When Hacking Vigilantism Infringes On Free Speech (betanews.com) 229
An anonymous reader writes: I'm inclined to agree with the suggestion people make that the web is like the Wild West, but that's not to say we have reached the same conclusion for the same reasons. For me, the web — like the Wild West — is not a world filled with danger, but one occupied by vigilantes. As a proponent of free speech, I find this concerning. One of the most highly-lauded of vigilantes is the disparate group marching under the ragged banner of Anonymous.
One of its taglines is 'We Are Anonymous', a phrase that can be uttered by anyone, as there is no membership process — if you say you are part of Anonymous, you are part of Anonymous. The group is not, for the most part, organized. Individuals and factions can fight for or against whatever cause they want, just like real-world vigilante groups. But Anonymous is not alone. There are hacking collectives and other online crusaders who see fit to take the law into their own hands. This is might sound wonderful, but it's not necessarily a good thing. As New World Hackers demonstrate, attacks can target the wrong people and restrict free speech.
One of its taglines is 'We Are Anonymous', a phrase that can be uttered by anyone, as there is no membership process — if you say you are part of Anonymous, you are part of Anonymous. The group is not, for the most part, organized. Individuals and factions can fight for or against whatever cause they want, just like real-world vigilante groups. But Anonymous is not alone. There are hacking collectives and other online crusaders who see fit to take the law into their own hands. This is might sound wonderful, but it's not necessarily a good thing. As New World Hackers demonstrate, attacks can target the wrong people and restrict free speech.
SJW (Score:5, Insightful)
You can say whatever you want as long I agree with it.
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Re: SJW (Score:3)
Re: SJW (Score:5, Insightful)
Try saying things like supporting the Constitution, rule of law, personal responsibility, or quoting people like Virgil, Thomas Jefferson, or MLK in support of your arguments.
I have done all of those things, I have never been silenced by a SJW, and I get modded up far more often than I get modded down. You may not agree with everything the SJWs say, but they have a right to say it. Stop whining.
Re: SJW (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope. People like trump have the money to speak freely IN SPITE of SJWs. Average people increasingly cannot without being fired from jobs, kicked out of college, or falsely accused of heinous crimes.
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Nope. People like trump have the money to speak freely IN SPITE of SJWs. Average people increasingly cannot without being fired from jobs, kicked out of college, or falsely accused of heinous crimes.
Having the government not arrest you for your speech never meant free from all consequences whatsoever, no matter what you say.
The reason speech is so often banned is it is because it is a powerful thing. Powerful things mean consequences. You can't have it both ways---so important it has to be protected in law
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Having the government not arrest you for your speech never meant free from all consequences whatsoever, no matter what you say.
This is a favorite canard of those who want to retain their right to speech while taking it from others. This forms the basis for the hugbox mentality that is the backbone of today's social justice activism. I never said speech should come without consequence either, though I think that the ability to handle disagreement without resorting to mass censorship (up to purges) is needed in culture for it to remain healthy. Societies that refuse to acknowledge unpleasant truth eventually fail.
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This is a favorite canard of those who want to retain their right to speech while taking it from others.
So? That doesn't make it incorrect.
This forms the basis for the hugbox mentality that is the backbone of today's social justice activism.
So? That still doesn't make it incorrect.
I never said speech should come without consequence either,
No,you were just complaining about the consequences. Totally different.
though I think that the ability to handle disagreement without resorting to mass censorship (up to p
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Do you have any actual information on this particular subgroup of SJWs? Most of the people I know of interested in social justice are mocking Trump, not silencing him.
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If you have to silence criticism in order to retain power and respect (or for others to respect the legitimacy of your beliefs or ideology), you deserve neither. SJW types are no better than the reality of what they claim to fight. They've become oppressors themselves.
Re: SJW (Score:4, Insightful)
Pretty much exactly this. While the Westboro Baptist Church is still in business, nobody is going to shut you (whoever "you" are) down.
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I know what you're saying, but to be fair, the faceless mob has "come for" practically everyone at some point.
Re:SJW (Score:5, Informative)
There is actually one particular group that is being "come for", which are white males. A rather blatant example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
If you ever peruse news comments, twitter, whatever, it becomes obvious after a while that it is in fact politically correct and in most cases generally acceptable to attack white males in ways that are considered "racist" against any other group. I myself (a white male) don't feel particularly oppressed (if they give me shit I'll give them shit back,) but that *may* not be the case for all:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11... [nytimes.com]
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I have personally been the beneficiary of privilege that came from the vast majority of the US being owned and controlled by others of my demographic but, honestly, who gives a fuck if we start losing ground or dying off?
Feel free to volunteer yourself for the front lines then. I however don't want to sacrifice myself or my wallet in the name of making everyone equal. You're naive if you believe that neutering yourself makes the downtrodden despise you less.
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Outed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Outed (Score:3)
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Social justice was a term invented in the mid 1800's. The ideas behind it go back centuries, with Saint Augustine and earlier. Anyone who fights for social justice at risk of their own safety would technically be a social justice warrior. Martin Luther King Jr or Rosa Parks. The Liberation Theology priests who were repressed by right wing governments. And so forth. Focusing this term on only those who talk about micro aggression is silly, especially the intense irrational anger it causes.
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And those who are ignorant of the past are doomed to repeat it, those dismissing it with "stuff evolves" doubly so.
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words evolve, and SJW is a term defining those people in todays world
Indeed words do evolve. SJW is now a synonym for "miscellaneous things I hate on the intenet"/"big evil boogeyman" and has further evolved so that anyone using it without irony has readily identified themselves as a very, very silly person.
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Uh, that's what SJW means.
That's certainly not what it originally meant. The term "Social Justice Warrior" originally referred to a certain kind of Internet-only slacktivist who regurgitated half-understood academic soundbites on social media in return for brownie points [urbandictionary.com].
Like "troll" (which was a perfectly useful term back in the Golden Age of Usenet), the word has completely lost its meaning in the last few years.
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>the word has completely lost its meaning in the last few years
Seems so. The irony on UD there is that it talks about someone shouting at a feminist for saying they don't like the colour pink as it's too "prissy", yet most usage I've seen of SJW recently (e.g. from the gamergate crowd) has been synonymous with "militant feminist", which in a way seems like a contradiction.
Frankly it's all too confusing to me. SJW seems to have evolved to mean "person I disagree with", pretty much - it's a quick label t
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The problem is that listening to other people is mostly a waste of time, because so many peoples' views are just plain nuts.
For instance, you mention "right winger" with scary-quotes. That's a real thing; just look at all the right-wing sites like breitbart.com and wnd.com. Listening to their views is a complete waste of time, because they all think that FEMA is building concentration camps and that martial law is going to be declared soon and we'll have a dictatorship. Many of them also think the Rapture
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That's a real thing; just look at all the right-wing sites like breitbart.com and wnd.com.
That isn't even close to all the right-wing sites. Breitbart's Alexa ranking is 232 in the United States and WND is 378. Disturbingly high, to be sure, but nowhere near the readership of the Wall Street Journal (122) or Forbes (75).
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Oh please: yes, the readership of WSJ and Forbes are much higher (for good reason: people like me read Forbes, since it shows up on Google News and I don't immediately ignore it the way I do Breitbart, even though I keep in mind the source and its bias when I do read it).
However, the actual content of those sites is far less extreme than BB or WND. WSJ/F are somewhat right-wing, and in a mainstream corporatist way. BB/WND are extremist right-wing, in a conspiracy-theorist and fundie Christian way.
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My point is merely that there is such a thing as a mainstream right wing, and it's much, much bigger than the loony right-wing. Same goes for the left wing. And as you rightly point out, the mainstream partisan outlets are good enough that those who aren't in the party will still read it.
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Indeed, basically there are plenty of crazies on both sides.
What's bothering me is that in recent years (say the past 5 or so) the politics of the internet - at least what I've seen of them - have become extremely polarised. More and more people are diving to those nutjob extreme ends of things (e.g. 'right' and 'left' to simplify) and in a way kind of waging war on each other. This leaves the centre, where much of the civil discussion and negotiation would happen, feeling a bit empty. If you try to medi
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Yep, this same shit happens to me too. I'm either a right-wingnut or a leftist/communist depending on who's responding.
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Ironically, "Anonymous" is also a good example of fragmentation and conflicting stances, groups, messages, opinions, agendas, etc. all trying to squeeze under the same banner. For some reason we seem more compelled to try and steer the banner's meaning, rather than separate from it. Nevertheless bystanders will remain unaware of anyone that is working on, as they say, "taking it back".
Int
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By using the term "SJW", you have outed yourself as someone who has had to deal with annoying, attention-seeking, dishonest, power-hungry, hypocritcal SJWs.
He's outed himself as a twat, more like. People who moan about "SJWs" usually do so after they've been called out for making blatantly misogynistic, racist or homophobic remarks.
You are free to be a misogynistic, racist homophobe just like you are free to believe in a flat earth or pixies hovering over your head.
It's just that people will know you're a twat.
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You can say what you want without criticism if you can make a factually accurate statement that doesn't rely on stereotypes or lazy racism to be true. If you can't get your message above those rather low standards, prepare to get called out on it. Some lazy opinion-fart blaming a disparate group of people for some perceived slight should be called out every single time - it does not help the discussion in general, and is frequently used by other people with axes to grind who also find it difficult to eluc
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Some lazy opinion-fart blaming a disparate group of people for some perceived slight should be called out every single time
FYI, that often exactly describes the SJW viewpoint. They blame white males for every perceived problem minorities and women face.
I would not describe you as a SJW, SJWs are the types of people who would repeal the first amendment to stop people who don't agree with them from being able to speak.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015... [foxnews.com]
(if you don't like Fox, there are pleanty of sources: https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com] )
Re:SJW (Score:5, Insightful)
If you stand on someone's private property (including their online property) and spout hatred toward them there is nothing in the law to keep them from kicking you out.
Unfortunately in your example, invoking the use of verbally spouting hatred is a red hearing. If you are standing on THEIR PROPERTY, they can kick you out no matter what you are doing or saying, or not doing or saying.
The issues do however get more complex if the property is intended to be publicly accessible, like a store or restaurant, and the reason for kicking the person out is their inclusion in a legally protected group (race, ethnicity, religion, gender, handicapped, etc), but what they are saying isn't in any of those categories (though people often try to spin it into such a claim, like saying they were denouncing police harassment of [pick some group] and their being ejected is because they are part of that group, not because they were being loud, annoying, harassing, blocking aisles, not buying anything, etc).
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For the Anonymous case it's a different category. They are preventing speech on a third party's property. It's not strictly public, the internet, most of us have to pay to access it and usually with a user agreement. But because it's Anonymous they don't care. They'll hack a site because it's fun, or because they think they're "helping".
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It doesn't apply to other individuals or groups. If you stand on someone's private property (including their online property) and spout hatred toward them there is nothing in the law to keep them from kicking you out.
that's right. However, the current bone of contention is when groups lobby the government to legislate their social/political views on the rest. Once the state starts to pick sides, we've all lost.
your words betray you (Score:4, Insightful)
> what is meant when we say we are guaranteed to a right of free speech is limited to being *mostly* guaranteed that the government is not supposed to interfere with our right to free speech.
You accurately described th first amendment, but not th right of free speech. The FIRST AMENDMENT says that the government may not infringe the right of free speech. Note it says "THE right of free speech, not "A new right of free speech", just as you said "our right of free speech" must not be interfered with. This is because the right of free speech was recognized at least 40 years before the first amendment was written.
You say government is prohibited from infringing your right to free speech. Government can't be prohibited from taking back something if THEY GAVE IT TO YOU. Since government is prohibited from taking them, your rights must have come from somewhere else.
The first amendment protects the right of free speech, it did not create the right. (You'll notice the wording of the Constitution doesn't ever claim to create a right. Rather it enjoins the government from infringing the rights of the people.)
This makes perfect sense if you think about the definition of a "right". Is the right of free speech mean that you can say whatever the majority approves of? The essence of a right is you can do certain things regardless of what the majority thinks! That's that's the defining characteristic of a right, the fact that it exists and the majority can't vote it out of existence (though they could -infringe- your rights) . Hmm, if your neighbors can't legitimately vote your rights away, that must mean they didn't give them to you in the first place. If rights came from the government, or from the Convention, whoever gave you those rights would be could legitimately take them away at any time. The fact that no government document can legitimately eliminate rights means that they cannot have been created by a government document. Rather, certain rights must be part of the dignity of mankind; you are Barak Obama must have the same right to speak your mind based on being human beings.
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It did that long ago. It's been a long time since individuals could own what a modern rifleman carries. For all the anti-Obama hype, he isn't interested in confiscating guns.
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Not just propaganda, but outright lies, too! I mean, time-traveling in a police phone box? That can't be right!
If you say your Christian, you are Christian... (Score:2)
There are a lot of groups that have no membership process. Like Christianity, Anonymous has different groups, and each of those groups will have a membership process.
Now that you have identified the problem, which makes some sense, is there something we can do about it without sacrificing free speech?
(Note to detractors about using Christianity as an example, find a single thing that is common among Christians without counter example - I can think of only one: people are/were involved).
Re:If you say your Christian, you are Christian... (Score:5, Insightful)
(Note to detractors about using Christianity as an example, find a single thing that is common among Christians without counter example - I can think of only one: people are/were involved).
all divisions of Christianity believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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all divisions of Christianity believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
You should hang out with more Unitarians, they have all kinds of beliefs. But here is a discussion of the resurrection of Christ was being a symbol, not actual [dbcuuc.org]. I once met a man who believed that Christ was an alien (based on the idea that Christ was able to overcome sexual temptation).
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I once met a man who believed that Christ was an alien (based on the idea that Christ was able to overcome sexual temptation).
I've heard a lot of justifications for failing to overcome sexual temptation, but that one pretty much takes the cake... and then drop-kicks that motherfucker. Some people can believe anything if it makes them feel better.
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that one pretty much takes the cake... and then drop-kicks that motherfucker. Some people can believe anything if it makes them feel better.
Yup. Instead, he should have set it to whip or chop IMO
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I will agree that loosely, there is no need to accept the physical resurrection to be a Christian, although you would have to have at least a symbolic acceptance of it. The resurrection is a pretty central part of the canon, and the alternatives to that were sidelined very early on.
However, Christ himself was pretty specific about his submission to the will of the Jewish Creator. Whether or not he was God himself, he submitted to his "Father", and that particular entity accepts no other gods but himself.
B
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So then logically you are Christian and Anonymous, since there is no membership process. Or no one is Christian since there is no membership process.
Part of the difficulty here is that Anonymous is less a group than a branding exercise. Any of these activities could also come from a group identifying themselves as the People's Front of Judea, yet they don't, as Anonymous has achieved a certain degree of celebrity and others seek to attach their pet cause to that celebrity.
It is interesting to note how Anony
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Yes but there will always be those who say "not a real Christian", "not a true Scotsman", etc. I suspect there are even some who say "not a real member of Anonymous but an infiltrator!"
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There are two things here. Do you identify yourself (publicly or personally) as "Christian" -- or "Anonymous"? That's entirely up to you. The other is would other people identify you as "whatever"? If you do religious things and act out of religious feeling (as the world sees it), then the world might call you "Christian". (By their fruits you shall know them.) If you're an Anonymous hacker and you participate in their stuff and people know that you do it, then they'll say you're part of Anonymous. N
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To be a Christian you have to be baptised, and believe in the divinity of Jesus. In Catholicism at least (the only one I can speak for), there is a class to teach people what it means to be a Catholic before they can be Baptised/First Communion/Confirmed into the Church. Part of the Confirmation ceremony is a declaration of beliefs. If you don't agree to these beliefs, you are not a Catholic.
http://www.aboutcatholics.com/... [aboutcatholics.com]
I can't find a listing of the questions, but they are questions of the belief in
Re:If you say your Christian, you are Christian... (Score:4, Funny)
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Actually, there's something to this definition. Christianity (the major world religion) does have loose organisation at the national and international level, as a network of ecumenical organisations. Many countries have a national council of churches, most denominations have one (e.g. Anglican Communion, World Methodist Council, etc). A church is "Christian" if it is part of the network; that means it's in communion with other Christian churches. Someone is a Christian if they are part of that.
If you go by
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If you pull together the known writings, even the writings outside the orthodox (small 'o') canon, you can derive a few lowest common denominator items.
For instance, belief in, and submission to the monotheistic Creator is one.
If you are an atheist or agnostic, you can count yourself out. Even if you subscribe to certain specific teachings of Christ. The teachings of non-violence come to mind.
There are a few others, which many people appear to easily subscribe to, but they fail at when they are tested.
For
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What does it mean to define something objectively?
Another model would be that for contested terms, different people will assign different boundaries to the terms, and so there will be disagreement as to who fits what model but each viewer rather than each subject chooses how to categorise things. Even though it leads to disagreements when the subjects are humans with their own views.
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Actually I think you are quite correct, the original statement does allow for the label of Christian to be attached by one's self. Another thought: Are you using 'agnostic' to mean a middle ground between atheist and theist, or using it in its proper "lack of knowledge" form to say that we cannot know? Noting that atheism is related to the belief and agnosticism is related to the ability to have knowledge specifically.
Re: If you say your Christian, you are Christian. (Score:2)
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That is definitely the correct usage. Literally from the Greek:
a-1 + Gnostic.
(American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
First attested in 1870; coined by Thomas Huxley. Either from Ancient Greek (agnstos, "ignorant, not knowing") or from a- + Gnostic. Deriving (either way) from Ancient Greek - (a-, "not") + (gignsk, "I know"). (Wiktionary)
I suspect the idea of a middle ground came from the idea of it not being committing fully to disbelief or to belief.
Re: If you say your Christian, you are Christian. (Score:3)
That would be the subset of Christians called Catholics. Protestants, Baptists, etc don't really care what the Pope says.
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Eastern Orthodox churches would beg to differ.
cause and effect (Score:4, Insightful)
when people disagree to an extreme and those in authority do nothing, you wind up with vigilantes. this is nothing new, it's simply "with a computer" which like with patents, doesn't make it novel.
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Pretty much this.
If the general consensus is not in balance with what the law provides, people will reach for vigilantism. Thus the law either has to represent the general consensus of the population or you have the firepower to oppress your whole population.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
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Yeah, but they also thought that a method of swinging on a swing which causes a rotation was something novel enough to patent.
Pathetic (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's beautifully ironic that free speech is fine as long as you say what people want to hear. I don't like trump but he has every right to spew what he wants. You can't have a claim to free speech whilst simultaneously stifling someone else's.
It's a simple dynamic - free speech for me but not for thee; with apologies to Nate Hentoff
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I guess free speech also includes the ability to protest others free speech. Painful really.
There's a difference between protesting and silencing.
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Which is? Consider a KKK rally where the speaker is shouted down by protesters. [knoxnews.com]
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Which is? Consider a KKK rally where the speaker is shouted down by protesters. [knoxnews.com]
That's the fundamental problem. If you don't protect despicable speech sooner or later someone will decide to silence yours because they don't like what you are saying. where the line is drawn is tricky. Counter protesters have the right to speak as well; which, IMHO, is different than preventing the others from speaking by knocking the site out via DOS attack or say pulling the plug on their power supply for a live rally.
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The right to free speech only protects you from retaliation from the government. The KKK protesters were not arrested for trying to voice their deplorable garbage on the university campus so their right to free speech was not infringed in the least. Deal with it.
I never said it was, although as a public institution UofM the first amendment applies to them, unlike a private institution. At any rate, a counter protest is certainly not unreasonable, as I said. Allowing the KKK to spew their garbage, however, is preferable to banning it at public institution, because not only does it give someone the opportunity to counter them but the government acting to ban speech is a slippery slope, an date notion that you can change people's minds by not letting them hear vile o
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It's beautifully ironic that free speech is fine as long as you say what people want to hear.
Sure. And people are fine with you expressing your emotions, too -- so long as it's never anything even remotely negative; you're supposed to be happy happy happy, all the time, or you're being 'rude' and 'taking it out on everyone else' or 'inconveniencing them' or whatever.
I'm fine in one respect with Trump running his mouth the way he does: he's revealing his true nature to the world, and he's also bringing the racists and bigots and the worst that America has to offer out of the shadows, so now we know
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What do you feel that Trump has said that wasn't fact? You do realise that the media is twisting his words pretty badly to try and paint him as a racist don't you?
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Libel, Slander and Defamation sure, those should be banned, but hate speech? Define it!
Hate Speech is one of those things where anything can be considered hate speech to someone. Offensive speech is exactly the speech that should be protected, as inoffensive speech doesn't need free speech protections.
Vigilantees not the best justicae system? (Score:5, Insightful)
I am shocked, shocked that vigilantism has problems.
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Re:Vigilantees not the best justicae system? (Score:5, Insightful)
> It gets funny when you realize that vigilantes are what appears when the government is not doing its job.
It appears when government is not doing the job that at least some people want. This also includes government agents operating outside the law, the KKK, and corporations hiring private security to beat union protesters. Vigilantism occurs when the government is unwilling to follow someone's policy, whether that policy is law or not.
It also includes most terrorists. The Taliban and ISIS themselves want Sharia law applied universally, and have killed many who refuse this religious law, despite the local government's clear rejection of murdering people for adultery or murdering women for speaking out for women's rights.
Congress shall make no law.... (Score:2)
Anonymous (Score:2)
Like in the wild west, the law is often worse (Score:2, Insightful)
Vigilantes exist because the law (both legislative and executive) has failed or is even used as a shield for crime. The internet is faced with huge amounts of corruption. Network providers inject data, record data, throttle data. They sell out their customers at any opportunity, and the law doesn't just fail to do anything about it, it even encourages that kind of behavior. Copyright monopolies are extended indefinitely, even though copying is the natural activity in a digital world. The government snoops o
Protecting the minority view from the majority (Score:3)
It's almost like vigilantism is a bad thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, we all understand the desire to do something good.
Particularly in the case of some perceived injustice - a rape victim is disregarded, for example.
The problem is firstly that we don't have a universal definition of good.
Missionaries bringing Christianity to the 'heathens' in Darkest Africa thought they were GENUINELY doing good - saving these people's souls, bringing them education, clothes, technology. The next time you start getting all righteous about doing something for someone else's best interest, understand that morally you are PRECISELY in the same position as that Missionary.
The second problem of course is one of information. PARTICULARLY in the age of the internet, we tend to judge in the first few seconds, and then everything else we hear either validates that gut-judgement, or is discarded as "biased".
That rape victim? What if she was, in fact, lying?
We have a process for punishing wrongdoers, it's called the Law. It's absolutely not perfect, an in many ways it's outright broken. But THAT is where we need to spend our energy and efforts: fix that, and everything improves.
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I agree with Uncle Styopa here, though I think you slightly miss the big issue with the Anon Vigilantism that I feel is different to it compared to other forms.
As with all vigilantism, accountability is a major issue, not to hold them accountable for civil disobedience or breaking "unjust laws", but for collateral damage or unintended consequences. Vigilantism seems to be pretty romanticized in the comments here, but it often does and has a very major cost when the vigilantes get it completely wrong. We don
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Miss the point a little harder, why don't you?
Your response - immediately assuming (despite the actual words written) that I'm somehow casting all rape accusations as lies - precisely proves my point about short attention spans on the internet, assumptions of guilt or innocence, and overwhelmingly emotional reactions.
Thank you for making my case.
Anonymous isnt (Score:2, Insightful)
Anonymous isn't really what people think it is. Yes, anyone can claim to be them, but they do occasionally have high level people deny actions taken by others. The biggest trick to anonymous is they let all the little guys take the fall while the upper echelon sites back and watches the show.
They instigate the masses.
It is better to stand for something.. (Score:2)
I'm calling bullshit on this (Score:3)
Anonymous threatens free speech? How about massively popular social media platforms like Facebook that censor comments and images while offering very little recourse to the subjects of censorship? Facebook, Twitter and other such media have become so pervasive that the old "if you don't like it, don't use it" defense doesn't really apply anymore.
And how about the chilling effect of forcing people to use their real names if they're going to participate in discussions on-line? What happens to your job if your employer finds out your religion (or lack of it), sexuality, or political opinion differs significantly from theirs?
Let's not forget the police and letter agencies, either. We're now at a point where one's location, travel history, and other metadata, financial records and literally everything said or done, or even looked at on-line is subject to their examination with little or no oversight. Think that might prevent people from speaking freely? (I mean "speak" in the broadest possible sense of the word, by the way).
And how about the thuggish actions of various police forces during legal demonstrations over the last few years? Who can chance raising one's voice in public protest when the consequences might very well be employment-threatening injuries and perhaps a place on the No Fly List?
Claiming Anonymous is a significant threat to free speech in an age when these and other more serious threats exist is like complaining about a pea-shooter during a firefight.
"An anonymous reader writes..." (Score:2)
Oh, the irony.
Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Score:2)
There is an old History professor's joke about the Anarchist Brigades during the Spanish Civil War.
"They were great fighters, but suffered from a lack of organization."
Must Sleeping the Editors (Score:3)
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Yah. It's like Yoda wrote TFS. "This is might sound wonders" indeed.
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It parses, but not at all well.
Re:I'm not worried about hacktivists (Score:4, Interesting)
The squeaky wheel gets the grease. If the SJWs keep lamenting and complaining while everyone else just keeps quiet, who will get their way?
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The SJWs will never win, because while they are noisy they are also a small minority and fighting against 100+ years of progress. Their demands for subservience and adherence to their ideal will never be accepted, no matter how much they kick and scream.
I'm any case, who gets more air time? Men's Rights or Black Lives Matter? The SJWs are getting nowhere compared to those with real, non discriminatory/non hateful issues.
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We may hope so, but only time will tell. I can say that fortunately the insanity only brushed against Europe so far, it didn't hit us in full swing yet. Maybe it helps that we enjoy taking our bullshit in moderation in general rather than going all out towards extremes. We've had our share of extremes in the last century, I think we just might have learned that moderation is the key to success.
It could also be that we noticed that our middle ground between full blown capitalism and absolute socialism worked
No Bad Tactics, Only Bad Targets (Score:3)
Hacktivists just annoy people briefly. It's the SJWs getting their brand of censorship baked into the terms of service of popular social media and blogging sites that have me worried. They're the ones who are really going to block freedom of speech by making it so that anyone who exercises their freedom of speech faces the possibility of being effectively blacklisted from ever working again. (See Trump being fired from his own reality TV show for telling the truth about immigration in the US. Now imagine that same thing used against someone without the resources to shrug it off.)
Spot on. Bit of a red flag in the summary:
As New World Hackers demonstrate, attacks can target the wrong people and restrict free speech.
I'd like to give this phrasing the benefit of the doubt, but after seeing countless anti-Gamergate types behave according to the mantra "No bad tactics--only bad targets," I really can't. You're part of the problem if you don't understand that Trump is as much the "wrong" person as the BBC, and those who act to silence him also "restrict free speech."
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If you check well, you will see that quite a few of the so called SJWs used to or still are internet hackvist vigilantes as well.
They wanna to fix the world(tm!), but fell in a safe spacey echo chamber and got their opinions twisted to horrid effects.
Actually "safe spaces" in general are places where the lunacy spawns because as soon the moderation starts to enforce their opinions, bad ideas accumulate and twist the world vision in it, no matter what if the safe space is progressive, conservative, about pup
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So says the AC.
Speak against the groupthink, and they will track down your employers and family and harass them. Make sure you lose your job, are estranged from your family. The SJW battle is not over until you commit suicide.