> At least Brutsch had no illusion about the value and ethics of what he was doing, wasn't purposefully ruining someone's life, and wasn't making money out of it.
What do you mean by "purposefully"? Do you believe that all (or most) of the harm in this world is caused intentionally, by people who deep down in their hearts, think they are doing the wrong, evil thing?
I agree with you that Mr. Brutsch seems like a decent guy overall with just a very eccentric sense of dark humor. But I think you're being naive to think that him just wanting to have old-fashioned trolling fun precludes the possibility that people that he could be hurting people unwittingly. And no matter his intent, he and his activities are fair game for a journalist to expose.
Brutsch claims that to his knowledge, no one has been hurt by his trolling or administering of the content in question. And so we just believe him? This is the same person who, until five days ago, thought he could do this undetected even though he attends real-life Reddit meetups and posted his phone number and complete work history on the Internet, so pardon me if I worry that he may have several blind spots.
The degree of objective and conscious evilness in Violentacrez' behavior is debatable, indeed, but that's not the issue. At least that's not what makes this story newsworthy IMO.
I think that Gawker's "journalist" ought to get more flak than Violentacrez, because the latter doesn't pretend to be anything but an asshole, whereas Chen pretends to have the higher moral ground. Chen needs a tougher reality-check about what a gigantic scumbag he is, even though Brutsch sounds quite delusional himself about his actions' outcomes.
What do you mean by "purposefully"? Do you believe that all (or most) of the harm in this world is caused intentionally, by people who deep down in their hearts, think they are doing the wrong, evil thing?
I agree with you that Mr. Brutsch seems like a decent guy overall with just a very eccentric sense of dark humor. But I think you're being naive to think that him just wanting to have old-fashioned trolling fun precludes the possibility that people that he could be hurting people unwittingly. And no matter his intent, he and his activities are fair game for a journalist to expose.
Brutsch claims that to his knowledge, no one has been hurt by his trolling or administering of the content in question. And so we just believe him? This is the same person who, until five days ago, thought he could do this undetected even though he attends real-life Reddit meetups and posted his phone number and complete work history on the Internet, so pardon me if I worry that he may have several blind spots.