Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by takyon on Thursday July 06 2017, @03:51AM   Printer-friendly
from the a-hole-news dept.

From CNN's writeup on how they managed to "dox" an individual who posted a GIF of President Trump wrestling a CNN logo:

CNN is not publishing "HanA**holeSolo's" name because he is a private citizen who has issued an extensive statement of apology, showed his remorse by saying he has taken down all his offending posts, and because he said he is not going to repeat this ugly behavior on social media again. In addition, he said his statement could serve as an example to others not to do the same.

CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change.

For those that have not seen the GIF or video, it rose to prominence after this tweet by Trump. This story is being predictably split down partisan lines, but this raises major questions about freedoms in the internet age. This is a company which is part of one of world's largest and most powerful media conglomerates threatening to engage in an action knowing it would likely result in harm to an individual because they found a silly video clip about them distasteful.

To put this into perspective, imagine if an organization such as Fox News or Breitbart chose to track down and "dox" any of the countless individuals posting numerous anti-Trump memes. And they then threatened to publish this information unless said individual apologized and promised to stop posting memes. This may already be illegal under coercion laws in the US, but is time for the rights (or lack thereof) of anonymity and privacy in the digital world to be clearly codified?

takyon: A reporter for BuzzFeed, CNN reporter Andrew Kaczynski's former employer, compared the HanAssholeSolo GIF to the video tweeted by the President and found some differences, suggesting that it was altered by someone else before reaching the President or his aides (including the addition of a sound track). In other words, someone out there actually responsible for catching the President's attention may have gone unidentified, and the Reddit user likely uploaded only the initial version of the infamous GIF. The editing is acknowledged in the second paragraph of CNN's story.

Kaczynski has denied threatening anyone and says that the Reddit user called him and agreed that he had not been threatened by Kaczynski or CNN. He says that the "reserves the right to publish his identity" line from the CNN story has been misinterpreted, and that "It was intended only to mean we made no agreement w/the man about his identity". Kaczynski has also denied the widespread notion that the Reddit user was 15 years old, saying that "HanAssholeSolo is an adult and not 15 which people have spread".


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 06 2017, @05:46AM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 06 2017, @05:46AM (#535583)

    You have to keep in mind that the reason sites like gab.ai are created as a reaction to the more right wing focused censorship of sites like Twitter. You can say some pretty extreme stuff on Twitter as long as it's far left in orientation. Everything from kill all white people to a celebrity holding up a decapitated and bleeding head of the president is considered kosher. But similar views on the right wing side of things are censored. Newtons third seems to often be accurate in social situations as well. For every action there's an equal but opposite reaction.

    In my view I like to see sites take one of two sides:
      - no censorship at all (excepting things that are overtly illegal)
      - 'fair' censorship. if a site bans racist comments then they don't arbitrarily redefine racism to exclude certain races.

    I mostly prefer the first option. It's distasteful, but in reality until we have AI capable of more effective language comprehension without emotion - it's all but impossible for anybody to really achieve fair censorship. It invariably snowballs, and in any case is subject to angle shots. For instance imagine a racist group simply decides to change a racial pejorative to a word like "Twitter." And then share content mocking all the 'twitters.' Are you banning racist language or racist behavior? And then when you get into trying to ban behavior any and all notions of objectivity completely go out the window.

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +1  
       Insightful=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   1  
  • (Score: 2) by n1 on Thursday July 06 2017, @06:15AM (6 children)

    by n1 (993) on Thursday July 06 2017, @06:15AM (#535591) Journal

    I use Twitter a fair amount, mostly for finance and breaking news. Maybe it's just the people I follow, but there's a huge quantity of stuff that is in no way left leaning. Paul Joseph Watson, Lauren Southern, Stefan Molyneux and basically all the other alt-right people, except Milo. But really, it was the best thing to ever happen to his career.

    Shitposting is not the same as promoting and safeguarding free speech. I am a non-partisan, non-US citizen... I have seen attempts to engage with and voice concerns about the direction of this new administration. Those criticisms and concerns are generally met with 'MMMMM LIBERAL TEARS' ... 'POOR SNOWFLAKE #MAGA' and various other meme and gifs. I did a search just before writing the previous comment for gab.ai to check their official twitter before making my statement... The top results were from gab.ai proxies talking about the 'CNN meme war of 2017' and 'TRUMP BROKE ME' pictures of the 'traitors' who 'challenged him' ... This is not not promoting freedom, liberty and individual expression.

    I can understand people's frustration with the censorship, but as they would say themselves, 'violent riots and vandalism of antifa are inexcusable' ... the destruction of other's private property shouldn't be acceptable, it's a good position to have... but they do it while vandalizing public but privately owned forums seeking a reaction, so they can play victim. The two primary factions available to align yourself with -- should someone wish to -- in this political climate are both racing to the bottom of lowest common demonstrator, appeals to emotions and baseline reactionary instincts. The actions of Trump on social media legitimize this as normal discourse. When you are criticized, you call people ugly and stupid... that's a defense now from what I understand. It also shows there's plenty of 'snowflakes' who are not 'liberals'.

    I am currently of the opinion this is mostly political theater, the logical extension of our celebrity culture and manufactured 'reality tv drama'.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 06 2017, @06:37AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 06 2017, @06:37AM (#535597)

      I use Twitter a fair amount, mostly for finance and breaking news.

      And, this, is why you fail. Go to the dark side not should you.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 06 2017, @06:58AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 06 2017, @06:58AM (#535605)

      >violent riots and vandalism of antifa are inexcusable
      >vandalizing public but privately owned forums seeking a reaction

      Really, you're equating arson with shitposting? A 71 year old man understands shitposting, but perhaps it is an art too highbrow for most.
      All those shitposting is limited to containment forums as well, do you understand what it means to close down a maximum security prison by letting everyone out? Do you not want frustrated people to vent their frustration in a safe environment? Unlike real life venues, you can just hop on to the next forum if you think this one is shit, or just join in the shitpost circlejerk.

      You're right that it is theater though, but not in the way you see it.

      • (Score: 2) by n1 on Thursday July 06 2017, @07:14AM

        by n1 (993) on Thursday July 06 2017, @07:14AM (#535607) Journal

        Of course shit-posting and vandalism is not the same, but both are used to disrupt in the promotion of a political agenda without actual substance, while accusing their opponents of the same behavior of threats/actual violence, intimidation and censorship. No one is willing to take the moral high-ground and and actually put the work in to embody the principles they promote endlessly.

        Would you care to elaborate on your view of the theater?

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 06 2017, @07:27AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 06 2017, @07:27AM (#535613)

      They've engaged in all sorts of arbitrary bans. This [theverge.com] is the story of how Martin Shkreli got banned for "harassment." What happened there was he apparently did little more than invite a far left reporter to Trump's inauguration and put in his bio that he had a crush on her. Trump's posts from a while back were being constantly brigaded by individuals posting memes with expletives, sexually driven imagery (Trump + Putin), etc. This was done by a fairly small number of accounts but extremely consistently and somehow almost immediately after Trump would post - each and every time. I can only assume Trump and his social media handlers felt the accounts would be eventually reprimanded and did nothing about it. Nothing ever happened. That is not considered harassment by Twitter. Kathy Griffin showing imagery of her holding Trump's decapitated and bleeding head on Twitter - nope, also not harassment. The only reason Trump's posts aren't to this day filled with spam and this sort of imagery (which is certainly offensive to many) is that he started blocking these accounts which led to claims of constitutional violations.

      I'm neither endorsing Trump/Shkreli/etc nor condemning those who oppose them. I'm just using this as an example of the biased nature of Twitter's censorship. And I would also emphasize that these are just the big names. Hundreds of thousands of people are banned for far more inane slights, but without a big name - they don't get the front page expose treatment of their cases even though they are in many cases certainly far more absurd.

      Free speech needs no "promoting and safeguarding." It is what it is. And it's not pretty. However, I think it's vastly better than the alternative.

    • (Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 06 2017, @03:44PM (1 child)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 06 2017, @03:44PM (#535760) Journal

      "Those criticisms and concerns are generally met with 'MMMMM LIBERAL TEARS' ... 'POOR SNOWFLAKE #MAGA'"

      If you'll recall, in the early days after the election, I trolled our most left-leaning snowflakes, right here. I trolled them pretty hard, BECAUSE of all the fekkin drama. "Oh, I'm moving to Canada!" Well, be gone then. "It's the end of the world as we know it!" Well, dumbshit, you really don't know the world. On and on it went.

      Few lefties want to have a rational discussion about Trump - and CNN epitomizes those leftists.

      No one can have a rational discussion with an irrational person. Main Stream Media is as irrational as it can be, and CNN seems to be MSM's standard bearer.

      If and when America's left decides to have a rational discussion, please let me know. I'd be happy to join in. Of course, it needs to be pointed out that actual rational people are generally embarassed by Trump and his mouth. I think he means well, but he isn't going to accomplish much of anything while suffering from diarhea of the mouth. It's just embarrassing.

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by jmorris on Thursday July 06 2017, @04:13PM

        by jmorris (4844) on Thursday July 06 2017, @04:13PM (#535769)

        Of course, it needs to be pointed out that actual rational people are generally embarassed by Trump and his mouth. I think he means well, but he isn't going to accomplish much of anything while suffering from diarhea of the mouth.

        Don't listen to the words, listen to the song. And the song is one of Victory. He is intentionally triggering the left, goading them into exposing themselves and beclowning themselves. Like this bit with CNN, they got angry and butthurt and did something stupid, something that is going to cost them big time. He cares not how much they hurl hate and abuse at him, he appears to actually feed on it, drawing strength from their hate. He keeps their attention focused almost entirely on him, while his people are out there digging into the swamp and trying to drain it without the glare of the media and left (BIRM) laying down harassing fire.

        So don't be embarrassed, sit quietly and watch. Learn. He told us. He said that we do not know how to win, he is teaching us.