"Outing" pseudonymous writers

[evilrooster]

I stand rebuked, though I certainly wasn't imagining it as anything but mutually consensual (I don't wish rape on anyone), and I wasn't serious. It was just snark directed at two of the most unpleasant and toxic personalities on the internet.

I totally get that. It's just...very thin ice.

And while I understand the concern about publishing people's real names online as a potential slippery slope for other abusive online groups, she was indeed a very, very abusive person, so I really don't feel terribly sorry for her. Given the number of enemies she's made on both sides of the political divide, it actually surprises me how much restraint has been practiced there.

I think there's a useful distinction to be made between "I feel sorry for her" and "that thing that happened to her was wrong". I'm certainly capable of feeling sorry for someone even when whatever happens to them is 100% right and just. I feel sorry for my kids when I send them to their rooms, for instance, even though I kind of definitionally support so doing.

This is kind of the reverse. I don't really feel sorry for her (beyond the basic level of empathy I have for most people), given the things she's been dishing out for years and the damage that she's done. But I still think that it was wrong to do it, both in the abstract and for the health of our community as a whole.

 

[Amadan]

I totally get that. It's just...very thin ice.

Meh.

A professional troll who writes the most incendiary violent fantasies about authors and other people she doesn't like, and never once in her known history has she ever apologized or agreed "Maybe I went a little over the line there" - I think she has absolutely no leg to stand on if she complains about people joking about pairing her with Vox Day or whoever. Of course she'd call it "rapefic" - she is very experienced at characterizing anything directed at her as a threat, a slur, racist or sexist or something else outside acceptable bounds of public discourse. Not like when she's describing how she wants authors to be violently attacked.

I find all "real person fic" to be creepy, frankly, but while one might criticize someone who actually wrote a BS/VD fic (especially if it does depict rape), wagging a finger at jokes about it because BS once said she considers all such ideas to be "rapefic" in and of themselves is just playing her game. She wants to control the narrative about herself. She's allowed to make "ironic" comments about people being raped by dogs or killed by acid, but no one can make "ironic" comments about her hooking up with Vox Day? Because that's rape because she says so?

I think there's a useful distinction to be made between "I feel sorry for her" and "that thing that happened to her was wrong". I'm certainly capable of feeling sorry for someone even when whatever happens to them is 100% right and just. I feel sorry for my kids when I send them to their rooms, for instance, even though I kind of definitionally support so doing.

This is kind of the reverse. I don't really feel sorry for her (beyond the basic level of empathy I have for most people), given the things she's been dishing out for years and the damage that she's done. But I still think that it was wrong to do it, both in the abstract and for the health of our community as a whole.

I agree that in the abstract, it's a bad thing and bad for the community.

There are two reasons why I think it's okay to be okay with it, and not just because "VB/BS is a bad person so she deserves it."

First, at a certain point, the damage done by someone who has enjoyed a cloak of anonymity exceeds any reasonable expectation of people respecting anonymity. This point will vary according to who you ask, and it is a slippery slope from "Predators lurking in chat rooms should be exposed" to "I'm going call the employer of someone I got into a political argument with on the Internet and try to get him fired." But when someone has made it not just a hobby, but an avocation, to damage, wreck, harass, and hurt for years, I think she's past the point at which it becomes immoral to reveal to her victims and the world the name behind the persona.

Second, I am unconvinced in general about the expectation of anonymity online. I use a handle and have for years because that's the Internet convention, but of course it's trivial to find my real name and I know that. I think it is not necessarily a bad thing that someone whose online behavior becomes truly outrageous may find that it gets traced back to their "real" life and bites them. If you send death threats, law enforcement is already empowered to use whatever resources they have available to find out who you are, and most people do not consider that a bad thing. If you use your anonymous ID to post on a forum that you want to kill the President, the Secret Service isn't going to respect your anonymity. It's just a matter of degree to say that someone who makes a career out of harassing and abusing ordinary people without the resources of the Secret Service to protect them isn't entitled to the protection of anonymity.

I understand some people have real safety concerns - when someone suggests everyone should go by their real name online, or at least be easily linked to it, there is always an argument about stalking victims, political dissidents, etc. And those people, yes, need to take special precautions to protect their identity and if you know their situation, it would be a shitty thing to do to out them. On the other hand, if you are a stalking victim or a political dissident and you go around harassing people and waging a decade-long campaign as a notorious troll, expecting not to be outed, even by the people you've been abusing, is kind of like being in Witness Protection and thinking that should make you immune to exposure if you go prey on other people.

So while in principal, I think "outing" people who don't want their real names out there is a shitty thing to do, I think BS/VB, by her actions, and not just because people don't like her, has lost any shred of protection she might have been entitled to.

 

[evilrooster]

I find all "real person fic" to be creepy

That's the place where we agree. What we're doing with that is clearly different.

Also, I think there's plenty to say without getting into RPF and having to have the boring, rather tiresome debate she'll start when we could be talking about what she actually did and how that's genuinely bad. It's rather like name-calling in internet discourse. It's basically a cheap thrill that doesn't actually advance the state of anyone's knowledge. It's juvenile. So is "Winterfox and VD, sitting in a tree...", in my opinion.

I agree that in the abstract, it's a bad thing and bad for the community.

There are two reasons why I think it's okay to be okay with it, and not just because "VB/BS is a bad person so she deserves it."

First, at a certain point, the damage done by someone who has enjoyed a cloak of anonymity exceeds any reasonable expectation of people respecting anonymity. This point will vary according to who you ask, and it is a slippery slope from "Predators lurking in chat rooms should be exposed" to "I'm going call the employer of someone I got into a political argument with on the Internet and try to get him fired." But when someone has made it not just a hobby, but an avocation, to damage, wreck, harass, and hurt for years, I think she's past the point at which it becomes immoral to reveal to her victims and the world the name behind the persona.

So will you join in the inevitable, endless, tiresome arguments when someone uses this as an excuse to doxx, out, and abuse someone who has done far less? Because that's really what I dread. It's another spoon tax for being on the internet, being in these conversations. It's one reason the Hugo kerfuffle is such a bore -- everyone's spending all their time casting and recasting the circumstances to call the other guys hypocrites. This is going to be another exhausting example to be dissected, discussed, used, and misused. Frankly, I'd rather we didn't have to, that we had a clean, simple line to maintain.

Second, I am unconvinced in general about the expectation of anonymity online. I use a handle and have for years because that's the Internet convention, but of course it's trivial to find my real name and I know that. I think it is not necessarily a bad thing that someone whose online behavior becomes truly outrageous may find that it gets traced back to their "real" life and bites them. If you send death threats, law enforcement is already empowered to use whatever resources they have available to find out who you are, and most people do not consider that a bad thing. If you use your anonymous ID to post on a forum that you want to kill the President, the Secret Service isn't going to respect your anonymity. It's just a matter of degree to say that someone who makes a career out of harassing and abusing ordinary people without the resources of the Secret Service to protect them isn't entitled to the protection of anonymity.

I understand some people have real safety concerns - when someone suggests everyone should go by their real name online, or at least be easily linked to it, there is always an argument about stalking victims, political dissidents, etc. And those people, yes, need to take special precautions to protect their identity and if you know their situation, it would be a shitty thing to do to out them.

That's a much easier attitude to have if you're (a) less likely to be the target of these things, and (b) less likely to suffer horrific consequences if he is targeted. There are plenty of studies on the internet that show that, because you are identifiably male, you're a lot less likely to have someone decide you're an uppity bitch who deserves whatever the internet has to hand out. And the abuse you get is likely to be of a less personal nature -- the lack of rape threats alone makes things much different.

On the other hand, if you are a stalking victim or a political dissident and you go around harassing people and waging a decade-long campaign as a notorious troll, expecting not to be outed, even by the people you've been abusing, is kind of like being in Witness Protection and thinking that should make you immune to exposure if you go prey on other people.

So while in principal, I think "outing" people who don't want their real names out there is a shitty thing to do, I think BS/VB, by her actions, and not just because people don't like her, has lost any shred of protection she might have been entitled to.

This is exactly the special pleading that's going to cost us all dear, in terms of time and energy, the next time some jerk is looking for an excuse to take someone in our community down. I'm not looking forward to it.

(I do also think that this was doxxing, and cannot be excused by any kind of special pleading. But I know that that's an ethical belief, not a provable statement, and I'm certainly aware that people of good will and sincere thought disagree. Such is community life.)

 

[Amadan]

Also, I think there's plenty to say without getting into RPF and having to have the boring, rather tiresome debate she'll start when we could be talking about what she actually did and how that's genuinely bad. It's rather like name-calling in internet discourse. It's basically a cheap thrill that doesn't actually advance the state of anyone's knowledge. It's juvenile. So is "Winterfox and VD, sitting in a tree...", in my opinion.

I'm not disagreeing that it's creepy and juvenile. And so far as I know, no one has actually written such a thing. (I believe someone did write a Vox Day/John C. Wright slashfic, just to be annoying, and I thought that was pretty creepy and juvenile too.) I am disagreeing that the prospective subject (in this case, VB/BS) gets to decide what people can and cannot write about her.

So will you join in the inevitable, endless, tiresome arguments when someone uses this as an excuse to doxx, out, and abuse someone who has done far less?

Probably.

Thing is, I do see your point (which is why I admitted it's a slippery slope). But sometimes there are situations that are inherently gray areas. You cannot have the clear, bright shining line that you'd like. "It is always wrong to dox someone, period." Okay, how about instead of someone a little bit less bad than BS, it's someone much worse. What if someone had knowledge that a GOH was a child molester? (Given some of the scandals that have occurred in the community, this is not an entirely outrageous hypothetical.) What if someone with a popular blog under a pseudonym turns out to be someone else notorious and predatory?

Yeah, I'm afraid that individual cases probably merit individual weighing of merits, and there will be no unanimous consensus. The bottom line, really, is that if you act like an asshole on the Internet while trying to hide your identity, sooner or later someone will be annoyed and persistent enough to out you. It would be nice to say "It's always wrong to dox" (I'd agree that 95% of the time this is true), but then there will be the case where someone is allowed to continue victimizing people because those who knew what was going on were unwilling say anything in public.

That's a much easier attitude to have if you're (a) less likely to be the target of these things, and (b) less likely to suffer horrific consequences if he is targeted.

Probably it is, but it does not make me wrong. Obviously, I do not think people should be harassed or targeted for abuse, not even VB/BS.