I agree, the two are very different. However, a number of people consider their own negative emotions to be a good reason to restrict the speech of others.
There's a reason that flag-burning hit the SCOTUS.
Those articles are just repeating the accusation without evidence. Also, I'm not sure why anyone would give any credence to information from those sources in the first place.
I am astounded by the viciousness and mendacity of those who are determined to undermine 8chan at any cost. These people are essentially fighting for total corporate control of every corner of the internet, just because 8chan doesn't promote their pet issue.
> Those articles are just repeating the accusation without evidence
Except for all the evidence that's in the article, like the newspaper link with quotes from the police chief. But hey, if you ignore all the evidence, there's no evidence!
> Also, I'm not sure why anyone would give any credence to information from those sources in the first place.
Probably because they lie a lot less than GamerGaters seem to.
If 8chan didn't keep calling the police on people, I think it would probably get a lot less heat. You can't claim to be all for free speech, then say it's okay to call the police on somebody who said something you didn't like.
>If 8chan didn't keep calling the police on people
8chan is actually not a person, and no evidence has been presented that a user of the site has done any such thing. I have noticed a couple of posters in this thread posting a gish-gallop of links (mostly from discredited sources) purporting to prove something, but one sees upon inspection that they in fact do nothing of the sort.
Man, not 24 hours ago you tried to convince us all that an article did not contain certain information, when any literate person could see that it did. You're not only a liar, you're a bad liar; your only strategy is making bold, false claims and hoping that everyone is too lazy to follow up on them. Why should we believe anything that you say?
I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted. I think the epistemic closure among the remaining GamerGate partisans is exactly like the sort of thing you see at the core of plenty of movements. MRAs, climate change deniers, biblical fundamentalists, hardcore marxists, truthers, conspiracy theorists, et cetera, ad nauseam.
Promoting a worldview is a tricky thing. To be really good at it, you have to believe, and the more unorthodox your worldview, the harder you have to work to maintain that worldview in the face of widespread resistance. The easy thing is to refuse to even consider anything to the contrary, to only talk with people who share your views.
This pattern happens over and over in tech, too; it's not like we're exempt. Look at the dot-com bubble, for example. It was an article of faith that the Internet would change everything. That it turned out to be true eventually didn't matter; enough people took leave of their senses that we wasted billions.
Let's be real here, the incidences of SWAT teams showing up at people's houses have mostly been used to argue that action should be taken against people who say negative things online. Hell, we've even had demands that everyone in the gaming community should be forced to use their real name to end harassment, which is just about the worst thing you could do if you cared about SWATting but very handy for punishing people who hold the wrong views.
Members of the anti-GG and social justice crowds have carried out similarly stupid and counterproductive acts of aggression and bullying. They still all deserve a voice and home.
SWATing is horrible, but IMHO you should be placing more of the blame on our fucked up militarized police system that lets bored teenagers send an armored car full of soldiers, armed to the teeth and ready to kill to anyone's house with a single phone call. If it takes a few SWATings for the public to realize that this is completely unacceptable, so be it.
>Members of the anti-GG and social justice crowds have carried out similarly stupid and counterproductive acts of aggression and bullying.
It's not directly relevant to the topic, but if you really believe this you should better educate yourself with regard to what has been done in the name of gamergate.
>IMHO you should be placing more of the blame on our fucked up militarized police system that lets bored teenagers send an armored car full of soldiers, armed to the teeth and ready to kill to anyone's house with a single phone call. If it takes a few SWATings for the public to realize that this is completely unacceptable, so be it.
SWATing has been an ongoing thing for quite a while, with a few cases making their way into mainstream news. Perpetrators (when caught) are prosecuted quite heavily. Waving off SWATing as not the fault of places which allow and encourage harassment in the form of doxing just because the military industrial complex exists seems like blaming auto manufacturers for drunk drivers.
I've actually had arguments with people who believe drunk driving is the fault of "the system" for not making transit instant and free for everyone. So blaming auto manufacturers is the sort of thing people actually believe.
> "I've actually had arguments with people who believe drunk driving is the fault of "the system" for not making transit instant and free for everyone."
"Fault" is a concept that I believes always lies with the person who is actually committing the crime, but I think the general idea isn't outlandish.
Say I've got a problem of drunks leaving the bars at night and pissing on the sidewalk. I can make it illegal, arrest anyone who does it, and when the complaints continue to roll in I can point out you can't make people not break the law. It is nobody's fault but their own, surely I cannot be responsible for another man's bladder.
Alternatively I can recognize the futile nature of attempting to correct this behavior with laws alone, and do something like install public toilets in problem areas.
Designing a society to accommodate people such that they are less likely to break the law does not mean that I am assuming responsibility for their actions, nor assigning fault to myself when people break the law.
This particular person believed that going out and getting drunk was a basic human right, and that having to be responsible for your own transportation infringed on that right. Less of the pragmatic concessions and more of the bizarre notions of fault.
>It's not directly relevant to the topic, but if you really believe this you should better educate yourself with regard to what has been done in the name of gamergate.
No, really, gamergate supporters like Milo Yiannopoulos have also been doxxed, sent death threats to, sent threatening packages to, had their family members harassed, etc. The social justice movement contains honest supporters of diversity in tech, and psychotic scumbags like Shanley Kane. There are idiotic assholes on both "sides," and you shouldn't let them discount the entirety of the movements they "support."
I'm in no way excusing SWATing, but I absolutely think the outrage it generates should be directed towards our militarized police system. The drunk driving analogy is stupid because the benefits that cars provide to society outweigh the negatives of drunk drivers, but there is no good reason for an anonymous tip to warrant armed soldiers breaking into your house in the night, usually making no indication that they are policemen and not just thugs and robbers, and shooting you dead if you so much as move the wrong way in your confusion. It's a profoundly dangerous and easy to abuse system, and it needs to change.
>No, really, gamergate supporters like Milo Yiannopoulos have also been doxxed
I don't think someone searching his twitter feed for a phone number he himself posted for self promotion falls under the same category as taking selfies outside someone's place of work.
>The drunk driving analogy is stupid because the benefits that cars provide to society outweigh the negatives of drunk drivers, but there is no good reason for an anonymous tip to warrant armed soldiers breaking into your house in the night, usually making no indication that they are policemen and not just thugs and robbers, and shooting you dead if you so much as move the wrong way in your confusion. It's a profoundly dangerous and easy to abuse system, and it needs to change.
You're right, the system does need to change. And I would even agree that is linked to the issues of online harassment. However, that is not the cause of online harassment, nor would improvements to police reaction policies put a stop to doxing.
>I don't think someone searching his twitter feed for a phone number he himself posted for self promotion
The parent commenter was referring to an incident when Shanley Kane tweeted Yiannopoulos' personal phone number, which was not intended to be public. He subsequently received a deluge of messages (does this qualify as "harassment"?) Such behavior is commonplace amongst the SJW set, and not so much among their opponents, contrary to the mainstream perception.
He posted his number privately in order to facilitate an interview regarding the topic at hand. I'd argue publishing that is far more egregious than taking a selfie outside someones publicly listed place of work.
Either way they are both shitty behaviours, don't really think we need to take a one vs the other.
I think the implied threat to personal safety is more jarring than obnoxious phone calls, but this is so far off topic it belongs elsewhere.
The kinds of harassment we've seen come out of one man's personal crusade against an ex-girlfriend are disgusting, and it's incumbent upon all of us to discourage it.
