While I've never been on the receiving end of an Internet community outrage like this, I can imagine that it can feel legitimately scary. You can't know how many threats over email are empty or how many come from genuinely disturbed individuals who may take real-world action.
* see also "witch hunt" and most contemporary usages of the word "terrorism"
I don't know what the numbers would show, but I'm not sure there'd be any significantly greater actual risk from 'genuinely disturbed individuals who may take real-world action' over a particular cause like this vs doing something because the demon in the neighbour's dog told them to[2]. The mental impact of having to wade through the messages is a different matter, of course.
That mental impact is, I'm guessing, a big deal, and I'm having a hard time coming up with a good takeaway.
If you're a person who feels legally infringed by a beloved internet celebrity, should you be able to get legal representation? Sure, this particular case doesn't appear to have any merit, but if I were a lawyer, I sure wouldn't be very eager to take on any clients who would go up against the angry hordes. Would that have a chilling effect for legitimate cases?
We've also had non-internet celebrities for a long time, not to mention politicians, etc. Trying to go after one of them is going to be a bad time too.
The issue is when you try to use the law to go after someone with more _power_ than you.
The Oatmeal's power is their internet fans, but obviously FunnyJunk thought they had the same power and were on equal footing.
You probably have not been following this issue as long as others, but do you realize that in May 2011 that FunnyJunk's admin sent out a message to all of their users asking them to harass the Oatmeal?
"The FunnyJunk owner known as Admin responded with a message to all users “the Oatmeal wants to sue funnyjunk and shut it down! He thinks we're nothing more than dirty content thieves...Contact Oatmeal anyway you can!" and provided links to The Oatmeal's e-mail and Facebook page.[1] This triggered spamming by FunnyJunk users and a flame war with The Oatmeal readers."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oatmeal_and_FunnyJunk_legal...
My concern still stands, though. Even though FunnyJunk unleashed their own internet harassment posse, doesn't diminish the potential chilling effect of the Oatmeal's internet harassment posse.
I just find the whole affair distasteful. I've lost my ability to enjoy the Schadenfreude of internet shitstorms.
A digital lynch mob killed HB Gary Federal. It's happened before.
++edit++ guys, I wasn't arguing that this guy deserves reputation or has a right to do whatever he wants. I was arguing that a "lynch mob" can and does exist on the Internet. Like the parent said, lynch mobs harass and sometimes kill people. Digital equivalents to lynch mobs exist.
And what makes this lawyer deserve a good reputation? It was his responsibility to investigate the case, and apply his best judgement as to if FJ had any legal ground to stand on. From what is publicly known, FJ has no basis for their threat of legal action, and the situation appears so cut-n-dried that I doubt the existence of any hidden facts which could change this.
The lawyer had a choice to inform his client of the legal situation. The lawyer had a choice whether or not to represent FJ. And the lawyer is now paying for the consequences.
Never made this claim. That was a hypothetical situation that I used to back up my argument of "Though it could be argued that a digital lynch mob could be defined as a group who "kills" someone online."
And remember, what LulzSec did to HBGary Federal is hack their servers and leak their private data. If LulzSec's techniques were limited to sending strongly worded letters, I don't think they would be controversial at all.
My argument was that this backlash could cause enough harassment to put the lawyer out of business, in an attempt to refute the parent's claim that a digital lynch mob could not exist on the Internet. I don't claim to be sympathetic to the lawyer's cause, merely trying to hold a reasonable discussion on a web forum by debating new-tech terminology.
It hasn't happened before because HB Gary Federal is not a person and thus cannot be killed.
No one can be "killed online." Killing is the ending of a human life. It is a word with a very specific meaning. Even if Internet action somehow led to someone's death, they still would not be "killed online" – they would be killed. In reality. By a person or group of persons. Not by "online."
Is this conversation really happening? This needs to be explained?
Nonsense. All the time I go into Task Manager and kill processes. I was working on a project that went over budget and it got killed. When I get out of my car, I kill the engine.
Kill does not only mean the ending of human life. It's possible to kill ideas or even non-biological physical processes.
Let your masterpiece speak for itself.
Now, OP's edit comparing the digital killing to the actual, life ending, killing is indeed unfortunate.
I wasn't comparing digital death to real life death. Those words we put into my mouth; I never made that argument. I even used scare quotes to hint that it's a word being used out of traditional context. It's possible to have real-life terms translate into digital concepts without necessarily implying the 1:1 correlation that some have assumed. When my mouse dies it doesn't mean I've committed animal abuse, it just means I need to recharge the batteries.
I just like to have interesting discussions. That's why we're all here.
This is what I mean for a bit unfortunate, because it obviously refers to actual death.
The argument, of digital lynch mobs being able to heavily damage (which is one definition of kill) corporations or people, I agree with.