

The Online Abuse Prevention Initiative - frostmatthew
http://onlineabuseprevention.org/

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msabalau
While it would be nice if Twitter addressed the abuse issue, in addition to
acknowledging it, Randi Harper's efforts have provided some respite. Hopefully
this organization can build on that work.

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NahBrah
Are these "anti-abuse tools" going to be as poorly-made as the GG blocker?
Because if so, you're going to do more harm than good.

~~~
daviross
Been working pretty well for me, and the code's been pretty straightforward. I
mean, unless you have more substantive issues with it you can raise and
substantiate, this reads as just static and noise, really.

~~~
NahBrah
The issue is that it works on the premise of guilt by association. It blocked
an IGDA chairman FFS. The only thing it serves to do is filter out opinions
you disagree with, which does nothing but harm anyone who cares to think
outside their comfort zone.

~~~
GamerGirl
It did block an IGDA chair! One who had deep connections to MRA sites,
responded by tagging in #gamergate to get his friends to take up his fight
against this "unfair" censorship, and shortly after this incident found
himself to no longer be associated with the IGDA.

System working very very much as intended there!

The only /real/ false positives it's ever generated that I'm aware of are a
handful of people closely following hate group leaders to report on them, all
of whom easily passed through the whitelisting process, and support the
blocker wholeheartedly.

~~~
swatow
Would a campaign to get someone fired because they held progressive political
views, be considered harassment or abuse?

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swatow
The problem with abuse is that it is an ambiguous term.

For example suppose I were to criticize Zoe Quinn or Anita Sarkeesian. And
suppose other people read my criticism, and decided to make nuisance phone
calls, or even more severe forms of harassments. Was my original criticism
harassment? Because that is how the GamerGate movement has been characterized.
Since some people allegedly engaged in things that were clearly defined as
harassment or abuse, it was considered that the entire "movement", i.e.
everyone making the criticism, was engaging in harassment.

Let's turn this around, and consider whether it is "abuse" when people
criticize right wingers.

The situation is especially problematic because the law also contains
ambiguous crime such as harassment.

~~~
hyugh
"Abuse" isn't ambiguous at all. Anyone with a lick of common sense can easily
distinguish criticism and abuse.

Criticism is when you civilly express an opinion of someone or something else,
or an action or statement they've made. Criticism is calling someone out and
saying you expect more, or have X problem with Y statement, etc.

Abuse is when it moves into personal attacks, or calls for others to engage in
personal or physical attacks. Criticism is fine if you disagree, but
threatening physical harm or violence to someone isn't criticism - it's a
threat. Digging up someone's home address and posting it online isn't
criticism. Calling the police to raid someone's house with a SWAT team isn't
criticism. Asking if someone would like to be raped because it's a "funny
joke" or "satire" isn't criticism - it's threatening and abusive behavior. Any
school psychologist can tell you which kids are joking around playfully and
which kids are engaging in bullying, and those terms don't suddenly disappear
just because we added 20 years to everyone's age.

A movement like GamerGate has many many people in it who willfully engage in
what is clearly abuse - and yet the other members who claim not to support
this kind of harassment or abuse have done absolutely nothing to stop it. If
you're upset that your movement is branded as a bunch of harassers, maybe you
should spend more time with the "good" people publicly calling out the ones
doing the harassment in your name and asserting some kind of authority.

There's no ambiguity at all - you just want to pretend there is to avoid any
responsibility.

~~~
NahBrah
Done absolutely nothing to stop it? GamerGate rooted out one of Anita's
harassers and gave her his info. GamerGate has a harassment patrol that
actively reports abusers. Maybe you should look at your own perception and
realize that you're focusing on the 1% that is bad and ignoring the 99% that
isn't?

~~~
hyugh
So you're saying GamerGate proceeded to dox someone it didn't like and gave
that person's info to Anita? Yeah, good job differentiating "criticism" and
"abuse" in that example.

Who cares about the 99% that is good when GamerGate is continually defined, in
every Google search, every Twitter search, every news article in well-known
international journalist papers does nothing except point out the continual
stream of violent, sexist, and disgusting rhetoric and vitriol come from the
hashtag?

Let me give you a piece of advice: if you don't want to be affiliated with the
harassment aspect of GamerGate, stop affiliating yourself with GamerGate.
Because there is literally no one else outside of GamerGate itself who thinks
it's about anything other than harassment.

~~~
swatow
You seem to have moved the goalposts here, from actually being responsible for
abuse, as a group, to being perceived as being abusive.

