
Reddit's Moral Low Ground - raganwald
http://raganwald.posterous.com/reddits-moral-low-ground
======
fab13n
No.

Reddit is about reflecting their audience's taste or lack thereof, not
condoning nor condemning it. Reddit works precisely because they maintain some
sort of "net neutrality" ethics, refusing any editorial meddling. Banning a
distasteful content provider would break that neutrality; but hiring him would
break it just as much.

If there's a will, among Reddit's users, to help Brutsch find a new job, he'll
get it. And I'd bet it will happen, if only because some companies would value
the PR outcome of such a move. But that's for the community to decide, not for
the infrastructure guys at Reddit inc.

Reddit has neither a high nor a low moral ground on this; Reddit is and should
remain amoral. That's where the Nike comparison completely falls apart.

~~~
llimllib
> Reddit is and should remain amoral

You realize that this is impossible, right? Reddit cannot be amoral, it makes
moral decisions all over the place.

Why did they ban the jailbait subreddit? They made a moral decision to ban it.
Why don't they allow doxing people? They made a moral decision to ban it. They
make many other moral decisions in the breach; it's just easier to see their
decisions when you look at what they _don't_ allow rather than what they do.

Simply hosting and allowing /r/creepshots to exist is a moral decision. Reddit
provides them support, legitimacy, a platform, and server space by allowing
them to use reddit. This is a moral decision.

You don't get to provide material support for a site and at the same time say
"we're not responsible for it". You are, to some extent, responsible, and to
deny that is immoral.

~~~
fab13n
You can be amoral, by not basing your actions on moral considerations. That's
what's expected of judges, cops etc.: they (ought to only) consider whether
you broke the law, not whether you're a good person.

Reddit banned jailbait because it was bound to host a lot of illegal material,
not because it was disgusting.

> You don't get to provide material support for a site and at the same time
> say "we're not responsible for it".

I understand their position as "we materially support everything that interest
some people and doesn't break the law, irrespective of our personal opinion
about it". It means sometimes supporting stuff they might sometimes find
personally appalling, just as a lawyer sometimes has to try and get out of
jail a person he personally despises.

Besides, supporting freedom of speech forces to support questionable
expressions: speeches which don't offend anyone don't need to be protected.

~~~
llimllib
> I understand their position as "we materially support everything that
> interest some people and doesn't break the law, irrespective of our personal
> opinion about it"

That _is_ a morality! That's a moral decision.

What I'm disagreeing with is the notion you proposed that reddit could be
"amoral". Every decision you make has a moral component; keeping /r/creepshots
alive is one of them.

~~~
timwiseman
Not every decision has a moral component. Deciding whether to have cucumbers
in my salad today at lunch does not have a moral components (its mostly about
how fresh they look that day.)

Here, I see how you could say they made a moral decision. But in this case
they made one moral decision of essentially "We allow all legal speech here".
After they made that call, there is no further moral decision in keeping any
particular, (legal) thread alive.

Had they decided "We will exercise some editorial discretion beyond just what
is needed to comply with the law" then every single thread becomes a moral
decision.

If you want to be precise, reddit has made the single moral decision that they
will permit (legal) free-speech and beyond that point they have chosen to be
amoral.

~~~
llimllib
> Not every decision has a moral component

Fair, I overreached there.

> reddit has made the single moral decision that they will permit (legal)
> free-speech

except for doxing, of course. Except for hate speech. Except for spam. Except
for gawker (whoops, no that was by accident). Except for...

> reddit has made the single moral decision that they will permit (legal)
> free-speech and beyond that point they have chosen to be amoral

1) As I stated above, that falls apart when you look at it closely. Reddit
indeed tries to minimally muck around with content, but it certainly does do
so.

2) You can't substitute legality for morality and call it amorality; all you
can do is align your morality with the law if you choose to do so.

Imagine an alternate universe where the internet existed during Jim Crow, and
Georgia law required it to have black and white websites. According to the
"law supersedes morality" theory, they could morally segregate white and black
users in Georgia.

Obviously that's a ludicrous scenario for many reasons, but I think Jim Crow
laws are an excellent illustration of the divergence of morality and legality.
Choosing to follow the law is a moral decision, and you can't wish that away.

------
calinet6
This article is ludicrous.

The protection of freedom of speech is fundamental, and one that Reddit is
standing by.

The usage of that freedom of speech is a personal responsibility. Reddit nor
any other organization can be held responsible for the consequences of using
that freedom of speech in ways that others may find objectionable or
questionable.

Reddit the organization is entirely in the right here. To say otherwise would
be to misplace responsibility and fundamentally change the idea of free speech
that the US—and surely the internet—has enjoyed for many years.

The author of the article, however, sure thinks he's got some moral high
groung alright. I implore him to get off his high horse.

~~~
hessenwolf
Why is it axiomatic that the protection of freedom of speech is always a good
thing? It is in the American constitution, sure, but how many others have it?
Is it really a good idea? Do we not also have to protect weaker members of our
society from charlatans and manipulators?

Just saying.

~~~
riffraff
> It is in the American constitution, sure, but how many others have it?

FYI, it's in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in most
countries legislative corpus.

A better way to frame the question would be "what is the speech that is free",
which is much more nuanced and interesting (e.g. is hate speech ok? religious
blasphemy? stuff putting personal or national security at risk? Gossip?
Holocaust denial? Lese majeste?).

But, in every case I can think of, freedom of speech is a right except for
cases explicitly forbidden by some law.

So if reddit's defense is "we permit everything unless it's illegal" the case
would be the same in most democratic countries and some non democratic ones,
just shifting whhere the legal bar is set.

For the curious:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country>

------
surrealize
Unlike Nike with its Armstrong advertising, Reddit exerts very little control
over subreddits. That's by choice and by design. Reddit basically tries to
keep itself from getting sued, and leaves the rest of the community rule-
making to subreddit mods.

Why is that so hard for people? People want to make reddit responsible for
everything that happens there. But the users are the ones who are actually
doing the posting.

Let's recognize the truth: that those users are the relevant moral agents when
it comes to their posts, not reddit. Reddit's not responsible for
violentacrez' fate any more than it was responsible for his posts.

~~~
raganwald
I open a nightclub. People drink. They fight. They hurt themselves. Do I get
to shrug that I exert very little control over what people do in my nightclub?

It's my choice whether I exert control or not. It's Reddit's choice not to
exert control, and of course they're responsible for the consequences of their
non-control.

To my mind, they took the money. taking the money and then saying they're not
responsible for his fate is not the moral high ground. It may be pragamatic,
it may be just business, but it's hardly laudable.

~~~
surrealize
Analogies being what they are, let's make this one a little more precise.
Reddit's not a nightclub, it's a nightclub factory, automating the process of
creating a nightclub for anyone who wants to open one. Allowing for variation
in how those clubs are run is a big part of the point--to explore the
nightclub possibility space.

Unlike a real-world nightclub, individual subreddits are separated. In a real-
world nightclub, you're automatically exposed to everyone else there, since
you're sharing the same physical space. On reddit, you have to purposely enter
a subbreddit (aside from the default ones, the curation of which is something
I would agree is the responsibility of reddit-central).

> It's Reddit's choice not to exert control, and of course they're responsible
> for the consequences of their non-control.

They're responsible for the consequences of their non-control? In my book,
control and responsibility go together.

To what extent (if any) do you believe that reddit users are responsible for
their own posts?

Is the president of the USA responsible for your actions? Why or why not?

~~~
raganwald
Without arguing with you, I do want to point out that "responsibility" is not
a zero-sum game. If you make an ill-advised lane change in your car, but I am
not constantly observing cars around me an strike you, we both have some
responsibility, and the fact that you are 100% responsible for making safe
lane changes doesn't mean that I'm not a little responsible, say 20%, for
failing to predict your action. And the fact that I'm 20% responsible doesn't
lower your responsibility to 80%.

So I'm not arguing with your basic feelings about personal responsibility, but
at the same time, I'm not granting that if someone is responsible for their
actions, it's a given that nobody else is responsible for the consequences.

~~~
crntaylor
I don't understand the lane-changing example.

When something bad happens, we can apportion responsibility for it. Sometimes
one party is fully responsible for the bad thing. But other times, some other
party is partly responsible, which must mean that the first party is not
_fully_ responsible.

If you're going to argue that party B is 20% responsible for a bad thing, then
party A is at most 80% responsible. Party A can still be 100% _wrong_ (they
shouldn't have changed lane) but they're not 100% _responsible_.

~~~
raganwald
We disagree on this fundamental idea. You and I talk, we agree to pick a
random YC user, hunt him down, and pie him at a conference.

We are both 100% wrong and responsible. We each get the maximum sentence for
assault.

We enlist the assistance of a friend to drive for us. we don't tell him what
we're up to, but it's clear that the activity will be nefarious. he chooses
not to call the cops, and he gets a lesser sentence.

He's less responsible, but his being less responsible doesn't reduce our
responsibility, just as the two of us conspiring doesn't reduce responsibility
to one half on account of the fact that either one of us could have called it
off and just eaten the pies for dessert.

~~~
dlgeek
That's the difference between criminal and civil liability.

For criminal liability, it is exactly how you describe. Each actor is
individually responsible for their actions, the actions of others don't reduce
this.

However, for civil liability, there's an apportionment of damages based on a
share of responsibility. Say the random YC user sued you, the other poster,
and your friend. First, the damages against him would be quantified. This is
based on the impact to him, not any moral judgment on your actions. Then, a
jury would decide how much of the blame each of you was responsible for, and
your liability would be that percentage of the overall damages.

~~~
raganwald
Civil liability works that way because there is fixed pool of "damages" to
apportion, so they're working out out how to split the payment.
"Responsibility" in a moral sense is like criminal liability, there is no
fixed pool to apportion.

------
knowtheory
Hey Reg.

There are other options available to them. The major problem that I have with
Reddit at the moment is the idea that somehow Adrien Chen's behavior was more
egregious than Michael Brutsch.

Brutsch is living by the sword and dying by the sword. Reddit has to at some
point contend with the fact that being internet famous means that you are
_actually_ famous (or infamous as the case may be).

There are consequences to fame and infamy, and Reddit can't claim that it does
awesome things lifting people up, and collecting for charities, without
acknowledging that anti-social behaviors will also have consequences.

There is a place for anonymous free speech. And the more notoriety one gains,
the harder it is to protect anonymity, and, justly i think, the harder it
should be to make the case that one should remain anonymous.

With great power comes great responsibility. (this comment may sound like a
platitude coming at the end of what i've written. It's not, and if anyone
wants to discuss it i'd be happy to furnish examples.)

~~~
raganwald
I am not an expert on morality and ethics, unless by virtue of experience
gained from living through the consequences and self-guilt from the immoral an
unethical choices I've made myself in the past half-century.

...which is a way of saying, I'm sure you're right that there are several
other choices Reddit can make, some of which it may be making behind closed
doors...

~~~
knowtheory
So, you'd like Reddit to suffer from self-guilt as well? ;)

I think that they can champion free speech at the same time recognizing that
free speech and notoriety have consequences. Doxxing is a problem, but a lack
of accountability is also an issue. If Reddit wants to consider itself akin to
a nation state (which its CEO has asserted), the question of accountability is
a very real and very material one.

That I think is the real crux of the issue, not whether or not they stand
behind Michael Brutsch's odious behavior (to be more specific. They can stand
behind him or not, that's not the important problem. Brutsch is just one man.
What about all of the other future Brutsches?).

------
parfe
Reddit is a bastion of some fairly horrible groups. Blatant racism on auto
joined communities, sexism as the default, exploitation of women as often as
possible. /r/Jailbait was over the line of sexualising children. But
/r/creepshots not being immediately banned by the admins frankly scared me.
Reddit will host a community that encourages people to stalk women and
photograph them for personal gratification.

~~~
jmcqk6
I think it would go without saying on HN, but with all the focus on the
negative at Reddit lately, the positive gets lost. Just like there is some
horrible stuff on reddit, there is some really amazing places. /r/askscience
comes to mind immediately. or /r/suicidewatch or /r/randomactsofpizza. A very
long list of very good things are hosted on reddit, and I think it's important
to keep that in mind. The presence of these things does not negate the
horrible things. Like most things in life, the goodness or badness of
something is more nuanced than a simple yes or no.

~~~
parfe
It is not important to keep those things in mind. Not in the slightest.

All the free pizzas in the world don't make up for the fact the admins
knowingly provide hosting for a community which encourages men to follow women
around in public trying to take pictures up their skirts or down their
blouses.

~~~
muhfuhkuh
There are upskirt videos on youtube as well. I remember people trading them on
AOL chatrooms, random popular forums, and Usenet before that.

The only way you can stop it is by censoring the Internet, thus human thought.
That's going to prove unpopular no matter where you fall politically, but
_especially_ bodes unwell here.

~~~
hollerith
>I remember people trading [upskirts] on . . . Usenet before that.

Not arguing with you, just curious. What year was this approximately? And
which group?

~~~
muhfuhkuh
I don't think there was a dedicated one then (at least I never took time to
look for them when I was a teen, more focused on whatever piqued my interest
at that point) but you could find people requesting and filling requests for
them throughout alt.binaries.pictures.erotica and associated subgroups. My
teens were mid-late 90s.

I just googled and see there is an a.b.p.e.upskirts one now, but I don't know
when that was created. Could've been there all the while.

------
andrewvc
Raganwald, I normally like what you write, but bringing up Lance is
nonsensical.

Everyone knows that cycling's been big on doping for _years_. It can hardly
even be called cheating, it's tacitly acknowledged that everyone's on drugs.
It's been well established that all of Lance's competitors were doping as
well. When your choices are take drugs, or don't compete, is it really
cheating?

The _real_ problem in cycling is the moral outrage around doping. Doping isn't
cheating, it's the way the game is played. If you want to compete, that's the
price of admission.

Nike's a giant publicly traded corporation with an obligation to their
shareholders. Their main product is their brand (which is used to sell goods).
They did what they needed to do to protect their brand. As far as pretending
that they didn't know about Lance, I consider that a white lie. _Everyone_ has
known that Lance doped for _years_. Nike feigning ignorance is a fiction
needed to prevent retaliation from moralists with their heads in the sand, a
constituency that sadly cannot be ignored.

~~~
gammarator
Doping in cycling _is_ cheating. Not everyone does (or did) it--see Christophe
Bassons [1] as the canonical example--and in any case the most sophisticated
doping regimens were only available to a few of the best-financed riders and
teams. Hardly a level playing field [2].

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christophe_Bassons> [2]
<http://inrng.com/2012/10/level-playing-field-doping-myth/>

~~~
andrewvc
Both valid points. It's sad that someone like Bassons is at a disadvantage.

You're right doping doesn't level the playing field. However, for better or
worse it's part of the playing field. Of course, nothing about pro sports is
ever fair. Money matters even taking drugs out of the equation. It buys you
better bikes, trainers, doctors, training facilities, etc.

As far as some people responding better to drugs, well sports are pretty
heavily defined by our bodies. Responding well to drugs is analogous to
responding well to training, it's an asset for an athlete to have in today's
world.

------
rmc
Reddit (& supporters) like to point out how Reddit supports free speech etc.
However reddit doesn't allow some speech that would be legal in USA, namely
publishing personal details of reddit users (doxxing). They have already drawn
a line and said "This is legal, but we don't want it here".

What about Gawker's free speech?

When people post creepshots (photos of people without their knowledge), we
hear that "We can't ban them, because of free speech". When people post
personal details of people who take creepshots, suddenly free speech doesn't
apply anymore, and it's all about potential personal harm. What about
potential personal harm with creepshots?

~~~
Karunamon
>What about potential personal harm with creepshots?

And what might that be? An upskirt picture absent any other context (a face, a
name, a location, a timestamp) might as well be anonymous. I understand that
the subject of that image might be rightly scandalized were they to find out,
but if they don't?

Is someone really harmed by someone else getting off to an image of their body
absent their knowledge of this?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Sure they are. They know its happening. They know its supported by the hosting
organization.

Imagine we institutionalized it- we'll take pictures of random people,
including maybe you, in the bathroom in as embarassing a way as possible, and
distribute it only to people you don't know. Ha ha! What a riot! They get a
good laugh at your expense, you know its happening but cant do anything about
it. Feel safe and confident now?

Its morally reprehensible to violate someones privacy in this way. We all
suffer when its enabled by anyone.

~~~
Karunamon
>Imagine we institutionalized it-

But we aren't, so this entire hypothetical is out on its arse. Let's deal with
the reality instead of a reduction to the absurd.

>They know its happening. They know its supported by the hosting organization.

How? Honest curious question, how many people know these pictures have been
taken and are up on some random internet site?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
It is institutionalized, when there are groups on reddit or wherever that
regularly shares and encourages creation - isn't that what the conversation
was about? SO what is your comment about? Simple denial is not an argument.

And I'm guessing millions now know - how many is enough by your estimate?

~~~
Karunamon
>when there are groups on reddit or wherever that regularly shares and
encourages creation

That doesn't qualify as institutionalized to me. The existence of /b/ doesn't
equate to institutionalization of trolling.

>And I'm guessing millions now know - how many is enough by your estimate?

I was referring to the subjects of the images, not the people who post them.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
...and I'm guessing those reading these threads may be in those pictures. I
don't know how many; neither do you. It could be any of us.

------
imgabe
> They’re talking about freedom of speech, but the message I read is that
> they’ll take the money if you want to use Reddit to say something
> controversial. But if there are consequences... You’re on your own.

Of course you're on your own. Reddit shouldn't be held responsible for what
people say on it anymore than AT&T should be held responsible for what people
say on the phone.

~~~
raganwald
I know where your're going with this, but the phone is not a good analogy
because AT&T's revenue is not commensurate with the popularity of what you
say, and a phone call is private. Consider instead a satellite radio station
that lets you host your own talk show and sells advertising on it without
giving you a cut.

~~~
cfinke
_a phone call is private_

Tell that to the government.

------
erode
I'm a moderator of a couple subreddits, and I don't see a problem with how
Reddit administrators reacted to the situation. Perhaps I am the minority but
I believe that Reddit's hands-off approach is the only reason the community
thrives.

~~~
raganwald
I tried to be explicit in saying that I am not speaking to moderators about
this. But Reddit has closed some of the subreddits, such as those that
allegedly (I have never seen them) exploited underage persons. How about a
cheque to charity for the approximate revenue they generated? It's a simple
gesture.

~~~
pbreit
Can anyone confirm that more than a negligible sum was earned on such
subreddits?

Part of my problem with the post is the insinuation that reddit is a gross
money hungry corporation when the reality seems quite different.

~~~
raganwald
A token cheque to charity would satisfy me. I'm available for a photo op with
the CEO where he shakes my hand and presents Toronto's Hospital for Sick
Children with a cheque in the amount of $53.28 for all of the jailbait and
creepshots ad revenue.

"We don't want the money, no matter how insignificant" would be a fine
statement to make :-)

------
lambda
What? Freedom of speech does not mean "I have to pay you for the kind of
speech you create."

There is no hypocrisy in saying "I don't support what you are saying, but I
defend your right to say it."

Now, sure the money they made clouds matters a bit, but that money was
content-neutral. They neither encouraged nor discouraged any particular
content.

------
shmageggy
The characterization of Reddit as "trying to speak out of both sides of its
mouth" is misplaced. There is nothing inconsistent about affirming someone's
right to say something while acknowledging that the content of said speech is
deplorable. In the US (and Reddit is US company), we have a long and extolled
history of this exact behavior. Was the ACLU being inconsistent when they
defended the rights of Nazis to demonstrate in Skokie, Illinois [1]?

Others here have rightly pointed out that Reddit is not government, and that
they aren't obliged to allow all legal speech. However, in an age of
increasing acceptance of voluntary censorship (walled gardens, etc) Reddit has
chosen to take the _principled_ position of allowing its users to self
moderate its content, only intervening in cases of illegality.

If one thinks that creepshots-style content shouldn't be allowed (and there
are certainly compelling arguments for this case), one should petition the
government to classify it as illegal, not wrongly criticize Reddit for taking
the _consistent_ position that they have.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_Liberties_Union#...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_Liberties_Union#The_Skokie_case)

~~~
indiecore
>There is nothing inconsistent about affirming someone's right to say
something while acknowledging that the content of said speech is deplorable.

Sorry, the SJ guardians live in a black and white world where you are with
them or against them and being against creepshots AND against doxxing is
completely impossible.

~~~
makomk
Pretty much:
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/18/online-b...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/18/online-
bullying-ugly-sport-liberal-commenters)

(That article if anything understates how bad the problem is.)

------
mikeash
I don't understand this article. Reddit doesn't like some of the stuff that
takes place on their site, but overall they value the community's choices over
their own likes or dislikes. There's nothing wrong with expressing your own
opinion on these things but refusing to act on those opinions out of higher
principles. In fact, I'd say that's rather ideal.

I flagged this article because IMO something this dumb doesn't belong on the
front page.

------
comex
Me, I support freedom of speech and decentralization. But one thing strikes me
as odd: I keep hearing about this case on HN and other tech news sites, but I
have yet to see an article about it on Reddit's own front page. I'm sure I
missed discussion when the original article was published, but does Reddit not
care about all these followup reports/opinions or is my homepage setting just
weird?

~~~
awakeasleep
Reddit globally banned links to the article, and may subreddits blocked all
links to Gawker.

The global ban has been lifted, but many of the moderators of the most popular
subreddits consider Violentacrez a mentor/friend, and the individual blocks
remain in effect. In the end it doesn't matter because during the crucial
window of relevance the article was blocked.

------
debacle
This seems like outrage looking for a victim.

Nike is a huge multinational business. I find the comparison to reddit silly.

Reddit, in its entire history, has erred on the side of free speech. That is
noble, rational, and respectable.

Reddit preserved /r/jailbait for as long as possible because it was not
illegal. Reddit is trying to be a platform and a vehicle for discussion, not a
content moderator, and in that regard it's doing a good job.

------
paul
Some people just don't understand the meaning of freedom. This post reminds me
of religious types who demand that YouTube take down videos that they deem
offensive.

------
Millennium
Communities will be policed, one way or another. If an authority (like
Reddit's administration) refuses to do it, then the community will do so
itself, and likely in ways the authority, and perhaps even some community
members, would rather not happen. This means the Reddit folks have a choice to
make: they can police the userbase, or they can allow the community to do so,
or they can ban one community policing measure after another until the
community itself is no longer useful.

The first and second options have been successfully implemented, to varying
degrees and sometimes with a measure of hybridization, in many communities. By
refusing to punish miscreants but punishing those who would punish said
miscreants, Reddit is currently on the third path, and that's not a practical
place to be.

------
venus
Both of the "moral high ground" actions the author suggests Reddit make are in
fact punishments, presumably for the crime of allowing "despicable filth" to
be "peddled" on their site. Reddit doing neither is actually quite rational.
Although the author obviously does not find this morally satisfying, I am
firmly on Reddit's side here. I really appreciate how hands-off they are.

I find this Adrian Chen figure, however, to be of bad character. I don't
particularly like Mr Brutsch, but I like moral-hysteria witch hunts even less.
Talk about misusing your privileged position in the media to play judge, jury
and executioner to some misguided schmuck. Hope he gets signed up to a few
dozen more of those mailing lists.

------
bryanlarsen
Why is this the story that's occupying the blogosphere's attention? While
we're wrangling about this, the main stream media is talking about the doxxing
of Amanda Todd's alleged bullier by Anonymous.

~~~
raganwald
I can't speak about the Internet at large, but Reddit was a YC startup, and
its growing pains are instructive for those who want to understand where their
own startup dreams may lead, and the challenges of managing the unintended
consequences of disrupting industries and/or society.

~~~
bryanlarsen
In the Amanda Todd story, the "bad guys" are Youtube, Facebook &
memegenerator. I guess the big difference is that the first two have gone
through these sorts of things before -- there are some new aspects of this for
Reddit.

I think it would be interesting to compare the rules that Facebook uses to
take down Pages vs the ones that are used to take down subreddits, but I don't
think the Facebook rules are public. Facebook definitely took down some of the
"good riddance Amanda Todd" pages, but I understand they are leaving some up
that many find offensive.

------
gfunk911
Raganwald: Even now, they speak out of both sides of their mouth, mumbling
about free speech while disavowing approval of the choices this man made to
make them money.

Voltaire (maybe): I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death
your right to say it.

------
niggler
The overarching point is lost here: there is no anonymity on the Internet and
you should treat each missive as if it is associated with your person.

------
peterchon
Couldn't have said it better myself.

