A year or so ago Scrym mentioned a new law in Europe guranteeing the right to be forgotten. I don't believe in that right. I've done and said stupid shit on the Internet, some of which on this very forum, but I don't want it to go away. I want it there as a reminder of how stupid I was, so I don't do it again.
Problem is someone who wishes to do a character assassination will use those mistakes as an example why your an idiot, despite having moved past that point.
Gawker is guilty of many many things. Let us not forget their Gizmodo iPhone theft. I have no sympathy for them, and I do not defend them. They give no shits for journalistic ethics, and deserve no respect as a journalistic organization.
However, if there is information publicly available on the Internet and they rebroadcast it, that is how it is. Welcome to the Internet. If you put information in a public place and people share it, you just have to deal with it. It's the same way that media companies have to deal with people freely sharing their artistic works. Bits are bits, they will be copied whether they are pictures of teenage girls, HD movies, or your name and address. If you don't want them copied and shared, don't type them into a computer ever.
That guy wanted to have his cake and eat it too. He wanted to be anonymous, but he didn't take any technical precautions to actually be anonymous. He publicly disseminated lots of personal information, and was still under the illusion that his real identity was a secret. This is an anonymous account, so let me tell you all about my family so that you can figure out who I am. Smooth move Ex-Lax. If he was really so concerned about being anonymous he should have used VPNs, encryption, and never posted anything that could link his account to his real identity.
Did Gawker violate journalistic ethics with that article? Maybe so. But any information they posted there was information that anyone could have figured out from publicly available data. I find nothing morally wrong with it assuming that all of the information in the article is factually correct, which I can't be sure of.
Ugh, I just read the article, and the only thing I got out of it is that Reddit is a horrible place that promotes an extremely misguided view of free speech. -_-
By the way, not trying to be known as the forum champion of women or a feminist or whatever, but... Posting crotch shots, boobs, etc, basically private voyeuristic photos of people (this Reddit crap seems to be focused on women, but it of course applies to any person), is a crime. Also distributing child pornography is a crime. There seems to be some question on whether the creep from the article actually created any of the content he posted, but I'm sure if distributing child pornography counts as a crime, then distributing private sexual photos counts, too. (Dumb teenagers posting their own bikini photos on FB... well thats another story... :-P)
I'm not arguing against the main plot of the flame war here, I'm just addressing what I saw in this thread: that some people are saying he didn't commit a crime, therefore shouldn't be outed. I'm saying, yes, he did commit a crime. No wonder you guys were so afraid of the rape flame war. You are so desensitized by the internet to the horrid mistreatment of women (and anyone) that you don't seem to recognize these things.
Edit: I re-read my post and realize it might offend some of you. I'm sorry. Just know that when I say "you guys" "you" etc. I don't mean literally every person, I'm mainly targeting the people it pertains to. You know, maybe I'm just not cut out for this flame war stuff. -_-
Ugh, I just read the article, and the only thing I got out of it is that Reddit is a horrible place that promotes an extremely misguided view of free speech. -_-
By the way, not trying to be known as the forum champion of women or a feminist or whatever, but... Posting crotch shots, boobs, etc, basically private voyeuristic photos of people (this Reddit crap seems to be focused on women, but it of course applies to any person), is a crime. Also distributing child pornography is a crime. There seems to be some question on whether the creep from the article actually created any of the content he posted, but I'm sure if distributing child pornography counts as a crime, then distributing private sexual photos counts, too. (Dumb teenagers posting their own bikini photos on FB... well thats another story... :-P)
I'm not arguing against the main plot of the flame war here, I'm just addressing what I saw in this thread: that some people are saying he didn't commit a crime, therefore shouldn't be outed. I'm saying, yes, he did commit a crime. No wonder you guys were so afraid of the rape flame war. You are so desensitized by the internet to the horrid mistreatment of women (and anyone) that you don't seem to recognize these things.
Edit: I re-read my post and realize it might offend some of you. I'm sorry. Just know that when I say "you guys" "you" etc. I don't mean literally every person, I'm mainly targeting the people it pertains to. You know, maybe I'm just not cut out for this flame war stuff. -_-
You are correct that crotch shots, upskirts, boobs, zoom lenses into bedroom windows, etc. are all illegal and not acceptable. But that's not what was going on here.
Imagine if I went to the public beach and just took a regular old photo of all the girls in bathing suits. Imagine if I walked down the street here in the city and took a photo of any girl I thought was hot or cute. That is what is going on here. People are in public places where they have no expectation of privacy. They happen to be attractive people. Someone takes a photo of them without permission, but permission is not legally required if the picture is not going to be used for commercial purposes.
Take for example the case of the teacher who took pictures of his students. That is incredibly illegal and wrong for so many reasons. Not only because of the student/teacher relationship, but because he did it right in the classroom. He got what he deserved. But look at the photo itself that is attached to all the news articles about him.
It's a girl sitting at a desk. She happens to be wearing short shorts. If the girl had been walking down a public sidewalk, and the photographer had not been her teacher, there would be nothing illegal about such a photograph. It's creepy, and you never want to be associated with anyone who is doing it, but I think that disallowing it would be entering into the realm of restricting free speech. Free speech means allowing the icky speech along with the good speech, and people who live in such a society need to be able to tolerate creeps as long as they don't cross the line.
Creepshots' FAQ states: "Creepshots are CANDID. If a person is posing for and/or aware that a picture is being taken, then it ceases to be candid and thus is no longer a creepshot. A creepshot captures the natural, raw sexiness of the subject without their vain attempts at putting on a show for the camera. That is the essence of the creepshot, that is what makes a true creepshot worth the effort and that is why this sub-reddit exists." One user, called SFJohnny, secretly video tapes himself raping and beating hundreds of women and girls, and shares them on reddit. http://i.imgur.com/1Hkpt.png
Whoever, in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, has the intent to capture an image of a private area of an individual without their consent, and knowingly does so under circumstances in which the individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.
Other forums are explicitly devoted to filming sexual assaults and sharing them on reddit as pornography for other users. These include: RapingWomen RapingTrannies StruggleFucking AbusePorn BeatingTrannies BeatingWomen
I shed the smallest of small tears for the invasion of privacy suffered by someone who repeatedly and proudly invades womens' privacy or supports and enables said invasion.
Reddit doesn't require manual authorization of the creation of new subreddits, so there will naturally be a huge bloom of troll subs like the ones you just listed, vaguely, especially when there's a lot of media attention to be had. I happen to agree that the Reddit administrator-ship doesn't deal with these issues fast enough, but that's far from an endorsement of those subs by the mods.
Also, a fully clothed shot can't by definition capture any "private areas". I'm not saying it's not a creepy thing to do, I'm saying that conflating the two minimizes the worst (actually criminal) cases.
One user, called SFJohnny, secretly video tapes himself raping and beating hundreds of women and girls, and shares them on reddit. http://i.imgur.com/1Hkpt.png
And he's a scumbag, who unlike the guy who got doxxed, is actually committing clearly criminal acts. He should be outed by the reddit administrators if possible and prosecuted. Is anybody arguing otherwise?
/r/shitredditsays and /r/redditbomb capture a certain something about the redditor mentality. "Wow, this is seriously fucked up. We need to stop reddit. What can I do? I know, I'll start a subreddit about it!"
Also, /r/rapingtrannies doesn't seem to exist, /r/beatingtrannies has under 100 readers and hasn't been active in over 2 months, and /r/rapingwomen has under 1000 readers.
That guy wanted to have his cake and eat it too. He wanted to be anonymous, but he didn't take any technical precautions to actually be anonymous.
EXCEPT this is not the case. Gawker did not dig up that information, he was doxed by an anonymous source, which is a whole different kettle of fish. Receiving information from a source is quite different from digging it up yourself, and unconfirmed word on the grapevine is that some of it most certainly was not publically available in a way that would connect it to his Reddit account. Though, to their credit, they did not use it within the article itself.
He publicly disseminated lots of personal information, and was still under the illusion that his real identity was a secret. This is an anonymous account, so let me tell you all about my family so that you can figure out who I am.
Not so much. He wasn't like you or I, who live with our identities out there and trivially connected to our psudonyms, he was actually reasonably tight with his shit - I know that it took a concerted effort and to actually connect him to the account. There is also speculation that two reddit employees were involved - it is public knowledge that at least one has a hate on for him that you could crack diamonds with. So, Not perfect, but not trivial, either. Death threats, abuse, and all sorts of other similar nonsense were a daily part of this guy's reddit experience, you think he's not going to at least take some steps to keep them separate? And on top of that, you think that if it was that easy(despite Chen's assertions), the guy wouldn't have already been harassed to the ends of the earth already?
Smooth move Ex-Lax.
I'm probably not going to use it, but I really like this expression.
Did Gawker violate journalistic ethics with that article? Maybe so. But any information they posted there was information that anyone could have figured out from publicly available data. I find nothing morally wrong with it assuming that all of the information in the article is factually correct, which I can't be sure of.
Trust me, if it could have been, it would have been before now. I'm not sure you understand how much a large portion of Reddit fucking hated this guy, and Reddit has no small number of people with skill equal to yours, and they had numbers on their side to boot - another large portion within that large group who have no issue doxxing people they don't like, and whom have done so before. Don't believe me? VA isn't the first or last - for example, another mod of /r/creepshots was openly blackmailed, and frankly, most of the mods of that subreddit are pretty tight with their information, for just that kind of reason. Another mod that got doxxed was been beaten so badly he had to be hospitalized.
As for Maybe so, no, there is no maybe about it. And was it morally wrong? If you consider it by the moral standard of Journalistic content, rather than an individual level, I'd say it most certainly was - and may I remind you that "Unethical" and "Immoral" are, in fact, synonyms, so you can't really say it's simultaneously unethical, but moral, that makes no sense.
Also for your consideration - Chen is notoriously anti-reddit, and notoriously lax in his journalistic ethics and efforts. He was digging around for quite a while, targeting VA specifically in this case, and both he and Jezabel are known to be connected to the same segment of users that produced said blackmail thread - though to be clear, he did not at any point personally blackmail anyone, that is entirely the doing of others, not Chen. He's fucking dodgy, but he's not that dodgy.
Also, I'm still baffled that you can call using one's media platform to ruin someone's life and the lives of the people associated with him(but whom are entirely innocent) ethical or morally in the clear, as a private citizen or as a media outlet. I know you're a man with a strong moral code, and I don't recall free speech or freedom of the press making you judge, jury and executioner to be one of the components of that code.
That's why you've got to be careful about this sort of thing, as a journalist - doing this sort of thing is a big black line that you can't un-cross. Once it's done, it's done. So you have to be very, very careful, because much like the Mod that was Doxxed and beaten into a hospital bed(not Chen's doing, to be clear, but another reddit user), that sort of thing is squarely at your feet. Chen has not himself engaged in any form of vigilante justice, here, but you can be damned sure he's enabled it, tacitly encouraged it, and at least partially responsible if it occurs.
Ugh, I just read the article, and the only thing I got out of it is that Reddit is a horrible place that promotes an extremely misguided view of free speech. -_-
Was it that article that gave you that idea, or was it Chen's other article, "Obama Grants Interview to Racist Teen Nude Picture Website"? Don't bother basing an opinion on anything Chen writes about reddit, the dude has a Hate-boner for reddit, and an agenda, and a bias so large you can see it from space.
Now, I'm not going to defend all of Reddit - It's a microcosm of the larger internet, essentially, and just like the wider internet, there are good parts, and shitty parts, along with good users and bad users. But painting all of Reddit based on a small minority of shitbags, or especially from anything written by Chen, that's not a great idea.
shitredditsays, I'm almost certain, is a troll sub. I don't think they're even actually at all serious about their over the top white knighting. And yes, sometimes something that deserves condemnation makes it on there, but it's diluted in an enormous shitpile of overreaction and hyperbole, which I think is intentional.
shitredditsays, I'm almost certain, is a troll sub. I don't think they're even actually at all serious about their over the top white knighting. And yes, sometimes something that deserves condemnation makes it on there, but it's diluted in an enormous shitpile of overreaction and hyperbole, which I think is intentional.
Wow, that was quite a sentence.
Some are just trolls, no doubt. The scary part is that there are other people who take SRS 100% super serious.
Also, I'm still baffled that you can call using one's media platform to ruin someone's life and the lives of the people associated with him(but whom are entirely innocent) ethical or morally in the clear, as a private citizen or as a media outlet. I know you're a man with a strong moral code, and I don't recall free speech or freedom of the press making you judge, jury and executioner to be one of the components of that code.
I do not consider using a media platform to ruin someone's life ethical or moral. I consider the distribution of information to be ethical and moral.
Let's say you post your phone number on Facebook. Then I make a web site that says Churba's Phone number is XXX-XXX-XXXX. Ok, dick move on my part, clearly. But you made that information public, or at least trusted me with it. Apparently I shouldn't be trusted. But have I done anything really wrong? I don't think so. Your phone number is just bits. Those bits were copied and redistributed. In the year 2012 you must assume that any bits you send out over the wire that are not strongly encrypted and such will be copied and redistributed.
Now let's say some people start calling you on the phone. Someone stalks you. Someone else won't stop calling you and harassing you. Another person makes some death threats. Those people are all fuckers and need justice served on them.
Of course, there's also a matter of context on my posting of the phone number. If I had posted it neutrally, like hey here's my buddy's number, no problem with that. But if I had said, hey here's this guys number, everyone rain holy hell on his phone! Then I'm guilty of incitement, and I should be locked up along with the death threat guy.
The gawker article did not seem to me to be inciting the readers to ruin this dude's life. I think they even painted a slightly sympathetic picture. If guilty of anything I think they repeated his real name over and over, like they were bragging about having found it.
Apparently you are aware of a lot of other meta-context involving this Chen person that I have no idea about. Perhaps that is why you see things in the article that I do not see. Keep in mind that the vast majority of readers do not have this extra knowledge that you do.
I would say 90% of the SRS people are serious. The broad thesis of SRS, that Reddit is a shitstorm of misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc which confuses the idea of free speech with the right to say whatever they want without criticism is right on the money. Reddit's main subs are gross beyond measure and need calling out. The problem with SRS is the degree to which they buy their own bullshit; their circlejerk has gone on so long that they have lost perspective. There was a thread recently where they came to the general consensus that violence was okay if it was by the underpriviledged against the priviledged, and you could see all the deleted posts from anyone who dared say otherwise. I understand that people dicked by the system need an out, need to vent, it's why stuff like "Die cis scum" doesn't bug me, but calmly discussing killing people you disagree with and why it is okay because they didn't suffer the way you did, that's way the fuck over the line.
In other words, they suffer from a Poe's Paradox; it is impossible for them to distinguish genuine support from parodies thereof so they simply accept the most extreme, and they get it both from trolls and people who actually agree.
Also, just want to say this is yet another example of people not being able to think around labels. Recently someone tried to sue WordPress because they didn't like what someone wrote on their WordPress blog. Reddit also has r/mylittlepony, r/hockey, r/gopro, r/python, r/nyc, etc. Almost any statement you try to make about "the reddit community" in general is going to be a fallacy of generalization.
I don't think anyone in this thread proposed curbing rights, though.
When you start using generalizations like "taking photos of women and girls in public is voyeuristic, pornographic, and criminal" you are pretty much talking about curbing rights. It's an inevitable overlap.
Now, taking down-blouse shots, upskirt shots, and voyeuristic shots through windows and keyholes IS criminal, but that's not what was said. There's an awful lot of conflating creepiness with criminality in this thread, and that conversation IS about curbing rights. Whether it's a justified limitation of rights is tangential.
I do feel the press/not-press delineation is an arbitrary line in the sand. As was presented earlier: had VA's personal information been posted on a well-trafficked WordPress blog, would that have been a miscarriage of "justice?" Gawker is just a large blog with several contributors. The delineation, I feel, is both irrelevant and a distraction to this discussion.
The pedantic instance that VA had done nothing illegal is also a distraction. By that meter, Chen also did nothing illegal, so the entire discussion is moot because everyone was acting within their rights.
Unless you get to upholding unwritten social contracts, at which point, in the eyes of this thread, Chen is responsible for breaking the unwritten journalistic integrity code. By that token however, I would say VA was also guilty of breaking social contracts though his various exploits, both in r/JB, r/CS and the various racism / sexism subs he mod'd. You could say laws are social contracts codified, and you'd be right, but if this effects VA's employment prospects there is, clearly, an additional social contract at play that was disrespected by VA, and holding Chen to that while absolving VA of guilt or blame strikes me as disingenuous.
Unless you want to go on and say that anything that is not explicitly illegal should be allowed without consequence or recourse, but this thread is littered with "he's an awful person / creep" qualifiers so I can tell that's not the case. Clearly we intend to hold people to a standard outside of the legal system.
Essentially my point is: actions have consequences, and no one has an explicit right to anonymity on the internet. Put the two together and it's difficult to see how Chen comes out as the bad guy here for reinforcing these points.
Unless you get to upholding unwritten social contracts, at which point, in the eyes of this thread, Chen is responsible for breaking the unwritten journalistic integrity code. By that token however, I would say VA was also guilty of breaking social contracts though his various exploits, both in r/JB, r/CS and the various racism / sexism subs he mod'd. You could say laws are social contracts codified, and you'd be right, but if this effects VA's employment prospects there is, clearly, an additional social contract at play that was disrespected by VA, and holding Chen to that while absolving VA of guilt or blame strikes me as disingenuous.
You would have a point if anyone was suggesting that VA should in fact be absolved of guilt or blame. The reason this discussion has been focused on the actions of Chen and not of VA is that no one here (that I've noticed) disagrees that VA's actions were immoral and harmful to society.
The reason this discussion has been focused on the actions of Chen and not of VA is that no one here (that I've noticed) disagrees that VA's actions were immoral and harmful to society.
I'm structuring an argument in a different context: we all recognize that VA was a bad actor. He did things that were, in your words, harmful to society. Yet the conversation has focused primarily around how attaching his real name to his own actions is a net negative. Why? What are we implicitly defending? Or are we just saying that both are equally detestable?
(Given Gawker's history I would be willing to accept the latter.)
I don't think people are arguing that he should retain anonymity while invading the privacy of others (although honestly I'm not entirely clear on what he did. I know he admined a bunch of creepy subreddits but I don't know whether he did anything illegal or condoned/encouraged/incited illegal activity, but I'll assume he's a bad guy), I think people are mostly arguing that it's not the responsibility of the press to out him, his home address, real world contacts, etc, and make him available for mob justice. That's not how a functional society works.
Tangential issues are:
* the guy's potential for rehabilitation (basically nil once you've given tenacious internet trolls his life story and implicitly blessed any horrible thing they may choose to do with that information for the rest of his life).
* whether his actions are actually technically illegal, or whether they should be, or whether we can realistically legislate the line where illegality occurs without abridging inalienable rights for others.
* more that aren't coming to mind right this second.
So who governs the internet's general journalistic integrity? Is it based on server location? Where the journalist lives?
I don't even get why this is such a big discussion. Dude posted some shit, illegal or not, and someone who knows his real name came out with it on the internet.
If this had been a reddit post, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion! If this had been Joe's Shitty Blog, we wouldn't be having this discussion!
If the guy that was told VA's name to begin with had posted something like this on his personal blog, is that different? How?
Why is Gawker on the internet, held up to a higher journalistic integrity than anyone else on the internet?
At this point, in an ungoverned, or multi-governed situation, journalistic integrity means shit-all. You read what you read. If it's found to be untruthful or biased, then you pick something else. I never would have even seen this had it not been for the forum. It's not like Gawker is claiming to be the God of stand-up reporting, they put up articles, you come back if you like them.
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However, if there is information publicly available on the Internet and they rebroadcast it, that is how it is. Welcome to the Internet. If you put information in a public place and people share it, you just have to deal with it. It's the same way that media companies have to deal with people freely sharing their artistic works. Bits are bits, they will be copied whether they are pictures of teenage girls, HD movies, or your name and address. If you don't want them copied and shared, don't type them into a computer ever.
That guy wanted to have his cake and eat it too. He wanted to be anonymous, but he didn't take any technical precautions to actually be anonymous. He publicly disseminated lots of personal information, and was still under the illusion that his real identity was a secret. This is an anonymous account, so let me tell you all about my family so that you can figure out who I am. Smooth move Ex-Lax. If he was really so concerned about being anonymous he should have used VPNs, encryption, and never posted anything that could link his account to his real identity.
Did Gawker violate journalistic ethics with that article? Maybe so. But any information they posted there was information that anyone could have figured out from publicly available data. I find nothing morally wrong with it assuming that all of the information in the article is factually correct, which I can't be sure of.
By the way, not trying to be known as the forum champion of women or a feminist or whatever, but...
Posting crotch shots, boobs, etc, basically private voyeuristic photos of people (this Reddit crap seems to be focused on women, but it of course applies to any person), is a crime. Also distributing child pornography is a crime. There seems to be some question on whether the creep from the article actually created any of the content he posted, but I'm sure if distributing child pornography counts as a crime, then distributing private sexual photos counts, too. (Dumb teenagers posting their own bikini photos on FB... well thats another story... :-P)
I'm not arguing against the main plot of the flame war here, I'm just addressing what I saw in this thread: that some people are saying he didn't commit a crime, therefore shouldn't be outed. I'm saying, yes, he did commit a crime. No wonder you guys were so afraid of the rape flame war. You are so desensitized by the internet to the horrid mistreatment of women (and anyone) that you don't seem to recognize these things.
Edit: I re-read my post and realize it might offend some of you. I'm sorry. Just know that when I say "you guys" "you" etc. I don't mean literally every person, I'm mainly targeting the people it pertains to. You know, maybe I'm just not cut out for this flame war stuff. -_-
Imagine if I went to the public beach and just took a regular old photo of all the girls in bathing suits. Imagine if I walked down the street here in the city and took a photo of any girl I thought was hot or cute. That is what is going on here. People are in public places where they have no expectation of privacy. They happen to be attractive people. Someone takes a photo of them without permission, but permission is not legally required if the picture is not going to be used for commercial purposes.
Take for example the case of the teacher who took pictures of his students. That is incredibly illegal and wrong for so many reasons. Not only because of the student/teacher relationship, but because he did it right in the classroom. He got what he deserved. But look at the photo itself that is attached to all the news articles about him.
It's a girl sitting at a desk. She happens to be wearing short shorts. If the girl had been walking down a public sidewalk, and the photographer had not been her teacher, there would be nothing illegal about such a photograph. It's creepy, and you never want to be associated with anyone who is doing it, but I think that disallowing it would be entering into the realm of restricting free speech. Free speech means allowing the icky speech along with the good speech, and people who live in such a society need to be able to tolerate creeps as long as they don't cross the line.
I shed the smallest of small tears for the invasion of privacy suffered by someone who repeatedly and proudly invades womens' privacy or supports and enables said invasion.
Also, a fully clothed shot can't by definition capture any "private areas". I'm not saying it's not a creepy thing to do, I'm saying that conflating the two minimizes the worst (actually criminal) cases. And he's a scumbag, who unlike the guy who got doxxed, is actually committing clearly criminal acts. He should be outed by the reddit administrators if possible and prosecuted. Is anybody arguing otherwise?
Also, /r/rapingtrannies doesn't seem to exist, /r/beatingtrannies has under 100 readers and hasn't been active in over 2 months, and /r/rapingwomen has under 1000 readers.
As for Maybe so, no, there is no maybe about it. And was it morally wrong? If you consider it by the moral standard of Journalistic content, rather than an individual level, I'd say it most certainly was - and may I remind you that "Unethical" and "Immoral" are, in fact, synonyms, so you can't really say it's simultaneously unethical, but moral, that makes no sense.
Also for your consideration - Chen is notoriously anti-reddit, and notoriously lax in his journalistic ethics and efforts. He was digging around for quite a while, targeting VA specifically in this case, and both he and Jezabel are known to be connected to the same segment of users that produced said blackmail thread - though to be clear, he did not at any point personally blackmail anyone, that is entirely the doing of others, not Chen. He's fucking dodgy, but he's not that dodgy.
Also, I'm still baffled that you can call using one's media platform to ruin someone's life and the lives of the people associated with him(but whom are entirely innocent) ethical or morally in the clear, as a private citizen or as a media outlet. I know you're a man with a strong moral code, and I don't recall free speech or freedom of the press making you judge, jury and executioner to be one of the components of that code.
That's why you've got to be careful about this sort of thing, as a journalist - doing this sort of thing is a big black line that you can't un-cross. Once it's done, it's done. So you have to be very, very careful, because much like the Mod that was Doxxed and beaten into a hospital bed(not Chen's doing, to be clear, but another reddit user), that sort of thing is squarely at your feet. Chen has not himself engaged in any form of vigilante justice, here, but you can be damned sure he's enabled it, tacitly encouraged it, and at least partially responsible if it occurs. Was it that article that gave you that idea, or was it Chen's other article, "Obama Grants Interview to Racist Teen Nude Picture Website"? Don't bother basing an opinion on anything Chen writes about reddit, the dude has a Hate-boner for reddit, and an agenda, and a bias so large you can see it from space.
Now, I'm not going to defend all of Reddit - It's a microcosm of the larger internet, essentially, and just like the wider internet, there are good parts, and shitty parts, along with good users and bad users. But painting all of Reddit based on a small minority of shitbags, or especially from anything written by Chen, that's not a great idea.
Wow, that was quite a sentence.
Let's say you post your phone number on Facebook. Then I make a web site that says Churba's Phone number is XXX-XXX-XXXX. Ok, dick move on my part, clearly. But you made that information public, or at least trusted me with it. Apparently I shouldn't be trusted. But have I done anything really wrong? I don't think so. Your phone number is just bits. Those bits were copied and redistributed. In the year 2012 you must assume that any bits you send out over the wire that are not strongly encrypted and such will be copied and redistributed.
Now let's say some people start calling you on the phone. Someone stalks you. Someone else won't stop calling you and harassing you. Another person makes some death threats. Those people are all fuckers and need justice served on them.
Of course, there's also a matter of context on my posting of the phone number. If I had posted it neutrally, like hey here's my buddy's number, no problem with that. But if I had said, hey here's this guys number, everyone rain holy hell on his phone! Then I'm guilty of incitement, and I should be locked up along with the death threat guy.
The gawker article did not seem to me to be inciting the readers to ruin this dude's life. I think they even painted a slightly sympathetic picture. If guilty of anything I think they repeated his real name over and over, like they were bragging about having found it.
Apparently you are aware of a lot of other meta-context involving this Chen person that I have no idea about. Perhaps that is why you see things in the article that I do not see. Keep in mind that the vast majority of readers do not have this extra knowledge that you do.
In other words, they suffer from a Poe's Paradox; it is impossible for them to distinguish genuine support from parodies thereof so they simply accept the most extreme, and they get it both from trolls and people who actually agree.
You have to be careful what you wish for when you get into the domain of curbing rights based on inferred intent.
Now, taking down-blouse shots, upskirt shots, and voyeuristic shots through windows and keyholes IS criminal, but that's not what was said. There's an awful lot of conflating creepiness with criminality in this thread, and that conversation IS about curbing rights. Whether it's a justified limitation of rights is tangential.
The pedantic instance that VA had done nothing illegal is also a distraction. By that meter, Chen also did nothing illegal, so the entire discussion is moot because everyone was acting within their rights.
Unless you get to upholding unwritten social contracts, at which point, in the eyes of this thread, Chen is responsible for breaking the unwritten journalistic integrity code. By that token however, I would say VA was also guilty of breaking social contracts though his various exploits, both in r/JB, r/CS and the various racism / sexism subs he mod'd. You could say laws are social contracts codified, and you'd be right, but if this effects VA's employment prospects there is, clearly, an additional social contract at play that was disrespected by VA, and holding Chen to that while absolving VA of guilt or blame strikes me as disingenuous.
Unless you want to go on and say that anything that is not explicitly illegal should be allowed without consequence or recourse, but this thread is littered with "he's an awful person / creep" qualifiers so I can tell that's not the case. Clearly we intend to hold people to a standard outside of the legal system.
Essentially my point is: actions have consequences, and no one has an explicit right to anonymity on the internet. Put the two together and it's difficult to see how Chen comes out as the bad guy here for reinforcing these points.
(Given Gawker's history I would be willing to accept the latter.)
Tangential issues are:
* the guy's potential for rehabilitation (basically nil once you've given tenacious internet trolls his life story and implicitly blessed any horrible thing they may choose to do with that information for the rest of his life).
* whether his actions are actually technically illegal, or whether they should be, or whether we can realistically legislate the line where illegality occurs without abridging inalienable rights for others.
* more that aren't coming to mind right this second.
I don't even get why this is such a big discussion. Dude posted some shit, illegal or not, and someone who knows his real name came out with it on the internet.
If this had been a reddit post, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion! If this had been Joe's Shitty Blog, we wouldn't be having this discussion!
If the guy that was told VA's name to begin with had posted something like this on his personal blog, is that different? How?
Why is Gawker on the internet, held up to a higher journalistic integrity than anyone else on the internet?
At this point, in an ungoverned, or multi-governed situation, journalistic integrity means shit-all. You read what you read. If it's found to be untruthful or biased, then you pick something else. I never would have even seen this had it not been for the forum. It's not like Gawker is claiming to be the God of stand-up reporting, they put up articles, you come back if you like them.
This is the internet people, get with the times.