
The Internet Shaming of Lindsey Stone - mjohn
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/21/internet-shaming-lindsey-stone-jon-ronson
======
mc32
This mob mentality is horrifying. The response is always disproportionate. The
instigators, these antagonists, seem to be purposely unaware of the magnifying
effect of their actions. This is the same ugliness which reared its head when
the PR person tweeted a few tweets which were a bjt too clever, and upon
arrival in South Africa the pitchforks were eagerly awaiting.

People trip over themselves to point out the transgressions in others,
especially when there is little consequence to the accuser for being incorrect
in their assumptions.

Like I said before, not only should the shamed suffer consequences, by
definition in these cases, but these mob components should face consequences
too. They should also face scrutiny when searching for jobs, etc.

People involved in asymmetrical bullying should experience some sort of
consequence for their irresponsibility.

I think this is another example of the undesirability of politically correct
attitudes. Here in this case it was politically incorrect to 'desecrate' a
sign which symbolized respect for the dead. ironically, I think most of those
dead, would have found in life retrospectively, fun in the statement of the
photo. But I'm assuming feelings I should refrain from.

------
zedpm
Stories like this are a window into an ugly facet of our culture: eagerness to
see others punished. I'm not sure if it's Schadenfreude, exactly, but it's
damn close. Sadly, between hideous talking heads like Nancy Grace, and the
faceless multitudes on social media, there is a lot of encouragement to wildly
overreact to any perceived wrong-doing, to assume guilt based on the briefest
account of some incident, and to seek as much damage to the target as
possible.

Next time you see the crowd forming up, pitchforks in hand, try to be the
person who counsels restraint and understanding. Some day it might be you
they're after.

~~~
kordless
I'm leaning toward the guys with the Twitter bot being malignant narcissists,
so I agree with you. At a minimum, they are gas lighting the victim. I hate to
have to watch the video, but I am.

~~~
kordless
I watched it and it's painful. I got up to this part where the bearded dude
says this:

> we're not doing it, its doing it.

Actually they, the _spambot_ owners, are doing it and saying they aren't doing
it is a 100% lie and is very untrustworthy. While there is a slim chance they
have no control over the bot, we can expect technology to quickly give them an
'out' on that particular accusation. Autonomous corporations will be capable
of building their existences based on a simple set of rules put into place by
us humans, and running autonomously. They will literally be uncontrollable
from the standpoint of the creator.

Excusing yourself from blame based on a presumed disconnect of intent _has_ to
be a type of cognitive bias as the argument "I'm not doing it, it's doing it!"
is a fallacy.

~~~
kjs3
It's the classic Goebbels Defense: "I just wrote some speeches. I didn't kill
any Jews.".

------
logn
The Internet outrage beast is fearsome. I wish more people would focus the
attention on those in power. For every Lindsey Stone there are people with
real influence who are actually disrespecting or harming the military. I know
that lots of social injustice is deeply embedded at the lowest levels of
common society, but average folks don't need scarlet letters and endless
shaming or harassment. Education and awareness normally suffice. The elite who
perpetuate wrongs only benefit when the peasants are infighting. If the
outrage machine has any deserving target, it's those at the top.

~~~
saraid216
"those in power" have been receiving and handling things like the allegedly
fearsome "Internet outrage beast" for millennia. It's impressive to people who
can get stepped on, but Dubya is still Dubya, no matter what the Internet says
about him.

Lindsey Stone's situation was scary because there were people who held power
over her, like employers, who would listen to popular opinion. But no matter
how many "Fire John Boehner" things show up in social media, it isn't actually
going to happen that way, because no one is scared of such political talk.

The beast is only fearsome when it has leverage. And with "those in power", it
doesn't. It's quaint, is what it is.

"It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out
that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit, and the
emperor remains an emperor."

~~~
jsprogrammer
The difference between Lindsey Stone and John Boehner is that no one can fire
John Boehner by calling him out to a parking lot and forcing him to hand over
his keys. The only way for him to lose his current position of power is for
him to not have more pieces of paper with his named marked on them than any
other name, on a special Tuesday that occurs bi-annually, in schools,
churches, and libraries in a certain, small geographical location [1].

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio's_8th_congressional_distri...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio's_8th_congressional_district#mediaviewer/File:Ohio_US_Congressional_District_8_\(since_2013\).tif)

~~~
saraid216
[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Federalist_(Dawson)/70](http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Federalist_\(Dawson\)/70)

Speaking of the Executive, but the same arguments apply.

------
nlh
It's interesting -- I'd read about this story before but hadn't seen the
actual picture. If you have even a mild sense of off-color humor it's really
not that bad (I get the joke even without being "in" on it.)

The problem is "the crowd" doesn't generally have even the slightest, subtlest
sense of humor, so something like that going public is trouble. Call it the
Mass Whoosh Effect :(

~~~
fenomas
What I find scary about cases like this is that nobody in the angry mob ever
seems very hurt or genuinely upset - instead you see people thrilled and
energized to be part of getting someone fired. If you remember the Justine
Sacco thing (the woman who tweeted something before boarding a plane and went
viral before landing) twitter was positively _giddy_ about it.

More than anything else it resembles the Two Minute Hate. People seem to
really like having something to be righteously angry about.

~~~
sliverstorm
I'm not certain, but I think it could be described as sadism. The same reason
people enjoy blood sport.

------
chris_wot
These academics are awful!

Before doing an experiment that involves a third party, normal ethical
standards are to get consent, which they clearly did not do. It sounds like
the Uni of Cologne forced them into taking down the spambot - probably for a
number of reasons, including but not limited to: possibility of civil action
being undertaken against the University (you might want to look up the Tort of
Passing Off to start with, then perhaps defamation), the terrible publicity
this was getting (largely caused by the smugness of the three academics,
especially Dan O'Mara who contradicted himself a number of times and appears
to have taken the position that their actions were the fault of Jon Ronson)
and the unethical way the project was being conducted.

There are conflicting views of the @jon_ronson bot in the Guardian article - a
few people are saying it was created as a parody account to satirise Jon, yet
it was being done by an automated bot that apparently had algorithms that took
information (fairly badly) from Wikipedia. That's not satire, and it's not
parody - and besides, the bot for some reason got confused quite often and
there were clearly a number of unrepresentative comments made about Jon. I'd
be very interested in seeing the code though - if this was for academic
interest, then the academics should publish these algorithms for review
because they appear to be faulty.

It's remarkable that one of the academics wrote a response on The Guardian
stating that they were trying to show the world the tyranny of how we are all
being manipulated by the power of algorithms. Which they have done by
targeting Jon Ronson to manipulate him to prove their point. That would be
credible had their experiment been conducted in a more open, transparent and
ethical way - and involved _consent_!

It appears though that you are related to the academics - what exactly is your
relationship to them?

~~~
waterlesscloud
It's worth keeping in mind that the interview is heavily edited and Ronson is
being a bit disingenuous at several points, pretending to not understand
things that he almost certainly must.

David Bausola isn't so much an academic as some sort of artist/marketer combo.
He's done some interesting Twitter bot things in the past. Strange and odd,
but interesting. I've followed him and his experiments for years now, and it's
just one of his things. I think he, at least, is genuinely interested in
online identities and how people present themselves through Twitter and other
social media. I don't believe at all he's a troll, though I do think his
fascination with Ronson's responses is rather cold and clinical, and a bit
more empathy would be appropriate.

Having said all that, obviously they should have taken down the bot when
Ronson was upset by it. My suspicion is they saw an opportunity to talk about
what they do and get an audience for it, and they exploited that. Which is, of
course, the wrong thing to do.

~~~
chris_wot
What sort of things were you thinking of? I didn't really see any point he was
being disingenuous...

------
sago
So looking forward to Jon's book on this. "Them" was superb.

Also, was it just (white, male, non-Jewish) me, or did Adria come across
really badly in that interview?

~~~
MichaelGG
> “Danger,” she said. “Clearly my body was telling me, ‘You are unsafe.’”

... I'm honestly shocked anyone could say that with a straight face. Apart
from the incorrectness (is there any reason to believe a developer making a
joke about dongles increases the risk of bodily harm?) -- what the hell does
"your body" saying things have to do with anything?

I'm a guy and my "body" says all sorts of things that I wouldn't repeat or act
on. She's implying she has no civilized control over her natural, probably
rather miscalibrated like everyone's, instincts?

And to claim there's a risk of getting killed... it sounds like the no-fly
list. Such obvious danger that we must restrict such people drastically
because we're so sure they're going to kill people, but we've no actual
evidence of wrongdoing to actually arrest or otherwise prosecute them.

And then going on to accuse the guy of starting a hate campaign against her?
When all evidence points in the opposite direction? Perhaps she's planning a
career move or book or something, and it's good publicity to just double down
on her position, rather than just be another person that made a mistake?

It really hurts equality in tech when these incidents happen.

~~~
sliverstorm
_And to claim there 's a risk of getting killed_

Not to mention the idea that the presence of 2,000 bystanders offered
absolutely no protection- because they were all white & male. Like, what, they
would just stand there and watch her be murdered because she's a black woman?

~~~
scintill76
The most charitable way I can interpret it, is that she's trying to verbalize
a genuine, if irrational, fear and unconscious thought process that drove her
emotions in that moment. Talking about what "the body is saying" makes sense
in that context.

Still, she is not quoted as saying something like "But I recognize that's
irrational, and that tweeting would not save me if I were actually in imminent
bodily danger." So my conclusion is also not favorable to her, or maybe that
the article author has not been fair to her.

------
falcolas
I'm reminded of the Roman Colosseum (albeit as portrayed in the movies). We
are the mob, ready to boo and hiss and condemn a gladiator to death for the
mistake of being on the wrong side of public opinion.

And since the internet does not forget, those convicted in the court of public
opinion can never repent, can never reform, and can never make amends. Their
lives from that day forward are defined by that history.

In a way, the chilling impact this has on our speech and our actions scares me
a bit more than the government's effect on free speech. After all, the
government's decisions can usually be challenged. The mob is, as phrased in
the movie Gladiator, fickle. You could do nothing wrong and still be deprived
of the ability to work, imprisoned by fear, all with no chance of appeal.

------
wanderingstan
The bizarre side effect of online reputation management is the legions of
writers that are being paid to produce content _only for Google to "read"_.

I met such a writer in Europe a few years ago and interviewed her for a
podcast: [http://7thkingdom.org/2013/05/episode-12-writing-google-
seo-...](http://7thkingdom.org/2013/05/episode-12-writing-google-seo-porn-for-
online-reputation-management/)

It is odd when a writer makes more money writing for Algorithms than for
humans.

------
gk1
There've been a few stories recently about internet shaming and their lasting
effects.[1] Ironically, this seems to have caused old photos and negative
articles to resurface.

Now if you search for [Lindsey Stone] you will once again see the original
photo and the negative stories about it.

Her personal site and LinkedIn profile (presumably created by Reputation.com)
are at the bottom of page 2... That is, nowhere to be found.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-
tw...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-
justine-saccos-life.html)

------
icehawk219
What this story really tells me is that what I considered to be an extreme
application of political correctness has reached absolutely absurd levels. If
I go down to the store and buy the materials and make an exact copy of this
sign in my living room, take it down to the local park, put it down and take
this picture, will people still be so offended? People need to get over
themselves and ... in a word, I guess "grow up"? I don't know. But people take
unimportant stuff way too seriously and don't take important things seriously
enough.

~~~
jordanlev
Is the problem really with the substance of the complaints, though? Seems that
the issue is more about the reaction and its massive scale... wouldn't it be
the same problem if people were offended by something not having to do with
political-correctness? For example, some religion-based complaint (like "look
at this person doing work on a Sunday!"), or some arbitrary disagreement
("fucking hexagon patterns on a t-shirt?! What a jerkface!").

So I guess what I'm saying is it's the "extreme application" that's the
problem, not the "of political correctness" part?

~~~
icehawk219
I agree that the extreme application is the bigger problem. I consider being
politically correct a problem as well though because it creates a sense of
entitlement. Now on its own that's not necessarily a terrible thing, it only
really becomes a big problem when combined with the extreme application. But
it does create an environment where the go-to response of "oh no, someone I've
never met, across the country, did something I personally find offensive" is
"I better start a crusade and get an apology for that!".

------
totony
The joke about forking his repo was pretty good actually. Made me smile :)

Stories like this are why my disliking for people keeps growing. Why can't
they let people do whatever they want without always feeling concerned?

------
TazeTSchnitzel
This is the kind of thing justifying the Right to be Forgotten.

------
ThrowAway5624
I live in Denmark and it would have been impossible for the employer to fire
her here unless her job involved working with veterans etc.

However it's also almost impossible to fire much less likable individuals. Two
cases come to mind:

1\. Private company accidentally hires an openly Nazi right-wing extremist as
a marketing intern. On the second day they discover his background and fire
him but he sues them and win so the company is forced to pay him almost $5000.

2\. This is very recent: The leader of an Islamophobic organization is also a
child psychologist working for a Copenhagen municipality with many Muslim
kids. 11 of his colleagues want him removed from the position and even though
the case is ongoing, legal experts say that he is very likely to keep his job.

------
pnathan
The Roman-derived justice systems are an attempt to stop this kind of
behavior. The Rule of Law is the bulwark against "mob justice". It is utterly
abhorrent.

It's also interesting how the perpetrators' victim-blame too.

------
loso
We have done this to celebrities for decades with the caveat that they asked
for this life when they decided to become a celebrity. Now with social media
we all get a chance to make ourselves mini celebrities and there is a price to
be paid.

I guess at this point it might be smart to have a class or two in school on
how to interact online. Show people how once you put something online anyone
can see it. And how something you think is funny can come back to haunt you.
Forever.

------
vorg
> We were creating a world where the smartest way to survive is to be bland

Perhaps many parents are now teaching their kids this. There's probably also
many teaching their kids to attack first, by stripping away the privacy of
their targets and smearing them.

------
A_COMPUTER
You could argue that 4chan (as instigators in Adria Richards' harassment)
aren't "normal people in a normal online community", maybe slightly less
plausibly with Twitter users. But I see embryonic mobbing instigations on my
Facebook all the time. I see middle-aged mothers posting horrific violent
imprecations and "find out where that person lives" in response to news
articles about some outrage or another. Ordinary people have this hate and
desire in their hearts and aren't embarrassed to show it.

------
danso
Wow, the OP opens with the longest side-anecdote I can recall from such an
essay...it should be an essay in itself...though it doesn't really add much to
the overall message of the piece. The public shaming that he instigated/felt
happiness with was of a whole different magnitude than the kind Lindsey Stone
underwent.

The academics as portrayed by OP are insufferable...they did write a kind of
mea culpa afterwards (including claiming that they weren't behind the bot
[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/mar/30/how-
bot...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/mar/30/how-bots-are-
taking-over-the-world))...actually, OP's reaction to the spambot seemed a
little over-the-top, though I'm only saying that in the context of Twitter
abuse that people face today.

Edit: Maybe I shouldn't think of the headline as being the full representation
of what this essay (book excerpt actually) is meant to cover...I'm surprised
no one has discussed the Hacker News mention in the OP, specifically relating
to the "dongle incident" at PyCon (maybe because most of us stopped reading
after the comical description of what Reputation.com claims to do?)...I've
always felt bad for Adria Richards, but equally bad for "Hank"...Richards did
what those thousands of Lindsey-Stone haters did...make a snap judgement off
of a seconds-long observation of someone much more complex than just his race,
gender, and snarky jokes. And she nearly ruined his life. Let's not forget
that...The harassment that happened to Richards is unconscionable, and I have
no doubt that it ruined her life...but what she did also wrecked someone
else's life...the fact that he was in a position to be able to recoup and stay
anonymous (Richards waived that right when she tweeted to her followers)
doesn't change that he, too, was unfairly punished by the Internet mob.

It's terrible what happened to Richards but she comes off extremely poorly in
this article, like a caricature drawn by the stereotypical mens-rights-anti-
feminist advocate.

> _“Maybe it was [Hank] who started all of this,” Adria told me in the cafe at
> San Francisco airport. “No one would have known he got fired until he
> complained... Maybe he’s to blame for complaining that he got fired. Maybe
> he secretly seeded the hate groups. Right?”...Adria replied that she was
> happy to hear that Hank “wasn’t active in driving their interests to mount
> the raid attack”, but that she held him responsible for it anyway. It was
> “his own actions that resulted in his own firing, yet he framed it in a way
> to blame me… If I had a spouse and two kids to support, I certainly would
> not be telling ‘jokes’ like he was doing at a conference. Oh, but wait, I
> have compassion, empathy, morals and ethics to guide my daily life choices.
> I often wonder how people like Hank make it through life seemingly unaware
> of how ‘the other’ lives in the same world he does, but with countless fewer
> opportunities.”_

I empathize with Richards as she thinks she was standing up against oppressive
effects at a tech conference...but just because someone's a white guy with
more privilege doesn't make them less human.

~~~
droithomme
I personally don't think his reply was over the top. The academics didn't just
use his name, they used his PHOTOGRAPH as well for their spambot. That makes
it a personal attack on his good name and not just some generic thing.
Reasonable people are going to think that the spam bot was him.

The vibe I got was that he started with that anecdote because he wanted to
disclose straight out the time he publicly shamed some people and what the
exact circumstances were. If he had not done so, people would have referred to
that incident in the comments and he'd be on the defensive at that point. So
he dealt with it instead as the lead, laying it all out. Another author
writing a similar story who had not been in such a situation would not have to
have that lead.

------
markbnj
Humans are still in our infancy with respect to this new global
interconnectedness and instantaneous access to everything and everyone. I
suspect that over time people will generally value access to the global stage,
but they won't want to live on it. What we see now is in many ways just
different facets of the impulsive desire for attention and that fleeting
Warholian moment of specialness. I believe people will learn reticence again,
and many of them will learn it the hard way.

------
peterwwillis
I would love to read an interview of someone who goes on YouTube and posts
those horrible comments we all see. That's the average human brain/life at
work; it'd be so fascinating to understand how that somehow becomes common or
acceptable.

~~~
ghaff
For the most part, as you suggest, they're average/"normal" people. Many are
probably young/immature but many I'm sure are not. If you called them on it, I
imagine many would mumble a bit and say something to the effect that they were
"just having fun."

------
ianso
Apposite: "Don't Pile On" \- [http://rc3.org/2015/02/14/dont-pile-
on/](http://rc3.org/2015/02/14/dont-pile-on/)

------
jgamman
i'm in the future now and it's all high school, all the time.

------
thembones
Ok, so I'll be the one to say it. It seems to me that no one who's commented
here served in the military. The threats that were given to this women are
horrific, yes, she didn't deserve any of them. That being said, she should
have never taken that picture, regardless of what excuse she had for taking
it. And that being said, she should have known better than to post on social
media. And that being said, she should have known about privacy settings. This
is equivalent to walking around shouting racist terms on the streets and
hiding behind free speech after someone attacks you. She didn't ask for any of
the threats she received, but she also had exceptionally poor judgement.

~~~
joesmo
She has a different sense of humor. To compare that to racism is absolutely
ridiculous. Racism has negative intention. The picture and her sense of humor
don't. The only reason it was poor judgement is that she didn't account for
the politically correct idiots of this world making a big deal out of it. The
rest of your points about not posting to social media are quite valid.

