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posted by martyb on Friday August 31 2018, @03:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the Garbage-in-garbage-in-garbage-in-and-more-garbage-in dept.

At the The Verge:

Today, The Verge is publishing an interim edition of Sarah Jeong's The Internet of Garbage, a book she first published in 2015 that has since gone out of print. It is a thorough and important look at the intractable problem of online harassment.

After a year on The Verge's staff as a senior writer, Sarah recently joined The New York Times Editorial Board to write about technology issues. The move kicked off a wave of outrage and controversy as a group of trolls selectively took Sarah's old tweets out of context to inaccurately claim that she is a racist. This prompted a further wave of unrelenting racist harassment directed at Sarah, a wave of coverage examining her tweets, and a final wave of coverage about the state of outrage generally. This is all deeply ironic because Sarah laid out exactly how these bad-faith tactics work in The Internet of Garbage.

[...] The Internet of Garbage provides an immediate and accessible look at how online harassment works, how it might be categorized and distinguished, and why the structure of the internet and the policies surrounding it are overwhelmed in fighting it. Sarah has long planned to publish an updated and expanded second edition, but in this particular moment, I am pleased that she's allowed us to publish this interim edition with a new preface.

In that new preface, Sarah stresses that her original text was written from a place of optimism. But the years since have not been kind to internet culture. She writes that the tactics of Gamergate, so clearly on display during the harassment campaign waged against her over the last few weeks, have "overtaken our national political and cultural conversations." That new culture is driven by the shape of the internet and the interactions it fosters. "We are all victims of fraud in the marketplace of ideas," she writes.

I hope everyone with a true and sincere interest in improving our online communities reads The Internet of Garbage and contends with the scope of the problem Sarah lays out in its pages. We are making the entire text of The Internet of Garbage 1.5 available for free as a PDF, ePub, and .mobi ebook file, and for the minimum allowed price of $.99 in the Amazon Kindle store. Below, we have excerpted Chapter 3, "Lessons from Copyright Law."


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  • (Score: 3, Touché) by turgid on Friday August 31 2018, @05:15PM (13 children)

    by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 31 2018, @05:15PM (#728839) Journal

    You got one through and it has triggered the Alt-Wrong/Far-Wrong stupid signallers. What fun! :-) We might as well enjoy the fireworks while we slip into our new fascist nightmare. This time "we" (as in the Anglosphere) are the bad guys.

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 31 2018, @05:32PM (7 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 31 2018, @05:32PM (#728849) Journal

    triggered the Alt-Wrong/Far-Wrong

    You meant Ctrl-Left.

    • (Score: 3, Touché) by turgid on Friday August 31 2018, @06:05PM

      by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 31 2018, @06:05PM (#728871) Journal

      I fear that with Fake President Pull-My-Finger in charge of the Big Red Button we might be heading for BSoD followed by Ctrl-Alt-Del.

    • (Score: 2, Touché) by nitehawk214 on Friday August 31 2018, @07:52PM (3 children)

      by nitehawk214 (1304) on Friday August 31 2018, @07:52PM (#728930)

      triggered the Alt-Wrong/Far-Wrong

      You meant Ctrl-Left.

      I need a political group that uses the Escape key. Maybe Escape-Home. I just want to escape these political discussions, and go home.

      How about the End-Tab? They are mostly interested in stopping diet sodas.

      --
      "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
      • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @10:10PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @10:10PM (#729001)

        Compose, G, L?

        Seriously. If the Rethuglicans are going full alt-right retard and the Dumbocrats are going full ctrl-left retard, then we need to stop voting for them. Vote for Green or Libertarian. Compose, G, L!

        Maybe Meta-Equals and vote Socialist Equality Party!

        Ok, I admit those are corny.

      • (Score: 2) by Aegis on Friday August 31 2018, @11:59PM

        by Aegis (6714) on Friday August 31 2018, @11:59PM (#729031)

        I just want to escape these political discussions, and go home.

        Click the close button, then.

        Some of us actually enjoy these discussions.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by chromas on Saturday September 01 2018, @02:22AM

        by chromas (34) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 01 2018, @02:22AM (#729077) Journal

        Wasn't that the emacs party?

    • (Score: 2, Flamebait) by aristarchus on Saturday September 01 2018, @07:09AM (1 child)

      by aristarchus (2645) on Saturday September 01 2018, @07:09AM (#729134) Journal

      Shut up, Runaway, you're out of your league. (Big Lebowski reference, if you are not literate enough to get it, being a hillbilly and all.)

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday September 01 2018, @07:39AM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 01 2018, @07:39AM (#729142) Journal

        Yeah, well, if you would join the Human Race, you might find a league to play in.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @05:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @05:45PM (#728858)

    Today we have ventured far into the wilds in search of the elusive "internet nazi". These creatures camouflage themselves to blend in with the human population and they rely on certain similarities between themselves and the more fearful, cowardly members of humanity. It looks like one possible human has stuck their metaphorical head out with a meme filled post which borders on the edge of internet nazi talk.

    *off screen* I cover NATURE, this garbage isn't worth a documentary. What? No no, look I agreed to finish so. What? No it isn't a problem, it is just frustrating to have data scientists and probabilities, I preferred when we knew when we'd found what we were looking for. Now Africa, there was some life worth covering. These "internet places" are just filled with garbage. I mean just READ what this person wrote that I'm supposed to cover next!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @05:48PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @05:48PM (#728862)

    This time "we" (as in the left leaning Anglosphere) are the bad guys.

    Well done for creating a situation those on the center left and center right have to fix while you're busy screeching about "nazis".

    • (Score: 2) by turgid on Friday August 31 2018, @06:03PM (2 children)

      by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 31 2018, @06:03PM (#728869) Journal

      Are you putting words into my mouth, oh brave and daring Mr AC?

      • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @08:57PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @08:57PM (#728962)

        Not really no. Just pointing out that many current social problems result from policy courtesy of a left-leaning establishment. Take UK immigration, not in the manifesto of the last Labour government and they did it anyway. The Tories introduce a bedroom tax to free up housing for immigrants (despite a manifesto pledge to drastically cut immigration) and we end up with increasing homelessness and surging crime rates. The British people didn't vote for any of this, they are not "nazis" for opposing it and the opposition spans the traditional political divide.