Laroquod 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Reddit, Trolling, Doxxing, Free Speech & Anonymity: Whoo Boy, Is This Stuff Complicated

    Laroquod ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2012 @ 09:43pm

    Re: But what about the "don't put it on the Internet" philosophy?

    If you look at all of the qualifications I have made, it is consistent. I don't agree with a lot of hacker outing either. Only when it serves to expose actual illegal activity, and even then, I wouldn't call it 'moral'. Just necessary.

    And yeah, people warn you to assume everything you post is public and not to assume you can stay anonymous. People also warn you about tigers. Does that make it right when a tiger eats you?

    A lot of people are making arguments in this thread without considering what kind of a society they are proposing. A society in which nobody says anything controversial because they might be doxed and nobody will say there's anything wrong with that, that's not a society I want to live in.

  • On the post: Reddit, Trolling, Doxxing, Free Speech & Anonymity: Whoo Boy, Is This Stuff Complicated

    Laroquod ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2012 @ 09:32pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Moral reasoning can be a tricky thing

    So you think that there is nothing ethically wrong with it, but nothing ethically right with it either? That's a weird category that I don't really think exists. There is no shrug, either you think it's ethical or it's not, in my book. I don't get this in-between thing. It's kind of like 'a little bit pregnant'.

    As for it amounting to an invasion of privacy, I have heard this before and the answer to that is obvious. If someone has does something illegal, call the cops. No one is arguing here that free speech should protect illegal activity like stalking.

    And much as you might wish the most egregious consequences on this troll, what all of the proponents of this seem to steadfastly refuse to answer and consider is that this same thinking could be used by literally any freak with a grudge to justify any consequences on anyone for speech, and claim that the harm is entirely self-inflicted. After all, if he hadn't done anything wrong, by mocking Muhammed, or by saying there is no God, then he would have nothing to worry about. So, he gets what's coming to him. Why is that logic unethical, and yours ethical? Simply because your targets are eviller than their targets?

  • On the post: Reddit, Trolling, Doxxing, Free Speech & Anonymity: Whoo Boy, Is This Stuff Complicated

    Laroquod ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2012 @ 06:17pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I Dont See Anything Wrong Here

    Sounds to me like you're talking about someone like Adrian Lamo, in which case, yeah we'll just have to disagree, because I'm sorry but that dude is a rat-bastard.

  • On the post: Reddit, Trolling, Doxxing, Free Speech & Anonymity: Whoo Boy, Is This Stuff Complicated

    Laroquod ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2012 @ 05:58pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I Dont See Anything Wrong Here

    Interesting distinction you make. I had actually never thought of slicing it that way. But tell me: do you think doxxing people is ever "a bad idea" or "offensive"? And if you do ever think that, what makes it a bad idea and why doesn't that apply in this case?

  • On the post: Reddit, Trolling, Doxxing, Free Speech & Anonymity: Whoo Boy, Is This Stuff Complicated

    Laroquod ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2012 @ 05:54pm

    Re: Comparison to outting gays and lesbians

    I predict no one will have a good answer for this.

  • On the post: Reddit, Trolling, Doxxing, Free Speech & Anonymity: Whoo Boy, Is This Stuff Complicated

    Laroquod ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2012 @ 05:36pm

    Re: Re: Re: I Dont See Anything Wrong Here

    So you can lie all you want in order to get what you want, and that's moral? You can out gays & lesbians, and tattle on people's personal sexual affairs to the news media? Well, I guess that explains the whole political process...

  • On the post: Reddit, Trolling, Doxxing, Free Speech & Anonymity: Whoo Boy, Is This Stuff Complicated

    Laroquod ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2012 @ 05:28pm

    Re: Re: Re: NOT gonna be PC...

    Bingo, anonymous person! And I don't want to 'derail the discussion' or anything, since according to one of our friends upthread, that's an offence punishable by DOXXING (lol), but I bet Mr. Julian Assange can't say he hasn't run into one or two of the "latter". 87

  • On the post: Reddit, Trolling, Doxxing, Free Speech & Anonymity: Whoo Boy, Is This Stuff Complicated

    Laroquod ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2012 @ 04:29pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Moral reasoning can be a tricky thing

    So we have already expanded from 'objectifiers' to 'trouble-makers' and anyone who 'derails discussion' and 'causes havoc'. Those people should all be doxxed?? Thanks for demonstrating the danger of this sort of thinking so concisely.

  • On the post: Reddit, Trolling, Doxxing, Free Speech & Anonymity: Whoo Boy, Is This Stuff Complicated

    Laroquod ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2012 @ 03:19pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Moral reasoning can be a tricky thing

    Interesting questions. I'll take the first one first. My reasoning is very simple here. I would support doxxing in order to expose illegal activity because it's the only way to catch criminals. However, prefer that law enforcement do the 'doxxing'. I prefer to call the police and report the illegal activity and let them run an investigation, because that is the way the system is supposed to work in a civilised society. I am not supposed to take the law into my own hands.

    If the law is not doing what is supposed to (often because the legal system is itself corrupt) then I support doxxing by individuals in order to spark the legal system into doing what is right. This is the only way to correct the legal system. This doesn't mean that doxxing is 'ethical', anymore than a revolutionary war makes shooting people ethical. Sometimes unethical actions are just necessary.

    In the case of ViolentAcrez I don't think it was necessary because his actions are legal and protected speech. So I don't think the threshold is met there for me support something unethical. It just wasn't necessary.

    You can use those principles to figure out how I would react in your examples, but I'll save you the trouble: ViolentAcrez's boss has no right to out and fire him for anonymously exercising his free speech. Some state laws might say otherwise: I disagree with those laws. Once he *has* been outed however, his boss might be right to fire him because now his actions are public and reflect negatively on the company. Not too sure about that one. HOwever I simply don't care about ViolentAcrez keeping his job, so I'm not losing any sleep over it.

    Any nongovernmental 'punishment' that involves exercise of free speech I am totally okay with, short of doxxing him in order to impose personal real-life punishment. That is still free speech: I am just not personally OK with it.

    As for your final scenario, that sounds like it would probably be in the clear but again, I haven't given a lot of thought to whether ViolentAcrez should keep his job. To me which consequences he gets is not the important issue so much as how they are delivered, because: the ends do not justify the means. Another one of those little cliches like 'two wrongs don't make a right' that so many seem to have forgotten about.

  • On the post: Reddit, Trolling, Doxxing, Free Speech & Anonymity: Whoo Boy, Is This Stuff Complicated

    Laroquod ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2012 @ 03:05pm

    Re:

    It's an offence. I wouldn't say "there's no greater offence", but otherwise, hear hear.

  • On the post: Reddit, Trolling, Doxxing, Free Speech & Anonymity: Whoo Boy, Is This Stuff Complicated

    Laroquod ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2012 @ 02:57pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Moral reasoning can be a tricky thing

    Precisely DCX2, thank you. People who base their ethics on their moral outrage, do not have any principles left to stand upon when others' moral outrage is directed at them? When the Christians come for the atheists, you aren't going to be able to consistently argue that there shouldn't be any doxxing going on, if you argued that doxxing was ethical here.

  • On the post: Reddit, Trolling, Doxxing, Free Speech & Anonymity: Whoo Boy, Is This Stuff Complicated

    Laroquod ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2012 @ 02:38pm

    Re: Re: Re: Moral reasoning can be a tricky thing

    Crime is by definition illegal. What ViolentAcrez did is not. I support doxxing to bring illegal activity into public view. (I still do not call it 'ethical' and I still wouldn't do it myself.) I do not support doxxing in order to punish legal exercise of free speech.

  • On the post: Reddit, Trolling, Doxxing, Free Speech & Anonymity: Whoo Boy, Is This Stuff Complicated

    Laroquod ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2012 @ 02:36pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Moral reasoning can be a tricky thing

    No I don't believe in a right not to be doxxed. You are wrong about that. There is no right to freedom from consequences, but that doesn't make forcing consequences on legal activity ethical, particularly if you have to destroy anonymity to get there. I only support that when what is being punished is *illegal* activity that is being hidden from public view, and even then I would support the doxxing without calling it 'ethical' because I just don't think it is, regardless of the legalities of the situation.

  • On the post: Reddit, Trolling, Doxxing, Free Speech & Anonymity: Whoo Boy, Is This Stuff Complicated

    Laroquod ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2012 @ 02:31pm

    Re:

    The problem with your last paragraph is, who defines what is an 'oppressive regime'? Is America an oppressive regime? I think a lot of people think America is not an oppressive regime and will see somebody criticising it as 'an offensive moderator', and then your ethics will be turned on its head.

    That is why I prefer to say that it simply isn't ethical to dox people, full stop. Sometimes, however, it is deserved. Sometimes, when the person being doxxed is part of an oppressive regime and they are being doxxed in order to expose their illegal activity, I'll even approve (see: Aaron Barr). But I will never call it 'ethical'.

  • On the post: Reddit, Trolling, Doxxing, Free Speech & Anonymity: Whoo Boy, Is This Stuff Complicated

    Laroquod ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2012 @ 01:58pm

    Re: I Dont See Anything Wrong Here

    Agreed. Except that there is a difference between what is moral and what is legal. I refuse to define my morality by what is legal. Therefore, even though the things you listed are free speech, and all legal, and no laws should be passed to prevent any of them, nevertheless, some of them are wronger than others because morality and the law are two separate things.

  • On the post: Reddit, Trolling, Doxxing, Free Speech & Anonymity: Whoo Boy, Is This Stuff Complicated

    Laroquod ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2012 @ 01:54pm

    Re: NOT gonna be PC...

    I agree with everything you have said here, and thank you for having the courage to say it.

  • On the post: Reddit, Trolling, Doxxing, Free Speech & Anonymity: Whoo Boy, Is This Stuff Complicated

    Laroquod ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2012 @ 01:47pm

    Re: Re: Moral reasoning can be a tricky thing

    It may be 'appropriate' but that doesn't make it morally correct. Let me ask you this. Why is it so important for you to give this retributive action the imprimature of 'ethics'? Not everything that gets done in the world has to be defined as 'ethical'. Sometimes it is better to let even well-deserved retributive actions be defined and seen as nevertheless 'unethical', so that the next generation's moral reasoning will not be clouded and the line of what is 'ethical' will not be continuously repainted until frontier justice is the norm.

    Maybe the people who punish people like ViolentAcrez, need to accept the label 'grey moral warrior' and live with it, so that important principles like free speech and anonymity don't get eroded and obscured in the minds of the next generation, who, after all, we will all have to rely upon to protect these values.

    Why does everybody has to twist reality in order to make themselves all morally *comfortable* all the time?

  • On the post: Reddit, Trolling, Doxxing, Free Speech & Anonymity: Whoo Boy, Is This Stuff Complicated

    Laroquod ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2012 @ 01:41pm

    Re: Gawker...

    Gawker's Adrian Chen and the moderators of Reddit have both behaved equally poorly in this affair. I don't agree with either of their actions. The way it has worked out is OK though because hopefully, the 'frontier justice' will be enough people will not be pushing for more laws to curtail our free speech rights even more. That may still happen though -- this is not over. That's on reason why I refuse to jump on the cheering 'lynch mob' bandwagon. I don't like where it's headed.

  • On the post: Reddit, Trolling, Doxxing, Free Speech & Anonymity: Whoo Boy, Is This Stuff Complicated

    Laroquod ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2012 @ 01:33pm

    Re: Re: Moral reasoning can be a tricky thing

    Outing people in order to punish them for their free speech is wrong -- this would be very easy to see if ViolentAcrez were a political dissenter. The fact that he is using his free speech to invade women's sense of privacy does mean that he kind of deserves it, but that still doesn't make it right. There are lots of people I know who deserve a punch in the face, but that doesn't make it 'right' to actually punch them in the face.

    What is it about this issue that makes it impossible for so many to see it clearly? If you want to cheer on the dude for punching out the asshole in a bar, because he deserved it for being such an asshole, then fine, but don't pretend it's therefore 'right' to punch people out in bars.

  • On the post: Reddit, Trolling, Doxxing, Free Speech & Anonymity: Whoo Boy, Is This Stuff Complicated

    Laroquod ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2012 @ 01:17pm

    Moral reasoning can be a tricky thing

    Techdirt, you've *almost* got this one right. You were so close, but alas, you've made one mistake.

    Outing people who have specifically chosen to be anonymous is ethically wrong. Posting Creepshots is also ethically wrong. While delivering one as a consequence of the other may fulfil some romantic notion of poetic or frontier justice, in civilised society, we don't live by frontier justice. In civilised society, we are supposed to believe that two wrongs don't make a right. Didn't your parents ever teach you this?

    If I witness some guy calling a woman a whore for no reason, I'd be pissed off at their perfectly legal action, but I would not (nor would I condone) calling that guy a n----r as some kind of revenge. Though he might deserve it; though he might have relinquished his expectation not to be called a racist name: I would still be wrong to call him that name.

    Yes, free speech laws do not guarantee no consequences -- that's why what Adrian Chen and Gawker did is legal, and free speech too, but that doesn't make it right to destroy anonymity in order to force those consequences.

    Let me be clear: I'm glad ViolentAcrez was stopped and I feel not one bit of sympathy over him losing his job. But cannot stand up and say that the way this was achieved, was 'ethical', anymore than I can stand up and say Creepshots are ethical.

    Both actions are legal. Both are free speech. Both are wrong.

    If you wish to cheer on the outing of this individual anyway, I can certainly see your point of view, but I will not join you for the same reason I would not join you in answering misogyny with racism, or 'fighting fire with fire' or any of that flawed moral reasoning that we normally have no trouble detecting when there isn't a moral panic going on. 8)

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