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So, here's the skinny on the big stupid. Known harasser of women on the Internet starts using a tool designed to capture tweets, archive them, and allow for commentary to re-publish and re-contextualize their tweets. Said tool also notifies those persons whose tweets he is re-contextualizing that they have been published using the tool. (In case you wonder, the only novel thing about this up to this point in the narrative is the tool used by the troll, not that stalking and harassment happen on the Internet. Also, the user handle for the harasser makes reference to an in-person harassment of a woman that was used illustratively to illuminate bad behavior by boys at convention.) Unsurprisingly, the people being harassed complain to the CEO of the service, indicating that this harassment and stalker-like behavior is against the Terms of Service, and would that CEO please kindly kickban the harasser and enforce their ToS?
The CEO said no. And worse, after saying "Well, we've turned off his ability to send you notifications of his work", and believing there was nothing doable because free speech (except that argument holds zero water) the CEO directly referenced said stalker, bringing to his attention that people were complaining about his stalking. Unsurprisingly, said stalker started stalking those people complaining about him, as well as the friends of those people. At least one of the new victims removed themselves from being on-line temporarily (triggers) after a host of defenders of the reprehensible came out to try and argue points that revolved around the nature of public tweets (versus harassing behavior) and that the CEO made an innocent mistake and shouldn't be held to blame over accidentally siccing a known stalker on people complaining about the stalker. (Incidentally, said service is now planning on adding a feature that would allow a user to block another user from engaging in this kind of behavior.) They also engaged in victim-blaming, accusing the women of making things up (including PTSD incurred from an RL stalking incident), and more than a few flights-of-fancy that can be read at the above links, although some of them have been Modhammered out of existence, for obvious reasons.
The CEO of Storify refuses to apologize for the action of alerting a known stalker to people complaining about that known stalker.
Storify, the service, to this point, has refused to enforce their ToS and banhammer the stalker whose notifications they have turned off (but not their ability to continue stalking or recontextualizing.)
And some residents of Jotunheim should be ashamed of themselves for being the hangers-on to and harassers of women. Which they won't be, but they should be.
This is one of the unintended consequences of our ability to be more socially in contact with others. Unfortunately, it appears that we have not yet been able to develop appropriate social or technological barriers that drive such people out of the spheres where they can harass women.
The CEO said no. And worse, after saying "Well, we've turned off his ability to send you notifications of his work", and believing there was nothing doable because free speech (except that argument holds zero water) the CEO directly referenced said stalker, bringing to his attention that people were complaining about his stalking. Unsurprisingly, said stalker started stalking those people complaining about him, as well as the friends of those people. At least one of the new victims removed themselves from being on-line temporarily (triggers) after a host of defenders of the reprehensible came out to try and argue points that revolved around the nature of public tweets (versus harassing behavior) and that the CEO made an innocent mistake and shouldn't be held to blame over accidentally siccing a known stalker on people complaining about the stalker. (Incidentally, said service is now planning on adding a feature that would allow a user to block another user from engaging in this kind of behavior.) They also engaged in victim-blaming, accusing the women of making things up (including PTSD incurred from an RL stalking incident), and more than a few flights-of-fancy that can be read at the above links, although some of them have been Modhammered out of existence, for obvious reasons.
The CEO of Storify refuses to apologize for the action of alerting a known stalker to people complaining about that known stalker.
Storify, the service, to this point, has refused to enforce their ToS and banhammer the stalker whose notifications they have turned off (but not their ability to continue stalking or recontextualizing.)
And some residents of Jotunheim should be ashamed of themselves for being the hangers-on to and harassers of women. Which they won't be, but they should be.
This is one of the unintended consequences of our ability to be more socially in contact with others. Unfortunately, it appears that we have not yet been able to develop appropriate social or technological barriers that drive such people out of the spheres where they can harass women.
