Amateur Sleuths Aim to Identify Charlottesville Marchers, but Sometimes Misfire | Hacker News Reader

Amateur Sleuths Aim to Identify Charlottesville Marchers, but Sometimes Misfire

nytimes.com

47 pointsduck64 comments

In no uncertain terms this is libel when they misfire. This is not a crime but it is a tort. Those who have been libeled on twitter and other written mediums (or slandered on Youtube, for example) should take immediate and full action prosecuting those that offended. Fierce civil punishment should be put forth to discourage this type of discourse in a lawful society.

We have laws for this kind of stuff.

Saying that, those that were properly identified should be willing to face the consequences of their repugnant actions. If that's not desirable then simply reject associating yourself with an uncivilized public mob of any sort.

It's a crime if the accusations are accompanied by any sort of call to violence against the accused.

Accusations of being a Nazi are inherently a call to violence. The amount of "bash the fash" and "it's O.K. to punch Nazis" means that people can reasonably expect violence to be inflicted on folks named-and-shamed as fascist.

This is no different than vigilante justice and could easily get innocent people in a lot more trouble than it would be worth for a guilty party to walk without being id'd. I sincerely hope the authorities will throw the book at those that go about this in a half assed way and cause actual damage.

It's coming.. I fear this is the end of this terrible moment in our history. Something will happen, and then the mob, be it the right, or the left, but possibly both, will mobilize and people will begin killing one another. A true riot like we've never seen. I am afraid, but resolved that it will likely take death and destruction before society gets a collective slap of sense.

I fear with you but hope that cooler heads will prevail before then. Way too much frustration has been building up it needs some kind of release but I'd rather not see war or civil war. Even a 'true riot' I'd rather avoid.

The problem is that a 'true riot' could easily be the spark that provides the activation energy for a 'true civil war'.

Most of these things are about activation levels being crossed and then there is really almost no way back.

I don't think a civil war is possible.

I think it would require the military to become divided.

This seems unlikely.

That depends on who heads up the military. And that could be a bit of a problem with the present day leader.

made me think of Flash Mob Gone Wrong by Tom Scott: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyMdOT8YJgY

I think the mid 1960s to early 1970s were a scarier period in terms of civil unrest, in the US anyway.

I hope that the death and destruction that did happen, Heather Heyer and then 12 (edit: looks like that number is up to 34 hurt, and two officers in a helicopter accident) other individuals hurt, does serve as a slap in the face.

This reaction of seeking the individuals out who took part, in whatever small way, is a direct response to that. It makes people feel good that they can serve a common good by seeking the individuals out online, but of course there are going to be people incorrectly identified.

In fact, one of the things commonly stated about the rise of the National Socialists in Germany, is that not enough people stood up to stop it. This is tacit approval for some form of vigilantism. So what do people do? Wait for the authorities who are failing to act? Or act themselves? It's a hard decision. On the one hand it will cause escalation of the fight as both sides react in this way, on the other it's important that we as a society don't allow fridge elements to destroy our fundamental values.

> In fact, one of the things commonly stated about the rise of the National Socialists in Germany, is that not enough people stood up to stop it.

That's a good point, but then you have to be extra careful not to blackball the wrong people. Going about this half assed is a bigger problem than doing nothing at all.

The real risk for the amateur doxxer is the assumption that the other guys don't know how to doxx them.

Most humans get enjoyment from hurting others at a base level, but decent people try not do it because of a higher level of functioning and because of cultural values.

Unfortunately many parts of society, accept/encourage this behavior in certain situations. (IE the way smokers are treated by many people, what a turn culture has had there)

Even if it was him, he should not have been doxxed. A decent human would try and help him if he was wrong and it also sets us up for a decent society.

This conversation really should not be around guilt or innocence, it should be around doxxing and attacking individuals.

Stick to zombie movies. That's what they are there for, we get to hurt 'people' but not 'real' people.

Misfire is an under statement.

Ruining the lives of innocent people because of mob bloodlust is wrong.

Hopefully the doxxers get sued for defamation.

Twitter has shown that they can and do exert control over what's posted on their platform. No service provider immunity for them, they're aiding and abetting this. They need to get sued, too.

The law specifically says they are not liable. Either is someone who perpetuates the info by retweeting, for instance.

However if you modify the retweet at all then you too can be held liable.

The law states they are not liable as long as they do not demonstrate effective control on what happens with their service. They have demonstrated that they do indeed control what happens on their service, and what gets posted there.

Nothing was learned, apparently, from the massive misidentification lynch mob on Reddit in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing.

There was an interesting book recently called "So You've Been Publicly Shamed" by Jon Ronson which explored what happened when the mob mentality doxxed someone, for better or for worse. I think this unfortunate situation is clear evidence that you should avoid publishing your photo, and personal details online, and do all that you can to build a firewall against the casual mob.

Ronson has been pretty clear on Twitter that he doesn't consider this such a case. I believe his thought is that these people are putting themselves out in public in front of a bunch of news cameras. They are intentionally drawing the attention to themselves, so they're not exactly the same cases he points to in the book.

Edit: I found a tweet [1] where he coalesces some of his thoughts to this effect.

[1] https://twitter.com/jonronson/status/896855308974292992

That sounds like cure worse than the disease. So I can't share my memories with friends, can't have normal public presentation for work, can't speak publicly and have public persona to communicate with others - out of fear that one day a mob of idiots could randomly target me for something I didn't do because some idiot published something on some idiotic forum? Is that really a way to live?

As someone who has been doxxed, ridiculed, harrassed, hacked etc

I can absolutely confirm that life is better now outside of the public eye and I am very glad that google searches of my name has dropped off over the years

Dude himself has been doxxed by 4chan already, and confirmed his identity on TV. I figure that twitter account has at most couple of weeks of life left in it, until the wrongfully accused serve the guy with legal paperwork. Just to save you a search: https://twitter.com/LoganJames

Doxxing works both way. Without some brain gymnastics, it is hard to persuade oneself that some cases of doxxing are good, while others are bad.

Is it doxxing to provide a tip to law enforcement?

(An indictment would end up having the person publicly identified with the actions in the indictment)

No. Doxxing quite specifically is the PUBLIC disclosure of personal details.

Yes, note the parenthetical. Police generally publicly disclose the names of people that are charged with crimes.

Doxxing involves a distinguishable and important element, that is public shaming. It doesn't really need the involvement of police or whatever law enforcement.

Dude has a

Tweets do not represent views of my employer, except when they do

on his bio, and proceeds to doxx (dox?) people in order to get them fired.

So much edge.

edit: formatting, typo

But hey, remember kids, it's just a bit of unfortunate collateral damage, totally justified when you gotta punch a nazi. After all, punching nazis worked well in the 40s.

"The internet vigilantes claimed some successes over the weekend. One rally participant, Cole White, was fired from his job at a hot dog restaurant in Berkeley, Calif."

Hmm.. so is that actually a win?

What is wrong with people? I seriously want to know. Both sides. How dumb do you have to be to march around with torches across the country because they are going to take down a statue of a Confederate general. And how much dumber have you got that you to be to try to prevent people from expressing themselves. Let them have a ball, march around all night with torches if they so please. Then buy a plane ticket home after the statue gets taken down having accomplished nothing but being a laughable buffoon. Why does it have to degenerate to intolerance and shocking stupidity in all directions? Has humanity always been like this? Or is it just spoiled moderns who don't live in the real world and think little tiny stuff is worth getting in a huff about because the vacuum of modern life has removed real problems from their conception? Anyway, the whole thing is disturbing. And unbelievable in juvenile foolishness. Very hard time conceiving what either side hopes to get out of their behavior here. The solution to people acting silly isn't to act silly yourself. It's laughter.

I understand people wanting to keep what they consider part of their history.

If it was just for the pure symbolism or credentials of the person represented, shouldn't the Seattle Lenin statue be removed too?

Why does Seattle have a Lenin statue?

From [1]:

> Initially installed in Czechoslovakia in 1988, the sculpture was removed after the Velvet Revolution and brought to the United States in the 1990s.

> Lewis E. Carpenter, an English teacher in Poprad originally from Issaquah, Washington, found the monumental statue lying in a scrapyard ready to be sold for the price of the bronze

> ... Carpenter approached the city officials with a claim that despite its current unpopularity, the sculpture was still a work of art worth preserving, and he offered to buy it for $13,000. After many bureaucratic hurdles, he finally signed a contract with the mayor on March 16, 1993.

> ... the statue was cut into three pieces and shipped to the United States at a total cost of $40,000. Carpenter financed much of that via mortgaging his home.

> The Carpenter family continues to seek a buyer for the statue. As of 2015 the asking price is $250,000, up from a 1996 price tag of $150,000.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Lenin,_Seattle

Lenin wasn't the proximate cause of generational misery for an entire community of Americans (and yes, I realise there is also a sizeable group of escapees from Soviet communism here, but I hope that I don't have to point out the obvious differences in scale and effect).

> the obvious differences in scale and effect

What do you mean? More people were killed by communists than by Nazis.

I was explicitly talking about American communities, which is the context in which the comparison between Confederate statues and the one of Lenin arose.

We should probably include the leaders inspired by Lenin as well, which leads to significant communities of Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Cuban, and other nationalities as well as the Russians.

Also the Eastern Europeans who escaped the Iron Curtain, or who still had families behind it.

The number of Americans whose families suffered because of Lenin and his followers is hard to count.

My thoughts:

a) Lenin didn't fight wars to preserve his right to literally enslave people.

b) This is still irrelevant to the issue of whether statues of Robert Lee should stand erected in public spaces.

> Lenin didn't fight wars to preserve his right to literally enslave people.

Some have argued that communism enslaves everyone.

> This is still irrelevant to the issue of whether statues of Robert Lee should stand erected in public spaces.

Agreed, especially if the statue is privately owned, but I do wonder if groups like Antifa are calling for the owner of the Lenin statue to be fired.

Is it because the scale of the demise he caused, or because he caused it to non-americans?

If it's the former, Lenin is no saint worth a statue: http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Quotes/leni...

If it's the latter, it's a sad example of US-centrism. By that token, <insert any other non-US dictator here> would be acceptable.

It's the latter, and it's not because of US-centrism, but because of the context in which the question was asked, which is the desire to remove statues to Confederate soldiers.

As a Lithuanian-American, I'm appalled that you would shrug off the hate implicit in that statue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_deportations_from_Lithu...

"Deportations of the civilians served a double purpose: repressing resistance to Sovietization policies in Lithuania and providing free labor in sparsely inhabited areas of the Soviet Union."

While I certainly wouldn't 'shrug off' anything, there is a very material difference between a privately held statue to a foreign historical figure with a ruinous effect on a large segment of the world's populations and a public commemoration of an actual traitor to the nation, responsible for attempting to defend the actual enslavement of a large population of Americans. Especially when the main utility of the former in this context appears to be to distract from the latter.

If it is a distraction to the latter, then shouldn't it come down? Next, you're going to defend the Gandhi statue on the Embarcadero in San Francisco, I suppose!

http://www.gandhism.org/san-francisco/

> I'm appalled that

Therein lies the problem. Why can't we all just have friendly conversations without being so upset all the time. Not everyone has the same information as the other person.

That one is def in poor taste, but it is private property.

Or the US flag and almost every statue in the country. A native american friend in college said the US flag represents the same thing to them that the swastika represents to jews. Should we take down all the flags?

After a certain point, you have to forgive and forget and move on or society is going to break down. Especially a nation like ours filled with the unparalleled horrors.

Everything from our money, our schools, our cities, etc honor a slave owner or someone who participated in the genocide of the natives. Even MLK was an abusive wife beater and we have a day named for him.

Having said that, I can see the other side. A native american certainly has a lot of valid grievances when it comes to the US. I can see how a A black person doesn't want to go to a school named for a slave owner.

It's hard to see how we fix things. Do we have a wholesale purging like germany did after ww2 when they removed all glorification of the nazis? How practical is that in a nation like the US?

Where is the happy medium? Can a divisive issue like this ever lead to a common ground or a compromise?

>Why does it have to degenerate to intolerance?

You are asking this question about a rally by actual white supremacists? Seems like an odd thing to ponder.

A bit less facetiously, every single one of your questions reads to me like ponderous handwringing. Things were much worse in the 60s and 70s. Yes, one person died and many were injured, but, for a rally where even the governor conceded that the racists were more heavily armed than the police, this went about as well as one can expect.

Why stop there, though? There were _many_ US historical figures who owned slaves, and more, were in favor of slavery. If we're going to be principled about it, let's start by renaming Washington DC and go on from there all the way down the list.

This represents a willful misunderstanding of the issue. The problem is not that the statues are feting slaveholders, it's that they are celebrating people who went to war against the Union because they didn't want to give up being slaveholders.

Not to mention, most of the statues were put up decades after the war as an explicit message against civil rights and desegregation. Just a vile reminder all around, and there is no good reason to keep them in public spaces. If you want a reminder of history, museums exist for a reason.

Do you think people have a right to organize protest against the removal the statue though? That's the key question in this. Not the "righteousness" of having the statue removed.

That's not the point the parent was making, and not the one I was responding to.

When did I suggest that was the point the parent was making? It is however the more general issue.

Should people you disagree with have a right to express themselves in protest?

Yes, and they do, independent of my opinion on the matter.

Fully agree. Thanks.

I wouldn't be quite so quick to jump to the "willful" label. I'm not a native, so I know very little about US Civil War. I also know that much of what you think you know about the war is actually bare propaganda written by the winning side (I'm from Russia myself, the Soviets did a lot of that during and after the war, and did it so thoroughly that authentic accounts of what actually happened are still very few and far between).

It just seems weird to me to obsess about some stupid statue enough to march with torches under it or to throw shit&pee bombs at those marching with torches. I'd understand this if all the _real_ problems in the country were already solved and people had nothing better to do, but that's not the case at all. Seems to me someone is trying to deliberately destabilize things by pitting two aggressive factions against one another, in order to achieve their secondary agenda or distract from something.

I've seen this shit happen before, it does not usually end well for the society as a whole.

Ok great. I understand. But what statues get taken down is about 999,999 on the list of important things in the world. Certainly not worth buying a plane ticket and playing KKK with a night time torch march. That just kind of proves the point the people who object to the statue are making. Get a fund together and rent some lawyers or something. Or buy some land and put up even a bigger statue. You can all go meet there every year and celebrate your whiteness. That is effective. What is being done is something else and it isn't effective.

On the other side, if people do want to protest who cares? Let them march all they like. Why the need for a counter rally? With clubs and sticks and shields? Over a statue? It's ridiculous. Inconceivably so.

Boston Marathon all over again...

These people have to stop. They are the first to complain about doxxing and the first to label others as violent. But they themselves turn around and are violent and actively pursue doxxing.

Can you imagine how outraged these same people would be if the right doxxed people who attended LGBT parade and got them fired?

Also, their behavior isn't helping. It's just giving the right more power, attention and sympathy.

Honestly, if it wasn't for the extreme left going crazy over these marches, nobody would have cared. Let them have their silly marches. But they can't because they want attention and notoriety just like these marchers.

Attending a LGBT parade and attending a white supremacy rally are not equivalent.

Depends on where you are in the world. In many places around the world, attending an LGBT parade will get you fired, arrested and even killed.

I'm not saying they are morally "equal". I'm just pointing out why we have freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and rights.

Even in the US, 50 years ago, attending an LGBT parade would have been far more damaging than attending a white supremacy rally.

The point is that having rights and protecting everyone's rights is what is important. Even those of white supremacists.

Otherwise, rights are meaningless and we just have tyranny of the majority or public opinion.

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