stengah.

It's the act of BROADCAST public shaming I find wrong, not public shaming. And yes, that includes failbook and buzzfeed. I find them distasteful as well.

KingGorilla, I am in no way trying to equate racists with homosexual people as a protected class. I am merely saying the tool of singling out and punishing individuals, even if they are racists, the same way people have historically singled out homosexuals is a terrible tool and not to be used for this.

Edit: And to Vector's point, there are a ton of problems with the sex offenders list, including which crimes are included, the fact you can never get off of it, and other laws based on being on the list. Most people love the principle behind the list, but that principle is never followed all the way through the execution of the public broadcasting.

Hypatian wrote:

But... well, let's take a *very* relevant example. Would you say that pedophiles are bad? Is it okay to share a list of pedophiles on the Internet, so that people can protect their children and run them out of town? What about people who are "gold star" pedophiles who are attracted to children, but never [em]ever[/em] act on it. And they struggle with that every day? (As one of our community members shared about a family member recently.) When people don't understand that such a concept exists, what happens to them? Do they get protected? I mean, everybody knows that gays and pedophiles are different, that gays are okay and pedophiles are bad. "Everybody" "knows". Right.

I truly feel for the poor bastards who are inflicted with pedophilia and successfully struggle against it. At the same time, I feel that the ones who prey on children should be scoured from the earth. It isn't an easy thing. But, if someone is a pedophile, struggles against it and resists...the only people who should know are family and therapists. If the pedophile should "out" himself, that is a Bad Move because of the social implications. If that person also works in an industry that deals with children, they will lose their job. If someone else outs them, and the pedophile is a stand-up person, that is a moral injustice, because a confidence has been betrayed.

Jolly Bill wrote:

It's the act of BROADCAST public shaming I find wrong, not public shaming. And yes, that includes failbook and buzzfeed. I find them distasteful as well.

KingGorilla, I am in no way trying to equate racists with homosexual people as a protected class. I am merely saying the tool of singling out and punishing individuals, even if they are racists, the same way people have historically singled out homosexuals is a terrible tool and not to be used for this.

So you would agree with me that we need to bring back the stocks and the pillory? That is no joke, I really do think we would do well assigning these as punishments over prison terms for all sorts of small or petty crimes.

What I find intriguing here Jolly. Is that you disagree with national or global broadcast as a means of shaming. Yet in this instance we are talking about speech with a national or global reach. Or under a mistaken belief of privacy or confidentiality among family, acquaintances, and friends.

I am curious as to what you think of moral turpitude clauses in schools and in businesses? We had one in our code of conduct in High School, and in college. I had 2 jobs where that was present. And in the legal professions you see them both at the firm level and with the bar association. Should businesses and schools be allowed to have moral turpitude clauses? IE, be able to fire or put you on probation for your actions outside of the school or firm? More and more those clauses are engulfing what you say on facebook, in blogs, etc.

Awesome long post Hypatian, I like the way you explained our perspective (I say "our" because I agree with you :)).

Vector wrote:

I was going to ask the pedophile question. Isn't the list of registered sex offenders publicly available? Once you're on the list isn't it impossible to get off?

Yeah—and that has some social justice implications that are just awful, too. But I wasn't even speaking of that (even though that list is probably the closest analog to these 'shaming' lists which is actually enshrined in law)—what if there were an unofficial list, and people started putting folks who they found out were pedophiles on it, whether or not they're convicted sex offenders? So "gold star" pedophiles are on the list alongside child abusers, and the general public can't even conceive of there being a difference. (Not at all unlike when "homosexual" and "pedophile" are conflated in the public's mind, which they have been more seriously in the past and still are by some people to this day.)

(And yeah, outing by people who shouldn't is a thing, but it is. Remember: 28% of trans people have received verbal abuse while waiting for medical care. So the nurse at the psych place decides that "Oh, that man is a pedophile, everybody should know", and now he's on the list for life. Of course, that's betraying a confidence. But who can blame her, right? He's a pedophile, and they're monsters.)

Anyway, this whole thing is really just to illustrate that our understanding of things changes. I don't think we're likely to go back to thinking that racism is okay. But I do think we're going to continue to discover that things we thought were immoral are actually not such a big deal. And I think that based on, I don't know, centuries of progress in such a direction? I don't know what those categories are—I hadn't really considered the concept of pedophilia as separate from child molestation until recently. I'm sure I'll be surprised by other things that we learn more about in the future.

Not sure I see a fundamental difference between this list, and the lists of doctors who provide abortions that get put up. Both don't include explicit calls for violence, but the implication that retribution is needed is conveyed to the appropriate audience.

Demyx wrote:

When is it okay to post someone's private information with the clear implication that they deserve to be harassed at home and at work?

When they say something racist? How about sexist? What if they are bullying someone else online? What if they insult your religion? What if they express a political belief you don't like? What if they say the wrong thing on 4chan? Because that last one has happened with pretty nasty results.

Racism is completely wrong. But threats and harassment are also wrong.

It's pretty heartless to say that if you've posted this information online (or, I guess, if someone else posted it about you) that you deserve whatever's coming to you. It's not like the internet comes with a user manual or that everyone learned about the internet in school.

Bingo.

KingGorilla wrote:
Jolly Bill wrote:

It's the act of BROADCAST public shaming I find wrong, not public shaming. And yes, that includes failbook and buzzfeed. I find them distasteful as well.

KingGorilla, I am in no way trying to equate racists with homosexual people as a protected class. I am merely saying the tool of singling out and punishing individuals, even if they are racists, the same way people have historically singled out homosexuals is a terrible tool and not to be used for this.

So you would agree with me that we need to bring back the stocks and the pillory? That is no joke, I really do think we would do well assigning these as punishments over prison terms for all sorts of small or petty crimes.

What I find intriguing here Jolly. Is that you disagree with national or global broadcast as a means of shaming. Yet in this instance we are talking about speech with a national or global reach. Or under a mistaken belief of privacy or confidentiality among family, acquaintances, and friends.

I am curious as to what you think of moral turpitude clauses in schools and in businesses? We had one in our code of conduct in High School, and in college. I had 2 jobs where that was present. And in the legal professions you see them both at the firm level and with the bar association. Should businesses and schools be allowed to have moral turpitude clauses? IE, be able to fire or put you on probation for your actions outside of the school or firm? More and more those clauses are engulfing what you say on facebook, in blogs, etc.

I definitely disagree with you on the stocks and pillory. I disagree with you on the public shaming entirely. I think there are a ton of other alternatives, which have the dual effect of informing the public while shaming the offender that do not have shaming the offender as their primary purpose if you wanted to talk about that, though.

I have no problem with moral turpitude clauses, provided they don't reach the level of ubiquity where it is hard to find employment while participating in legal behaviors. That is a legal contract you sign while explicitly aware of its contents.

There is a large difference between speech with a potential national and global reach and what each one of us puts on the internet. Despite that possibility, we are all fully aware that what we post here is very likely to remain within the confines of GWJ, and our behavior is modified appropriately. While I strive to make my actions consistent despite the likely audience, I know there are many who do not and I would not force my way of life upon them.

edit: Doesn't mean I won't call out assholes or racists I come across. They can act how they want and I will respond. I agree that one of my options is to broadcast their behavior, but I maintain it is a bad option except in very limited circumstances.

Maybe we need to take a step back and define harrassment. I mean if we're all in agreement that punching is wrong, maybe we can walk it back from there.

Is sending an e-mail to someone's employer with a link to a particularly vitriolic comment that person made about black people harrassment? What if a man gets outed for writing a particularly unflattering blog post about his manager?

Is the crime in writing horrible things publically, or in pointing out those horrible things to specific people? It's obvious where I think the issue is. I say horrible things all the time, but I do them in my basement, where there are no recording devices, in a quiet voice so my neighbors can't hear.

KingGorilla wrote:

So you would agree with me that we need to bring back the stocks and the pillory? That is no joke, I really do think we would do well assigning these as punishments over prison terms for all sorts of small or petty crimes.

I like the direction that civilization has taken where we are getting less and less mean and vindictive, even when we have a good reason to be so. Even if a bunch of racists get away with dumb tweets, I'd rather live in a world where we try and give each other as much privacy as possible. I live in a country where a black guy just won an election over a white guy because America didn't feel it could trust the white guy. Where gay rights at the ballot box went from losing to winning. Where saying dumb things about rape will prevent you from getting elected. There are a lot of problems in our society, but overall, I see civilization getting better and better and I'm very hesitant to think we should be looking to the past for solutions to our 'problems'.

It can be hard even for people who have nothing to be ashamed about--aspects of their identity that they should actually take pride in, even--to express themselves openly. I don't know if a bunch of jerks on Twitter getting their comeuppance is worth the chilling effect that turning the internet into a 17th-century cybertown square will have.

Seth wrote:

Maybe we need to take a step back and define harrassment. I mean if we're all in agreement that punching is wrong, maybe we can walk it back from there.

Is sending an e-mail to someone's employer with a link to a particularly vitriolic comment that person made about black people harrassment? What if a man gets outed for writing a particularly unflattering blog post about his manager?

Is the crime in writing horrible things publically, or in pointing out those horrible things to specific people? It's obvious where I think the issue is. I say horrible things all the time, but I do them in my basement, where there are no recording devices, in a quiet voice so my neighbors can't hear.

I think the point at which you are recruiting and encouraging other people who do not know the original person to call the person's employer for non-work related statements is when it starts reaching harassment levels.

Jolly, they could just as easily join an anonymous organization as well. So far as I am aware, the Knights of the Klu Klux Klan protect the anonymity of their members very closely. They receive decent funding to carry on their message. They could also join an anonymous web community, they could create anonymous facebook or twitter accounts. But these individuals were not being anonymous, they were making public speech under their own names.

I think that there is a large gap and somewhere in between lies our freedom of speech. Our first amendment does not state that our rights to speech is to be entirely without consequence regardless of how we talk and act. There can be governmental repercussions, even in a public school the threats of violence in those tweets are grounds for expulsion just about anywhere. As far as I know diversity policies, including those prohibiting racist or sexist speech has been upheld in public schools, public work, private schools, private employment (that is nearly ubiquitous).

We also have societal rights. Rights to punish in our own right behaviors that fall in the gaps between morality and legality. If we uphold a church's right to make bigoted speech and actions against homosexuals, or a minority group then so too embrace the rights of others to counter that.

Frankly I do not think when our constitution was written it was conceived that free speech could or should be consequence free. Speech is important enough to take on a powerful empire. Speech is important enough to die for. The Sons of Liberty met in secret. But it was the Continental Congress meeting in public, putting their names on papers to the crown admitting that if their cause proved wrong then they would meet a noose or a firing squad. I think it cheapens speech to say that even moderate societal repercussions should not stand in its way. Speech must be able to stand against challenge. If you state that the earth is 6,000 years old, or that a woman is less intelligent than a man, or if you spout racial slurs and threats of violence against the president, a stronger salvo back us just as legitimate speech. But that return will be louder, it will be stronger. If your speech be strong, it can stand up to the counter or you will win your day in court. If not, then enjoy the sounds of Harley Davidsons as you shout hate speech at funerals.

You can say anything. And other people can shout back louder.

CheezePavilion wrote:
Jonman wrote:
Seth wrote:

edit to clarify -- I consider the moment anything is available on the Internet to already be broadcast. aggregating and pointing those broadcasts out to others is...well no different than buzzfeed or failbook.

This is precisely my take. The act of aggregation is tantamount to pointing at something that already exists. Nothing more.

How about Badabing!?

Ok, so this app made me feel really dirty when I downloaded it. It’s called Badabing! and it basically goes through your friends’ photos on Facebook to pull out the ones of them at the pool or beach. In other words, we’re talking about scantily clad photos here.

My wife (who has some scantily clad pictures of herself available for public viewing) showed me Badabing, and we both shrugged. "available for public viewing" doesn't really have other definitions. I don't believe that aggregators of public data are wrong.

I'm torn on this. I've personally named and shamed the guy who raped me when I was 5 or 6. I don't agree with inciting violence against those with thoughts we find offensive, because as others have mentioned, it would be equally easy for one of those said bigots to make a "lookit these atheist muslin queers" site, complete with personal information. Indeed, the anti-abortion forces have done just that for doctors who perform abortions.

At least they're linking to the offenders' Twitter/FB pages, and most of them are too dumb or obstinate to take them down. I'd still prefer a link to the actual tweet/update, because 30 seconds with Firebug and Snipping Tool, and I could have all of you looking like raving anti-dragon/car-miscegenation crackpots.

I can't get the site to load anymore. How will people feel if the owner was publicly shamed into taking it down?

I called the tumblr owner's employer, it's cool guys, problem solved

TUMBLR is Big Brother!

NormanTheIntern wrote:

I called the tumblr owner's employer, it's cool guys, problem solved :)

Stop harassing him!

FWIW, I do think contacting their school/employer could be harassment, but it'd depend on what was said. Informing them that so and so said X, asking if they were aware of it, if it violates any sort of code of conduct they've signed, telling them you'll be boycotting them if that person owns/represents the company, etc. wouldn't constitute harassment. Calling up and screaming at them or demanding they be somehow punished would.

KingG, you and I agree completely about free speech not being consequence free.

I don't even have any qualms about what this tumblr is doing being legal. As you suggest, these are publicly available comments and they are merely having attention drawn to them.

I disagree that we are made better as a society by using the angry reaction of a largely unquestioning public as a method for change. It is dangerous, potentially violent, and damaging in measure beyond what I consider reasonable.

Jolly Bill wrote:

I disagree that we are made better as a society by using the angry reaction of a largely unquestioning public as a method for change. It is dangerous, potentially violent, and damaging in measure beyond what I consider reasonable.

okay, now this is something I can actually get behind. Internet mob mentality has always kind of reminded me of the Hulk -- devastatingly powerful and mindlessly destructive. In this case, the aim of that destructive force is something I (everyone?) can agree sorta has it coming. But when using a tool like that, you always, always risk unintended, unwanted collateral damage.

When I am looking at OnTheIssues.org entry for Bobby Jindal in the other thread over there, where they aggregate all his utterances of touchy subjects, is it an instance of a harrassment?

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

When I am looking at OnTheIssues.org entry for Bobby Jindal in the other thread over there, where they aggregate all his utterances of touchy subjects, is it an instance of a harrassment?

There's some legal definition of "public figure" as to privacy and such, so I'd say this is a different case.

Then again, if you are a FB user with 1000+ friends and a wide-open profile, you're pretty much public too.

Seth wrote:
Jolly Bill wrote:

I disagree that we are made better as a society by using the angry reaction of a largely unquestioning public as a method for change. It is dangerous, potentially violent, and damaging in measure beyond what I consider reasonable.

okay, now this is something I can actually get behind. Internet mob mentality has always kind of reminded me of the Hulk -- devastatingly powerful and mindlessly destructive. In this case, the aim of that destructive force is something I (everyone?) can agree sorta has it coming. But when using a tool like that, you always, always risk unintended, unwanted collateral damage.

Ha, then maybe that's where the disconnect was. I (and probably Demyx) totally agree with confronting and shaming racists. Just using the general public to do it as opposed to doing it yourself or just specifically drawing it out to the target's social circle is a huge risk.

I really like this Post-Bourgie post about the issue. To me, a big part of the problem of the issue lies in how we've turned "racism" from a eminently human flaw and running thread in human society into this over-the-top Disney villain, this switch you can turn on and off with enough shaming or the like. But it's not. Racism is hard. If it wasn't, we'd have fixed it by now.