Just exactly what “responsibilities” do you perceive me to have in this discussion? Others are advocating monitoring another person’s property using technology and publishing it on the internet. I am suggesting that there is no reasonable civil reason to do so. The only “responsibility” I have here is to be true to my opinion. I stand by it.
Also, I used the term “cyberstalking” because that is exactly what it is. Here is a Wikipedia page on the term:
> anyone receiving threats online should report it to law enforcement
The fact that you suggest this is proof that you've never had to do so. This is literally part of what I do for a living. I work with people going to law enforcement, sometimes as an advocate. Your local police have no idea what their laws are regarding online stalking/harassment, nor do they have interest in prosecuting it without a significant amount of external prodding, usually from reporters. You're welcome to look up anything I've written on the subject about this for reference.
> Since when has someone’s internet browsing been affected by a stalker?
I'm sorry, but you are (were) a privacy researcher though. You should know already that internet browsing can be influenced by and can contribute to stalking/doxing attempts.
> Just because it's possible in a world with ubiquitous technology and social media doesn't make it right.
Exactly. The logic here is pretty much exactly the logic applied by American law enforcement when using warrantless GPS tracking devices on people's cars. "Well you are in public anyway, we could just send a patrol car after you". Yes, taken to its logical conclusion it makes sense. However, I think most people would disagree. It doesn't feel right, and it is probably a matter of degree.
> If this guy instead of tweeting, would have texted or called his friends to give a live report of some couple's marriage breakup, he'd be the same type of gossiping vulture
What technology here has done is multiplied the power of a single individual. Some individuals, as we found out, are irresponsible and can be quite malicious. It so happens then that their malice is also multiplied.
> By the way, would you still call it harassment if you never got in the way of the person you were following, never acknowledged your presence, and generally let them go about their business while you were busily recording everything they did? Most people would still be very unhappy.
Google "paparazzi". Notice the distinctions between a legal claim of privacy intrusion and the legal claim of harassment. And also, notice the legal claim of freedom of the press.
Your model of "people with cameras following you around" might sound really novel and clever to you, but we've had such people for a long time. And guess what? In public, no one considers it a privacy intrusion. It's harassment.
> Now I'm using arguments that appeal to the aforementioned "common people," and you're jumping in to say they aren't technical enough
Technical arguments are not philosophical arguments. Believe it or not, programmers do not have a monopoly on The Right Way To Do Everything. A philosophical argument can depend too much on jargon and be perverted by political spin, this is true. But you can still methodically break it down and explain it to a non-technical person if you've put it together well.
> Following someone in public is considered stalking and is illegal.
Actually, simply following someone around in public is not stalking and not illegal in itself. Private investigators, process servers, and repo men do this all the time.[1] Stalking requires some sort of contact, direct or indirect (e.g., making your presence known).
[1] Regardless of your opinion of those trades and the people who ply them, their activities are legal.
> Is a journalist stalking someone if they go through their trash? What about when the paparazzi do it?
Uh, yes. If someone is going through my bins to find information about me, that is most definitely stalking. What some paparazzi do is definitively stalking.
> Did that kid stalk Elon Musk?
I don't know enough about that to comment, but quite possibly yes.
> [...] People are literally being kidnapped or killed or starving and you're complaining about online harrassment. [...]
In the context of this discussion, about an article about online harassment, this is a very disingenuous straw man. Yes, there are other problems in the world, but this isn't the forum to debate them.
>You and others have come onto this site and continued the harassment via telecommunications devices.
I use this forum everyday because it is a place for civilized communication with strangers, let's keep it that way, eh? This suggestion that I'm gaslighting or cyberstalking you is why the laws that define those terms are incompatible with a Free and Open society. You're just mad and want the government to make you feel better by getting some revenge for you and don't care if that effects other peoples ability to speak in the future about something actually important.
>I believe that individuals making death threats or rape threats on the internet are generally making individual choices with full knowledge of the repercussions. I do not believe they have any reasonable excuse justifying their actions. The responsibility for understanding and identifying how deeply they can damage another human is solely theirs.
Fine. What are you going to do about it?
Imprison them? Highly counterproductive. Complain about them on the internet? They live for that. Sit back and do nothing?
Grandparent proposed a positive course of action that they believe will effect change. Asking whose fault or responsibility the problem is is missing the point; what we should focus on is how to solve it.
I am. The fact you refused to answer any of the questions and threw generic definitions at me kinda proves my point.
Is any unwanted attention stalking? Is a journalist stalking someone if they go through their trash? What about when the paparazzi do it? Did that kid stalk Elon Musk?
>ok than what is the difference between doxxing and sending my friend an address on Google.
"What's the difference between a public post and a private message?"
>According to you the public availability of the information isn't the difference, so I'm curious where it is or if you consider that case "doxxing" as well.
It's almost like words have meaning and definitions: "Doxxing is the act of publicly providing personally identifiable information about an individual or organization, usually via the internet." [0]
>The public mapping is the opposite of what your imagining. There's a public map of "addresses"->"names" for houses but that's irrelevant because we're talking about getting the home address for a given person.
This is wrong. You can search by last name in county CADs to get property addresses. As in, you can go "names"->"addresses" as well. Property ownership is public information.
>I'm literally responding to a comment that used that example so I don't know why it set you off here.
You literally didn't know the definition of doxxing.
> What we do online is a reflection of what we do offline. To think that there aren't offline hunts and people who go around shouting those things without the internet is absurd. To suggest this is why we need internet censorship easily lends its self to the argument that people's every day offline lives need to be monitored and controlled.
When you stand on a street corner shouting ‘This guy did it’ with a picture of said guy, how many people do you reach as compared to a similar post on Reddit?
Conversely, what is the status of other mass-media (newspapers, radio, TV etc.) regarding the information they publish? Will a radio ever broadcast ‘This guy did it’ without some fact-checking? At least here (Germany), that is not/should not be the case.
The very easy way to solve this problem would obviously be to improve defamation/libel laws to such an extend that wrongfully accusing someone of X gets you the maximum penalty for X as a minimum. At least people posting Wanted posters on Facebook should be easy to catch, then.
> are you going to surveil and psychologically analyze everyone in the world in order to detect and pre-crime imprison everyone
No one suggested this; strawman.
There are a whole lot of ways to harass someone using proxies beyond swatting and the traditional ordering of 40 pizzas to their house. Even if any given proxy only falls for it once it can be really bad.
Coming up with ways to counter these kinds of harassment campaigns is important, but it probably doesn't involve "pre-crime imprison[ment]".
> What I don't understand is why this is done by private corporations instead of the government. Stalking is a crime, harassment is a crime, SWAT-ing is a crime.
Because law enforcement (at least in the US) is woefully bad at their jobs and don't care. I have first-hand experience with this when I had a close friend who was being harrassed by someone local (we knew who it was) and LEO refused to lift a finger. I've talked about it multiple times before on HN [0][1][2][3] but even with this guy graduating to physical actions (keying the friend's car, following/stalking them) the police did nothing.
So if our only options are "Have the police do nothing" or "Have a private corp decide to not do business with a company anymore" then I know which one I'm picking, which one will actually help reduce harm. Even if they spin up under a new name they will lose users along the way. Deplatforming works.
Just exactly what “responsibilities” do you perceive me to have in this discussion? Others are advocating monitoring another person’s property using technology and publishing it on the internet. I am suggesting that there is no reasonable civil reason to do so. The only “responsibility” I have here is to be true to my opinion. I stand by it.
Also, I used the term “cyberstalking” because that is exactly what it is. Here is a Wikipedia page on the term:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberstalking
According to that page cyberstalking is the use of the internet and technology to stalk an individual and those actions “may include monitoring”.
Here is the definition of “stalk”:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalking
“Stalking is unwanted and/or repeated surveillance by an individual or group toward another person”
If you find fault in my definition, feel free to push an edit to those Wikipedia pages.
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