
My experience with Sarah Jeong, Jason Koebler, and Vice Magazine - fred256
https://medium.com/@therealsexycyborg/shenzhen-tech-girl-naomi-wu-my-experience-with-sarah-jeong-jason-koebler-and-vice-magazine-3f4a32fda9b5
======
Animats
Few people from mainland China have high visibility on English-language social
media. Wu does. This carries risks in China, which tightly controls public
speech. She's mentioned obliquely that she's been told what she can and can't
talk about. That's probably why her article is somewhat vague.

She really does make stuff. After the publisher of Make magazine claimed she
was a fake, she started posting long, detailed videos of her builds. He backed
down.

Her writing and videos about Shenzhen are valuable. She's a native of the
city, which is rare; Shenzhen has grown rapidly to 18 million in three
decades, mostly people from elsewhere in China. There are thousands of
English-language videos about what Tokyo is like at ground level. Not many
from Shenzhen, which is a larger city than Tokyo. She sounds proud of her
city, and likes how easy it is to get parts to make things. She's probably
Shenzhen's most visible booster to the outside world.

Some people are really upset by her.

~~~
turbinerneiter
She's a mind-boggling person and that's why she is so important.

When she fist followed me on Twitter, I dismissed her as yet another fake porn
account. Then I saw her builds.

She looks like a hooker and she is a terrific hacker. I _knew_ not judge
people by their covers _in theory_ - she actually proved it to me in reality,
and that was a real experience. She had a direct impact on how my brain forms
opinions.

And that's with me not even following her stuff (I don't follow people on
YouTube, I just watch the video with the info I seek right now. I also still
can't fully handle her display, which makes me constantly question myself. Can
I not take women seriously when they dress like that? Why?)

~~~
peteretep
> Can I not take women seriously when they dress like that? Why?

Sounds like you take her plenty seriously. However, she _does_ sexualize her
appearance, and the majority of men are either conditioned or born to have a
significant response to that. She's aware of that fact. I think you'd struggle
as much as a gay man with the cast of the Chippendales running the same videos
naked.

~~~
yetihehe
"However, she _does_ sexualize her appearance, and the majority of men are
either conditioned or born to have a significant response to that. She's aware
of that fact." I don't follow her very regularly, but it looks like she is a
hacker in every sense of this word, she is interested not only in technology
hacking but also in psychology/sociology hacking. She knows how people see her
and she knows what she is doing by looking and acting the way she does. Just
because she is a female, many people think she doesn't know what she does
(like Make magazine editor). But when you grok jargon file and see what she
does from bigger perspective, it all makes sense.

------
dwohnitmok
As far as I can tell from reading her Medium article as well as Vice's article
and some miscellaneous Reddit threads (a.k.a. take this with the appropriate
grain of salt) the timeline goes something like this:

1\. Koebler begins a correspondence with Wu and interviews her in person for
an article he's writing. Wu makes it clear that one condition for her
cooperation is not to talk about her relationship status or sexual
orientation.

2\. After interviewing her, but before publishing the article, Koebler sends
Wu an email asking whether she'd like to comment on a a very public and ugly
Reddit/4chan conspiracy theory that she was getting help from her husband? and
that not all of her work was her own. Wu becomes fearful that this means the
article will touch on the restricted topics that she specifically requested
that Vice would not report on. Wu and Koebler have a back and forth where Wu
tries to impress upon Vice just how damaging these topics can be to her in the
PRC, especially given that Vice articles are often translated, where the
government could severely damage her, causing both physical and non-physical
harm. Wu asks to see the article before it is published. Koebler refuses,
stating it is SOP not to share articles before publication.

3\. Wu threatens to use her Twitter followers to cause Vice reputational harm
and force Koebler out of his job. Koebler stops responding to Wu's emails.

4\. Before the article is published, Wu decides to take action. She takes to
Twitter to call out Vice and Koebler. Separately she doxes Koebler in a video
shared with her Patreon followers. Vice's lawyers have YouTube remove the
video and Patreon close Wu's account. Patreon is a large source of revenue for
Wu which forces Wu to search for alternative sources of income within China,
which force her into additional compromises without fully recovering her
previous already modest level of income.

5\. The Vice article is published. Although most of it focuses on Wu as a
Maker, Koebler includes a couple of paragraphs outlining his interpretation of
what happened with the post-interview situation. This presumably touches on
the things Wu did not want talked about in the article. This is the only
mention in a fairly long article about anything to do with Wu's relationship
status. It is unclear whether the original draft of the article was like this
or whether the scope of how much mention of relationship stuff was changed in
as a result of the back and forth.

6\. Wu responds with this Medium article, which she feels only reveals a
fraction of what has happened because she cannot talk about the rest due to
the PRC government.

~~~
aws_ls
I find this to be the best summary of the incident.

One aspect, which also needs to be considered, is the motive to write this
now, i.e. the timing is clearly to take revenge on Sarah Jeong. Naomi would be
very right in feeling wronged. But there is also an element of the politics
which is being played with this article, in the context of getting back at
Jeong, by her detractors.

Also, after reading the vice article[1] in question, I felt its largely
supportive of Naomi. Minus the mention of 4chan harrassment, it may have
sounded like a one sided puff piece. Rather they've made efforts to cover a
lot about Shenzen, and the article is very educative about the Maker culture
happening there.

[1] [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/3kjqdb/naomi-
wu-s...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/3kjqdb/naomi-wu-sexy-
cyborg-profile-shenzhen-maker-scene)

~~~
pessimizer
> Also, after reading the vice article[1] in question, I felt its largely
> supportive of Naomi.

VICE's approval is irrelevant, and not a gift. You would hope, as journalists,
that they would give an honest evaluation of her as they see her.

They're not obligated to like her, if the piece were negative it wouldn't
reflect on their integrity. What reflects on their integrity is their defiant
endangering of her after having been warned about the conditions under which
she would do an interview. She didn't want to respond to gamergate-reddit's
allegations about her, because they included personal information that she
felt endangered her, completely consist of an allegation that would make her
look like a danger to the PRC, and were totally irrelevant to her work _unless
you assumed them to be true._

It's like saying that I can't complain about an article profiling the work
I've done dedicating a paragraph or two to a subreddit that accuses me of
child molestation, as long as the article maintains that there's no evidence
that I've molested a child, and that the people posting about it on reddit are
terrible people.

Or imagine that some health care or second amendment activist were married to
a Russian national (but didn't spread that information around), and there was
a subreddit that trafficked in rumors that her husband was her KGB handler.

~~~
dampcringe
yes like Elon accusing that cavediver duude of being a pedo.

Maybe he knew who the registered sex offenders were?

Sometimes people cannot hide that stuff no matter how hard they try...Probably
for the best. Truth will out.

~~~
sctb
If you keep doing this we'll ban the main account as well.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
zawerf
She tweeted about her motivation:

> Yeah but if you look at my track record, no one that did it to me is going
> to dare do it to the next girl...that's what counts. That's why you do it, I
> "lose" every time- reputation takes a real hit. Important to be likable and
> sweet as a vlogger. But they think twice next time

[https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/102622332283131494...](https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/1026223322831314944)

She knows she's not going to come out of this ahead. She's doing this on
principle to protect the next person they try to bully. Respect.

~~~
xevb3k
Is this bullying or just a misunderstanding?

Is it normal or even possible for western journalists to let a
source/interviewer dictate the final content of an article?

I always assume that journalists can, and should, have freedom to write what
they want as long as it’s true and accurate. If I say to a journalist
something is “off-limits” I assume it means I’ll end the interview and not
engage with them if they cover that topic. Not that I have a right to dictate
what’s written in the free press.

I’m honestly asking, I may just be misinformed. Can a source generally put
limits on a journalist like this?

~~~
pulisse
> I always assume that journalists can, and should, have freedom to write what
> they want as long as it’s true and accurate. If I say to a journalist
> something is “off-limits” I assume it means I’ll end the interview and not
> engage with them if they cover that topic. Not that I have a right to
> dictate what’s written in the free press.

> I’m honestly asking, I may just be misinformed. Can a source generally put
> limits on a journalist like this?

Your impression of the relevant journalistic standard is accurate, but this
case has some unusual features that mean evaluation has to go beyond what you
point out.

A subject can dictate the terms of an interview, but they don't have say over
what the final piece looks like. If journalists made that concession to people
they interviewed it would significantly erode the informational value of what
they write, so this is a bright line according to journalistic professional
ethics (at least in the Anglophone world, which is what I'm familiar with).
And this is part of Jeong's defense of Koebler: He wasn't under any obligation
to publish an article that Wu would have liked. But.

In this case, the controversial claims about Wu were nonsense motivated by
some pretty rank misogyny. In addition, Wu is working in a cultural context
where such claims, when publicized, can materially affect her livelihood;
worse, the politics of mainland China are such that they can put her in actual
danger. (Another part of Jeong's defense of Koebler is that the harm Wu
alleges isn't real; there Jeong seems on much weaker ground.)

So it was a terrible judgment call on Vice's part to publish the piece that
they did. I actually doubt they had any awareness of the consequences
publishing that article could have, but their lack of consideration of that is
itself a professional lapse when reporting cross-culturally.

The bottom line is that Vice deserves opprobrium here, but not because they
violated an agreement with Wu.

~~~
unityByFreedom
> the politics of mainland China are such that they [the claims] can put her
> in actual danger.

Claims that her husband did her work for her could put her in danger from the
Chinese government? I doubt it.

Her livelihood is at more risk from becoming unpopular than being jailed.

I can understand these rumors are embarrassing and she wants to push back
against them. Perhaps she feels saying "the government may jail me" as a
defense is an effective way to dictate what a journalist writes. It certainly
works for China on its population.

But, she's not a dissident discussing Tiananmen Square, and she's not sharing
Winnie the Pooh cartoons. She's a highly followed online persona, a 21st
century Hollywood star, and is sensitive to anything that could make her look
bad. That's much easier to understand than the Chinese government being
worried about her marriage or spouse's work.

~~~
Allan_Smithee
> Claims that her husband did her work for her could put her in danger from
> the Chinese government? I doubt it.

And I'm sure you're ready to document your years and years of experience with
the Chinese government.

And I'm also sure you're ready to document that it's a _HUSBAND_ that Naomi Wu
is concerned with.

But ... I won't be holding my breath.

(For reference: her story has already hit Weibo with people calling for her to
be arrested. Thought I'd mention that.)

> She's a highly followed online persona...

Highly-followed on WESTERN (and BANNED IN CHINA!) social media you utter berk!
That _ALONE_ is grounds for her to be nervous of being noticed.

------
danso
I liked Jackie Luo's take at the time -- linked in the OP [0] -- which posits
that there is not "a clear-cut, unambiguous victim and perpetrator in this
narrative".

I didn't catch any of this controversy as it was apparently happening back in
April. Reading this article and VICE's, and the scattered tweets at the time,
I'm still a little confused about the timeline. But in any case, it seems like
there are 2 discrete conflicts: VICE vs. Wu, and Wu vs. Jeong. And the former
conflict seems to be what caused Wu material injury (such as the Patreon ban),
whereas Jeong's part feels more tangential, e.g. the insult on top of injury.

That is not to say I think Wu is right or wrong to be angry at Jeong and angry
at the NYT for hiring her. But some people tweeting on this seem to believe
Jeong had a much more direct role in the troubles Wu had after the VICE story,
other than being someone who -- as Wu sees it -- piled on Wu in a misguided
defense of VICE.

[0]
[https://twitter.com/jackiehluo/status/982087205907607552](https://twitter.com/jackiehluo/status/982087205907607552)

~~~
manicdee
Sarah’s role was basically as a Canadian or Korean descent, providing advice
to Vice that publishing rumours from 4chan and Reddit regarding a Chinese
national’s sexual orientation, sex life, or relationship status would be
harmless.

This, after Naomi had explicitly advised Vice that discussion of her sexuality
and relationship status were absolutely out of bounds.

Vice does not comment on the sexuality or relationship status of male makers
they interview.

~~~
danso
Sorry, but was Sarah involved in the reporting or publishing of this article?
She did not work for VICE at the time.

~~~
Tomte
All pretty unclear from the articles, especially the timelines.

Sarah states in a tweet that she worked for Motherboard/Vice "before" that all
happened:
[https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/981558916382273542](https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/981558916382273542)

I think she had no direct hand in the article, but she certainly picked a
public fight shortly after the controversy started:
[https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/981575986322989056](https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/981575986322989056)

And Naomi seems to believe that this wasn't an independent tweet, but working
in concert with the Vice editor she accuses of breaking an agreement.

It's impossible to judge from the outside, but if you believe only someone who
directly worked on the words of the article is "guilty", you probably come out
with "Naomi' s accusations towards Sarah are unfounded".

If you take a broader view, that someone tightly related to the people of the
story who is injecting herself into the controvers by her own free will shares
responsibility, you could reach the opposite result.

~~~
danso
Yeah my interpretation is that she wanted to publicly defend her former
colleagues, but not that she played any part in the article’s writing or
publishing. Again, that doesn’t mean that Wu isn’t justified to be angry at
Jeong, for so publicly piling on. But the material damage from her fight with
VICE had already been done by then.

For example, Wu tweeted about being kicked from Patreon on April 2:
[https://twitter.com/realsexycyborg/status/980838253665271808](https://twitter.com/realsexycyborg/status/980838253665271808)

The earliest tweet in the Jeong thread is from April 4:
[https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/981558161566920704](https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/981558161566920704)

------
forkLding
I think Naomi Wu is trying to protect herself from being attacked by
conservative Chinese trolls on the internet who can draw the attention of
Chinese companies who will censor her to appease the Chinese govt. which
doesn't like scandalous content related to sexuality, etc to be broadcast on
public media or likely the Chinese govt. will call for her content to be
censored or shut down for sexual or illegal content (Remember technically
using/blogging on Twitter and Youtube in China is a grey zone, as firstly its
banned in China but you can do it quietly but if you get found out you're
saying stuff the Chinese govt. doesn't like, you can be shut down. Its a grey
zone because I think the rules depend on what you're saying and I think you
are evaluated by individual groups of monitors or something because even
Chinese state television has an official youtube channel they update).

Seen it happen before with a popular web series depicting gay love:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addicted_(web_series)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addicted_\(web_series\))

[http://time.com/4236864/china-gay-drama-
homosexuality/](http://time.com/4236864/china-gay-drama-homosexuality/)

that got two actors banned from appearing on screen.

Scandalous Chinese rappers have also been censored in media and caused a
varying degree of hip hop culture to be banned on Chinese media (although
still alive and well on the web):

[https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2142444/chinas-
hi...](https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2142444/chinas-hip-hop-
culture-ban-authorities-send-mixed-messages)

Basically if Naomi Wu is seen depicting values that the Chinese govt. doesn't
like (like criminality, sexuality, traitorous behaviour, drugs,
discrimination, democratic/human rights, etc.), they will censor her and tell
the web to shut her down. And then companies won't work with her and every
message she posted will be taken down in seconds and she will stay home all
day scared and frustrated.

~~~
danso
One of the things I don't understand is why Wu agreed to participate in this
story at all? Surely the extra exposure from an international feature article
-- even as glowing as the VICE article turned out to be -- is going to draw
scrutiny from Chinese authorities?

~~~
brisance
She did not expect Vice to dishonor the agreement; she thought it would help
her following in China despite it being illegal. Things should've ended by
getting her YouTube video taken down but if the allegations of them getting
Patreon to terminate her account are true, then that's a line that's been
crossed.

~~~
danso
> _she thought would help her following in China despite it being illegal._

This is what I'm interested in -- what she imagined a positive puff-piece
(which this VICE article basically is) to look like that _wouldn 't_ draw
unwanted attention from Chinese authorities. Isn't it more or less standard
practice for authorities to be suspicious of Chinese non-mainstream citizens
who get positive press in American media, nevermind from an outlet that is
literally named "VICE"?

~~~
iforgotpassword
That's exactly the problem. She knew she had to be very careful what and how
to say to get western exposure without waking any sleeping dogs in China. She
requested there is absolutely no mentions or suggestions about gender
equality, sexual orientation, relationship issues in the article. Vice still
included this, defending it as being just vague hints being no big deal while
Naomi says it's already too dangerous. I think if in doubt one should
definitely leave the judgement to the person taking the risk.

------
ggm
I think vice has questions to answer about editorial policy and contracts.

I think many people who enjoy reading vice would be very upset that they both
ignored an agreed no go area, and albiet marginally, put a PRC contributor
into moral hazard.

Sorry vice, but I think you let yourself down here.

~~~
fenomas
I have to agree. Even if you believe everything Vice says, and assume that Wu
is deranged or whatever, the story still starts with Vice setting out to do a
piece on someone they're supposedly sympathetic to, and ends with them getting
Wu's livelihood taken away and Wu believing they've put her in danger.

~~~
tomcam
Wu is not the least bit deranged, as a cursory reading of her FAQ and other
posts will attest. Vice has beclowned itself and destroyed her living.

------
mlang23
Never talk to the press, under no circumstances. They either get ir blatantly
wrong, or outright spread lies to meet their deadlines. Just show em the door.
I have been interviewed a number of times, and never has the reporter ever
written what we talked about. They either simplified matters to a point where
you wouldn't be able to identify the original intent, or made up things I
never said. Experience has taught me to not repeat that error.

~~~
franciscop
It was so funny when I was interviewed and they tried to put a narrative in my
mouth but I would blatantly deny it after winning a NASA competition:

Reporter: it is great that some students won this competition (only) thanks to
the university education. How has the degree you are studying helped you?

Me: it didn't so much, we even started a community [1] to learn what they
don't teach and _that_ was key for winning [...]

Reporter: but the education has improved greatly recently

Me: with the new plan professors get pressure to make the classes and exams
easier and we are treated like children who have to be monitored and [...]

And on and on

[1] [https://makersupv.com/](https://makersupv.com/)

------
ALittleLight
I'm not sure I really understood this - a mixture of skimming and the author
implying things without stating then directly.

The author suggests that Vice misled her in early talks, gathered information
about her that should've been off limits for the story but shared it anyway
despite her pleas for them not to. My first read of this was that she's gay
and was concerned how that would look to a Chinese audience and Vice exploited
that for attention.

I skimmed the Vice article too -
[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/3kjqdb/naomi-
wu-s...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/3kjqdb/naomi-wu-sexy-
cyborg-profile-shenzhen-maker-scene) and that didn't really seem to be it. I
have to confess I couldn't understand what she objected to in the Vice
article. However, as the author writes about the Vice editors, I'm not in any
position to understand what is or isn't concerning to share for a Chinese
woman with a large social media following living in China.

Without really understanding what the disagreement is I have to withhold my
judgment. However, if I'm ever in a position where Vice would want to
interview me I'd probably turn them down after reading this purely out of
caution.

The complaint about Sarah Jeong seems a bit more clear - Jeong dismissed the
author's concerns claiming to be able to evaluate them fairly because they
were both Asian women. Jeong's perspective though is as an ethnic Korean who
has lived in the US pretty much her entire life (moved to the US at age 3)
which is clearly a very different perspective than the author who is a Chinese
citizen.

Given what else we know about Jeong I don't think it's that surprising that
she's insensitive about race.

~~~
turbinerneiter
Wu was target of a Reddit/4chan harassment campaign: they claimed her white
boyfriend actually builds her projects.

Wu told VICE that for the interview, all questions regarding relationship,
etc. are off limits.

VICE went ahead and made it a topic. Wu refused to answer. In the article,
VICE retold the 4chan claims, making Wu's refusal to answer a new nugget for
the 4chaners to claim her guilty.

Jeong offhandedly dismissed Wu's troubles and acted as expert on the issue
purely on being of Asian descent, which has nothing to do with living in PRC.

Jeong, who is unjustly the target of another ridiculous and purely vile 4chan
harassment campaign, decided to not stand up for Wu, when she was the target.
Instead she dismissed her struggle and sided with the white male VICE editor.

~~~
BurningCycles
>who is unjustly the target of another ridiculous and purely vile 4chan
harassment campaign

I'm assuming this is about more than them claiming her boyfriend builds her
projects, any insight you can shed ?

~~~
turbinerneiter
The 4chan campaign against Wu was based around claiming she doesn't build her
projects herself, driven by racism and sexism. I guess Wu couldn't even be
bothered by people being racist and sexist towards here, but claiming she
isn't authentic and doesn't have tech-skills awakes her tiger. She's a hacker,
her tech-cred is everything.

The campaign against Jeong is some bs about old tweets where she mimicked the
racism she gets back, recast as racism against white people.

Wu and all her followers would happily stand with Jeong against this bs (the
same racist and sexist garbage Wu has to fight) - if she wouldn't have sided
with the attackers when the same thing happened to Wu.

~~~
_iyig
>The campaign against Jeong is some bs about old tweets where she mimicked the
racism she gets back, recast as racism against white people.

Having read all of Sarah Jeong’s tweets as they pertain to this controversy, I
find it hard to believe that many were intended as satire. She has a clear
pattern of unprompted tweets that make sweeping negative generalizations about
white people, particularly old white men. I’m white, and I don’t like being
singled out and put down on the basis of my skin color. It is alienating, it
is dehumanizing, and it provokes an immediate instinctual (and generally
unproductive) defensive emotional reaction.

I don’t buy the excuse of, “they started it.” Sarah’s obviously faced tons of
online harassment, but since when have two wrongs ever made a right? The
Golden Rule doesn’t say, “Treat others as you would like to be treated, except
white people.” I would expect better from someone in Sarah’s position.

Having said that, a few racially-bigoted tweets don’t justify a 4chan
harassment campaign. I also understand how it becomes difficult to discuss
such an issue when an online hate mob is so clearly invested in one side of
it.

~~~
_pmf_
> I don’t buy the excuse of, “they started it.”

Spot on. Once you start excusing things with "they started it", you're no
longer on a slippery slope, you're in free fall (and her tweets make is seem
like she's enjoying the ride).

------
Accacin
I understand a free and open media, but this is what annoys me about it.. A
single woman, the media won't listen to her at all and they'll print what they
want. A powerful company asks them not to print something and they'll remove
the offending article in a heartbeat.

------
vmlinuz
There's a couple of interesting things here...

Firstly, Naomi is a person with a certain style - in both a personal and
physical sense. She is not one to back down from a fight, but she clearly lost
this one and still feels the loss pretty strongly.

Secondly, it's interesting because, when you strip it down a bit, it does
appear to be a case of an Asian-American woman coming to the defence of an
American company and white male writer/editor, unsolicited, in a dispute with
a Chinese woman. It doesn't seem to mesh all that well with the _other_
narrative of Sarah as an anti-white racist...

~~~
Tomte
> It doesn't seem to mesh all that well with the other narrative of Sarah as
> an anti-white racist...

People's motivations are rarely one-dimensional.

I don't know Sarah Jeong, but she could easily hate white people on one hand,
and have that overridden by a feud with a non-white person.

I've read a few articles now, and I still have no idea what to think of this
all.

------
choonway
Remind me not to talk to any journalist before they sign a strict disclosure
agreement.

------
doombolt
A minute ago this article was on the first page and suddently it dropped to
second.

I'm sorry what? What is happening here?

------
sgentle
> I hear “but you fought back wrong” while no one was there to help when I
> begged for weeks for help fighting back “right”. No one can seem to say in
> my shoes what would have been “right” is other than lie down and let them do
> what they want. I am no one’s victim.

I've been thinking a lot about this point lately. This argument and its
variations are ones I've heard a lot from activists and other Angry Internet
People, but it's taken a long time to really understand where they're coming
from. Actually, the main help was a Slate Star Codex article called _Conflict
vs Mistake_ [0].

In that article, Scott Alexander argues for two modes of thinking about
disagreement: mistake theory says that people disagree because they
misunderstand, and conflict theory says that people disagree because they want
to win. Mistake theorists, such as Scott, myself, and most people who consider
themselves rationalists, occasionally find themselves in totally baffling
conversations with marxists, social justice diablo_class_name_here, and other
genres of conflict theorist. Not feigned-ignorant "please explain your curious
argument" baffling, but genuine I-feel-like-one-of-us-is-speaking-Norse all-
consuming confusion.

An example that is so hot right now: content providers censoring bad speech on
their platforms. Cloudflare terminated the account of the Daily Stormer[1], a
toxic white nationalist forum; Reddit continues to host /r/The_Donald, a toxic
white nationalist subreddit[2][3]. In both cases, the argument for mistake
theorists comes down to this: the problem with white nationalists is that
they're wrong. If the positions were reversed, and I was wrong about
something, the right approach wouldn't be to censor or punish me, but to
educate me.

The conflict-theorist counterargument is simple: the positions wouldn't be
reversed, and that symmetry is a disingenuous illusion. These people are not
suffering from a lack of knowledge, but engaging in a deliberate and malicious
course of action that your both-sides symmetrical systematising does nothing
to prevent. They want to win and they want you to lose, don't you get it? Are
you trying to lose?

Consider this (admittedly cheap, but I'm going for pathos here) analogy: in
World War 2, our ancestors killed Nazis by the (literal) millions. How could
they do this, when killing people is bad - or, worse, rude? Haven't they heard
of Rawls' veil of ignorance? If you had to decide whether killing Nazis is
okay before you get to find out whether you're a Nazi, surely you would
suggest a more moderate response. This is what a mistake theorist sounds like
to a conflict theorist.

If someone wants to win, systematic rulemaking will not help. If you say white
supremacy is banned, they will become white nationalists. If you say white
nationalism is banned, they will become independent researchers of human
biodiversity. No complex formal system, however sophisticated, can fully
define statements about itself[4]. You cannot build a system that determines
when people are using the system in bad faith.

And so this, finally, is the reason for the epistemic gulf between conflict
and mistake theorists: one saying "your individual behaviour is wrong because
it does not generalise into a coherent universal system of behaviour", and the
other saying "your universal system of behaviour is wrong because it does not
recognise the wrongness in this individual situation".

Mistake theorists on conflict theorists: "No bad tactics, only bad targets"

Conflict theorists on mistake theorists: "Would you mind showing me evidence
of any negative thing any sea lion has ever done to you?"[5]

The issue with mistake vs conflict theory is that it is a prisoner's dilemma.
If everyone acts in good faith, everyone comes away more enlightened and
understanding. If one party is acting in bad faith, you better hope it's you.
This is why conflict theorists are so baffled that mistake theorists keep
offering new sets of good-faith rules to people who have no intention of
playing by them[6]. Don't worry, Charlie Brown, I'm sure she'll let you kick
the football this time.

Lest this comes off as a diatribe against mistake theorists, I should clarify
that, being one, I have absolutely no idea how else you can build a stable
society, and I stopped following Naomi Wu after she posted Jason Koebler's
address on the internet. That's doxxing, and doxxing is wrong.

But there is this slow, creeping dissonance I have begun to feel. Is justice
the guiding light of objective morality shining down from the platonic realm
of universal rationality? Or is it the olive branch we extend to the Martin
Luther Kings of this world so they can hold back the Malcom X right behind
them[7], and to the Naomi Wus so they don't dox us? No justice, no peace, as
they say.

Returning to the quote from the article, you at least have to observe that she
has a solid strategic argument. Within her situation, with her resources, what
recourse did she have for her grievances? If the best advice you have is "you
lost and you have no power in this situation, so lose quietly and be a good
sport about it", it's no surprise she didn't listen. Would you, if you
genuinely believed you were wronged?

So she broke the rules, did wrong, and now pays the price. But she also threw
an elbow, and the elbow caught some attention, without which her fight with
Vice would be over. My inner mistake theorist asks: what kind of world do we
have if everyone starts throwing elbows? My inner conflict theorist asks: who
should win here? Are they?

Deep down, I really just wish all the conflict theorists would go jump in a
lake so we could get back to building our positive-sum utopia. But life's not
that easy. I bet they wish we'd all jump in a lake so they could just win
without all this concern over whether they're winning the right way.

[0] [http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/24/conflict-vs-
mistake/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/24/conflict-vs-mistake/)

[1] [https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-
stormer/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/)

[2] [https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dissecting-trumps-
most-...](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dissecting-trumps-most-rabid-
online-following/)

[3]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/stopadvertising/comments/851018/fif...](https://www.reddit.com/r/stopadvertising/comments/851018/fifty_of_the_worst_examples_from_rthe_donald/)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarski%27s_undefinability_theo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarski%27s_undefinability_theorem)

[5] [http://wondermark.com/1k62/](http://wondermark.com/1k62/)

[6] [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre#Anti-
Semite_a...](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre#Anti-
Semite_and_Jew_.281945.29)

[7]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballot_or_the_Bullet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballot_or_the_Bullet)

~~~
valar_k
"Lest this comes off as a diatribe against mistake theorists, I should clarify
that, being one, I have absolutely no idea how else you can build a stable
society, and I stopped following Naomi Wu after she posted Jason Koebler's
address on the internet. That's doxxing, and doxxing is wrong."

I would ask whether you extend the same policy towards VICE and stop following
them entirely after they knowingly put a source at risk? It seems to me that
she faces far more danger than Koebler does as a result of that exchange.

"My inner conflict theorist asks: who should win here? Are they?"

Well you have people using MASSIVE capital and national resources to
obliterate the safety of an almost entirely powerless person who they use for
clicks on their website. And then you have that person responding in literally
the only way they can.

So yeah, I feel like it's pretty clear who should win here. One party
exploited the other first. One party is operating with massively more power.
One party is not vulnerable to personal information posting (doxxing doesn't
just include addresses and names!) from a harassment campaign. One party kept
on working like normal, while the other suffered blacklisting.

People can make this a grand debate ideals from their ascetic judgment of the
situation, but all they're doing is supporting the powerful corporation who
exploited, endangered, doxxed, and blacklisted a vulnerable person in a
foreign country who has no recourse.

------
jack_quack
Can someone tl;dr?

~~~
sitharus
You really need to read it to get the full impact, but essentially Naomi
agreed to Vice running a story on the condition that they don't mention her
relationship or sexuality topics - topics that are not only very touchy in
China but also have no place in a technology/maker article.

Vice thought this agreement was worth the paper they didn't print it on.
Things escalated from there, but I can't really summarise the following parts,
dirty tactics from those in a position of power IMO.

~~~
manicdee
Not to mention that a significant portion of the Vice article was based on
rumours and scuttlebutt from 4chan and Reddit.

The article was very clearly a hit piece intended to portray Naomi as a fraud
because as far as Vice, Motherboard or Koebler are concerned pretty women
can’t be makers.

~~~
danso
Which parts of the Vice article do you believe make it a hit piece?

~~~
hudibras
Jesus, man, don't pretend to be so dense.

