Twitter users are revealing the identities of white supremacist protestors | Hacker News Reader

Twitter users are revealing the identities of white supremacist protestors

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Or to put it another way, the protesters are revealing their own identities by making their info public.

I am skeptical of how useful this is in the long run. It's therapeutic for some of my fellow leftists ("haha, this person's name is sullied for life, I imagine") but real, permanent change is less easy than this.

Before anyone comes in and acts like this is wrong: attaching a face to a 'free speech' protest is perfectly OK. There's no legal penalties for saying horrific racist comments, but there are social ones.

Props to these people, however I hope there aren't any mistaken identities.

While it's hard to feel any sympathy for this particular group of nazi losers, I think Slate Star Codex makes some decent points about the dangers of this kind of behavior:

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/07/29/against-signal-boosting...

For those wringing their hands about free speech, remember that this was a violent event which resulted in one death, a dozen or two serious injuries, and lots and lots of less serious injuries.

It's one thing to call out people involved in a peaceful Nazi rally (although I don't think I'd be opposed to that either), and white another to call out people involved in fighting and killing peaceful protestors.

“I understand the photo has a very negative connotation,” he said. “But I hope that the people sharing the photo are willing to listen that I’m not the angry racist they see in that photo.”

Apparently, racists do not know they are racist.

If you're comfortable enough marching in public then I would have assume you'd have no issue with people knowing you were at that event.

Two problems: suppressing dumb ideas lends them unwarranted credibility, and in their fervor they will almost certainly victimize innocent people.

I don't see this as suppressing dumb ideas. Quite the opposite -- it's fueling a national debate about those ideas. These people are getting much more of a platform than they'd otherwise have, and I disagree that it gives them credibility. It gives them warranted (and necessary) visibility, juxtaposed against a social backlash, which hurts their credibility.

To your second point: what makes you think doxxing them is going to motivate them to victimize people that they wouldn't otherwise victimize?

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