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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) by Vanderhoth on Friday February 05 2016, @01:57PM
Ok, I'm going to explain myself, I honestly think you're just misunderstanding my position.
I am not anti-feminist, I don't have a problem with feminism as it's stated "for equality". Under that premise I consider myself a feminist. What I do have a problem with are people who pretend "for equality" means demonizing men and giving special treatment to women or using "women are weak" as an excuse to push their personal agendas. I have just as much of a problem with shit head MRA and PUA douche bags. I'm firmly in the middle of all of this "culture war" shit that's going on and I don't apprecate being pushed one way or the other which is becoming increasingly difficult as any opinion either gets you dismissed as a sexists/racists/misogynists/homphobe/trasphobe/all of the above or an SJW. Both sides have made it impossible to have an opinion that just moderately in the middle. Nothing is black and white, I can share some opinions with feminist and some opinions with anti-feminist (which isn't automatically bad) and some opinions shard with both and some opinions shard with neither.
Clark sided with Brianna Wu and Zoe Quinn. Quinn got to whine to the UN with Anita Sarkeesian about people calling them liars online in an effort to have the UN strong arm governments into making special rules to prevent people from criticising them. Quinn, Wu and Sarkeesian are notorious trolls, liars, con artists and abusers. Clark is using her political position to push ideas that could lead to government censorship on the net in the name of protecting women from online harassment. So no, it's not feminism I have a problem with, it's with some people who just happen to call themselves feminist. It's two separate things, and I suspect they only call themselves feminist because then criticising them is easy to construe as criticising feminism and anti-feminist which is anti-women which is misogyny by extension. It's a dishonest roundabout way of dismissing and attacking critics rather than answering the criticism.
So, anti-feminist. Anti-feminist is not the same thing as anti-women, it doesn't mean you're automatically a bad person or misogynists that doesn't believe in equality. There's been a huge push lately by "third-wave" or "tumblr" feminist that say they just believe in equality, but then go around demonizing anyone that doesn't share their opinions or "listen and believe" 100%. I completely understand people have a problem with that. Some people have mistaken these faux feminist ideologies for what feminism is actually about. They aren't against equality they're against hypocrisy, lies and agenda pushing. What they see are some extremist trouble makers and a huge following of sheep that will do what they're told unquestionably and push whatever bullshit the extremist tell them too and it's hard for them to separate out those assholes from the feminist movement as a whole. And it's not just men coming to this conclusion [twitter.com]
Be careful of who you accuse of pushing anti-feminist agendas. Pushing people into boxes is a good way to fill those boxes up and you'll pretty soon find there's way more people in the box against you than outside of the box with you. for example, I only started associating with GamerGate because people told me that's what I was when I started asking questions, despite being staunchly hardcore feminist before. Being pushed into that box lead me to associate and talk to people I likely wouldn't have before which lead me to rethink and sympathize with what some of those people I blindly hated before were saying. It's become a running joke that GamerGhazi / anti-Gamers have become the best recruiters because they're loud, arrogant and hateful people who accuse everyone that's remotely on the line of being "Gators", which is how KotakuInAction ended up with 56,000+ subscribers and GamerGhazi barely has 9,000.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday February 05 2016, @02:29PM
Fair enough. Finally a reasoned argument from you.
My issue with the way you addressed this thread has zero to do with what you might believe or disbelieve.
Rather, I took issue with your vacuous accusations [soylentnews.org] and misrepresentations of fact [soylentnews.org].
If you believe in your arguments and want to be taken seriously, then you might consider making honest arguments instead of using innuendo and guilt by association. Or not. I'm not one to tell people what they should or shouldn't say.
Also, I found your interjection of "sexism" into this thread to be wildly off-topic and completely irrelevant. Even so, I didn't downmod you for it. In fact, I gave you the benefit of the doubt and reviewed the available information before disagreeing with you in a comment.
Only folks who have no self-respect would downmod those they disagree with, rather than making their own arguments in favor of their position. Wouldn't you agree?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Friday February 05 2016, @04:07PM
I'm glad we can come to an understanding and I'm legitimately sorry that I didn't explain my position as articulately as I should have. The injection of "sexism" was primarily because everything I've seen from Clark for the last 6 months or so has been from a perspective that she's pushing censorship because women need to be protected. i.e you shouldn't be allowed to disagree with or criticize some awful people because they're female.
And it legitimately feels like any opposition to that position is met with accusations and personal attacks rather than any legitimate arguments.
I'm not misrepresenting facts [soylentnews.org] in this comment, it's my opinion based on my observations and interpretation of data I sourced.
I'm not sure where you come up with this or why you're injecting it here. Am I not here explaining my position?
People are free to use mod points however they want. What does it matter how a comment is modded? Mod points aren't worth money, they don't add to the discussion, they aren't some magical measure of who's right or who's wrong and they don't offer insight beyond other people agreeing or disagreeing and vaguely why the agree or disagree. Why are people so obsessed with how many strangers on the internet care about what they say? When people complain to me about how others have modded their comments to me that says they have way too large an ego and can't stand the fact that someone doesn't share their opinions. If that's what you care about you're in the wrong place. I'm here for the discussion not to hear my opinions echoed back at me or to echo other's opinions back at them. I want people to disagree with me and offer alternative positions, opinions and information. That's the whole point of discussion, otherwise we live in a hugbox and there's no point in saying anything.
You know who has no self-respect? People who care how others mod them. If you're that concerned with what others think of you, you have a serious issue with self-respect and self-esteem. I'm not here seeking validation, I'm here to have my views challenged. It's the internet, people aren't always going to agree.
I'm going to be very clear, I have one account here. I get 5 mod points a day just like everyone else (I assume) and I'll spend them however I see fit. If I think someone's making a good point or providing good information to back up their points, I'll mark their post as up insightful or informative, even if I'd almost never agree with that person on any other topic. If I think someone's being dishonest, making a personal attack or trying to stir up shit, I'll mod them down as flamebait or troll, even if they're someone I'd almost always agree with on any other topic.
I rarely agree and have actually had serious differences of opinions with The Mighty Buzzard and Hairyfeet and Ethanol-fueled in the past and kurenai.tsubasa has said some things I'm really uncomfortable with, but I see people attack and belittle them all the time. Then I see people go around and try to shame others on how they spend mod points in an attempt to make certain people feel isolated or feel bad for occasionally agreeing or disagreeing. That doesn't add to the discussion, it's an attempt to chase people with different views away. We're suppose to be adults here. It's not a hugbox and it's not a safe space, this is a discussion forum and everyone's opinion is relevant whether their opinions are accurate or not and regardless of how their comments are modded.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday February 06 2016, @03:19AM
I'm not misrepresenting facts in this comment, it's my opinion based on my observations and interpretation of data I sourced.
Fair enough. However, without any specifics or the "data" you sourced, that's certainly the impression I got.
People are free to use mod points however they want. What does it matter how a comment is modded?
You're quite correct in your first point. As to your second point, the value in the moderation system is in raising quality comments to be more visible. This encourages a higher quality of discourse. I think the best part of the moderation system is that as a group we tend to promote quality arguments and/or information positively impacting the discussion at hand.
You may not think that important, but I prefer to see decent argument and quality information highligted, rather than lost amidst poorly constructed or vacuous arguments. As for myself, I always read at -1, but many only read comments at +2 or perhaps higher for just that reason.
While some (as I mentioned) may use their mod points to aggressively promote their own ideas or denigrate those with which they disagree, AFAICT the user base as a whole addresses that potential issue pretty well.
You know who has no self-respect? People who care how others mod them. If you're that concerned with what others think of you, you have a serious issue with self-respect and self-esteem. I'm not here seeking validation, I'm here to have my views challenged. It's the internet, people aren't always going to agree.
I may be mistaken, but it seems that makes you a little angry. Do you feel you're being accused? Is there something in the reasonably innocent question I asked that makes you uncomfortable?
I don't seek validation for my arguments either. As I've stated many times, I prefer to have honest discussion among people who may agree or disagree. I find that elevates the level of argument and challenges us all to examine our own points of view. This is extremely healthy and promotes quality ideas. It can also enhance our ability to express ourselves and allow us to hone (or modify) our own views and arguments.
I rarely agree and have actually had serious differences of opinions with The Mighty Buzzard and Hairyfeet and Ethanol-fueled in the past and kurenai.tsubasa has said some things I'm really uncomfortable with, but I see people attack and belittle them all the time.
The same is true for me (as you can clearly tell from my posting history [soylentnews.org]. While I vigorously engage those folks (and many others, yourself included) in debate about topics of interest to me, I shy away from ad hominem or similarly personal attacks. However, when I feel that an argument is lacking rigor, or doesn't use the best (or sometimes any at all) evidence to back it up, I don't hold back. Nor is that likely to change.
I too have just the one account. That's all I need -- as my beliefs are mine and I happily own them. As for moderation, I generally only mod folks up for quality comments -- I reserve any downmods for obvious trolls and spammy off-topic crap, although I often don't even bother and ignore those. That's my philosophy WRT moderation and I don't expect or insist that anyone act similarly. At the same time, if I notice a pattern WRT that, I may mention that in passing (as I did -- and you took some exception to, although I'm still not sure why that's such a sore spot for you).
In truth, I'm glad SN exists and with few exceptions (MikeeUSA or whoever it is that posts the AC trolls about marrying prepubescent girls) am grateful for all the members of the community we're building here. And even though I consider MikeeUSA to be a trollish jerk, I'm almost glad he's around too, if only to remind us that there are really unpleasant folks out there. In my view, no one should be silenced or pressured to modulate their views to conform to the predilections of others.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr