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Comment by Kliment | Hacker News Reader

Can we, as a community, cause damage and annoyance to RIAA executives and their member company executives? Here are some ideas:

- Ban them from dating sites

- Ban their kids from instagram/tiktok/whatever

- Have web shops show all items as out of stock for them

- Refuse to do business with them or their families, in general

- subscribe them to real life spam

- send their office envelopes of glitter

I'm sure others can think of other methods. Maybe it's just vindictiveness on my part, but maybe it will make them reconsider their life choices if said choices came at a cost of permanent inconvenience.

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Don't do this. This is how gamergaters destroyed people's lives. It starts with a little bit of doxxing and it ends with well meaning humans (who you happen to disagree with) hiding on their high school friend's couch, two states away from their families.

I get that, and yeah it's bad. But there's also a deep frustration with how these fuckers can do this stuff and get away with it. So how does one push back?

If they’re willing to fight it, help pay their legal fees. Win in court, set a better precedent.

That is how change happens in the world, not by trying to ruin the lives of individuals emblematic of a flawed system but quite likely perfectly decent people in and of themselves.

What GG did was illegal, everything GP suggested is harmless (and legal).

You should not conflate the two.

Creating negative consequences for poor choices in society is a great and effective tool that should be used more often.

Yeah, vigilante justice by an angry internet mob, what could possibly go wrong?

I’m not sure that justice was the goal here; what the RIAA does is not illegal, and nor are the annoyances and other shunning behaviors that were suggested.

I don’t think “vigilante” or “angry internet mob” are accurate descriptions, either.

You don’t need to be angry, or a vigilante, or seeking “justice” to wish negative consequences for certain (legal) choices made by others in society, such as working for the RIAA or other such jobs that make our world and society worse.

It’s a false dichotomy to think the only two options are “do nothing to hinder them” or “angry internet mob”.

Legal, harmless ways of discouraging certain choices are perhaps one of the best tools available to us for improving our society, in many different contexts.

Making dubious legal arguments and demands is what the sovereign citizens do and that's the same thing as what the RIAA is doing here. We shouldn't legitimize their techniques because it's couched in a pseudo-legal framing, but we should engage in action-for-action.

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