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| | The Truth Seekers Network is not currently active and cannot accept new posts | | One of my fears coming true for another blogger | Views: 1053 | | Mar 29, 2007 5:18 pm | | One of my fears coming true for another blogger | # | 
Danielle (Dani) Cutler | | Came across this from another blog I read, http://jaymoonah.com/blog/2007/03/28/blogger-code-of-conduct/ :
Death threats against bloggers are NOT "protected speech" (why I cancelled my ETech presentations)
As I type this, I am supposed to be in San Diego, delivering a workshop at the ETech conference. But I'm not. I'm at home, with the doors locked, terrified. For the last four weeks, I've been getting death threat comments on this blog. But that's not what pushed me over the edge. What finally did it was some disturbing threats of violence and sex posted on two other blogs... blogs authored and/or owned by a group that includes prominent bloggers. People you've probably heard of. People like respected Cluetrain Manifesto co-author Chris Locke (aka Rageboy).
MUCH more at:
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/03/as_i_type_this_.html
This was quite scary to read, but I praise her from coming right out and showing what has been said to her. What are your thoughts about hate speech and blogging?
DaniPrivate Reply to Danielle (Dani) Cutler | | Mar 29, 2007 5:23 pm | | re: One of my fears coming true for another blogger | # |
L J | | Tell her to put the blog, phone, and computer services in her children's names. If the blogger comes back and threatens her, it's a federal crime. Private Reply to L J | | Mar 29, 2007 6:19 pm | | re: re: One of my fears coming true for another blogger | # |
-=Topper=- | |
The answer to this is so freaking easy, BAN anonymity on the internet. You
have a website, you have to by law have contact information on your page.
E-mail, even though a nick is used a right click and properties will give the
who and where it came, again by law.
Forums, required by law to have contact information in your profile.
Everything you do on the net requires somewhere that your real name is
available. That puts an end to registries being hidden as well. Powweb offers
it, but I passed. Go Daddy of course makes it a given, well the owner is the
epitome of a capitalist pig anyway.
Again, their business as usual will be no longer. And the perverse members
they have will have to move on, because what they used to do will now have a
retribution available to the victim.
Oh but I can read it now, "topper isn't your real name". But you could find
what it is in about ten seconds. It is just a mouse click away. Of course most
know my real name anyway. I like both, next week you can just call me "crash".
We end anonymity and there will no longer be victims. There will no longer be
trolls.
Actually the internet WILL be a safe haven some in the legislature claim they
have made it.
That isn't true, in protecting identities, they have protected perpetrators,
such as those expressed by Kathy. And the dog faced rage boy? I have my doubts
on him. Even though he is up on his identity and doesn't hide it, there is
something to his persona that strikes me. Obviously he doesn't care for women.
I have had my usual "once again you have missed that mark" by an anonymous
posters on my blog. Not any longer, it is a requirement now that you be a member
of the blogspot or otherwise, anonymous posting is no longer allowed. And I have
made that present in my forums as well. Registration is now required. You
wouldn't have believed the people selling Viagra I was getting.
Again the answer to this is banning anonymity. And who was the brilliant jerk
that thought of id blocking in caller id? The point of caller id was to end
harassing phone calls. Of course they just *70 and dial away. But of course the
choice is yours and I make it, not to answer that call.
 
Check toppers-tap.com
for details.
Private Reply to -=Topper=- | | Mar 29, 2007 7:04 pm | | re: re: re: One of my fears coming true for another blogger | # |
Danielle (Dani) Cutler | | Well the first thing that comes to mind is right to privacy. As much as we have the right to free speech, we have the right to remain anonymous. I tried for a long time to keep my politics separate from my business, back when my business was cards. Some of you old timers may remember pinkobabe?
http://www.ryze.com/go/pinkobabe
It wasn't really hiding, it was quite easy to make the connection between my two accounts. What I discovered is when you feel strongly about something, it's hard to separate it from your life. It IS a part of your life, and you shouldn't be ashamed of that. Never be ashamed of your beliefs.
That being said, I think it really is up to the user to decide how anon they want to be. What it means to me? I take everyone (no matter where they stand politically) who is not as open with a warning in the back of my mind. It's like you say Dave, they can block themselves on the phone, but if they really my attention, they will leave a message. And if they leave a message, why are they hiding themselves in the first place?
~Dani
Private Reply to Danielle (Dani) Cutler | | Mar 30, 2007 1:47 am | | Stop Cyberbullying Day Tomorrow | # |
Danielle (Dani) Cutler | | Cyber Threats Against Well-Known Local Blogger
Mar. 29 - KGO - Internet bloggers are calling for a boycott tomorrow in reaction to cyber threats being made against a local online writer. Bloggers everywhere are outraged and taking action to stop cyberbullying. Online harassment they say has gone too far after death threats and disturbing photos of a well-known blogger surfaced.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=business&id=5165663
There is an interview with Kathy Sierra at the link too. I will participate, but I really don't know what impact it will have. Sort of like those "don't buy gas from this particular place on this day" sort of things.
I also have to say, she must only be well-known in her area, because I have not heard of her at all until this story was brought to my attention.
So, probably won't be seeing me here tomorrow. I'm going to post the anniversary podcast late tonight, then no blogging for me until Saturday! (yes, I consider this place a blog for me, one in which everyone contributes!)
DaniPrivate Reply to Danielle (Dani) Cutler | | Mar 30, 2007 7:55 pm | | re: Stop Cyberbullying Day Tomorrow | # |
-=Topper=- | |
This message board has been referred to as a blog before. It is in a way. I
consider this story a corner of the world thing. Where the internet is vast,
this is an internal struggle on an island. Maybe.
But then again there are perpetrators involved in this. I know that you will
not get at this until saturday Dani, that is cool. But until then I'll ask you
and others to think about what I have said about anonymity. There are issues on
each side of it, many talk about security. But in the case of security it did
nothing for Kathy's safety net, her life and livelihood, and her sanity. Now she
lives in fear.
There is always a way, people find it. But if anonymity was banned, it would
be a felony or misdemeanor to do such an act in hiding. However the policy
makers of the internet would want to make it.
But had that been in effect I don't think cyber bullying would be a problem.
Today even the incredibly stupid can be a cyber bully. It is TOO easy for
them. There is no hacking involved.
Back in '96 in my pre windows alt.whatever newsgroup days there was talk of
changing headers in order to hide. Even then I weighed in against such things.
Making us own what we do or say online is important as far as I am concerned.
Many people troll and spam, and in this case here do much worse, but not
being able to hide behind a curtain, they may be less than likely.
I will say here what I said earlier today that cowards are brave when they
can hide behind the curtain of anonymity.
Check toppers-tap.com
for details.
Private Reply to -=Topper=- | | Mar 30, 2007 11:05 pm | | re: re: Stop Cyberbullying Day Tomorrow | # | 
John Stephen Veitch | | Hi everyone,
Online people can say and will say whatever they like. Realistically NOBODY and NO GOVERNMENT can stop them saying whatever they like.
The Cluetrain Manifesto made that quite clear.
http://www.ate.co.nz/open/shortcluetrain.html
Back in the days of Usenet the forums were plagued by people who liked to start flames. They didn't kill Usenet, in fact they helped to keep it real. Usenet was killed by people who wanted to use it as an advertising platform. There were too few protections built into this primitive platform to protect it.
Today, cyberbullies are mostly just seeking publicity. Deny them publicity. Moderate the forums where they appear. Allow their comments only when they have a sound argument made in a moderate way. Otherwise, delete their mail, give them no recognition. Now of course they DO have a proper response to silencing. They can start their own Blog, web site, or forum.
We've seen this in New Zealand recently. The Dept for Child Youth and Family in NZ, is responsible for removing children from homes. and issuing protection orders which usually exclude fathers from the home. The family Court here is also under attack from fathers who say the court discriminates against them because they are male. There are no legitimate public ways for these people to register their complaints in the Child Youth and Family web site for instance. So several blogs carry the message. (Sadly there are often threats against staff members and against judges of the Family Court, in these blogs.)
Not unexpectedly, the government departments involved don't know what to do about it. They foolishly look to the law. "Ban them", they have tried to do that. Several blogs have been closed, but more and more open in response. The basic message of the Cluetrain Manifesto isn't understood.
I'd expect Bloggers to be more aware of the uses and the limits of their online reputations. There is a good deal of SAFETY in being open. Other people respect that. The person who hides behind a veil has a more difficult case to demonstrate credibility.
There are two responses to threats that should work.
ONE: Expose the threat, talk about it and invite the person making the threat to clarify why such extreme action is reasonable. If there is a genuine case to answer you have to be able to deal with it.
TWO: Deny any publicity, silence the threat. This is likely to lead to alternative efforts to get the message out if the person involved has a genuine case to make.
John
John Stephen Veitch
Adapt to Experience - http://www.ate.co.nz/
Innovation Network - http://veech-network.ryze.com/
Google me.Private Reply to John Stephen Veitch | | Mar 31, 2007 8:09 am | | re: re: Stop Cyberbullying Day Tomorrow | # |
Danielle (Dani) Cutler | | Well, a day of just saving things that I knew I wanted to post about.
From other blogs.
Did I make a difference? Probably not. Still, it was important enough for me to do something, by doing nothing for a day. Perhaps not enough knew about it. So if this comes around again, I will make sure other blogs know about it.
That being said, Dave, I do understand where you are coming from. I really am not sure if this cyber-bullying would be curbed if anonymity were banned. After all, look at Michelle Malkin's blog, and what she has done in the past. Look at Ann Coulter. Look at all the ones we KNOW who post their hate proudly. And we all ready know that trolls can still troll even though we know who they are.
I think we might actually have to agree to disagree on this one. As I said above, I believe in the right to privacy as much as I believe in freedom of speech. There are many places on the net where people might not want to be known, and it's harmless. Even here on TS really it's harmless. I have no problem with it, if the purpose is true and they actually want to engage. When it gets to a negative point as it has in the past, it's up to ME to take the action, since I run the place. If that action involves having someone show who they are, so be it, but it's really not something that should be automatically forced upon an individual.
But it is up to us to call out the ones who spew their hate behind their anonymous names.
And not give them power.
~DaniPrivate Reply to Danielle (Dani) Cutler | | Mar 31, 2007 12:27 pm | | re: re: re: Stop Cyberbullying Day Tomorrow | # |
-=Topper=- | |
OMG! You disagree with me? Hell froze over and penguins fly. My world as I
know it may never be the same.
Check toppers-tap.com
for details.
Private Reply to -=Topper=- | | Apr 09, 2007 8:24 pm | | re: re: re: re: Stop Cyberbullying Day Tomorrow | # |
Danielle (Dani) Cutler | | HEre ya go honey, someone to agree with you:
April 9, 2007
A Call for Manners in the World of Nasty Blogs
By BRAD STONE
Is it too late to bring civility to the Web?
The conversational free-for-all on the Internet known as the blogosphere can be a prickly and unpleasant place. Now, a few high-profile figures in high-tech are proposing a blogger code of conduct to clean up the quality of online discourse.
Last week, Tim O’Reilly, a conference promoter and book publisher who is credited with coining the term Web 2.0, began working with Jimmy Wales, creator of the communal online encyclopedia Wikipedia, to create a set of guidelines to shape online discussion and debate.
Chief among the recommendations is that bloggers consider banning anonymous comments left by visitors to their pages and be able to delete threatening or libelous comments without facing cries of censorship.
A recent outbreak of antagonism among several prominent bloggers “gives us an opportunity to change the level of expectations that people have about what’s acceptable online,” said Mr. O’Reilly, who posted the preliminary recommendations last week on his company blog (radar.oreilly.com). Mr. Wales then put the proposed guidelines on his company’s site (blogging.wikia.com), and is now soliciting comments in the hope of creating consensus around what constitutes civil behavior online.
Mr. O’Reilly and Mr. Wales talk about creating several sets of guidelines for conduct and seals of approval represented by logos. For example, anonymous writing might be acceptable in one set; in another, it would be discouraged. Under a third set of guidelines, bloggers would pledge to get a second source for any gossip or breaking news they write about.
Bloggers could then pick a set of principles and post the corresponding badge on their page, to indicate to readers what kind of behavior and dialogue they will engage in and tolerate. The whole system would be voluntary, relying on the community to police itself.
“If it’s a carefully constructed set of principles, it could carry a lot of weight even if not everyone agrees,” Mr. Wales said.
The code of conduct already has some early supporters, including David Weinberger, a well-known blogger (hyperorg.com/blogger) and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. “The aim of the code is not to homogenize the Web, but to make clearer the informal rules that are already in place anyway,” he said.
But as with every other electrically charged topic on the Web, finding common ground will be a serious challenge. Some online writers wonder how anyone could persuade even a fraction of the millions of bloggers to embrace one set of standards. Others say that the code smacks of restrictions on free speech.
Mr. Wales and Mr. O’Reilly were inspired to act after a firestorm erupted late last month in the insular community of dedicated technology bloggers. In an online shouting match that was widely reported, Kathy Sierra, a high-tech book author from Boulder County, Colo., and a friend of Mr. O’Reilly, reported getting death threats that stemmed in part from a dispute over whether it was acceptable to delete the impolitic comments left by visitors to someone’s personal Web site.
Distraught over the threats and manipulated photos of her that were posted on other critical sites — including one that depicted her head next to a noose — Ms. Sierra canceled a speaking appearance at a trade show and asked the local police for help in finding the source of the threats. She also said that she was considering giving up blogging altogether.
In an interview, she dismissed the argument that cyberbullying is so common that she should overlook it. “I can’t believe how many people are saying to me, ‘Get a life, this is the Internet,’ ” she said. “If that’s the case, how will we ever recognize a real threat?”
Ms. Sierra said she supported the new efforts to improve civility on the Web. The police investigation into her case is pending.
Menacing behavior is certainly not unique to the Internet. But since the Web offers the option of anonymity with no accountability, online conversations are often more prone to decay into ugliness than those in other media.
Nowadays, those conversations often take place on blogs. At last count, there were 70 million of them, with more than 1.4 million entries being added daily, according to Technorati, a blog-indexing company. For the last decade, these Web journals have offered writers a way to amplify their voices and engage with friends and readers.
But the same factors that make those unfiltered conversations so compelling, and impossible to replicate in the offline world, also allow them to spin out of control.
As many female bloggers can attest, women are often targets. Heather Armstrong, a blogger in Salt Lake City who writes publicly about her family (dooce.com), stopped accepting unmoderated comments on her blog two years ago after she found that conversations among visitors consistently devolved into vitriol.
Since last October, she has also had to deal with an anonymous blogger who maintains a separate site that parodies her writing and has included photos of Ms. Armstrong’s daughter, copied from her site.
Ms. Armstrong tries not to give the site public attention, but concedes that, “At first, it was really difficult to deal with.”
Women are not the only targets of nastiness. For the last four years, Richard Silverstein has advocated for Israeli-Palestinian peace on a blog (richardsilverstein.com) that he maintains from Seattle.
People who disagree with his politics frequently leave harassing comments on his site. But the situation reached a new low last month, when an anonymous opponent started a blog in Mr. Silverstein’s name that included photos of Mr. Silverstein in a pornographic context.
“I’ve been assaulted and harassed online for four years,” he said. “Most of it I can take in stride. But you just never get used to that level of hatred.”
One public bid to improve the quality of dialogue on the Web came more than a year ago when Mena Trott, a co-founder of the blogging software company Six Apart, proposed elevating civility on the Internet in a speech she gave at a French blog conference. At the event, organizers had placed a large screen on the stage showing instant electronic responses to the speeches from audience members and those who were listening in online.
As Ms. Trott spoke about improving online conduct, a heckler filled the screen with personal insults. Ms Trott recalled “losing it” during the speech.
Ms. Trott has scaled back her public writing and now writes a blog for a limited audience of friends and family. “You can’t force people to be civil, but you can force yourself into a situation where anonymous trolls are not in your life as much,” she said.
The preliminary recommendations posted by Mr. Wales and Mr. O’Reilly are based in part on a code developed by BlogHer, a network for women designed to give them blogging tools and to guide readers to their pages.
“Any community that does not make it clear what they are doing, why they are doing it, and who is welcome to join the conversation is at risk of finding it difficult to help guide the conversation later,” said Lisa Stone, who created the guidelines and the BlogHer network in 2006 with Elisa Camahort and Jory Des Jardins.
A subtext of both sets of rules is that bloggers are responsible for everything that appears on their own pages, including comments left by visitors. They say that bloggers should also have the right to delete such comments if they find them profane or abusive.
That may sound obvious, but many Internet veterans believe that blogs are part of a larger public sphere, and that deleting a visitor’s comment amounts to an assault on their right to free speech. It is too early to gauge support for the proposal, but some online commentators are resisting.
Robert Scoble, a popular technology blogger who stopped blogging for a week in solidarity with Kathy Sierra after her ordeal became public, says the proposed rules “make me feel uncomfortable.” He adds, “As a writer, it makes me feel like I live in Iran.”
Mr. O’Reilly said the guidelines were not about censorship. “That is one of the mistakes a lot of people make — believing that uncensored speech is the most free, when in fact, managed civil dialogue is actually the freer speech,” he said. “Free speech is enhanced by civility.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/technology/09blog.html?_r=1&oref=sloginPrivate Reply to Danielle (Dani) Cutler | | |
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