Comment by geofft | Hacker News Reader

Comment by geofft | Hacker News Reader

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> Trolls who make threats on the internet

See this thread:

https://twitter.com/terraloire/status/686591765931921409

With the internet being as central to modern society as it is, instead of simply some USENET servers used by some college kids and bored sysadmins, there isn't really a distinction between "threats on the internet" and "threats" any more. (This is not to say that there's no longer a distinction between "idle threats" and "serious threats", of course, just that whether they're on the internet is not a determiner of them being idle.)

> (and if they aren't - what kind of stuff are you spewing out that makes so many people waste their time getting angry with you?)

"Normal" people get angry when they feel threatened. If you are challenging the status quo, it's not unusual for people who benefit from the status quo to get angry at you. This has been true for all of history, and arguing that you shouldn't upset the supporters of the status quo is quite literally arguing that Twitter should not be a platform for free speech.

It honestly sounds to me like you're approaching this from first principles / intuition, instead of any data (or analyses of data, which exist) about how internet harassment actually works.

> instead of simply some USENET servers used by some college kids and bored sysadmins, there isn't really a distinction between "threats on the internet" and "threats" any more.

The biggest thing that changed is instead of using anonymous handles, people got into the habit of using their personal information. From the link you included, that woman has what I assume is her name, her photo, her city, and her personal website - most of which is likely a gateway for googling more information. On her actual profile, her latest retweet is millennials mansplaining or something, one could say she's basically baiting a group of people she disagrees with, and further down she's calling Ricky Gervais a "whiny baby" (where does that fit under twitters rules?)

If I was spewing that kind of crap about people with my own name beside it, I guess I'd be worried about people finding where I live and harassing me too. It's mind boggling why people do this to themselves.

> It honestly sounds to me like you're approaching this from first principles / intuition, instead of any data (or analyses of data, which exist) about how internet harassment actually works.

It's why I asked. Maybe it's just that I think of the internet the same way I did 15 years ago where nobody online ever needs to know your name, age, sex, height, opinions, political affiliations, favorite food, etc unless you make it so, and when you want to start over with a clean slate, you can just remake internet accounts rather than having some dumb crap you said 10 years ago stick with you forever on google.

This is all legitimate. Unfortunately, we're in a culture -- one might almost call it a status quo, really -- where certain trolling and harassment is renamed "punching up" or "calling out" and is not only permitted but encouraged.

If we genuinely want harassment to stop, the very minimum that's necessary is for all people to be treated equally under the anti-harassment policies. Otherwise, why would those who are defined as valid targets have any investment in the smooth running of our systems? We'll create a permanent enemy and never have a day's peace until the end of time.

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