Monday 8 August 2016

Anonymity & Doxing

So the other day I saw a video lambasting TJ, The Amazing Atheist, for a shite argument in one of his videos. The video in question was TJ’s response to Naked Ape calling him out on a double standard. The contention by Naked Ape was that TJ has condemned people for doxing in the past yet included Atheism Is Unstoppable (hereafter ‘AIU’) in a collaborative video despite AIU having doxed people. We’ll get to that claim itself shortly.

TJ’s response was most definitely shite: he strawmans the issue by equating direct collaboration with consumption of an individual’s media products; he sidesteps the double standard accusation by effectively arguing that he doesn’t have standards, and finally tops it all off with a balls-out argumentum ad populum (“I’m The Amazing Atheist, who the fuck are you?!”). Suffice to say, TJ didn’t come out of that looking good, and he didn’t even try to actually defend AIU’s position.

Naked Ape has since clarified his position: He considers revealing real names to be doxing; he has a zero-tolerance approach to doxing; AIU has revealed names; hence Naked Ape considers AIU to be a doxer. TJ included him in a collaboration ( of mostly stupid questions, of which AIU’s may have been the stupidest. Sorry, it’s just how I feel about it); collaborations tend to help expand subscriber bases; Naked Ape states TJ’s actions therefore assist AIU in doxing. Finally Naked Ape concluded that he will be taking a break to fuck his boyfriend and play video games. Hear, hear!

Since TJ’s video argument was essentially a verbose and obnoxious way of hiding under a rock, I don’t much care to parse the double standard issue. Instead, let’s cut right to the heart of the matter: is AIU actually a doxer?

AIU has commented briefly on this recent argument before basically saying “Fuck it, I’m out”. He does admit to revealing the names of five people. He asserts however that this is not doxing as only the names were revealed and not anything one would consider actually private or sensitive information. Naked Ape asserts that this equates to doxing as a name is enough to find more information and the act of revealing a name as part of public discourse invites the more amoral members of the audience to go ahead and finish doxing the individual.

Support for Naked Ape’s view can be found in the UK’s Data Protection Act, which says: ‘personal data’ means data which relates to a living individual who can be identified - (a) from those data, or (b) from those data and other information which is in the possession of, or is likely to come into the possession of, the data controller. However, the DPA covers personal data to be collected and stored, and does not explicitly apply to public discourse, so this question is far from settled.

Since it is difficult to narrowly define doxing, let’s rephrase the question to:
Is AIU’s naming of five people acceptable?

Naked Ape and ‘Kraut and Tea’ say that breaching anonymity can be very dangerous for some people who live in the wrong country etc. AIU agrees with the sentiment expressed but does not see how this applies to the five people he named. He assures us that people like Kraut and Tea, whose anonymity protects them from illiberal laws or violence are very much on his ‘do-not-name’ list. He also reminds us that he himself lives in Germany too.

AIU says that he can’t stand being anonymously called a racist. He says that if people want to attack him and not his ideas by labelling him a racist, they could at least sign their name. Critics of this position tend to view the naming of anonymous people as also effectively directing attention to the person and not the idea (i.e. the accusation and its merit, or lack thereof). Generally further commenting that (a) anonymous accusations are easily ignored, or (b) that revealing names is not the appropriate response to being slandered. AIU retorts that since he uses his real name then simply the accusations, if allowed to pile up, are damaging and equates the internet to the Wild West where people must protect themselves instead of relying on the law.

While I can understand the different viewpoints on this issue, i cannot agree completely with any position that I have yet heard (or read). When making costly criticisms of someone, i can agree that it is unethical to do so anonymously without good reason. I draw the line now though as, while it may well seem safe to remove someone’s anonymity, that is not anybody else’s decision but their own. At the same time I can see how frustrating it must be to constantly face slander associated with a real name, which must be used in offline life. Especially from people who hypocritically hide from the same exposure they inflict on others.

In conclusion I find that while AIU’s naming of people was unethical, I do not agree that it was clearly immoral. In other words: while it may tarnish his reputation for maturity and/or professionalism, it does not reflect especially negatively upon his moral character.





CORRECTION:
I mentioned that AIU only commented briefly on this - I was incorrect, the videos I saw were redacted from a much longer video published slightly earlier in which AIU fully expresses himself.


Saturday 12 December 2015

Banning Trump from The UK?

Many people I have spoken to recently have gleefully said how they have signed that petition to ban Donald Trump from our country... They seem utterly surprised that I find this petition abhorrent.

This kind of arbitrary illiberal meddling demand is why the right don't feel they need to step up and defend themselves. All they have to do is go along with the puppet show for as long as people are stupid enough to focus on this rubbish instead of the horrendous politicking that they are up to.

Call Trump dangerous if you like, I can certainly see him emboldening many in the right... But that's exactly what we need! He wont be appealing to the centre; they are the demographic that decides elections and if Trump makes them feel silly for voting right wing then they will be less likely to hand the Tories yet more license to abuse their power. 

The reaction I would expect from politicians here is to distance themselves from the dumb things Trump says, and that means affirmatively declaring things that are contrary to their actions. Which makes it so much easier to show middle-ground voters that they are being lied to, and who it is doing the lying.

When you consider this it seems madness to me that we should actually want to instead make the illiberal demand to this illiberal government that people can be banned from the country because of their political opinions... Things they say, not do! Words, spoken out loud no less! Oh the horror!

WE REALLY DON'T WANT THAT TO BECOME ACCEPTABLE! 

Wednesday 2 December 2015

Daesh has to be destroyed... BUT...

Daesh has to be destroyed.

My concern is that it is a faction of cooperation, not enforcement.

Yes, they've moved onto enforcement of their ideology and that's why they are a problem for the world at large, but that isn't where they come from. It isn't like the usual despot whose power comes from the perception of power they already have, it comes from there being a school of thought within Islam that what they are doing is the right thing to do.

It's easy to de-claw the beast, we can easily say "think of those that would die if we didn't" to justify ourselves but once we take out the enforcement based action that is Daesh itself, how do we stop this hydra from forming another head?

History shows time and time again that strategies based upon enforcement will lose against strategies based upon cooperation. It was said during the Iraq occupation that the real war was for hearts and minds, and that goes for this a thousand fold.

We have to take actions that address the underlying problems; the reason Daesh hate the refugees fleeing the region is that, in their minds, all "true" Muslims should be flocking to them, the Quran is quite clear on that apparently. The fact of the refugees running in exactly the opposite direction, whilst militias including women fight against them and win at least some of the time, that's what damages Daesh, not bombs.

Thursday 26 November 2015

GamerGate: A More To-The-Point Summary

I actually started out against GamerGate, I can't speak to the intentions of those few people that were active within the hashtag from the actual outset of the tag itself.

And that's really the first point I want to start with. Twitter hashtags are just a searching facility, activity using that search facility doesn't have any endorsement from anybody else.
 It is irrational to condemn 'GamerGate' because it is not an organisation. 'Members' have no innate internal recourse to police other 'members' and so it would be madness to argue that they should have done so. As for external recourse; the link provided (below), among the blocks and blocks of text it explains that the majority of the community grouped together to identify and bring to justice some of the worst harassers.

---


The second point I'll go into is that the vast majority of people who have come to the GamerGate community have done so well after the whole thing with Zoe Quin was just history. 'We', if I can dare to represent, are not involved with that event. More to the point, the actual momentum that turned GamerGate from merely a Twitter search tool feature into a movement and an identity was actually the reaction to criticism by the press: Censorship of genuinely unoffensive comments that happened to bring to light other matters of corruption, brought forward by people who thought these were also relevant. 


The most striking early scandal that I recall was I think called 'GameJournoPros' or something like that, a mailing list full of journalists who were colluding to an incredible extent. There was also, related (I think) the phenomenon (I forget when exactly) several news outlets released articles headlined something to the effect of "Gamers are dead!". These articles advocated that games publishers didn't need to listen to their customers, because the benevolent philosophers of the internet could approve their games for them (I'm being a dick for comic effect). 


The conclusion to this second point is that the 'rallying-cry' event had nothing to do with Zoe Quin, and the vast vast VAST majority of GamerGate do not give a flying pigeon about her work...



---

As for the backlash, based on the public perception of GamerGate, here is an excerpt from this link:
http://deepfreeze.it/article.php?a=monster



x

Wednesday 25 November 2015

GamerGate Summary

By request – A summary of GamerGate aimed at facilitating the remainder of the thread to be an informed discussion.

Please actually read and watch everything here if you are going to be nasty or holier-than-thou.

I can't possibly cover everything, please look here for much reading:

- The Beginning - 

I advise you to read this (very early) analysis of GamerGate by Liana Kerzner:
               
Liana Kerzner – is a journalist, gamer, cosplayer, and feminist. Of those voices I am aware of, hers is perhaps the most balanced. She tries to be neutral, however the anti-GG faction are so vitriolic and puritanical that it is apparently very difficult. She writes for The Escapist Magazine, an online gaming news outlet that is a key player in what happened with the GamerGate controversy.

I asked Liana if I could direct people to her for further questions about GamerGate, she welcomes polite discussion and said that I should link to her original article from the outset (above).

- The Middle i.e. one year in -

Next I will ask you to look at these videos by YouTuber ‘LeoPirate’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62euQFWuQGc SPJ Airplay event, abridged (including bomb threat)
PNG: http://s13.postimg.org/6k3gbqeiv/1437280972897.png

- Today...ish -

Video by prominent GamerGate figure Carl Benjamin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uWzZeNLmf4

This man can be reached on Twitter as @Sargon_of_Akkad who I also approached, though he hasn't given me the same carte blanc to direct you to him I know that he already makes a point of talking to anybody, but keep in mind he has a huge amount to scroll through and may not respond at all.

Tuesday 10 November 2015

The Holocaust Card

Here is a video that is rather compelling.

Before you watch it, please understand that my own position on Israel is of sympathy to a country hated by those around them, trying to make their borders secure. However, their scorched earth tactics are ineffective and unforgivable. Please understand I do not condemn the country as it is not a moral actor, it is a collection of individuals and not every individual there is complicit.

Specifically regarding this video: The use of the holocaust to justify another one with better PR is ridiculous to my mind. Please observe the young woman who asks the question, she is clearly too young for her apparent emotional crisis to be valid. As if this man was committing a war crime in front of her, when he is in fact denouncing a current atrocity that needs to be stopped.


Crocodile Tears of Zionist lobby

Jewish, Zionist girl tries to criticise Dr Norman Gary Finkelstein at University of Waterloo

Posted by Jihadi John's Day Off on Tuesday, 10 November 2015

Tuesday 3 November 2015

Teach Yourself: Democracy

I got home from college to find this lurking on my facebook feed. A man being ejected from a town council meeting for asking a question. I was rather disgusted and outraged to say the least, so I cracked open a can of cider and got down to some serious philosophising on the matter:


This video shows a man being forcibly ejected from a Penzance Town Council meeting. It's claimed he'd entered late and did not hear the Mayor explain that members of the public would not be permitted to ask questions unless they'd been submitted in advance. Security guards were asked to remove him from the room after he asked, if he could ask a question. We'll be hearing from people who were at the meeting on Lunchtime with Laurence from midday.
Posted by BBC Radio Cornwall on Tuesday, 3 November 2015


Should I be angry? I want to say yes and leave it at that, but that's not good enough. Maybe the man shown had been genuinely out of order?

It doesn't seem so, apparently the problem was that questions from the public were to be submitted in writing, but he missed the start of the meeting where this was stated.

Really I say "so what?" to this. It's not a question of whether any protocol was breached or the meeting disrupted. It aught simply to be a matter of explaining the protocol.

Oh but what if that is indeed what happened? Well that's something I'll have to concede here: I don't know what happened prior to that video being recorded. Maybe the gentleman was told of the written submissions and still requested to ask a question?

For the sake of argument let's pretend that not only did this happen, but that he insisted on asking (which seems unlikely, given that he doesn't mention the question he wanted to ask in that video, so I presume he had yet to ask it):

Is it really too much to ask? Even to merely ask to ask?

In the video it can be heard someone saying that if every person there asked a question they'd be there a long time. A ridiculous rationale to my mind, it is quite clear that the other people in the room were not sitting on their hands in desperate self-discipline.

Allowing everybody to ask questions doesn't mean that every single person there will ask one. Sure, I might be taking this a bit too literally but clearly whoever said that rubbish believes in absolutes too:

Are we to assume it is beyond the wit of civil discussion to decide on a one-to-one basis whether there is time to ask a question and have it answered? Is there no chair to this meeting?

I suppose, again, I will have to stow my moral outrage a moment to concede that I don't actually know whether this happened. Perhaps there wasn't time and this was clearly and reasonably explained.

Even if we give all possible benefit-of-doubt to the Penzance Town Council, does that justify the disgraceful use of force?

Oh it would be inconvenient to answer this question, let's just have him removed instead! Guards!