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Author Topic: Mixed emotions about the internet  (Read 12282 times)

Gantolandon

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Re: Mixed emotions about the internet
« Reply #15 on: September 01, 2012, 07:42:04 am »

I view it more like 'shit happens'. Honestly, /b/ is an equivalent of heavy machinery, which can be useful, but you shouldn't let children and intoxicated people playing anywhere near it. Getting rid of it would require getting rid of anonimity, which would have a lot of nastier consequences.
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Loud Whispers

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Re: Mixed emotions about the internet
« Reply #16 on: September 01, 2012, 07:50:13 am »

Yes. Yet somehow the victim is getting the blame here because "she's thin-skinned" as if there's absolutely no way depression could get to somebody and make them act irrationally during a bad part of their life. I'm pretty sure all the misogynistic assholes who thought it'd be hilarious to demand nude pics from a woman, and even harassed her for it, believe they're not at fault, but that's just the kind of attitude that makes me despise the /b/ culture.
The problem here is you're generalizing an entire anonymous crowd. It's something impossible to do. There are a lot of despicable people there, but for the most part they stay there. And there are nice people. White knights, idiots or people looking for advice without fear of judgement.

If the price of anonymity is that misogynistic arseholes get a place to circlejerk each other off, that's a price I'd be more than happy to pay.
And yes, the dozen or so people who were spamming messages are clearly at fault here, but the truth of the matter is is that she never should have been there, and she clearly wasn't insulting them to spread the love. If she had done the same thing without bringing her identity with her, the world wouldn't care apparently.
Do you think someone asking for naked pics should get them sent to prison? They do it with men and women, for various reasons sexual or otherwise. If the person getting asked for pics declines - that's the end of it. If it continues, there are plenty of ways of cutting off communication with misogynistic arseholes who demand pr0n by just not going to /b/.
/b/ is a pile of crap, and most of the time it's barely even worth calling it a pile of Fapmonkeys. But they don't target anyone who don't give them serious reason to. A famous example is someone who tried to get them to target people indiscriminately, and of course it backlashed and they all trolled him.

It's not an omnipresent risk here - this is incredibly localized in one cesspit of the internet. It's not "don't walk down dark alleyways" as so much as "yeah don't go in that box. It's full of shit."

I just want some sort of action to be taken against theese things. Not only this.
Also child pornography and animal cruelty.

http://www.4chan.org/rules <- The majority hate it, the minority do it regardless.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-10520487

squeakyReaper

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Re: Mixed emotions about the internet
« Reply #17 on: September 01, 2012, 07:58:41 am »

Quote
going to a place like 4chan looking for validation
Quote
1. Don't go on /b/ if you can't handle the literal worst of the worst shits out there.
On these two points:


I've mixed feelings. One one hand, it's good advice. On the other, it doesn't excuse the people being jackasses.

It's sort of like saying "don't walk down a dark alley at 3 am if you don't want to get mugged." It's good advice, yes, but it doesn't excuse the mugger nor give reason to blame the victim.

Same goes for people getting harassed and looking for friends in the wrong places.
It's less like going to a dark alley and getting mugged and more like going to a stripper bar and being annoyed by the profanity and the nudity. 4chan advertises through word of mouth and its very being that it is a place where terrible things come from, and is entirely avoidable. You have to go there with the intent to look at "bad things", and implicitly agree by being there that you're okay with seeing that stuff. It's beyond the phony "asking for it" status of walking alone at night.
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kaijyuu

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Re: Mixed emotions about the internet
« Reply #18 on: September 01, 2012, 08:22:28 am »

So your argument is assholery is the draw of these places?
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For, in order that men should resist injustice, something more is necessary than that they should think injustice unpleasant. They must think injustice absurd; above all, they must think it startling. They must retain the violence of a virgin astonishment. When the pessimist looks at any infamy, it is to him, after all, only a repetition of the infamy of existence. But the optimist sees injustice as something discordant and unexpected, and it stings him into action.

Gantolandon

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Re: Mixed emotions about the internet
« Reply #19 on: September 01, 2012, 08:24:34 am »

So your argument is assholery is the draw of these places?

As much as saying that being stung is the reason why people do keep bees.
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MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: Mixed emotions about the internet
« Reply #20 on: September 01, 2012, 08:30:00 am »

It's sort of like saying "don't walk down a dark alley at 3 am if you don't want to get mugged." It's good advice, yes, but it doesn't excuse the mugger nor give reason to blame the victim.
It's completely different. In the internet you don't have to go down dark alleys at 3AM unless you want to, and you can leave whenever you want. No one is capable of holding you to the internet but you.

It isn't even a matter of convenience. If you are talking to /b you have, by definition, already gone looking for them of your own free will.
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Glowcat

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Re: Mixed emotions about the internet
« Reply #21 on: September 01, 2012, 08:32:19 am »

How about this idea: People can go places on the internet without worrying about catching the interest of a bunch of assholes who deliberately try to make their life shittier on this planet for personal kicks? I sorta like that idea. I'm pretty sure most people don't go to /b/ to be driven to suicide, so I'm guessing most people would be happy with it too. Except assholes who're doing that sort of thing. But that's to be expected.
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Ultimuh

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Re: Mixed emotions about the internet
« Reply #22 on: September 01, 2012, 08:32:51 am »

I myself love the internet.
Except when trolls, jerks starts doing their thing.
Especially when their forces combine or clash, then it surely gets nasty.
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Loud Whispers

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Re: Mixed emotions about the internet
« Reply #23 on: September 01, 2012, 08:38:57 am »

I'm pretty sure most people don't go to /b/ to be driven to suicide.
You don't go on /b/ to swap pics with friends. If you're their, you're either there to do serious business (no joke), take advantage of anonymity or do something dickish. She went there to be a dick, and dicks responded in turn by being dicks.
It's a great deal worse on websites like Facebook where people kill themselves and their friends encourage grief tourism by asking for "likes because x is dead."

Gantolandon

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Re: Mixed emotions about the internet
« Reply #24 on: September 01, 2012, 08:45:36 am »

How about this idea: People can go places on the internet without worrying about catching the interest of a bunch of assholes who deliberately try to make their life shittier on this planet for personal kicks? I sorta like that idea. I'm pretty sure most people don't go to /b/ to be driven to suicide, so I'm guessing most people would be happy with it too. Except assholes who're doing that sort of thing. But that's to be expected.

There is just not much that can be done to ensure it, without a solution that will cause other unwanted consequences (like mandatory identification or censorship). You can shame this behavior and this is pretty much what most people do.
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kaijyuu

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Re: Mixed emotions about the internet
« Reply #25 on: September 01, 2012, 09:07:16 am »

So your argument is assholery is the draw of these places?

As much as saying that being stung is the reason why people do keep bees.
Ah, so it's not the draw, but a necessary consequence of whatever the draw is?

I don't quite buy that it's necessary, but that does make more sense.


Here's another analogy that might be more apt: Going to a bar for a drink and maybe to meet someone. One can expect rowdy behavior, but that won't excuse any harassment. Doesn't matter what the bar's for; even a strip bar.




Re: Any sort of prevention.

I'll agree that there's no way to really prevent this. However, I do think it can remain firmly in the realm of inexcusable. We pretty much have to expect it, but we do NOT have to tolerate it (and definitely not excuse it!).

Personally, I'd rather people be jackasses if they're the jackass type anyway. Wolves out in the open are easier to deal with than wolves in sheep's clothing, which is the type you usually run into in real life.
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Quote from: Chesterton
For, in order that men should resist injustice, something more is necessary than that they should think injustice unpleasant. They must think injustice absurd; above all, they must think it startling. They must retain the violence of a virgin astonishment. When the pessimist looks at any infamy, it is to him, after all, only a repetition of the infamy of existence. But the optimist sees injustice as something discordant and unexpected, and it stings him into action.

Gantolandon

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Re: Mixed emotions about the internet
« Reply #26 on: September 01, 2012, 09:28:03 am »

Quote
I'll agree that there's no way to really prevent this. However, I do think it can remain firmly in the realm of inexcusable. We pretty much have to expect it, but we do NOT have to tolerate it (and definitely not excuse it!). 

Personally, I'd rather people be jackasses if they're the jackass type anyway. Wolves out in the open are easier to deal with than wolves in sheep's clothing, which is the type you usually run into in real life.

Exactly that. Some places in the net are equivalents of prisons. Or cysts if you like biological terminology more. The best part is that usually no one needs to guard inmates - they kinda do this to themselves, isolating themselves from other parts of the web. /b/ is something like that for aggressive trolls. They usually annoy and pester themselves and sometimes produce something useful in the process - like a nice meme, or a contribution to a political cause they care about.

This causes a problem for the people who want to enter the cage and play with the tiger - mostly because the bars are invisible and the mainstream press tends to portray it as a cute kitten.
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Leafsnail

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Re: Mixed emotions about the internet
« Reply #27 on: September 01, 2012, 10:41:32 am »

I agree with that. I don't believe someones rights should supersede another persons.
But there must be cases in which one set of rights supercede another.  For instance, while I have a right to freedom of religion, I'm not allowed to sacrifice a child to my god.  Their right to life supersedes my right to freedom of religion, and there's no way around that.

In the UK someone was sent to prison for trolling.
All is adequate.
And he fully deserved it.  Your box analogy doesn't work here because the people he harrassed and slandered were nowhere near /b/ or any other terrible part of the internet.
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G-Flex

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Re: Mixed emotions about the internet
« Reply #28 on: September 01, 2012, 11:15:24 am »

People can, and pretty often do, get involved in places like /b/ without knowing full well what they're about or how to protect themselves (someone mentioned posting images with EXIF data, as if most people even know that exists). Such ignorance/mistaken behavior is no excuse for them getting harassed, period.
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Loud Whispers

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Re: Mixed emotions about the internet
« Reply #29 on: September 01, 2012, 11:15:49 am »

And he fully deserved it.  Your box analogy doesn't work here because the people he harrassed and slandered were nowhere near /b/ or any other terrible part of the internet.
And then he got arrested.
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