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Comment by hanklazard | Hacker News Reader

The term "bully" just doesn't seem to capture the behavior described in this piece. To send threatening images, organize wide-scale negative reviews of a person's online properties, doxx, etc with the intent to silence someone needs some other word. "Online terrorist" is too strong, but something closer to that term seems more appropriate.

I'm increasingly of the opinion that more high-profile court cases are needed to keep this sort of psychopathy in check. That's, of course, easier said than done.

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I wonder if this is mainly the enabling effect of the internet (a lot of people who, in real life, would never dream of abusing another person, feel able to do so on the internet); or its multiplying effect (a few people -- and there are always a few, who in the past would write poison pen letters and the like) are able to spread their bile _everywhere_. I imagine it's a combination.

The Internet also enables bad actors to participate anonymously. Obviously plenty of the people screaming on the Internet are “real” people. But how many are paid to manipulate and agitate? What percentage of inflammatory posts on both sides of the divide are the product of paid influence?

It sounds like conspiracy theory lala land, but I knew people 10+ years ago who were writing reviews and engaging in product discussions professionally. It’s only gotten more sophisticated and widespread. It feels like today we’re living in a political landscape akin to fake review bullshit land on Amazon.

just a few bad actors can and will conspire to create between 8 million and 18 million fake identity comments on a single page...

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/biggest-isps-pai...

or https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/ny-ag-report-finds...

it's conspiracy - not theory at this point.

> A stone hit her on the side of the head.

Shirley Jackson, "The Lottery"

I always loved that the first one waa anonymous, disembodied, as if no one (or everyone all at once) threw it.

I always wondered about the type of person who could start such a thing.

Later, when I read Granovetter's theory on behavior thresholds, it suddenly made sense that there are thousands - millions - of people just itching for a reason to throw a stone.

There is always someone with a riot threshold of zero.

In the good old days leaving a severed horse head on someone’s bed was just “intimidation,” “mafia tactics,” and perhaps a bit of extortion or blackmail.

We regarded intimidation as a criminal behaviour rather than a political strategy to be rewarded.

This is separate from standover tactics where you would physically invade another person’s “personal space”.

“Bullying” was low grade psychological and physical abuse. Still unwanted and discouraged but at no point we’re you worried that you would die, lose fingers or find severed animal heads in your bed.

> The term "bully" just doesn't seem to capture the behavior described in this piece

Harasser?

I prefer the more apt term "class enemy". It fits their behavior quite nicely and explains why they receive so much protection from the media.

I'd rather avoid terms that immediately identify the user as part of a particular political group, whether intentionally or otherwise. Naming things is a tricky enough topic without additionally chumming the waters for all-but-guaranteed ad hominem attacks.

I don't know why anyone would have a problem correctly identifying people engaged in class warfare for their own benefit. There's nothing tricky about naming people openly engaging in class warfare... except on the part of people who don't want their activities exposed to public scrutiny.

Subscribing to the notion of "class warfare" in general is the political marker I was just speaking about.

There are no politically neutral labels. Every word ultimately contains within it an implicit affiliation with one group or another, and an implicit judgement upon others. I prefer to call a spade a spade no matter who it offends. In fact, seeing who it offends is often quite instructive.

> Online terrorist" is too strong, but something closer to that term seems more appropriate.

Activist? Activism is often thought of as "soft" but has a long history of crossing legal boundaries to varying degrees so it seems to fit.

Regan called Al Queda "freedom fighters". Bush called them "terrorists". Activists are people the speaker agrees with, bullies are people he disagrees with. I would rather have a discussion about the issues without needing to get into semantic debates and call out rhetorical non-arguments.

I think "bully" is actually overblown for someone typing mean words into a comment field.

The tendency for people to get super aggressive over minor divergences from accepted tribal orthodoxies is... baffling and appalling. It should be addressed from within their own in-groups as the rude, antisocial, and, most importantly, ineffective behavior it is.

Partisan duckspeak does not reinforce the ingroup, does not educate or enlighten the outgroup, and ultimately does little but waste time.

If we were just talking mere personal attacks or incivility I'd agree, but we're talking about getting people cut off from their support networks, their livelihoods, etc. That goes a lot farther than reading some unpleasant words on a screen. If you can't escape it by turning the screen off, we're talking about something much more serious and harmful.

> cut off from their support networks, their livelihoods, etc.

Yeah, but that's all legal, and those doing the cutting are doing so voluntarily. That's freedom of association working as intended.

To me, to cross into "bullying", someone has to do something beyond their rights. Saying that someone is bad for having certain opinions is in-bounds, even if you say it loudly to a lot of people. You're within your own rights to express an opinion of disgust.

You ultimately aren't forcing anyone to do anything, and thus aren't "cutting off" anything.

Consider that broadcasting the crimes someone was arrested for has a similar negative impact, and is seldom remedied by acquittal. Similarly, consider how this blasé attitude works when incorrect accusations are getting thrown around.

If you weaponize social networks against someone, you don't get to stand back, wash your hands of the matter and shrug with "freedom of association" as if it's some force of nature where you had nothing to do with what happens next. You lit the fuse or helped burn it.

You can't "weaponize" social networks, as they are comprised of living, thinking human beings each with their own agency and decisionmaking ability. They're not passive objects.

The fact that laws on things like libel and slander and blackmail exist means that the legal system has recognized that living, thinking human beings with agency still react in certain harmful ways when told certain things. "Agency" is not an escape hatch from the responsibility of understanding the reasonably predictable consequences of your actions.

Libel and slander are, at least in most of the USA, largely a civil matter, and aren't actually illegal, FWIW. The twenty-odd states that do have laws on the books about it don't frequently enforce, and it's usually just a misdemeanor. The civil liability is what keeps most large public lies in check.

We aren't talking about lies, though, we are talking about negative opinions, which aren't lies and thus aren't slander or libel.

Spreading your own negative opinions about someone or someone's actions is not illegal.

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