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posted by n1 on Thursday October 23 2014, @11:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-a-slippery-slope dept.

Jake Swearingen writes at The Atlantic that the Internet can be a mean, hateful, and frightening place - especially for young women but human behavior and the limits placed on it by both law and society can change. In a Pew Research Center survey of 2,849 Internet users, one out of every four women between 18 years old and 24 years old reports having been stalked or sexually harassed online. "Like banner ads and spam bots, online harassment is still routinely treated as part of the landscape of being online," writes Swearingen adding that "we are in the early days of online harassment being taken as a serious problem, and not simply a quirk of online life." Law professor Danielle Citron draws a parallel between how sexual harassment was treated in the workplace decades ago and our current standard. "Think about in the 1960s and 1970s, what we said to women in the workplace," says Citron. "'This is just flirting.' That a sexually hostile environment was just a perk for men to enjoy, it's just what the environment is like. If you don't like it, leave and get a new job." It took years of activism, court cases, and Title VII protection to change that. "Here we are today, and sexual harassment in the workplace is not normal," said Citron. "Our norms and how we understand it are different now."

According to Swearingen, the likely solution to internet trolls will be a combination of things. The expansion of laws like the one currently on the books in California, which expands what constitutes online harassment, could help put the pressure on harassers. The upcoming Supreme Court case, Elonis v. The United States, looks to test the limits of free speech versus threatening comments on Facebook. "Can a combination of legal action, market pressure, and societal taboo work together to curb harassment?" asks Swearingen. "Too many people do too much online for things to stay the way they are."

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  • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday October 23 2014, @11:21PM

    by hemocyanin (186) on Thursday October 23 2014, @11:21PM (#109402) Journal

    Eat it MFers.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23 2014, @11:47PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23 2014, @11:47PM (#109408)

    Not happening.

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by archfeld on Thursday October 23 2014, @11:59PM

    by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Thursday October 23 2014, @11:59PM (#109411) Journal

    OMG someone called me names online. I should run away and hide. While I agree in principle that stalking; the purposeful seeking out of a specific person to continually harass is bad, people need to get a grip and grow some thicker skin. Just as in real life not everyone is going to like you or be polite but people, especially young people need to realize that life is FAR from fair. If they are raised in a bubble, what are they going to do when they get older and realize that even if they do EVERYTHING right, you will still lose, quite often in fact. This age of zero tolerance (read : zero common sense) has become an epidemic of idiocy and is leading to people who can't function in the real world. There is a reason you don't share every little detail about your life online, or to random strangers you met 5 minutes ago, and just because someone issues a "friend" request doesn't mean that they really are your friend or have anything but their own interests at heart. I don't have kids, though I do have a whole boatload of nieces and nephews and they have been brought up in the real world, taught not to trust some stranger they just met, and to deal with the disappointment that comes with living. Little kids, and big kids for that matter can be cruel, the world can be cruel, but that is a basic fact of life, always has been and despite the over-protective helicopter parents of today will always be so...

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    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Friday October 24 2014, @12:21AM

      by frojack (1554) on Friday October 24 2014, @12:21AM (#109425) Journal

      Exactly.
      Growing a skin is the first requirement for being on the internet, or opening your mouth in a crowd.

      This isn't even about trolling.
      Ethanol-Fueled is a troll, raises trolling to an art-form, actually.

      Stocking an harassment isn't really trolling.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @02:40AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @02:40AM (#109457)

        > Ethanol-Fueled is a troll, raises trolling to an art-form, actually.

        Yeah, he's the C M Coolidge of trolling alright.

    • (Score: 2) by strattitarius on Friday October 24 2014, @03:35PM

      by strattitarius (3191) on Friday October 24 2014, @03:35PM (#109603) Journal
      And ironically, some moron moderator moded you troll. That just goes to show how the term "Troll" has lost all meaning and context. First, trolls don't harass. They bait. They are the rable-rousers. Trolls instigate and then evacuate.

      Second, harassment doesn't mean some random dude on the internet cursed at you and said mean things. Even a death threat doesn't immediately constitute harassment.

      Third, STALKING, in it's true form can't really exist on the internet, or at least not in the ways I think they are claiming it is occurring. Maybe Hugh doesn't get this, but Facebook is essentially a public space. If it had a physical manifestation, it would be the equivalent of a Mall, Library, or Starbucks. Yes it is privately owned, but since they welcome anyone in, it is treated as public space in many ways. Guess what? You can't be stalked if the only time someone "stalks" you is when you go to the mall. Want a private place on the internet? Register a domain, install wordpress, and have at it. Guess what... it's boring after a while.

      And finally, this is exactly why we can't have true freedom. Because we want security, safety, and niceness more. And the powers that be have no issue ensure your security; they just need to be able to do a few more things...
      --
      Slashdot Beta Sucks. Soylent Alpha Rules. News at 11.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @03:45PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @03:45PM (#109610)

        If you think your data is only sent to facebook if you are at a facebook page, you're extremely delusional. Every page that has a facebook like button causes your browser to send information to facebook, telling them that you visited that page. Even if you don't click the button.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23 2014, @11:59PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23 2014, @11:59PM (#109412)

    Anybody who hopes to replace facebook, particularly with a de-centralized model, needs to be thinking about the problem of abusive trolls. With facebook there is at least a modicum of authority to reign them in (although there are plenty of reports of facebook callously dismissing complaints). But a decentralized system will need tools that make it easy and convenient for someone to moderate just their own "wall" but what they see when reading other people's walls. Maybe a reputation system on top of any "friends" mechanism would be a good starting point.

    But whatever comes about needs to bake that stuff in, else the trolls will make it too unfriendly to ever achieve critical mass.

    • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday October 28 2014, @12:28PM

      by urza9814 (3954) on Tuesday October 28 2014, @12:28PM (#110827) Journal

      On the plus side, a social network is an absolutely ideal platform for a web of trust model...someone patch that into Diaspora or GNUSocial or something! :)

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Lagg on Friday October 24 2014, @12:02AM

    by Lagg (105) on Friday October 24 2014, @12:02AM (#109415) Homepage Journal

    As far as I remember when the idiots started using it en masse it was taken very seriously and so was spamming. With a guy's business career being effectively ruined thanks to the latter. People have never thought of it as "okay" or normal. People grew to tolerate it because there were so many idiots that they couldn't do anything else. I'm tired of people saying "Well what do you expect, it's the internet". But I'm even more tired of being lumped in with a group of sociopaths and socially lazy people both by people like the article author and pseudo-feminists. Not that bringing sex into it is necessary of course unless this guy is really so stupid as to suggest that women are inherently more prone to harassment. Seems mighty sexist of him. So do all the "we must protect the women!" programs going on right now. I can easily see these types saying "don't worry hun, we'll take care of it. Go back to the kitchen".

    Point is, if you're going to say that the internet is a hateful and frightening place then I'm going to say The Atlantic is a cess pit of chauvinism and misshapen brains. Actually, I'll say that anyway. There's more proof that the latter blanket statement is true than the former.

    --
    http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @12:14AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @12:14AM (#109421)

      But I'm even more tired of being lumped in with a group of sociopaths and socially lazy people both by people like the article author and pseudo-feminists.

      You are some anonymous guy on the internet. The only one "lumping you in" to whatever group you dislike here is YOU.
      I'm also some anonymous guy on the internet and I am not lumped into any group that I don't want to be a part of.

      unless this guy is really so stupid as to suggest that women are inherently more prone to harassment. Seems mighty sexist of him.

      What a stupid sexist jerk! [dailydot.com]

      Congrats on joining that long tradition of accusing the people who talk about a problem of actually creating that problem.

      • (Score: 2) by Lagg on Friday October 24 2014, @01:53AM

        by Lagg (105) on Friday October 24 2014, @01:53AM (#109443) Homepage Journal

        Actually I like to think I have a pretty good identity. I have a name here, I have my homepage. I have profiles linked to from that homepage. I'm pretty open about myself really. Because the "people are angry because they're anonymous asshats" group is something I also don't like being lumped into. It makes it too easy for people like yourself to blame such annoyance on me just using the internet as an outlet. But nope, I just don't like idiots like aforementioned article author.

        and by the way the only thing the graph shows is that both genders experience harassment, just different kinds of it. Which is why it's redundant at best and kind of insulting at worst to assign severity to a given type of it since one is no less disgusting than the other. Showing again that one can easily call his statement and needless bringing up of gender and "protect the women" programs sexist and reinforcing that he is in fact stupid.

        --
        http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by pnkwarhall on Friday October 24 2014, @02:42AM

          by pnkwarhall (4558) on Friday October 24 2014, @02:42AM (#109458)

          You are some anonymous guy on the internet. The only one "lumping you in" to whatever group you dislike here is YOU.
          I'm also some anonymous guy on the internet and I am not lumped into any group that I don't want to be a part of.

          I thought your response was very reasonable. But to me, there's an obvious irony in that particular comment being posted by an AC in a thread about Internet trolls.

          --
          Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @03:53AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @03:53AM (#109472)

          > Because the "people are angry because they're anonymous asshats" group is something I also don't like being lumped into.

          Again that is a group that only you are lumping yourself into. Unless you consider yourself an anonymous asshat you aren't a member of that group.

          > since one is no less disgusting than the other.

          Citation required. Seriously, that is an easy thing to say if you've never experienced severe harassment.

          • (Score: 1, Troll) by Lagg on Friday October 24 2014, @04:46AM

            by Lagg (105) on Friday October 24 2014, @04:46AM (#109479) Homepage Journal

            Oh boo hoo. The people that use that idiotic argument of "you've never experienced harassment and thus don't know what it is" are usually the same sheltered middle class white dweebs that they accuse others of being. Not going to work here for a variety of reasons. The least of which being that such a statement is outright and demonstratively false not just in itself but also because I have indeed experienced it as anyone that runs or is otherwise involved with at a staff level a sufficiently popular project has. But please do rate on a scale from 1 to 10 which type of harassment is most severe to you. Seriously, I'm always looking for sample cases of the pure insanity that these "women need protection and only I can give it!" types will stoop to. I really do want to see which sex you think is more deserving of sympathy and for what particular issue.

            Also, you called me "some anonymous guy" so what else am I to assume besides that you are indeed putting me in the same group of anonymous asshats that you're apart of? Lumping into those particular groups are also the first line of offense for people that try to shoot down rightful annoyance at this kind of hysteria, right before the above "you haven't experienced X, therefore you don't know it" approach so it's pretty easy to see coming.

            --
            http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @12:42PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @12:42PM (#109538)

              > being that such a statement is outright and demonstratively false not just in itself

              Lol. I'm right because I'm right. Such impressive logic.

              > I have indeed experienced it as anyone that runs or is otherwise involved with at a staff level a sufficiently popular project has.

              Oh boo hoo. That's totally the same thing.

              > Also, you called me "some anonymous guy" so what else am I to assume besides that you are indeed putting me in the same group of anonymous asshats that you're apart of?

              This persecution complex of yours is really interesting to observe. I write "anonymous guy" but you read "anonymous asshat." I couldn't come up with a better example of how the decision to "lump you in" is 100% yours and no one else's. Now if I could figure out why you are so insistent on making that decision, I'm wondering if it is a guilty conscience.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @12:14AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @12:14AM (#109420)

    It's like the population charts of the foxes and the deer.

    • (Score: 2) by e_armadillo on Friday October 24 2014, @12:19AM

      by e_armadillo (3695) on Friday October 24 2014, @12:19AM (#109424)

      That would be so cool to watch, the trolls stampeding out to sea swimming for the other shore to only tire out an drown . . .

      --
      "How are we gonna get out of here?" ... "We'll dig our way out!" ... "No, no, dig UP stupid!"
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by JNCF on Friday October 24 2014, @12:15AM

    by JNCF (4317) on Friday October 24 2014, @12:15AM (#109423) Journal

    Can we please stop running to the government every time we have a problem with our society? Here's some of the language from the California books:

    a. Every person who, with intent to annoy, telephones or makes contact by means of an electronic communication device with another and addresses to or about the other person any obscene language or addresses to the other person any threat to inflict injury to the person or property of the person addressed or any member of his or her family, is guilty of a misdemeanor. Nothing in this subdivision shall apply to telephone calls or electronic contacts made in good faith.
    b. Every person who makes repeated telephone calls or makes repeated contact by means of an electronic communication device with intent to annoy another person at his or her residence, is, whether or not conversation ensues from making the telephone call or electronic contact, guilty of a misdemeanor. Nothing in this subdivision shall apply to telephone calls or electronic contacts made in good faith.

    So repeat prank phonecalls and prank phonecalls involving "obscene language" (however that's defined) are now illegal in California? This seems like an issue that should be solved with caller ID, not legislation. Internet harassment can be solved the same way, block the people from interacting with your accounts. If the service you use doesn't allow you to block people from interacting with you and you find this too be a serious issue, either find a new service or ask the one you're using to change their policies (option A is probably the more realistic route). Don't ask the government to start charging trolls with misdemeanors. This is not a good road to march down. Information should be governed by math, not jackboots. If the goverrnment starts charging trolls with word-crimes all of my outgoing communications will be over TOR. I'll also have to stop using this account, since anyone who gives a damn can tie it to my real identity. I actually like the idea of accountability for online actions, but not accountability to the government.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @12:34AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @12:34AM (#109428)

      > I actually like the idea of accountability for online actions, but not accountability to the government.

      Then you should articulate why that is an important distinction. Because from where I'm sitting, any organization powerful enough to enforce effective accountability will have the just as much opportunity to abuse that power. At least with the government there are mechanisms to hold them to account, imperfect as they may be.

      • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Friday October 24 2014, @01:04AM

        by JNCF (4317) on Friday October 24 2014, @01:04AM (#109431) Journal

        I like the idea of accountability to individuals, not powerful organizations. When somebody threatens me with violence over the internet, I tend to respond by posting my home-address. I'm not saying that to sound like an internet-tough-guy, I just can't think of a better example of what I'm talking about. Talk shit, get hit. Maybe this is an unreasonable way to expect the modern world to act, but it's how I'd like it to act.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @01:25AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @01:25AM (#109435)

          > I like the idea of accountability to individuals, not powerful organizations.

          You are ignoring the fact that the internet is a force multiplier. The harassed and the harasser don't have equal access to tools and energy. The harasser has nothing better to do than make trouble, but the victim has a life to live.

          > When somebody threatens me with violence over the internet, I tend to respond by posting my home-address.

          You'll stop doing that the day you get doxed and swatted. [wikipedia.org]

          • (Score: 1) by JNCF on Friday October 24 2014, @02:55AM

            by JNCF (4317) on Friday October 24 2014, @02:55AM (#109461) Journal

            Yup, none of us are as cruel as all of us are. I can't disagree with that, though I'm not convinced it's a big enough concern to warrant a federal government and all that it brings. Whether I like it or not the federales already police a lot of the more serious actions that these kids engage in. Do you think we need new legislation targetting any repeat poster of contact meant to annoy? That sounds pretty extreme in the other direction.

            You may have a point about the swatting thing, perhaps I need to reconsider this as a response. Personal challenges and calls to authority are two different beasts entirely.

            • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @03:49AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @03:49AM (#109471)

              > Yup, none of us are as cruel as all of us are.

              That's not what I am saying. It isn't about ganging up on someone. It is about how one person can use the net to do accomplish a lot. In this case accomplish a lot of harassment. For example creating hundreds of sockpuppet accounts so that the victim must either block all new contact from everybody or accept harassment on a regular basis. Then there are things like impersonating the victim in order to ruin their reputation.

              > Do you think we need new legislation targetting any repeat poster of contact meant to annoy?

              That's sufficiently vague to be impossible to argue about. There is a line, the argument about is where that line needs to be drawn.

              • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Friday October 24 2014, @04:38AM

                by JNCF (4317) on Friday October 24 2014, @04:38AM (#109477) Journal

                It isn't about ganging up on someone. It is about how one person can use the net to do accomplish a lot. In this case accomplish a lot of harassment. For example creating hundreds of sockpuppet accounts so that the victim must either block all new contact from everybody or accept harassment on a regular basis.

                I actually have a solution to this problem, though you may not like it. Sometimes I forget my positions on things, otherwise I probably would have brought this up sooner. I'm kind of stealing it from Thieves' Emporium [amazon.com] (not recommended), though I have no idea if it originated in that book. Basically we split the internet up into a bunch of smaller networks based on trust, so in order to be in a network you have to be invited. The networks are run however they're run, some by community consensus and others in an authoritarian manner. The important thing is that they all have their own message boards (and other services), but whoever runs a network can allow or block other networks from accessing their boards. This means that if a user is being unruly they'll get reported to whoever runs their network, and if the entity running the network lets their users be fucktards then their network will get banned by the other networks. The author of Thieves' Emporium envisions a system where everyone has an individual username, but I think Anonymous Cowards would be fine as long as you could tell what network they're coming from so that the owner of the network would be ultimately responsible for policing them. It's a distributed system based on reciprocity and trust, not a monopoly on violence. I understand the risk of Balkanization, but I think most people would be able to get access to the different divisions if it went that way.

                That's sufficiently vague to be impossible to argue about. There is a line, the argument about is where that line needs to be drawn.

                I wasn't trying to be vague, I was trying to ask your opinion of the California legislation I originally quoted from TFA. But yes, it is really vague. We can certainly agree on that.

                • (Score: 1) by JNCF on Friday October 24 2014, @04:45AM

                  by JNCF (4317) on Friday October 24 2014, @04:45AM (#109478) Journal

                  To be clear, I'm not necessarily talking about physical networks. I'm talking about a system built on top of the existing infrastructure, or better yet on top of a CJDNS/OpenLibernet style meshnet. A network of people.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @12:45PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @12:45PM (#109540)

                  > I actually have a solution to this problem,

                  Great theory. If you don't want the government to get involved then it falls on you to make your theory reality so that people have an alternative to government regulation.

                  • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Friday October 24 2014, @04:27PM

                    by JNCF (4317) on Friday October 24 2014, @04:27PM (#109635) Journal

                    I can't disagree, but I don't see turning to the government's monopoly on violence is a valid response even in the absense of such a system.

                    Thanks for a reasonable and articulate conversation with me, Anonymous Coward.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @01:53AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @01:53AM (#109444)

          I tend to respond by posting my home-address.

          That and your other ideas are provably stupid.

          Accountability to individuals who are your friends and relatives is one thing. But accountability to others who you can't elect or choose?

          • (Score: 1) by JNCF on Friday October 24 2014, @03:02AM

            by JNCF (4317) on Friday October 24 2014, @03:02AM (#109463) Journal

            That and your other ideas are provably stupid.

            He called me stupid; somebody call the G-men!

            Accountability to individuals who are your friends and relatives is one thing. But accountability to others who you can't elect or choose?

            ...which is why I think we should carve the government up into a bunch of independant villages. Then the only ones capable of any serious threat against you are the folks you see everyday. I'm glad we're on the same page :)

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @03:34AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @03:34AM (#109469)

          > When somebody threatens me with violence over the internet

          [very silly accent]I intend to fart in your general direction![/very silly accent]

          • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Friday October 24 2014, @03:45AM

            by JNCF (4317) on Friday October 24 2014, @03:45AM (#109470) Journal

            [very silly accent]I intend to fart in your general direction![/very silly accent]

            He intends to fart in my general direction! G-men come quickly, arrest this man for word crimes at once!

          • (Score: 2) by sudo rm -rf on Friday October 24 2014, @10:06AM

            by sudo rm -rf (2357) on Friday October 24 2014, @10:06AM (#109514) Journal

            You forgot "Your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries"

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @03:54PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @03:54PM (#109618)

            Ah, I see, you want to give him cancer protection! [soylentnews.org]

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @11:49AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @11:49AM (#109528)

          I like the idea of accountability to individuals, not powerful organizations. When somebody threatens me with violence over the internet, I tend to respond by posting my home-address.

          Most of us are not Batman. Or Charles Bronson. Most of us know that vigilantes - individuals who enforce accountability - are likely to look like hot-headed assholes after the fact. Members of the KKK often considered themselves to be 'doing the right thing' or holding individuals to account for their disruptive behavior when burning crosses or lynching.

          Giving every individual the authority to impose accountability means the trolls win. The trolls start with a fundamental lack of respect for other people's rights, and they will certainly impose stricter accountability to whatever authority they believe to represent.

          I'm not saying that to sound like an internet-tough-guy, I just can't think of a better example of what I'm talking about. Talk shit, get hit.

          Excellent example: very 15th century. Other famous phrasings include "Might makes right," "an eye for an eye," and "Pay back into the laps of our neighbors seven times the contempt they have hurled at you." It's an excellent philosophy well enshrined in the Old Testament and Koran. Supposedly, Christian philosophy favors forgiveness and tolerance, but evidence for that is somewhat scarce (hence Tarantino's "get Medieval on your ass").

          • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Friday October 24 2014, @03:43PM

            by JNCF (4317) on Friday October 24 2014, @03:43PM (#109609) Journal

            Most of us are not Batman. Or Charles Bronson.

            Been reading much Klosterman lately? I like his shit, even if he does have a tendency to delve into rock-n-roll analogies too often. We all have our schtick, I guess.

            But yeah, that is a problem. We should probably try harder to be Batman.

            I think "talk shit get hit" is much more philosophically in line with "an eye for an eye" than it is with "might makes right." The latter is arguing for the use of might to achieve your ends whatever they may be, whereas the other two phrases are advocating violence as a natural punishment for being a dick. You can argue that this is unreasonable or undesirable, but it's certainly different.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @07:22PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @07:22PM (#109692)

              I think "talk shit get hit" is much more philosophically in line with "an eye for an eye" than it is with "might makes right."

              I think that depends entirely on whether the evaluator agrees with the hitter. The problem with empowering every individual to use corporal/capital punishment to right wrongs is that humans disagree on right and wrong. If you beat down someone whom you think is being a dick, I may think he was expressing a perfectly valid position and that you're the one being a dick. Government is (supposed to be) a mechanism for reconciling the values of FLDS with Jainists, Aryan Nation, and Nation of Islam so we can all share limited space and resources. No offense, but I don't trust you, or any other random internet person, enough to want you escalating a verbal disagreement to violence without at least some appeal to a third party.

              • (Score: 1) by JNCF on Saturday October 25 2014, @12:25AM

                by JNCF (4317) on Saturday October 25 2014, @12:25AM (#109772) Journal

                No offense taken. Do you trust the government? Your parenthetical "supposed to be" suggests to me that you don't.

                I think that attempting to make a government balance the values of different people is a horrible idea to begin with. When you have rich white people writing the laws that govern poor brown people you're almost gauranteed to have cultural disagreements. Even if the laws were somehow magically in line with majority opinion this would still be a problem. If a subculture is being policed in accordance with laws they disagree with they simply aren't going to respect the law (nor should they). I think we should let communities govern themselves by their own standards instead of using the government's monopoly on violence to force them into living certain ways. I think this would lead to a decrease in overall violence, though I could be wrong.

                I'm okay with the idea of being subject to rules that are written by a government, but not a federal government. Most municipal governments are too large for my tastes. Were I writing the rules for a group, some amount of violence would be allowed. I think violence is used by many social animals, including humans, to establish a pecking order. I'm okay with transhumanism theoretically, but while we're working with these meat-brains I think it's okay to recognise that we're governed by weird impulses from a bygone era and I think that repressing those impulses entirely can have horrible consequences. I see it as a trade-off, a balance. I think violence can be handled in a structured way, by challenge and acceptance.

                That being said, this talk of vigilanteism and escalation of violence makes me think that you might have misunderstood my reasoning behind posting my home address (I can't blame you if you did, upon rereading I could take it differently than intended). I don't make threats of violence. I know that might be hard to believe in light of the preceding paragraph, but it's true. The idea of posting my address is that I'm taking a certain level of responsibility for my words. If my words make somebody angry enough that they threaten to kick my ass, I'll let them know where they can find it. If I talk shit, I'm okay with them trying to hit me (even if I don't think my language was unreasonable). If I were making harsher threats back or asking for their address I would consider it escalation, but posting your own addess is simply an acceptance of responsibility. At least that's how I see it. Another AC above has pointed out that such a policy could make me a target for swattings as well, and he has me reconsidering this line of response. I doubt I'll use it in the future. Violence has a very long history of being used to solve disputes, but the power of the state as we know it today (or some semblance of it) only goes back about 5,000 years. Fuck. That. Shit. Keep your jackboots off my door, internet. Kids these days don't play fair!

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @03:52PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @03:52PM (#109615)

          When somebody threatens me with violence over the internet, I tend to respond by posting my home-address.

          And if someone tells you he wants to rob your house, you give them the key?

          • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Friday October 24 2014, @04:22PM

            by JNCF (4317) on Friday October 24 2014, @04:22PM (#109628) Journal

            Maybe I should have made my motive clearer. If my words make you angry enough that you want to physically attack me for them then I'll let you know where to find me.* That way, I am accountable for my words on some level. I don't think a robbery analogy applies, unless it has a convoluted and unrealistic hypothetical situation leading up to it.

            *I'm actually reconsidering this policy due to the arguements of another AC above, but anyone who cares can still tie this account to my actual identity so it doesn't really matter (on this site at least).

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @04:21PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @04:21PM (#109627)

      Is it considered "good faith" to tell someone about their impending demise in a multiplayer FPS?

      Is it considered "good faith" to question the skills of said player in said game? What if I'm polite about it? If they actually are a lousy player, is it allowable?

      Is it considered "good faith" to call someone a "faggot" after sniping them in the same game?

      Is non-verbal communication, such as t-bagging their corpse allowed?

      Should I just stop connecting to CS servers in California?

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by spamdog on Friday October 24 2014, @12:22AM

    by spamdog (4335) on Friday October 24 2014, @12:22AM (#109426)

    Oh dear, this moral panic seems to be reaching a crescendo. Thinking of the women is the new thinking of the children.

    Yes, we should all give up our liberty online because of a few trolls. That'll turn out great.

    No, the real solution is for shit companies like Facebook and Twitter to develop better systems and pay for more staff to handle this kind of behavior. And people should be educated about how to protect yourself online so that people can't easily find your address or whatever.

    I also wish we'd get a little bit of perspective about "death threats" online. Every reactionary twit seems to be unaware that 14-year-old script kiddies can get Tails and Tor and make death threats on Twitter without getting caught (well probably). I understand how that's insidious because it means real death threats are more likely to escape notice online - but nonetheless, the whole "death threats" thing is being trumpeted in the media right now with minimum context and for maximum shock.

    Personally I'm a little bit sore that a long-time favourite website I frequent is being consumed with this "gamergate" and related feminist nonsense, and right now everyone (led by the site staff) are busy talking as much smack about "gamers" and "dudebros" as possible, in a continuation of the vigilante behavior. There's a lot of ideological enforcement and self-flagellation over people's liberal guilt going on there right now, with a prominent moderator pushing inflammatory articles on the topic and leading the mob. There is very little self-awareness of the irony of leading a vigilante mob to attack gamers as a whole, in response to vigilante attacks by a few gamers.

    I also can't help but notice just how little interest people have in the psychological reasons for some men behaving in this way towards women online. The discussion immediately veers off towards the judgemental: "well, they're just fucking losers". And that dismissal is a large part of it - these people are called losers by others, for being a gamer or fat or ugly or socially stunted - which is why they got into gaming in the first place. Do you really think these people are going to lay down and die; accepting that their social betters have labeled them as lesser beings? And yet, it is all these apparently "progressive" voices on the net slamming down on gamers as a group with such hate and vitriol. You would find they wouldn't be so angry if there weren't so many Gawker articles and Twitter demagogues trying to poke them in the eye all the time. A little bit of empathy (and self-awareness) from the social justice crowd and a bit of responsibility from media outlets would go a long way to defusing this. But alas, that would require displaying some respect, and too many people are getting too much of an ego boost from attacking an unpopular group.

    • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @12:30AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @12:30AM (#109427)

      You are so right. Us SJWs really ought to be taking into account the feelings of people who don't give a damn about the feelings of others. We don't want to make them feel bad. I never really understood what a hypocrite I was for thinking that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Thank you so much!

      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @11:28AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @11:28AM (#109526)

        Shove it up your ugly ass.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Friday October 24 2014, @12:35AM

      by frojack (1554) on Friday October 24 2014, @12:35AM (#109429) Journal

      I also can't help but notice just how little interest people have in the psychological reasons for some men behaving in this way towards women online. The discussion immediately veers off towards the judgemental: "well, they're just fucking losers".

      Was on line playing some first person shooter game the other day, just killing bots waiting for some opponents that were planning to meet there. Someone joins and immediately starts trash talking and boasting and calling names and making totally asinine threats. No real skill, just all mouth/keyboard. I used the jerk for target practice, for a while till they went elsewhere.

      Long story short, found out a few days later it was really a 20 something girls. I had wandered onto another server where I promptly got my ass shot off by a whole bunch of them. It was a group of college gamer gals.

      Don't assume everyone behaving badly on line are men.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @12:49AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @12:49AM (#109430)

        Ugh. This seems to be a standard conservative response to a variety of social ills - my personal anecdote disproves the existence of any systemic problems.

        Obama is president, therefore racial inequality does not exist.
        A girl trash-talked me online, therefore men get an equal share of harassment online.
        There was a double-murder in my town, so crime-rates are going up and we need more cops.
        My cousin got addicted to cocaine, so we need stronger drug laws!
        etc

        • (Score: 2) by frojack on Friday October 24 2014, @01:47AM

          by frojack (1554) on Friday October 24 2014, @01:47AM (#109441) Journal

          Fool AC comes in and posts silly non sequesters so therefore nothing any one else says counts.

          You're your own worst enemy.

          --
          No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @04:00AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @04:00AM (#109473)

            And that my friend is a tremendous display of self-unawareness.
            Congrats on cleaving to the stereotype.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @07:00PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @07:00PM (#109684)

              A man says something wrong, therefore every man is wrong.

              See how easy this works?

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @07:08PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @07:08PM (#109689)

                Clear as mud. But I'm sure inside your head it is 100% relevant and insightful.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @02:22AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @02:22AM (#109449)

          So what you're saying is that it's all these maladjusted males that are causing the problem, and one female doesn't disprove it?

          Are you one of these fools who believes that male-on-female violence is dominant, and female-on-male violence is justified?

          Everyone knows one guy who was hit by a woman, but that doesn't really count because it's just anecdotal, male-on-female violence is clearly much more common. Except that the real mix is closer to 50/50, with women using weapons 86% (or thereabouts) of the time, most often against a male who's acting in a passive manner. Wiki has the appropriate supporting information, but my point isn't about intimate partner violence, it's about prejudice.

          You are prejudiced against men.

          Your prejudice is your assumption that males are the dominant "troll" force on the internet. It's interesting to note that your response to a suggestion otherwise is to troll in response.

          Deal with your prejudice: women are humans, too. Women can be fat or thin, ugly or pretty, mean or nice, violent or passive. Women can make mistakes, drive cars, get degrees. They can leave the house and get jobs.

          They can also be internet trolls.

          • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday October 24 2014, @06:47AM

            by hemocyanin (186) on Friday October 24 2014, @06:47AM (#109489) Journal

            I had a girlfriend once who choked me, non-consensualy out of anger, to the point I started to get dizzy. At first I was just like "OK, this isn't amusing" and not struggling because you can't hit a woman but when I started to pass out, it was kind of too late to struggle and I was basically lucky she decided to stop on her own. I've been punched in the face exactly one single time in my 46 years, and I saw stars just like you hear in the cliche. Same chick, same thing -- she was violent and I just took it. This was over well 20 years and still I feel embarrassed by it rather than what I should have felt -- I'm not even sure what I should have felt. I do know that I wouldn't have been able to get any help.

            http://www.buzzfeed.com/candacelowry/watch-how-people-react-when-they-see-a-woman-abuse-a-man-in [buzzfeed.com]

            The video here is quite telling -- actors play out a scene in a park. In version 1, the man is abusing the woman and the intervention is swift, serious, and by many. In version 2, the woman is abusing the man, nobody does anything but many laugh.

            • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday October 24 2014, @06:50AM

              by hemocyanin (186) on Friday October 24 2014, @06:50AM (#109490) Journal

              Lame -- serious typo"

              the line:

              "This was over well 20 years "

              should be

              "This was well over 20 years AGO"

              Yes, we broke up, about 19 years ago.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @01:15PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @01:15PM (#109550)

              It is well known that men and women instigate domestic violence at roughly the same rates. [scientificamerican.com] However that fact is only half of the picture - it does not account for severity. Men tend to punch and choke while women tend to slap and scratch, thus women experience injury from domestic abuse at 2x the rate of men. That is what explains the reactions in the video you cited. In neither case is the victim injured, but the potential for escalation to injury is much greater when the man is the aggressor. The people who intervene are doing so not because of what has happened but what is likely to happen if it continues unchecked.

              • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday October 24 2014, @02:50PM

                by hemocyanin (186) on Friday October 24 2014, @02:50PM (#109586) Journal

                How very dismissive of you. I guess because men usually choke and punch, it doesn't matter when women do it at all. Secondly, if you look at the video, she grabs the guy by the hair and literally throws him against a steel fence. That's merely amusing and OK because statistically, men punch and choke. One of the commentators on that page said this:

                Scenario 1 - Oh my god, what a scumbag. He dominates his girlfriend.

                Scenario 2 - Haha! What a pussy! He doesn't dominate his girlfriend!

                It's not even a double standard, its a contradiction.

                That's your logic.

        • (Score: 1) by jbruchon on Friday October 24 2014, @11:26AM

          by jbruchon (4473) on Friday October 24 2014, @11:26AM (#109524) Homepage

          The logic you're attempting to use works against your agenda as well. A feminist's personal anecdote isn't sufficient evidence to prove there is a systemic problem. A bunch of feminists shrieking about theoretical systemic problems and working backwards from that conclusion to find supporting evidence does not provide evidence of a systemic problem.

          --
          I'm just here to listen to the latest song about butts.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @12:49PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @12:49PM (#109542)

            > The logic you're attempting to use works against your agenda as well.

            That would be true if there weren't plenty of evidence for the problems being systemic. Already cited elsewhere in this story's comments.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @12:05PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @12:05PM (#109533)

      I also can't help but notice just how little interest people have in the psychological reasons for some men behaving in this way towards women online.

      Because most of us find the reason mundane and uninteresting. Bullies will always target individuals with perceived weakness. Sexual dimorphism means women, as a group, are physically weaker than men. 100,000 years of physical weakness has made women, as a group, socially submissive to men. Perceived weakness. Being a woman online is like being the skinny kid who can't run in the locker room.

    • (Score: 2) by metamonkey on Friday October 24 2014, @03:57PM

      by metamonkey (3174) on Friday October 24 2014, @03:57PM (#109619)

      That is the danger of online SJWs*. When they take some minor event and blow it up to extreme proportions, they drown out people with real problems. It's like crying wolf.

      I've read a lot about the gamergate (god I hate typing that. Such a stupid name) situation, in which one asshole makes an almost certainly toothless threat against a woman and then countless blogs breathlessly tell us how this means that men who play video games are, as a group, awful deranged misogynists. It's bullshit and it's much ado about nothing.

      Well a few weeks back I was browsing reddit and there was an AMA (Ask Me Anything) from a woman, and the title was something like "I'm a victim of harassment and stalking that started online, AMA." And my first instinct was to roll my eyes. Here we go, another woman desperate for attention blowing something out of proportion. I clicked on the thread and, um, no. This lady was hounded by some woman for 3 years, constant phone calls, death threats, mailing packages filled with nasty things to her, driving by her house, hounding her family. All kinds of crazy shit. After much difficulty getting the police to do anything they finally responded and the perpetrator is convicted and awaiting sentencing. That's serious shit.

      But thanks to Anita and crew, when they crow so loudly about nothing, it makes legitimate crimes less likely to be taken seriously. That's probably one of the reasons the police were slow to respond to the woman who had a real problem. Crying wolf.

      *I'm not talking about those who actually fight for social justice in court rooms, on the streets, in prisons, and relief workers. I'm talking about the far more vocal group of professional victims, bloggers and tweeters who think starving kids in Africa can eat FaceBook likes and are more interested in being seen to help rather than actually help.

      --
      Okay 3, 2, 1, let's jam.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @06:39PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @06:39PM (#109676)

        > That's probably one of the reasons the police were slow to respond to the woman who had a real problem.

        Right because in all the other cases of online harassment before "Anita and crew" the cops were right on it.

        Except that the woman you are referring to has been stalked for 6 years, [reddit.com] long before "Anita and crew" were anybody's focus.

        It is weird how you warped her story to suit your preconceived bias. I'm inclined to take that as sufficient evidence that your entire position on the topic is based on faulty logic, and that's the most charitable interpretation.

  • (Score: 2) by mendax on Friday October 24 2014, @01:31AM

    by mendax (2840) on Friday October 24 2014, @01:31AM (#109436)

    *troll* *troll* *troll* The editors once again rejected one of my postings. *troll* *troll* *troll*

    (Of course, it was because it was a dupe. I was negligent in not spotting an earlier submission.)

    *troll* *troll* *troll* Of course, it would have been nice to get a e-mail before I figured it out myself. *troll* *troll* *troll*

    --
    It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by JeanCroix on Friday October 24 2014, @01:34AM

    by JeanCroix (573) on Friday October 24 2014, @01:34AM (#109438)
    Death of Eternal September predicted. News at 11.
  • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday October 24 2014, @06:31AM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Friday October 24 2014, @06:31AM (#109485) Journal

    Are Troll posts on this story on-topic?

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @11:14AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @11:14AM (#109520)

      Nope because the story is talking about harrassment instead of trolling.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by jasassin on Friday October 24 2014, @08:58AM

    by jasassin (3566) <jasassin@gmail.com> on Friday October 24 2014, @08:58AM (#109509) Homepage Journal

    Inciting mean thoughts. My innocence... my dear sweet innocence. Whateva shall I do?

    --
    jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
  • (Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Friday October 24 2014, @10:20AM

    by PizzaRollPlinkett (4512) on Friday October 24 2014, @10:20AM (#109517)

    I enjoyed my trolling while it lasted. I'm not going down without a fight. This is going to get worse before it gets better.

    --
    (E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 24 2014, @01:57PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday October 24 2014, @01:57PM (#109570) Journal

    I confess I have a guilty pleasure--I hunt trolls. I go hunting for them on a certain political site whose main readers are really, really angry all the time and also tend to speak before they think, if they ever think at all; I look for the articles that are sure to bring them out of the woodwork, and which have comment sections, and go to town with the skills I acquired through years of Lincoln-Douglas debate. It is not a productive use of my time, but it is great fun. Once in a great while (well, twice actually) the trolls drop their talking points and engage in reasoned argument and a good and elevating time is had by all.

    It would be a pity if these anti-troll people PC my pastime out of existence.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @04:58PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @04:58PM (#109655)

      So a very lonely man goes after low hanging fruit in order to give himself a sense of worth and intellectual superiority? Sounds like a great hobby for a bore.

  • (Score: 1) by lentilla on Saturday October 25 2014, @01:12AM

    by lentilla (1770) on Saturday October 25 2014, @01:12AM (#109783)

    The rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

            -- Internet Troll

    (with apologies to Mark Twain)