Pretty rich, coming out of an organization that assaulted and chased Vincent Canfield out of CCC for . . . . owning trollish domain names.
I'm sure the presenter doesn't necessarily share the Congress's values, but it's funny nonetheless.
I'm sure the presenter doesn't necessarily share the Congress's values, but it's funny nonetheless.
Are you sure it wasn't him being an open and virulent racist[1]?
Edit: I should say that I have the dubious distinction of actually haven spoken to vc for several years on IRC. He might have started as a troll, but he's failed in the way that every bad troll fails: by getting high on his own supply.
If you're going to label someone as an "open and virulent racist" you should at least have some evidence to support it. It's unwise to make such extraordinary claims without evidence beyond "trust me bro", particularly on an account linked to your real-life identity as this could reasonably be seen as libellous if it's untrue.
Sure.
Here's vc calling someone who isn't nonwhite a "creature" and implying that they would discriminate against whites[1].
Here's vc hanging out with a bunch of people wearing white nationalist apparel and holding a sign that references a racist meme[2].
> It's unwise to make such extraordinary claims without evidence beyond "trust me bro", particularly on an account linked to your real-life identity as this could reasonably be seen as libellous if it's untrue.
I fortunately live in a country with strong protections against frivolous libel and defamation claims. What an ironic threat to make!
Yeah, I, a third party with no horse in this race, am threatening you. lol. Reminding you of the severity of a claim is not a threat.
Getting a rise out of the easily-offended is as old as time. Your Mom jokes go back centuries. Satirizing those who take themselves so seriously that they take offense at words and images is downright Shakespearean. Late 20th century stand-up comedy relied on inducing offense. Andrew Dice Clay was particularly good at this.
The elevation of negative subjective feelings as the primary determinant of moral wrongness in the last couple decades has basically killed comedy.
I'm tickled pink that VC and others are still doing the Lord's work, here.
Sure! I don't believe anybody can object to these historical claims.
The problem is as old as satire itself: if the only people listening to your jokes are the ones who genuinely believe the positions you're lampooning, you're no longer the comedian. You're now either a fool or a willful pundit among fools.
Shakespeare is deeply funny because he knew his audience was overwhelmingly poor & common Londoners; people aware of England's class system receptive to irreverent treatments of nobility. "Get thee to a nunnery" is funny because the commoners are laughing at the portrayed impurity of the nobility; it's transgressive.
4chan's humor is transgressive, and I love it. But vc's claim to continuity with that tradition doesn't bear scrutiny: scrape away the thin layer of racist language, and there's no wit or insight. That's why only racists find it funny, and why vc finds himself in the company of & doing the work of fools.
Even if he is an outright nazi (debatable, but he sure uses nazi stuff for "trolling" and "humor" as he puts it), and even if he refused to leave (he said he was in the process of leaving, CCC said he refused to leave) etc, this is not OK nor is it legal. You call the police and, file trespassing charges and have the police remove him and the courts sanction him.
Even if he was physically violent in the time prior to the video (which nobody alleges, just a hypothetical), he clearly wasn't anymore at this point, and you do not get to retaliate; you file assault charges and have the police remove him or arrest him.
If he screamed nazi salutes or demanded the murder of ethnic groups (which nobody alleges either), then... you call the police for trespassing, and since this was in Germany, for using prohibited nazi signs/slogans (§ 86a StGB) and or "incitement of the public" (Volksverhetzung, § 130).
If he was filming (he said he did start to film once security became aggressive, CCC said filming in the space is a big no-no in general), then you still do not get to assault him.
The only legitimate reason for security to use violence would be if they had to defend themselves or others from physical attack. And no, words and disobedience are not the kind of violence that entitles you to violent self-defense.
They are known to be a bit "paranoid" sometimes, can act "overly aggressive" sometimes and like to disguise their faces during "enforcement". That said, I did not have first hand interactions with them, so that's just my impression of them seeing them around and some hearsay from people who had minor interactions with them.
But they do not seem very accountable, and they are in my humble opinion a bit of a sore on the otherwise very well organized Congress. Especially considering this in the context of the CCC, who for years ran and runs campaigns for more police accountability.
Only after the escalation at 36C3 i learned that:
- that guy at 35C3 was the CCC's president
- seemingly being an exception of the "all-female" rule
- the "CrewCrew" are not just some activists, but some sort of authorized force
- that the incident at 35C3 included a house ban, this came as a surprise to the auditory witnesses
- the president believed that this was Vincent Canfields assembly (it was fuwafuwa by lesderid, there never was a cockmail asm)
The internal CCC email the president wrote in January 2020 consisted mostly of smearing VC because he was one of the "bad guys" and it was justified in beating him and kicking him out. It turned out they actually stole VC's phone and had to give it back later. No details on what actually caused the differences between the president and VC. We can't even rule out a personal feud.
There were rumors that the CrewCrew was not certified for 35a Gewerbeordnung and thus illegal to be official security. Its references were scrubbed from the 35C3 and 36C3 wiki around the same time, in early 2020.
The whole story is very fishy and gave me the last straw to part with the CCC. Excuse my tinfoil hat, but there are some serious things going on in the CCC mothership.
Legally, they would be "Ordner"[1], and are thereby "authorized". It is perfectly legal for organizers of "assemblies" to recruit and use volunteers to keep order and peace, as long as these volunteers are unarmed (by law). The Gewerbeordnung does not come into play here. I am not quite sure they were up to snuff when it comes to identification, tho, as legally they have to wear a white armband saying "Ordner", and I do not think they did when I saw them (they did however have those t-shirts and other swag if memory serves right). But I might be wrong.
I am sure some people, maybe even the CCC president, were offended by Vincent's websites - to be offensive is a goal Vincent stated himself - and the CCC leadership then decided to ban him. We may debate if this was justified or free speech or whatever, but at the end of the day, the organizer of the Congress told him to fuck off. There might have been misunderstandings along the way, and/or the CCC may have changed their initial decision and/or fucked up their communication (they are human, after all). But the end result was a ban from the venue.
As I said in another comment, I find the assault of Vincent that then occurred extremely problematic, probably outright illegal assault (I see no evidence of justified self-defense by the security in the video). At the same time, I respect the CCC's decision to ban an "undesirable". The club members have to figure out for themselves who they want at their events and in their spaces.
And as I also said earlier, I find the lack of accountability of the security "crew" very disconcerting. You cannot have people running around playing police (their Congress-internal DECT phone number even is "110", same as the police has in the public telephone network) who beat up people and cover their faces to hide their identities, all the while the CCC which these security people represent runs campaigns to get laws changed to make police more accountable by having officers to clearly be identifiable (by a number on their uniforms), wearing bodycams and raising the limits on when police is allowed to use force.
Not saying it was justified (don't know, don't really care, I'm not affiliated or involved), but you're not giving the whole picture.