This is a weak comparison. There are some pretty big qualitative differences between a critical NYT article and LibsOfTikTok. And… frankly if the NYT was routinely publishing content that was getting people harassed and threatened? Yeah we should be asking them to change something in their content too.
Humans can tell the difference between news that sometimes has negative side effects, and singling out people for harassment. If humans can tell that difference, so can rules - society isn’t math, the rules don’t have to be equations.
Humans can't tell that difference, except in the sense of "it's good when my side does it to you, and bad when it's the other way around."
Elon Musk aggressively criticized Yoel Roth, forcing him to flee his home in fear for his life.
Washington Post writer Taylor Lorenz published the full name and address of the (previously anonymous) LibsOfTikTok writer Chaya Raichik, forcing Chaya to flee her home in fear for her life[1].
Most people think that one of these two events is okay, and the other one is very bad.
Again, I see major differences between those situations that don’t have to do with “sides”. It seems like you’re equating the consequences of the actions with the actions themselves. I.e. if both actions result in someone fleeing their home, they must be the same action.
They weren’t the same action.
The first difference that comes to mind is that the elon situation is an unaccountable individual billionaire, where the nyt is a group of journalists / editors. Dozens of people vetted the choice to publish her name - nobody can vet or check who elon decides to go after next. Plenty of more nuanced takes about the twitter files and roth have been published and didn’t result in angry mobs thinking he’s a pedophile - because those takes were checked by editors and a well established code of ethics.
Elon attacking roth is in many ways the same as what libs of tiktok is doing. Using a huge platform to point an angry mob in someone’s direction, while claiming innocence of the resulting harm. Where revealing libs of tt’s identity is an act of holding power accountable - you wield the power of the mob? The public deserve to know who you are. Elon attacking roth, is… what? Roth has no power anymore, isn’t causing ongoing harm, at this point criticizing him seems indistinguishable from trying to sell elon’s public on the righteousness of his twitter takeover.
What “sides” are those? I’m on the side of “billionaires are too powerful”, “journalism is generally pretty useful”, and “don’t send angry mobs at people for living their lives and having opinions”. Liberal agenda gone mad over here :)
> Humans can't tell that difference, except in the sense of "it's good when my side does it to you, and bad when it's the other way around."
Many humans can though. There's a very big group of people that think every corrupt politician should be investigated. This type of thinking is not equally prevalent amongst all sides of the political spectrum. It is prevalent amongst all extremist forms though, but that probably has to do with the type of person that becomes extremist in the first place.
Why did she have to flee her home? No one was after her. Do we even know if she did flee her home or was it just another lie? Seems like a scandal to gain attention.
Humans can tell the difference between news that sometimes has negative side effects, and singling out people for harassment. If humans can tell that difference, so can rules - society isn’t math, the rules don’t have to be equations.