SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the more-than-just-a-40-year-old-TV-series dept.
Three months after she introduced the Internet Swatting Hoax Act in US Congress, Representative Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) found herself at the end of an apparent swatting attempt on Sunday night.
Melrose, Massachusetts police press spokesperson John Guilfoil confirmed to Ars Technica that the department received a phone call from "a computerized voice, not a natural voice" alleging "shots fired" and an "active shooter" at the address of Clark's home. The resulting police report confirmed an incident time of 9:57pm for a "life alert alarm" and "automated call reporting shooter."
This type of police report—using a disguised voice to allege false threats at a residence—is known as "swatting," due to the likelihood that police departments will react by sending SWAT teams to respond to serious-sounding threats. In the case of the Sunday night call, however, Guilfoil confirmed that Melrose police followed "established protocols" to choose a de-escalated response of normal police officers, though the officers in question blocked traffic on both ends of Clark's street with patrol cars. Guilfoil was unable to clarify whether weapons were drawn at the scene, and he did not answer our other questions about the incident, particularly those about the nature of the phone call received, "due to the ongoing nature of the investigation."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 04 2016, @03:12PM
I did not see anything obviously sexist in that op-ed.
It would have been nice to see references for the quite specific stats she gives though.
It is my understanding that women do feel disproportionately threatened in many everyday situations.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 04 2016, @03:18PM
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fishybell on Thursday February 04 2016, @03:29PM
You're right, but it turns out being disproportionately threatened is what's happening. I don't see anyone saying swatting attacks are pointed at women more than men, but rather women are constantly harassed by men, mostly online. Offline, men can still be horrible, but their anonymity is less, so there is an amount of discretion. If you want even the slightest bit of evidence, ask any woman -- any woman -- then ask the same question to men and compare.
Also, if you bother listening to their argument you see that it's not couched as a "let's protect women," but rather "let's stop harassment." Your free speech ends at someone else's safety.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Thursday February 04 2016, @03:50PM
Also, if you bother listening to their argument you see that it's not couched as a "let's protect women," but rather "let's stop harassment."
...of women.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by kurenai.tsubasa on Thursday February 04 2016, @05:17PM
women are constantly harassed by certain assholes
By all means, banhammer those assholes and make generous use of the ignore button.
If you want even the slightest bit of evidence, ask any woman -- any woman
Maybe I just haven't run into this massive conspiracy by all men to harass women because I don't voice chat with strangers, don't have every last detail of my life posted up on MyFace, don't play “Cock of Duty,” don't, say, go on about the details of my fucking sex life over the general chat in Diablo III and talk about wanting a boyfriend (god that person was annoying), I could go on.
Many times, the victim is guilty not for the harassment she receives but of being a complete moron.
Have I been griefed? Yeah. I doubt it was because of my gender.
Either get rid of this double standard, or hell, why not just go back to antebellum Southern gender roles.
Offline, blacks can still be horrible, but their anonymity is less, so there is an amount of discretion. If you want even the slightest bit of evidence, ask any white person -- any white person -- then ask the same question to blacks and compare.
I'm not sure I did that right, but close enough.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday February 04 2016, @07:32PM
Maybe I just haven't run into this massive conspiracy by all men to harass women...
First off, "All Men" is a strawman.
I guess you don't consider all that "gaslighting" and "cycles of hate" to be harassment... [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Thursday February 04 2016, @08:45PM
He certainly is a strawman!
However, I've been him before, multiple times. When it's an individual who is a sexist asshole who is dead set on holding me accountable for things I have not done, then it's an individual who's a sexist asshole, and I will strive to write them off instead of dragging feminists and lesbians through the mud because of a few bad apples. When it's official policy, then we have a problem.
It has everything to do with the cycle of hatred. I consider it harassment when I'm being told to my face that I don't think women should program. I consider it harassment when I'm held accountable for rape and forced to attend a rape culture presentation. There may be rape cultures where women are required to also attend those presentations, but not at Grand Valley State University.
Why should I consider it anything else than sexism when somebody is trying to hold me accountable for something, solely based on my assigned gender at birth?
Maybe you've never had your feet personally or as part of a sexist policy held to the fire because somebody wanted to burn that strawman. Or maybe you're a big man who's ok with it when weak little girls call him a rapist and sexist and hold him accountable for the actions of others, because you'll make sure to keep those girls safe and sound from the rapists and sexists out there.
Or were you honestly trying to assert that discrimination never happens to people assigned the male gender at birth? Do you honestly think I'm just making this shit up?
Whatever. Written off with one proviso: if I ever have to sit through a “harassment culture” presentation because of my legal gender, I'll do what I should have done back in college and start a lawsuit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 05 2016, @04:41AM
> Posting from bizarro world.
You certainly got that right. Man it sucks to see mental illness up close. It makes me want to recoil because you express it so hatefully, it is hard to have compassion for that.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kurenai.tsubasa on Thursday February 04 2016, @05:32PM
Bad form to replying twice, I know. Forgot to throw this in.
Also, if you bother listening to their argument you see that it's not couched as a "let's protect women," but rather "let's stop harassment."
I did listen to the rep's argument. I concluded that they're not concerned about male victims of SWATing. This has the same problem of #blacklivesmatter. Things could have been simple. “Let's stop harassment!” I would be cheering this rep on, but instead she had to make the issue a matter of gender. All she is doing is appealing to a sexist double standard we have where we tell men to man up and grow a pair, but everything is completely different for women.
To go full retard: genital mutilation. Nuff said. Somebody will knee jerk and prove both my point and their profound ignorance.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday February 04 2016, @06:41PM
You DO understand that "black lives matter" does not mean "no other lives do though, right?"
The common counter "all lives matter" is a tautology; true but vacuous. All houses should be hosed down if they are on fire, too, but only an idiot would respond to a fire alarm by dousing a house in the next state because "all houses matter." See how that works?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Thursday February 04 2016, @08:03PM
Crap. I was afraid I was putting my foot in my mouth there.
Sure, in set theory that's good and all. I'm sure that nobody is saying white lives don't matter, just as this rep is not saying male SWATing victims don't matter. However, the construction is exclusionary and divisive. It also demonstrates that Clark is really not concerned about male SWATing victims, but we'll never hear her actually own up to that. Men do not exist in her world outside of incidents of a man doing something bad to a woman. She doesn't mean any harm, but she also doesn't care what men to do each other, and if a woman does something to a man, “he had it coming.”
I would compare her to a racist white person who never says anything overtly racist, but black people don't exist in their world except when a black person does something bad to a white person. These kinds of racists are fine with being oblivious to the larger problems, and if it's a black person attacking a black person, meh, that's just how black people are.
Here's my chain of thought:
1. Is the rep a sexist asshole? Yes
2. Does this affect me? No, because I do not SWAT or harass people on the internet. Well, except MikeeUSA, but it's all in good fun.
I mean, they can pass a bazillion laws about SWATing women and I'll never be affected. Then as we start going into harassment territory and it gets murky. Nobody knows exactly what harassment is. Stating a difference of opinion could be harassment. Over on the other site, somebody became convinced I regularly pressure women into having sex with me after being triggered by “somebody disagrees with me about rape cultures.” I don't even date women! Then the next step after the media has thoroughly established that all men are sexual harassers chasing women off the internet may be to go full “harassment culture.” Let's use those questions again as concerns rape cultures:
1. Is the presenter a sexist asshole? Yes
2. Does this affect me? Yes, because it does not matter whether or not I rape people. At a minimum, it has wasted an hour or two of my time and made it very clear to me that I am in a hostile environment where, if I anger the wrong woman, all it takes is an accusation, and the burden of proof that I did not have sex with her is on me simply because of my assigned gender. Oh well. Pick a better college next time and/or file a gender discrimination lawsuit if there's no way to avoid rape cultures.
They are not saying that male rape victims do not matter. What they are saying is that if you were assigned the male gender at birth, “We want you to understand that we will be openly hostile towards you and that the 2 hours of your time we wasted do not matter.”
Now, college campuses are kind of “special.” That's not news. This is a bit out there into tinfoil hat land, but what I do not want is to try to connect to the internet one day and be required to sit through an hour or two presentation about “harassment culture” before I can change my legal gender and never worry about official sanctioned sexism again.
Finally, to come back around to #blacklivesmatter (because they do!):
1. Is the presenter a racist asshole? No. And people are being murdered by the police because they have the wrong skin color.
2. Does this affect me? Not likely, although Bernie Sanders might be slightly irritated with them. On the other hand, I worry about black people I know.
There's also the problem that I cannot tell you objectively what is and is not harassment. I just know it when I see it. Men also frequently fail to report harassment (and rape/domestic violence/etc). So already our numbers are hopelessly tainted. We're talking about the problem in terms of sexist language. “Men” are doing things to “women!” On top of questionable data, the unspoken assumption is that none of these harassers could possibly be women.
We can state this without using sexist language. Anonymous assholes may or may not display asshole behavior disproportionately towards women. Now it no longer affects me, since I am not an asshole. (Well, that might be debatable, but whatever.)
However, I can objectively tell you when a SWATing occurs. Does nobody have the numbers and demographic breakdowns? We need at least four categories and male and female numbers for each: number of SWAT attempts per year (SWAT team/police dispatched, median amount of property damage during a successful SWAT, median number of injured parties per attempt, median number of fatalities per attempt.
So after analysis I suppose I do go too far by throwing #blacklivesmatter out there. I did not mean to imply #blacklivesmatter is bigoted like Katherine Clark apparently is!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 04 2016, @08:30PM
The correct analogy would be "blue houses matter", not "burning houses matter".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 05 2016, @04:28PM
> You DO understand that "black lives matter" does not mean "no other lives do though, right?"
There is a silent "too" at the end of "black lives matter" that racists can't hear.
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday February 04 2016, @07:45PM
I did listen to the rep's argument. I concluded that they're not concerned about male victims of SWATing.
Clearly you did not. In both of the linked articles gender is never even mentioned.
As such, her bill uses broad-yet-specific language to punish anyone who "uses a telecommunications system, the mails, or any other facility of interstate or foreign commerce to knowingly transmit false or misleading information indicating that conduct has taken, is taking, or will take place that may reasonably be believed to constitute a violation of any State or Federal criminal law, or endanger public health or safety."
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Thursday February 04 2016, @10:00PM
Ok, point taken. I leaped to the conclusion that this was just yet another sexist law/policy. The rep may be sexist. Doesn't affect me as long as the law isn't sexist so we're good.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 04 2016, @09:39PM
And a woman's anonymity is usually greater online as well, so it balances out. What the harassment they speak of is is speech, which should never be forbidden. If it was physical harassment, that would be different, but merely feeling threatened or offended by someone's speech is no grounds to punish them. This is one reason why I support tools that allow for strong anonymity: To combat draconian government restrictions on speech. This applies no matter what the type of speech is.
Your free speech ends at someone else's safety.
That makes no sense. Someone else is not endangered by mere speech, as speech cannot cause physical harm unless it is so loud as to be capable of damaging someone's hearing. You must be referring to a very useless and subjective definition of "safety", which is a type of "safety" that isn't worth protecting.
And nowhere in the first amendment does it even remotely imply that your free speech ends at someone else's "safety". I guess "shall make no law" means nothing at all.
Go fuck yourself, and drown in the futility of trying to hunt down people who said things that are considered threatening or offensive.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday February 04 2016, @09:58PM
That makes no sense. Someone else is not endangered by mere speech, as speech cannot cause physical harm unless it is so loud as to be capable of damaging someone's hearing. You must be referring to a very useless and subjective definition of "safety", which is a type of "safety" that isn't worth protecting.
And nowhere in the first amendment does it even remotely imply that your free speech ends at someone else's "safety". I guess "shall make no law" means nothing at all.
Go fuck yourself, and drown in the futility of trying to hunt down people who said things that are considered threatening or offensive.
I would argue that "doxxing" and "swatting" probably are not protected speech.
Doxxing may be protected speech, unless and until that information is used to commit criminal acts. Assuming it can be proven that the information taken from a specific act of doxxing provided the means for another to commit a criminal act, that's conspiracy.
Swatting, on the other hand, is definitely not protected speech under the First Amendment. I imagine that in many places, if someone is killed as a result of a swatting incident, the 'swatter' could be charged with felony murder [wikipedia.org]. Conceivably, a doxxer could also be charged similarly if conspiracy can be proved.
N.B.: IANAL
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 05 2016, @04:21AM
but rather women are constantly harassed by men, mostly online
You don't know that. The harasser could be pretending to be a man but is actually a fish or a women or perhaps a mermaid. You just don't know, just like you don't know if the person being harassed is a women. I've been both sexes online. It's simple and you'd have no way to validate what I'd say.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Thursday February 04 2016, @03:31PM
The sexism comes from her trying to create laws that only pertain to protecting women, or at least that she's using "women" as reasoning for her law.
Feel is the operative word here. There are certain types of harassment women tend to receive more of online, "sexual" (I'm not sure what constitutes sexual harassment online, sexy looking words? dick pics? cheesy pickup lines?) and stalkers, but overall men are more often targets and receive more serious threats. source [pewinternet.org].
And I hate playing this game because it shouldn't matter who has it worse, it should just be dealt with if that's possible or left alone, but "women are being harassed" is used to justify absurd overreactions to situations people would otherwise not think twice about upon realizing shit's hard for everyone regardless of their gender. Trolls have always existed on the internet, hell even in real life, there's nothing you can do about them though without harming what makes the internet great for everyone.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday February 04 2016, @07:35PM
The sexism comes from her trying to create laws that only pertain to protecting women,
Here is the actual bill. [google.com]
Please show me where it says it only applies to women.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Thursday February 04 2016, @07:58PM
So wait a second.
A minute ago you commented that there was no changes to legislation using a cherry picked quote of her saying she only wants to enforce existing powers [soylentnews.org], but you knew about the bill. Now you're claiming that because there's no language in the bill specifically identifying gender that she's not using "sexism against women" to try and push the bill she's introduced.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Thursday February 04 2016, @11:28PM
Hence why she's a sexist. If she's merely using sexism to sell the bill, whatever. Otherwise nothing to see here. From Ars:
But the federal government's lack of specific anti-swatting rules hasn't helped, which is why Representative Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) proposed the Interstate Swatting Hoax Act on Wednesday.
"While federal law prohibits using the telecommunications system to falsely report a bomb threat hoax or a terrorist attack, falsely reporting other emergency situations is not currently prohibited," Clark wrote in her announcement of the bill. As such, her bill uses broad-yet-specific language to punish anyone who "uses a telecommunications system, the mails, or any other facility of interstate or foreign commerce to knowingly transmit false or misleading information indicating that conduct has taken, is taking, or will take place that may reasonably be believed to constitute a violation of any State or Federal criminal law, or endanger public health or safety."
More action is needed at the state levels since this bill only covers interstate SWATing.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 04 2016, @03:47PM
You must be new here. This site, and the green one, are to rights of video gamers and their makers to create/enjoy whatever scenario they please, as the NRA is to the rights of gun owners. That is, they'll see huge potential threats even when they're not there.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 04 2016, @05:35PM
It's hilarious that people are so butthurt they credit, sorry "blame", "gamers" for protecting speech online. Keep raging away it doesn't change, by your own admission, that you're an angry minority of people.
The majority, "gamers" or not, aren't going to let you wreck free speech so cry a little harder.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by DeathMonkey on Thursday February 04 2016, @07:36PM
Pretty sure placing fake calls to emergency services is not protected speech...
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Thursday February 04 2016, @05:01PM
The thing that's sexist here is that she completely ignores male victims of SWATing. Gender did not need to come into play here. Now we need to figure out who is a woman and who isn't. There be dragons.
Compare and contrast the tone of the article I linked above to this one [fbi.gov]. (As the article suggests, Vanderhoth is correct that SWATing is already illegal.) Now what we're really missing if we're going to make this a matter of gender are some numbers. I want to know how often the target of the SWATing is male or female. Then I want to know how often people who wind up murdered by the police after being SWATed are male or female.
I have a feeling that would paint a different story. I'd expect it'd be like the numbers for attempted suicide and completed suicide. Yeah, women make more suicide attempts, but men die far more often from suicide. I did some quick Googling, but I didn't find anything useful in the first few hits.
It is my understanding that women do feel disproportionately threatened in many everyday situations.
It's not my problem if other women think there are rapists around every corner. I somehow get through my day without being worried about that, and I'm shorter and less capable of defending myself than many women. Male privilege goes out the window, because I've determined at this point that pretty much anybody who doesn't know me will gender me female even if I'm presenting as male. No complaints here!
Besides, we're talking about the internet. I've never encountered this widespread internet harassment that's supposed to affect every last woman online, not once. I have seen a lot of shitlords like Brianna Wu get what's coming to them.
If I walk to certain neighborhoods and start promoting white supremacist views and saying that all blacks are violent criminals who haven't been caught in the act yet, I can expect on a long enough time scale of doing that somebody might get violent with me or threaten me. I'm sure I'd be harassed out of the neighborhood and even followed back to my house where I'd face further harassment. I would have to demand a law to specifically target harassment of whites! That's not racist at all, right?!
Being a woman doesn't preclude being an asshole, and I can tell you I've run into a lot of asshole women online and IRL. I concede a point to TERFs: no, I'll never understand what being coddled and privileged from day one is like. When I was harassed, I was told to stop being a crybaby and grow a pair, you sissy. So, my only advice to these women who are constantly feeling threatened by daily life: stop being a crybaby and grow a pair, you sissy. There. Gender equality!
(Oh, and the rest of us don't need white knights looking out for us, tyvm.)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday February 04 2016, @06:52PM
TERFs are fucking nuts. TERF:feminism::Westboro:Christianity. I have been called "traitor to the lesbian race" (stop and think about that one a moment...) because I dare to support trans rights and think rape is wrong no matter who it happens to.
Ignore them. They are loud but small, and dumber than a snowblower in the Arctic.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kurenai.tsubasa on Thursday February 04 2016, @11:54PM
Mhmm. They also have some choice words for trans men along similar lines. The mistake I made was not listening to you and others who have been telling me this for years. Turns out pretty much everybody in Michigan is insane and has latched on to extremist views of one nature or another. TERF, militia movement, white supremacism (closely related to militia) are the ones that stand out the most. Hop over to the big city, and everything is different.
Being this site, I have to nitpick your analogy. I'd say TERF:feminism::Christian Identity [wikipedia.org]:Christianity. The Westboro church is just a bunch of lawyers being assholes.