

Violentacrez Did It All for ‘Meaningless Internet Points’ on Anderson Cooper - gnarls_manson
http://betabeat.com/2012/10/violentcrez-admits-he-did-it-all-for-meaningless-internet-points-on-anderson-cooper-360/

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jgrahamc
He may have used those words, but they aren't 'meaningless', they do have
value. They represent that some group of people that he considered peers or an
audience appreciated what he was doing. And so by having a large amount of
karma he felt good, that's not meaningless.

~~~
watty
I think you're looking too far into the word. In the real world, Reddit points
are about as meaningful as how much Farmville cash or crops you have.

~~~
sergiotapia
I'm a long time Reddit and mod for a big subreddit - it's not meaningless.
There are TONS of perks you get when having a high comment karma count.
Physical, actual benefits.

~~~
huherto
Hola Sergio.

Just out of curiosity. Could you comment on what are those perks? Thanks

~~~
sergiotapia
Sorry, I can't but the perks are small enough to not be a big deal for the
sender but big enough to be useful to me. ;)

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raldi
Is an Oscar meaningless? Is it meaningless when the team you root for wins a
world championship? Or when Time names you Person of the Year?

Why are those considered more meaningful than internet points?

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jpdoctor
> Is an Oscar meaningless?

Yes.

> Is it meaningless when the team you root for wins a world championship?

Very much yes.

> Or when Time names you Person of the Year?

They already did, and boy was it meaningless.

> Why are those considered more meaningful than internet points?

Some people don't consider them more meaningful.

And if you're the raldi that I think you are: That thing you worked on might
have been bigger than you gave it credit for.

~~~
raldi
What about the respect of your peers? Do you also find that completely
meaningless?

~~~
stoolpigeon
This would make more sense if reddit karma corresponded to respect. I post
some really lengthy replies on reddit that take a lot of time to put together
and are really helpful - these usually get 1 or 2 upvotes at best. I was
slowly building comment karma and then I posted a 9gag link in a comment and
tripled my karma overnight. It took 20 seconds to post.

And as far as the value of link karma - well look at the stuff that gets the
highest votes on the site.

I'd have to lean towards reddit karma being meaningless/worthless/whatever you
want to call it.

~~~
rz2k
And, which meant more to you?

Say you're playing a video game, and trying to collect points. It makes a
difference whether you play at the easy or expert level, because the points
are not fungible, and are only a reflection of your performance rather than an
objective measure.

If you care about what you are writing, whether it's genuinely helping
someone, or it's trying to explain the counterpoint to some popular
misconception on an issue, simply getting a positive score, or a score > -4
where it effectively disappears, could keep your effort from being a complete
waste of time. And yet, even if you were all-knowing and all of the readers
were misinformed, downvotes and upvotes still matter because they are an
indicator of how well you made your point and how well it is being received.

In Anderson Cooper's case, does he follow his ratings exclusively for the ad
revenue they facilitate, or is it rewarding to see how many viewers he is
reaching? Furthermore, do the ratings numbers mean as much to him when they
are a thousand households shown a personality during a daytime talk show and a
thousand households shown an in depth story? I can see how both would be
rewarding, even if they had no effect on his earnings whatsoever.

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CodeCube
I've read some comments in other places to the effect of complaining about
free speech rights. As I always say, everyone has the right to say/post what
they want (within legal boundaries) ... but everyone else is 100% free to
react to what you say/post as they see fit. So the fact that he was fired is
that freedom being exercised.

~~~
fab13n
Gawker's behavior is shocking, not in terms of free speech, but in terms of
journalistic ethics. This story is, in the most literal sense, fabricated
news.

The point of the article wasn't that there existed trolls on forums getting a
kick out of being as offensive as possible. It can be summed up as "Hi
Brutsch, I'm about to try my best to ruin your life, how do you feel about
that?". The article was about the article itself (more precisely the
previsible consequences of the article's publication). This is trolling, not
journalism nor any self-respecting form of news reporting, and the guy who did
that stands on no higher moral grounds than Brutsch.

At least Brutsch had no illusion about the value and ethics of what he was
doing, wasn't purposefully ruining someone's life, and wasn't making money out
of it.

So neither of them likely broke any US law, but the filthiest asshole isn't
Brutsch IMO.

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mnicole
> but the filthiest asshole isn't Brutsch IMO.

Gotta disagree with that. What this kid was doing on a micro-level hurt and
affected far more people than Gawker ousting him. Plenty of trolls have been
made public before, but outside of the risk of finding a job and the initial
backlash, they aren't doomed to lifelong persecution. Whereas his words and
actions could have prompted someone to hurt themselves or just cut themselves
off from the world.

~~~
freehunter
Kid? He's 49 years old.

People hurting themselves over trolling is an education issue. Education on
the part of the troll for one, and education on the part of the victim as
well. Children, teens, and young adults need to know that life is not over if
you get trolled. Too often I see someone hurt themselves over online comments
and lawmakers/advocacy groups begin clamoring for new regulations to clamp
down on anonymous trolls online. That's the wrong approach.

I don't like what VA did, I find it distasteful. But that's his prerogative,
and he literally hurt no one online. If anyone was hurt by his actions or
comments while he was on reddit, then there is an education issue that needs
to be solved. Electronic bits on a screen, even if they represent real words,
cannot hurt you. It's the actions taken offline that hurt.

~~~
mnicole
> People hurting themselves over trolling is an education issue.

You can tell someone plenty of times that they shouldn't take something to
heart, but it takes a lot more than "education" to give them confidence and
self-worth. On edit, I don't mind calling him a kid. What he did was childish.

~~~
freehunter
I think it would be interesting and worthwhile to study the effects of
trolling on different personality types, to see if there's some kind of link
between taking trolling to heart and some other factor. Say, a root cause for
being offended. I believe it's upbringing and education, but I have no data on
that. It's just a random guess.

I do know that there are millions of people who have no adverse reaction to
being trolled. I also know that there are a lot of those people who also have
low self esteem and very little confidence. I believe these people are people
who understand what the Internet is, understand the psychology of Internet
trolls. They know that it's a joke, or at worst they know that the troll is
harmless. An annoyance at most. And they know they can do the same thing right
back again.

The issue seems to be in when the two major subcultures online clash: the ones
who know the Internet's darkest reaches and have an understanding of how awful
the Internet can get, and the casual Internet users, the
Facebookers/MySpacers/etc. It's like nudists strolling through The Vatican.

~~~
mnicole
I would say that pseudonyms do more than just allow us to be anonymous with
our opinions, but it also allows us to be anonymous with our emotions. In that
sense, everyone has - or realizes - their jimmies are likely to be rustled at
some point and it's best to shield your real identity from that person hitting
the fan. But I agree I think we need to do a little bit more to figure out who
gets hurt and why, and what we can do to curb that or provide them with some
sort of kiddie pool to wade in. Sounds kind of silly, but I think it'd help.

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nicholassmith
"Mr. Brutsch, who was fired from his job following Gawker’s expose, is now
soliciting programming work in the porn industry."

I don't know the porn industry all that well, but it does seem slightly
unlikely they'd want someone with a history of pre-18 sexualisation on the
team given how hard they have to fight to stay legal.

~~~
jgrahamc
The porn industry is very well aware of the age of its performers. Pretty much
any porn company will point you to its 18 USC Section 2257 record keeping
(<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2257>). As a random example, on
the front page of the site www.bangbus.com there's the following text:

"All girls appearing on this website are 18 years or older. Click here for
records required pursuant to 18 U.S.C 22557 Statement."

And that click here leads to <http://help.bangbrosonline.com/2257.php>

~~~
nicholassmith
Oh I know that side of it, but given that they have to be careful to stick
within the legal framework I'd be interested how many would take the risk with
a guy who's been accused of teenager sexualisation on a large scale on the
internet. I'm sure a few won't care of course, he didn't break any laws after
all.

~~~
papsosouid
What risk? You are implying there is some risk to having a programmer who is
attracted to teenagers. I don't understand what that risk is.

~~~
nicholassmith
More in terms of PR and the regulators.

~~~
papsosouid
Your post didn't say anything. What is this risk? Be specific, I have no idea
what you think this magical risk is. You think the porn industry has
"programmers can't find teenagers attractive" regulations?

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codva
"Free Speech" is not relevant to this situation. Free speech rights are limits
placed on the government. The only rights you have on Reddit are whatever
rights Reddit grants you. And they are free to change those on a whim, or
apply them as unfairly as they want.

~~~
raldi
They're not talking about free speech _rights_ ; they're talking about free
speech _principles_.

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mistercow
One very helpful side effect, however, was that he exposed Anderson Cooper for
the integrity-free yellow journalist he is (at least for those paying close
attention).

~~~
papsosouid
Huh? Did anyone's view of Cooper change over this stuff? I can't imagine
anyone who had any respect for him before would change their mind over it, and
anyone who would be upset about his "journalism" recently would never have had
any respect for him in the first place.

~~~
mistercow
Yeah, my view of him changed. I used to think he was a relatively benign
centrist pundit, and I didn't have very strong opinions about him. That
changed.

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Millennium
Man, what a thing to risk your life as you know it for.

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beedogs
At-will employment has its drawbacks.

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antihero
It's not free speech, he was enabling stealing girls' pictures and posting for
the internet to wank over. Free speech would be speaking out to advocate that,
but actually doing that? We don't have complete freedom of action, and quite
rightly so.

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citricsquid
This post will get removed soon, it seems any posts on this subject are being
removed.

