Mobbook or Facemob or Lynchbook or... - by Nicker
Nicker on 24/6/2011 at 04:49
...Facelynch or whatever...
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I apologise for my previous abortive but still kicking thread. The dark twin was still born I am told, though I suspect Dr. Gingerbread of having a hand in it's tragically brief life. The internets are watching you, Doc.
In its place I present to you, an as yet unsodomised refinement of the original topic.
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The Vancouver Riot of 2011 has been described as the most recorded riot in history (until the next one of course). Those images have aided the police in identifying some of the alleged vandals. Many more of those images have been used on social media to out apparent perpetrators, publishing their names, addresses, phone numbers and places of employment.
People who may not be guilty of an offence and who certainly have not been given the benefit of any reasonable process, find themselves harassed online and off, up to and including death threats. It seems that in the town square of the w.w.w. emotion and impulse are being given preference to diligence and reason.
Frontier justice has a great popular appeal. Putting things to rights with a few ounces of lead or a stout rope. It cuts through devious legal red tape, delivering fast, personal. satisfying and theoretically prophylactic punishment, making the world a better, safer place. Right fucking now. But does it actually strengthen our lives and liberties or make them more precarious, by making us all potential victims of baseless accusations, invasive scrutiny, abusive process and excessive or undeserved retribution?
Anonymous accusers, hooded judges, the whipping post, masked thugs to do the dirty work. Where have we seen this before?
But perhaps I am just cynical. How do you feel? Is it vigilantism or is about time, damn it!!
What about smear campaigns? Is it evidence or is it Photoshop? And who is liable when lies go viral? What right or method of defense or of appeal might be open to the wrongly accused?
Can Virtual Vigilantes be stopped? Should they? How and by whom? Could a cabal direct the mood of the mob and use it as a political tool like Roman royalty did? Not just as a weight of opinions but as a visceral force.
Can the mob be tamed or somehow refereed, to allow a public expression of outrage without it becoming a mob of the lynching variety? Could it be toned down to a sort of Neighbourhood Watch intensity? Or will the term ‘posse’ revert to its traditional meaning?
Who determines guilt or what is appropriate punishment, how long it should last and when the offender has ‘paid their debt’?
Where is mercy when the internet is forever?
O.K. – your turn.
Briareos H on 24/6/2011 at 06:22
Desperate - your turn.
Koki on 24/6/2011 at 06:36
Then don't register, you lemon.
theBlackman on 24/6/2011 at 07:17
Quote Posted by Koki
Then don't register, you lemon.
:thumb: :thumb: :thumb:
Vasquez on 24/6/2011 at 07:32
Quote Posted by Nicker
Where is mercy when the internet is forever?
The problem isn't the internet, the problem is the people.
Scots Taffer on 24/6/2011 at 07:44
Bullshit, Nicker. I reckon your post is the worst type of left-wing forgive-all liberalism I've encountered in some time that takes no account of the reality of the situation, which is that freed from social and moral constraints some people will do whatever they can get away with (including otherwise "good people"). A more pertinent question is how relevant a single act of mob-incited violence is on a person's record given their otherwise potentially unblemished history.
I posted that whole screed above drunk so I hope you appreciate it.
But seriously we're in an information (and hence judgement) rich world where employers and a whole range of other people use social media to identify people so be fucking responsible and aware.
End of story.
demagogue on 24/6/2011 at 14:43
I won't say anything specifically on being in a riot or pictures that really look like a person is being a thug -- anyway I usually can't sympathize with people even sympathetic to thugs; but as long as they're not doing anything illegal & hurtful it's probably fine. But even aside from that, the thing that gets me is we're in an age where people are getting documented doing things people have done since time immemorial and *now* people want to throw a fit?? I mean consensual sex & sex games, fetishes, domestic crap, bad-taste jokes. If nobody cares that these things are going on in private, then why suddenly should they care when it's still going on in private but there's public exposure? And there will always be public exposure; let's establish that right off. The "private domain" no longer exists as it used to.
I think the important lesson society will have to learn -- that is to say what we have to look forward to after the pre-internet generation dies already, the dogmatic ones anyway -- is that "privacy" no longer means something you do out of public observation. Now, since everything is in the public domain and the "private domain" no longer exists, what "privacy" really means a set of behavior still in the public domain but we tolerate as beyond public scrutiny as if it were in a private domain. (The alternative, insisting on the old understanding, is just throwing up our hands and saying private behavior is no longer possible if you really fucking insist no camera or cellphone can be around to do it. FFS, really? No private behavior ever again possible? I can't imagine anyone that wants that.)
So ok, you like to take pics of yourself in hotpink panties in a blacklight with your willy sticking out painted neon green and little glow-in-the-dark star stickers sticking to your chest ... to take a completely imaginary example (¬¬) The reason nobody should care isn't because they can't see it, but because it's they're fucking private business on their private time. This whole thinking of "It's fine as long as I don't have to see it" has to be burnt with fire (unless you go out of your way to insulate yourself and pretend the world isn't the way it is). If you surf long enough you'll probably see this shit from your friends & coworkers but it's still fine because it's fine.
But anyway, like the statistics say, the people that actually feel like this are the ones pretty much living like Ozzie & Harriet (like me :angel:) and the ones most dogmatic about it are also the ones most messed up with the public/private line. I think this is one of those things where it's not only not an irony but the two are connected.
Martin Karne on 24/6/2011 at 14:58
Someone got banned from MySuicideSpace and got bitter or something?
