Slashdot Mirror
Top Tech Firms Urged To Step Up Online Abuse Fightback (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report on The Guardian: Top tech companies are talking to grassroots organisations across the globe to organise a fightback on their platforms against online abuse, hate speech, misogyny and stalking. Facebook, Twitter and Google are reaching out to women's groups, NGOs and communities in Africa, America, India, Europe and the Middle East as the scale of abuse online continues to increase. But their attempts to foster a "counter-speech" movement to challenge the violent misogyny, racism, threats, intimidation and abuse that flood social media platforms have prompted some of the communities they are trying to empower to question whether they are ducking their own responsibilities. Sarah Green, of the End Violence against Women coalition, said: "Any moves by social media companies to support, encourage and empower individuals and groups to resist and counter abuse is very welcome."
Azealia Banks gets to keep Twitter account after Wishing "Gang Rape" on Sarah Palin
Azealia Banks is known for saying exactly what she thinks, and a lot of times, she can be pretty offensive. Even if you aren’t a Sarah Palin fan, Banks’ Twitter war with the former Alaska governor got pretty ugly. Despite the rapper telling her Twitter followers and everyone else watching that Palin should be “gang raped,” among other awful things, Twitter decided that she had not broken any rules and her account would not be suspended.
There is no "stopping" abuse of any kind. Any time you try to fully eliminate bad things, innocent or nearly innocent people get caught up in the zero-tolerance policies and everyone loses. The offenders get caught, (Yay!), but when there are no more offenders, the harmful offense gets re-defined to create more offenders.
The prohibition of alcohol came from a good place. Homes and lives were ruined because of absolutely rampant alcoholism. But when the fight for absolute abolition took to banning every single alcoholic beverage, an illicit trade formed and with it came a different kind of harm.
Zero tolerance policies as they pertain to gang violence in schools was amazingly effective... until all the horrible things were appropriately reduced. After that, the books were thrown at minor offenders (https://goo.gl/4DQdKR).
The strong prosecution of hate crimes is a good thing. But what happens when a younger generation who has never actually experienced hate crimes (such as being physically assaulted for being a particular religion or race) seeks to re-define what is considered hate? Or racism. Or sexism? What happens when they lower the bar so that a previously welcoming phrase like "America is a melting pot" is redefined as offensive, potentially hateful, speech? We see that today when "microaggressions" are now 'a concern' and how the offended (not *harmed*) are asserting some sort of power for their being offended.
When you seek to "stop" any harm outright and completely, you inevitably come to the point where the harm is so rare, infrequent, or of immeasurably small effect that the ongoing effort begins to victimize people instead of protect them.
But what do you do instead? Actual harm is happening-- how do you stop that harm? The answer is simple, but not easy: hard work. When someone does something harmful, find that person and punish that person. Yes, that's a lot of work, but the punishment is targeted and the restrictions on non-harmful actions are non-existent. Target genuinely harmful actions with strong enforcement and leave the rest to personal control (facilitating visible blocking & ignoring with the option to report) and community moderation (like Slashdot). The aim should always be to reduce harm, but never to eliminate offense.
Lastly, as it is common with the current wave of activism, I will assume that someone will say, "But no one should have to see written abuse online to the point where someone then has to hit an ignore/block button!" to which I respond, "Yes, they should. For the same of protecting the free exchange of ideas (good, bad, and infuriating) and for the protection of people against prejudicial reactions. Without the risk for online abuse, there would be no disagreement and discussion online could only be the repetition of a single idea over and over again."
Lets face its, the entire movement is about guilt and revenge. Those who we normally think of as privileged who support it can claim whatever they like but the truth is they do so out of sense of guilt, largely the result of decades of brain washing in public schools. The marginalized groups who support it do so out of a sense they are entitled to some kind of revenge, and they should have that revenge even if the people who really dealt them and their ancestry the wrongs are long dead or rotting in an old folks home some place ( or should be in the case Bill Clinton ).
Azealia Banks a black woman can say anything she wants under these new rules. She can even say the sort of thing that might be considered a personal threat an potentially expose "privileged group" to prosecution, without any fear or reprisal. Now ordinarily being woman would by Sara Palin some entitlement to protection under these new 'rules' but you she committed a mortal sin by espousing hatred for men, so has been excommunicated from the church of the victimized.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Dude has a point. For example, what defines 'racism' - according to many people, the term includes anyone who disagrees with the 'Black Lives Matter' movement in any aspect. Threats? Of course there's the obvious stuff, like 'I'm going to come to your house and kill you' stuff (though deletion of same may constitute tampering with evidence, eh?) But on the other hand we have overly-coddled snowflakes who claim there's somehow a credible threat from some idiot scrawling "Trump 2016" in chalk on their college campus.
I'm also curious to see a complete list of these groups... mostly because there are quite a few groups out there who you definitely do not want setting definitions here.
There is a danger in this, after all - the danger being that political speech is stifled if the hoi polloi decide that something is 'hate' or 'racist' merely because they disagree with it. The two examples I listed up top are true stories, so it's not like GP's post is paranoia...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I'm sure everyone agrees that abuse or stalking is a problem but the biggest concern for me on social media is the tendency to get very offended by a one-off comment someone makes then proceed to ruin their lives. These spontaneous mobs fueled by righteous indignation are much scarrier to me than spam from some bully.