(I hadn't heard about the letter in question, and, FWIW, I'm sympathetic to what I understand of multiple groups in recent tragedies. Am commenting on a separate topic.)
Before globally-accessible campus newspaper Web editions, and especially before Twitter mobs, I had the impression that universities were a relatively safe space for dialogue, including on controversial topics with impassioned viewpoints.
Are students and society being shortchanged, when students are afraid to say or ask something "stupid" and be corrected or informed, are afraid to discuss certain topics or accidentally say the wrong thing (because they'll be doxxed publicly, or shunned by fellow students), won't listen to and try to understand the perspective of a (good faith) speaker with whom they assume they'll disagree, etc.?
Especially in the case of high-prestige schools like Harvard, these students will disproportionately be going into positions of influence over the world. We need them to be learned and thoughtful, to be comfortable with and promote honest dialogue, to understand and have challenged their biases and assumptions, to be humble but to aspire, to be genuine.
I hope that at least individual professors are declaring their classrooms a safe space for good faith dialogue. Student groups and others of the university should also consider when they want to be public-facing, and when they want to be supporting a more nurturing environment -- to help students learn and grow, so that the later graduates will be better able to help tackle the problems of the real world.
Academia, especially humanities, has gotten amazingly intolerant of any divergent viewpoints over the past decades. Harvard is among the worst in this case. Try to get a marginally right wing personality to speak at Harvard. Students, encouraged by administrators, have increasingly turned on any thoughts that are even nanometers outside of the groupthink line. Professors are better, but they have less power.
If that's true of Harvard, I wonder whether the nature of it there is different than at most universities.
For one reason, Lawrence Summers, quoted in the Crimson piece as "former University President", was actually very publicly forced out, over some things he said. I thought it was harmful for him to be speculating quite like he had done, but maybe administration and faculty didn't take the optimal lesson from that bad experience?
For another possible reason, Harvard is a unique global prestige brand, for the richest and most powerful, global is complicated and nuanced, the students tend to be very privileged and connected, and maybe Harvard has to be more globally diplomatic than most universities do?
>"Harvard Economics professor Jason Furman ’92 shared a similar statement on X, writing that he had been contacted by a student who had been doxxed despite no longer attending Harvard or affiliating with the co-signing group."
Undeniable tragedy what happened, innocent lives lost and countless more will die in this war, but accusing and doxxing innocent people whose lives will be overturned seems like the wrong approach here.
citation needed. about them ever having done it, as an organised policy. also: beautiful propaganda, the way you formulated it with the famous "have you stopped" trick, making denial ambiguous.
Doxxing is always weird because there is no real violence until there is – it’s all implied violence – so online trolls can hide behind the facade of “I didn’t touch you!” The people signing the doc are already public, a truck roaming around with their face on it is just organized harassment at that point.
Didn’t think I would see a pro-doxxing content here, but what do I know.
I don’t think publicizing someone’s views (if you think them repugnant) is implied violence at all, nor is it harassment.
Perhaps they want their community to shun them, which is a good and noble resolution to the general problem of someone exhibiting abhorrent behavior (note that I am not of an opinion on whether or not this original behavior is abhorrent).
They doxxed themselves when they published their views. The truck people are simply amplifying their statements.
> Perhaps they want their community to shun them, which is a good and noble resolution to the general problem of someone exhibiting abhorrent behavior
We can make them walk around wearing pieces of flair so we can easily identify them.
I see why you may want to tug at this thread but I wouldn't.
People driving around in trucks identifying you isn't going to play out in favor of whatever zionist fantasies you may hold lol. The adults in the room saying walk away "get it".
The people doing the amplification here aren’t forcing anyone to do anything, which is a critical difference.
> whatever zionist fantasies you may hold
If I were forced to pick a side in this battle, I think the result would be the opposite of what you expect.
That said, I fully support the right of their opponents to yell loudly (with this truck) about their discontent. It’s peaceful protest of the best kind.
You don’t think if Elon Musk tweets tomorrow “@polygamous_bat doesn’t like X, or dogecoins! His phone number is 0123 and address is XYZ”, that’s harassment? None of what he would say is false, but by amplifying it to his audience of trolls he just increases the chance of something “accidentally” happening to me.
Same here. Whether you say something or not, putting your face on a billboard is guaranteed to attract crazies. If your opponent is spending a million dollar to give that treatment to literal college kids, it doesn’t take a genius to see who the evil is.
Yes, it is quite obvious that the evil are the “crazies” (your term) that see a billboard and decide to do someone harm (and decidedly not the publisher of the billboard).
Yes of course, it lets you wash your hand off of all responsibility.
Reminder to anyone else who is not so trigger happy to dox people: Stochastic Terrorism exists [0] and so does the tale of the “Meddlesome priest”[1]. It’s a trick as old as time, you’re not doing anything novel or clever, and your tactics are obvious to everyone.
When the king expresses by implication that he wants someone executed it’s very different from doing accurate and truthful reporting of factual information.
You have a long way to go to prove violent intent. Stochastic terrorism is a deniable order of violence but I think there is a pretty clear line between factual reporting and an implied order to commit violence (cf McVeigh handing out business cards with Lon Horiuchi’s home address on them at gun shows).
People are responsible for violent intent. People without violent intent are in no way responsible for the violent initiatives of crazy assholes they may provide with information.
PS: when I google “Lon Horiuchi”, it autocompletes “where is Lon Horiuchi now”. Is Google advocating for violence too? Intent matters.
Truck doxxer maybe won't be arrested, but a defamation/libel civil case is likely. Especially with now CEOs calling for blacklisting. Ones reputation can be totally destroyed being falsely accused.
Emotions are high right now, but destroying more innocent lives isn't the answer.
Great! If you read the article instead of trying to incite a flame war you would know that they have already doxxed people falsely, and so your statement doesn’t apply at all.
It’s also an anonymous source to a student newspaper. I wouldn’t exactly hold them to the highest editorial standard. They just they confirmed they saw emails which anyone could have sent. Did they look at the message headers or request IPs from the provider.
> It’s also an anonymous source to a student newspaper. I wouldn’t exactly hold them to the highest editorial standard.
It’s the Harvard Crimson, not Boondook High Weekly. I would be incredibly surprised if their editors are not graduating and entering the countries top newspapers every year.
The student groups signed the letter as legal entities. But not every single member of those groups necessarily agreed to it.
Members of at least some of those group were not even notified about the letter.
So you can only be part of groups you 100% agree with? I wouldn't care enough to 'post my disagreement', especially when I was a student, I had other stuff to care about.
The groups I belong to do many things I wouldn't do. Some of them I'm sure I wouldn't do. As for others, I'm not sure as I don't have enough data and time to verify them. So you imply I should leave them all? In this case nobody could belong to any group because sooner or later any group can do at least one thing you wouldn't do.
if they drink bud light while you prefer ipa, i guess you can get over it. if there are more serious moral dilemmas, then yea. you probably should evaluate compatibility.
I don’t think I should be accused of supporting terrorist actions because I joined an anti Zionist group in my freshman year and I’ve since graduated and had no affiliations with them since, or something like this.
Also I’m not an anti Zionist, and I’m pretty ignorant about this sort of thing, so I don’t really have an opinion. But like, college kids can have dumb opinions that they grow out of. Are they fundraising for hamas? Are they trying to give info to terrorists? Or can this be solved with calling someone’s mom and having her chew them out about spouting stupid shit in public?
As much as I hate doxxing anonymous accounts, I’m kinda ok with this. You want to release heinous statements without a retraction you deserve real world consequences. The student groups that issued retractions should be spared but anyone who supports barbarism should be shunned and punished. Also don’t give me the bs that they posted they hate all civilian lives lost, they only posted that after the NYU student lost their job for that horrible newsletter and got worried about consequences. Before that there was no mention of them caring one bit about the innocents massacred at a music festival or dragged out of their safe rooms, then beheaded. Instead there was a celebratory undertone in all their posts as if they were celebrating the massacre of innocents
Typo edit
The posturing over it in America is terrible, it's not about you and your political tribes, but you're somehow making it about you, when people are dying. Did their statement cause deaths in the Levant? No, it's just posturing. Does this truck prevent any deaths in the Levant? More useless posturing, with an added element of incitement to violence against those who dare disagree with us.
Jesus wept.
I know the Evangelical Right has been making the State of Israel about them for years, their eschatology demands its existence, but when the political hacks are trying to link Ukraine and Hamas to score some imagined point, it's disgusting.
And your support of these tactics for the suppression of thoughtcrime, in the alleged land of the free, is both terrible and awful.
So we shouldn’t have consequences for our actions? Are you saying I don’t understand forgiveness for mistakes? That is why I said the student groups that retracted their statements should be spared, but this is saying you should be able to run into a crowded theater and yell fire with no consequence.
Also like usual with the over reaction. This isn’t a thought crime. It’s simply amplifying their own hate speech. If they don’t like the attention so much maybe they shouldn’t be making such heinous statements. This is just the community reacting to something you are I guess are fine with. And good job trying to smear me instead of responding with facts!
> That is why I said the student groups that retracted their statements should be spared
How would being spared work though? Would the truck run the route again with crossed over, corrected names? What if someone was doxxed by mistake, run an apology list truck?
> “... I’m even more appalled since many of them had nothing to do with the letter,” Furman wrote.
I guess they'll have to drive the truck backwards, and with mistaken names crossed out? And if anyone was affected the truck driver will personally vouch for them in an attempt to reverse the damages.
Harvard Hillel, the University’s Jewish center, released a statement Wednesday afternoon saying that it “strongly condemns any attempts to threaten and intimidate” members of co-signatory organizations.
“We will continue to reject the PSC’s statement in the strongest terms — and demand accountability for those who signed it,” the statement reads. “But under no circumstances should that accountability extend to public intimidation of individuals.”
> ...displaying the names and faces of students allegedly affiliated with student groups that signed...
The article certainly makes it sound as though there is a definite possibility that the students who were doxxed did not actually sign anything. The accusation made by the doxxers is one that could lead to serious consequences, especially given the inflammatory nature of this.
This isn’t eye for an eye. It’s simply amplifying their own statements. If they don’t like the attention, don’t make such horrible statements that blame innocent victims for their own deaths. Plus many organizations have realized that this letter was not appropriate, I think that putting more pressure on people who think that this statement is fine is American. I would think we don’t support people who murder innocents is a universal moral concept in the USA.
See the counter argument there is that they weren't blaming innocents for their own deaths, they were saying the government of Israel is responsible for the situation.
And then it will turn into "oh but Israeli actions are/are not justified military action" etc etc.
And then it will turn out that many of the people doxxed didn't actually sign the letter and do not agree with it and merely signed up to a mailinglist/membership/something.
And then someone will physically attack someone who was doxxed.
etc
This cycle doesn't get stopped by amplifying bad actions.
I don’t agree. If you make public statements, you should be more than prepared for others to amplify your public statements with your name attached.
The solution to speech you don’t like is more speech. This is the system working as intended. Free speech does not mean freedom from social consequences for expressing unpopular opinions.
Threats of violence and guilt by association is not part of proper discourse.
This isnt more speech, its saying shut up or find out, its an attempt at mob justice, one makes websites with disregard for privacy and truth (did they say it or just associated to the organisation like the old student?), one amplifies the identified people with a truck, the other intimidates with death threats, and none feel very guilty because each carry through a fraction of the whole ordeal. More speech is great, but thats a romanticised view you have, because these people are putting themselves above the law.
Should we tolerate people that advocate the murder of civilians?
There’s also an easy solution. You can very publicly state that you don’t agree with the group that you were once part of. But this is saying you should be able to make a heinous statement and then walk back it when you get confronted about it.
> Should we tolerate people that advocate the murder of civilians?
What do you mean by "tolerate" here?
You don't have to support their views. But they should absolutely be allowed to speak. In a society that values free speech, we often have to tolerate speech we don't like.
There’s a level of attenuation that makes a meaningful difference which you are not acknowledging.
> displaying the names and faces of students allegedly affiliated with student groups that signed onto a controversial statement on Hamas’ attack on Israel.
The doxxed students didn’t make public statements, and it’s far from clear that they even approved the statements made by the groups they are allegedly affiliated with. In one case mentioned by the article, a former student who no longer attends Harvard was among those being billboarded.
Yeah, this is like, incitement to get them killed, so: no. Even if they were murderers, instead of people who said stuff - and believe me, I hate what they said - you wouldn’t stick their faces on a truck and flirt with getting them killed.
If I think you said something stupid and make a poster to that effect, is that incitement? If I make a digital poster, ie a website, with that same information is that incitement? If I add your major or club memberships, is that incitement? If I include your address is that suddenly incitement?
If people are scared of the consequences of speaking out and voicing their opinions, then they really should just shut up. Free speech is not a diode.
Ok, but why should people who never received the statements some group signed with which they were affiliated be fired from their jobs? This is beyond a free speech issue. You can't ask people to always know everything happening and raise their hand for the right thing at the right time.
Who has been fired for being associated with these groups? Give me a link. The only one that has been fired was that NYU student sending out that horrendous newsletter
Statement here - no signatories showing. Twitter screenshot being passed around just shows a number of signatory organization names, although there has been a reference to a number of individuals that were signatories as well. Would be nice if the facts were clearer.
I don't really tend to agree with this sort of thing, but on the other hand, I think the types extremist enough to loudly signal support like this are also likely the ones doing the same to others, so I have mixed feelings.
This post is currently flagged.
The post is referencing only doxxing as consequence of criticizing Israel, it's not even criticizing the state of Israel itself.
Is there any public forum or institution in the US where criticizing Israel won't cause a shitstorm? Is there any other topic that has a similar effect?
Are these people just largely early-20s to not-even-20 year olds? They say stupid, potentially heinous shit all the time. The correct punishment is usually just to call their legal guardians, professors, stuff like this to get them scolded and to issue public apologies as needed, and maybe they lose privileged positions like membership to social clubs or something like that.
I don't know about the letter, was it advocating for more violence or saying proceeds go to fund terrorism or something direct like this? At least that kind of response would make more sense... but if it's just a bad opinion with no actual causal relationship to terrorism I don't get it.
This is troubling for more than the obvious reason: This age group has gotten so used to the way they treat people online, that they think it's just normal and acceptable — hence the real world transposition of online doxing.
I'd say it's much more like blaming you for American terrorist actions (interestingly, I can't think of examples). Obama is the president of the country.
No, I don't think so. I'm the first to be down on American foreign policy, or just American culture in general, but this isn't the same things as terrorism. For one thing, it's the official state, not some randos.
Before globally-accessible campus newspaper Web editions, and especially before Twitter mobs, I had the impression that universities were a relatively safe space for dialogue, including on controversial topics with impassioned viewpoints.
Are students and society being shortchanged, when students are afraid to say or ask something "stupid" and be corrected or informed, are afraid to discuss certain topics or accidentally say the wrong thing (because they'll be doxxed publicly, or shunned by fellow students), won't listen to and try to understand the perspective of a (good faith) speaker with whom they assume they'll disagree, etc.?
Especially in the case of high-prestige schools like Harvard, these students will disproportionately be going into positions of influence over the world. We need them to be learned and thoughtful, to be comfortable with and promote honest dialogue, to understand and have challenged their biases and assumptions, to be humble but to aspire, to be genuine.
I hope that at least individual professors are declaring their classrooms a safe space for good faith dialogue. Student groups and others of the university should also consider when they want to be public-facing, and when they want to be supporting a more nurturing environment -- to help students learn and grow, so that the later graduates will be better able to help tackle the problems of the real world.