claudiawerner

To get closer with the KF situation, the phone company is not typically set up as a moderated venue where administrators, moderators, and janitors are aware of every call and interaction on the service, its content, and who is interacting with who.

They might be able to deduce some of this (and some of it they can't even deduce legally), but it's nothing like an online forum in which the administrators and moderators condone the behavior to (what they see as) reasonable limits just shy of breaking laws against harassment.

Furthermore, if we likened web services to phone services, you'd find we're using a service which doesn't allow half of what KF allows to be posted in accordance with the HN guidelines. And I'm fine with that sort of moderation.

Most phone companies are set up with the implicit assumption that they are content neutral within the bounds of the law, though some do provide further restrictions. KF was not set up as such - this 'ridicule' and 'embarrassing information' is the entire point of the website, and is much closer as a proximal cause to the harassment. It aided that ridicule and connecting people of like minds with bad intentions with the knowledge that this kind of discussion is explicitly banned on Reddit, HN, and to some extent 4chan.

If there were a phone company set up with its advertising and moderation similar to KF's, I'd say the phone company is just as culpable as KF.

For telephony I'd make the same argument. For electricity, probably not. If harassment happens over the telephone, then the telephone provider is sufficiently close to the proximal cause in my judgement for service to be cut off in certain circumstances. Electricity is too far removed.

>but the site in question permanently bans people if evidence comes forward of it

This doesn't fill me with hope; I'm not sure why I should trust the website's claim[0] that they enforce these rules with a one strike policy over the people who say that KF users have harassed them after organizing on KF. The law may not have been broken, but I wouldn't want to live in a society where the bare minimum of "this is legal right now" confers a supposed moral imperative to carry those bytes if I'm someone like Cloudflare.

[0] A website which, uncontroversially, is more than happy to host (and encourage) users who are known to laugh at people for who they are and revel in scooped information, a fact which decreases the trustworthiness of the operators in my eyes.

Maybe the "bunch of guys" ought to reconsider why they will or do reproduce this "vibe" which is so inapplicable to the opposite sex, to what effect, and for what purpose.

The 'Forever alone' meme was originally a jab at oneself for having few partners; it didn't imply anything about one's mindset or opinion on others, nor an opinion on society as a whole. It was also used mostly in an ironic sense. I'm saying that the meme has nothing to do with the 'incel' movement, unless you want to throw in every online expression of loneliness as incel stuff.

Some namesakes remain, for example Reddit's r/ForeverAloneDating where people who haven't had much experience (if any) can make posts to solicit potential e-dates. Although the balance is skewed toward men, there are a good number of women posting there too, and it has nothing to do with incel/blackpill crap.

I feel like that sort of expression encourages biphobia; even if 'genuine' (whatever that means) bi people are rare, an expression like "Bi now, gay later" perfectly plays into long lasting tropes such as bisexuality being "just a phase", something which bisexuals such as myself have spent a long time trying to overcome.

To add on that, studies like the ones mentioned only reveal so much; there are a few good reasons why one might only search for one gender or the other online and in a particular place.

Likewise for the Marxist reading Capital! (Especially Vol. 3)

There are several good arguments put forward by criminologists, legal scholars, and other researchers which argue that the registry is ineffective at best and unjust at worst.

Not to take away from the point you are making, but this is simply not a good example of an uncontroversial case of scarlet lettering.

>I have been humiliated many times in my life, some times in life changing ways, and I'd still take it over real violence.

I would too, in most cases; that said, I'd rather get a literal slap on the wrist or even the face than be humiliated in an online sphere, especially as related to my real identity. It's not the case that shame and humiliation always trumps physical violence in my order of preferences, and I'd be surprised if it's not the same for you too. "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" is a cute rhyme, but utterly disintegrates when one starts to consider degree and the importance of social standing in public daily life (from getting a job to the looks you get at Walmart).

So if you're born on the 31st of January, you're two years old one day later?

I'm not (yet) talking about the law; a prerequisite to law (among other things) is rational deliberation among the members of society. The "we" is every party interested in constructing social norms.

>the logical implication is that mutual agreements are equitable

But nobody uses 'equitable' in this sense, as people have a variety of reasons to engage in a mutual agreement, where upon asked one or even both parties would agree that the agreement isn't 'equitable' or fair. To say that mutual agreements are equitable is only because of the assumption that the agreement wouldn't have occured or been accepted if the agreement isn't equitable - which is obviously false, given that people agree to heavily unfair (though not unconscionable) contracts all the time.

People have been arguing for "equitable pay" since before the word 'postmodernist' ever entered the English lexicon. In general, equitable pay for a job would entail that no two people are paid differently on the basis of certain characteristics we might deem irrelevant (and this basket of characteristics varies depending on who you ask).

Further, economists, political scientists, and philosophers alike have written on the topic of what is equitable in a capitalist economy, and in terms of distributive justice; there are very few people who would define equitability as the mere existence of an agreement between parties, including the legal system (for example, some contracts can and are deemed unconscionable, and selling organs or oneself into slavery are illegal).

I think this will either be ineffective, or simply make it even harder for people to know what they can post and what they can reblog. Although Matt's concerns about "porn bots", which are almost always a scammy way to get you to sign up and pay money off-site, are valid concerns, the fact that the proposed changes would allow me to write an erotic Overwatch fanfic but perhaps not post a drawing of two of the characters going at it is confusing.

Use of the word 'erotica' is particularly telling here, as it seems Matt has the innate ability to distinguish high brow from low brow pornography.

>due to being an "adult child of someone who had been a Russian government official" (source Reuters[0]), but VK the company is not sanctioned.

I get the intention behind this rule for applying sanctions, but it still seems unfair to me that the son pays for the sins of the father and can't even atone for him.

Not at all; but it does test where 'harm' lies or should lie in legal system, leaving aside the human sensation. I would not like that to be legal, however that's irrelevant to the question of the art in itself. I'm not making a commercial argument here, I'm saying that these things aren't adequately covered by the 'bad' laws of defamation and copyright infringement.

In your example, I don't think I'd have a problem with the creation of the images if they're not distributed, but on a macro scale, if I put aside my ethical concerns with the proliferation of patriarchy, it's worth considering whether "anyone can do anything with images" would have such an effect if my wife were only one targeted among millions.

As much as I agree with you about those, GP mentioned something more specific:

>but what people choose to draw, imagine, photoshop, or deepfake for non-commercial use is their business

And although I'm sure that one can harass or incite violence or defame with artwork, whether that means artwork of the imagination as artwork should fall into that category is dubious. An instructive example here concerns fantasy versus 'hate speech' and where to draw that line while maintaining maximum freedom and a polite society.

I don't think society as particularly 'safer' in the cases of defamation and copyright infringement being prohibited; and when it comes to fiction I'm even more dubious, given that fiction is known to be able to produce statements we can more easily take as fantasy.

"gratuitous, graphic descriptions of explicit sex acts,"

If you think a blowjob being described in seven words to make a point about vulgarity is 'gratuitous', 'graphic', or 'explicit', your moral compass is severely out of whack.

>which sole purpose is sexual gratification

Not necessarily; plenty of pornography contains serious artistic contents and merit beyond the simple aim of sexual gratification, and they raise interesting questions on their own. This is why some have attempted to make another classifier of 'erotica', which IMO isn't needed.

>through sexual exploitation, rape via human trafficking.

Even if this were true for all porn (and it isn't), that dosen't make it any less art; it may make it 'lesser art' from a moralist perspecitve on the value of art, but this by no means of widely accepted relevance to aesthetic value nor to the property of being 'art'.

>the very definition of vulgarity.

A rude gesture or crass words seems vulgar. A video of a penis being sucked doesn't. "Vulgar" is the sort of word you might hear a shrill, paternal sitcom character use to describe a minor inconvenience or faux pas, and it's just as hilarious when people use it as an argument in real life.

I simply struggle to see it as an 'especially egregious' act of sexual predation when the facts are on the ground, or rather, obscured and unknown. I'm saying that the assumption that a difference in power is enough to turn a relationship from 'weird but OK' to 'egregious sexual predation' does not always hold, and it's hard to see where it does hold without removing all agency from the 'victim'.

I know nothing of the particular case, but this argument isn't very convincing to me; the existence of a disparity does no work to show that disparity was actually part of the decision making process for the 17 year old in the way you're insinuating. The more we start removing the agency of late adolescents by calling them 'impressionable', the less sensible this conversation becomes, as though nobody can remember when they themselves were once 17, I know I can.

The argument is flawed because we generally tolerate power differences in relationships: men and women (institutional power), certain cases of coworkers of different ranks, an able-bodied person with a disabled person, a depressed person with a mentally healthy person, a suicidal person with a happy person, etc.

There are also a lot of adults who vary, due to personal characteristics or experiences with relationships (or lack thereof) who are far more easily snared into a relationship; the average 17 year old has had many more relationships than I have as a 25 year old, and sexual ones too, usually with peers. If anything, I'm the naive one who would fall into a very convincing snare with an older man.

That's not really a good understanding - it may seem pedantic, but legal theorists and sociologists have very little to say about the 'real biological basis' of race; it's simply not within their purview. However, it may be used as an assumption or presupposition or not considered at all.

You mentioned 'and that the laws and attitudes surrounding race are primarily informed by this social construction' which correctly describes CRT, but it doesn't have anything to do with the biology (or lack thereof) of race.

>it's scaremongering based on proposed legislation that will probably never make it to the statute books.

As someone following this horrendous bill, can you tell me what gives you that impression, given that it's passed two readings in the Commons and HL doesn't seem to be particularly vocal about slowing it down?

>Interestingly, there are a bunch of other polite pronouns that have fallen out of use in most of the country, and have now taken on a sarcastic/mocking connotation (dânsul/dânsa/dânșii/dânsele for third person, and dumneata for second person).

Funny! I only know Romanian from my grandparents, and I haven't lived in Romania, so I thought these were fairly normal still :)

>Bathtub hormones being sold to minors in bright packaging featuring a cartoon with the speech bubble

Reading this is hilarious from someone in the know: you're referring to 'Otoko no Ko pharmaceuticals', which is a website operated in South America which asks no questions as to who they're shipping to; they just accept crypto payment and send it off. It's not part of some grooming campaign, and the characters featured are anime characters, not 'cartoon' characters in the sense you suggest targets children as consumers.

>If you voluntarily give your free-earned money to Jeff Bezos, it's an ethical transaction.

There has been some work done in economics and distributive justice which casts doubts on whether any and all voluntary transactions count as 'ethical', and philosophers get a look-in here too; see economist Roberto Veneziani or Sen's work.

>If you don't want billionaires in this world, you're free to stop giving them your money at any time.

Economists have also spent a lot of time trying to calculate the rationality of voting vis-a-vis the expected return, and the results don't look good. The inconvenience caused by voting (and I think we could apply this to not buying from Amazon or other corporations owned by billionaires) outweighs the miniscule or 'negligible' (as the economists say in the case of voting) benefit of the owner making less money.

There's a lot of research on the effectiveness and power of boycotts. It's as much an empricical argument as it is a logical one.

I feel like this approach can run into some problems:

1. Some people physically or mentally can't contribute to to disability or some other disorder.

2. Some people can't contribute because they were not provided with/are not provided with the opportunity to gain those skills.

3. It's very, very hard to quantify how much one contributes to society, especially when a task requires lots of people doing small things, or few people doing big things. Pay offers some signal for this in some cases, but at best it's talking about the economy - itself a proxy of society which layers on its own incentives.

I'm raising these three points because I know that if I were to respond with "That seems unfair and it's not the sort of society I'd like to live in" the counter response to that would likely be "we should aim for equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome". The point of my comment is to effectively say that it's very hard to measure opportunity and outcome when one takes into account individual circumstances, and it's even harder to get to the root of what we mean by 'equality' (mathematical equality? qualitatitve equality? quantitative equality? equality before the law?).

As someone who shares this perception, for me it's not nearly as analytical. I can physically see how much is left; I don't think in terms of the numbers. It's sort of like judging the distance between your workplace and the coffee shop down the street, in which if asked you'd make some heuristics to estimate how long it takes you to get there, but by default you just 'know' it is where it is, even if you don't think of the distance in meters.

So it's more like "I have <image of clock> left" because I intuitively know what the clock will look like when the time is up.

It's worth noting that the heir apparent PM is a supporter of the Online Safety Act, which hands over regulation of any Internet service 'accessible to anyone in the UK' allowing any two users to communicate to the UK's broadcasting regulatory board[0], which demands reports about what kind of users the service, their ages, and a plethora of other information which seems to create regulatory capture: in addition to mandatory age verification. It does this by creating a gray area of speech defined as 'harmful content' which is not in itself illegal but its presence is sufficient to levy fines and ban the Internet service from everyone's in the UK if the regulations are not complied with.

[0] https://www.techdirt.com/2022/08/02/uks-likely-next-prime-mi...

It's funny to see a coin like this minted considering the Australian government's position on encryption and privacy (well, not just Australia - pretty much any other Commonwealth country too).