From Gamergate to Cecil the lion: internet mob justice is out of control

[T_i_B]

http://www.vox.com/2015/7/30/9074865/cecil-lion-palmer-mob-justice

It is the same set of tactics that has been used in online harassment campaigns such as the "Gamergate" movement that targeted women in technology, or the seemingly endless online harassment conducted against female journalists. It is a growing trend of internet mob justice, one that often bleeds into real-world harassment with real-world consequences.

We as a society deemed campaigns such as Gamergate unacceptable and rejected their proponents as harassers who crossed the line. But because we all agree that we dislike Palmer, the campaign against him has so far been deemed acceptable, even funny or laudable.

That worries me. And it should worry you. Gamergate has been run out of polite internet society, but the mob campaign against Palmer suggests that the tactics Gamergate employed are not disappearing — they are becoming more mainstream. That should be deeply worrying to us all.

What Palmer did was wrong, and he deserves to be punished to the full extent of the law. But it's easy to forget just how dangerous and unjust "mob justice" is while it's targeting someone you despise. The more this behavior is normalized, the more likely it is to be deployed against targets who might not necessarily deserve to have their lives destroyed — including, perhaps one day, against you.

[Alfalfa]

1. It's very easy to get caught up in the mob

People who would normally consider themselves tolerant and rational are just as likely to join in mob harassment as anyone else when they feel like the mob supports their cause. No one is immune to it.

[bemildred]

2. A mob on the web is a lot less threatening than a mob in real life.

I think it is a mistake to inflate these semen-smeared wannabe blowhards (Gamergate) with a real mob with pitchforks and tar and feathers and a rope (Cecil the Lion).

[Blue_Adept]

5. Tell that to the women that were attacked by the internet mob of gamergate

Their lives were made truly horrible - in real life - because of the threats, phone calls, information being posted about them. Having to leave your home to find somewhere else to live during some of the most intense moments of it because you don't know what psycho is going to come to your door?

VERY THREATENING.

[Igel]

15. One can lead to another.

Social media is online.

Then those online people show up at work, at home, chanting and jeering. Harass you, harass your family, harass your employer.

If the chanters and jeerers can find out where you live--because some valiant person posted your personal information--then those issuing death threats can.

If they post your personal information like, say, address and phone number, another group might be able to add birthday and SSN to it. Then suddenly you find your credit rating trashed and credit cards cancelled. That affects you, it affects yours.

The only thing missing is the rope and the picnic. Or the burning cross. Remember: That dentist has all the power and privilege, though.

In one case recently it affected the wrong person. The wrong name was leaked and that person's life made hell.

Another case a few months ago had the right name but still the wrong person. Names aren't necessarily unique when you have 320 million people. (There are two of me in Houston; if I Google my name there's another of me in a different part of town.)

In both of those last two cases, the response of the virtuous and righteous was the same for mistaken identity as for when the facts of the case are different than they believed. I quote them at length and in full: " ." For the mistaken identity, most of the zealots moved on, quietly, having fully forgiven themselves for their virtuous zeal as though nothing happened; in most other cases, facts have little to do with the personal beliefs and worship of their one true god (since their "thinking" is neither fact-based nor falsifiable, and involves collective action and fixed doctrines, it's more a secular religion than anything else).

[bemildred]

17. The world is full of assholes, you aren't going to fix that any time soon,

and definitely not by imitating those you savage for herd attacks with your own herd attack on them.

[T_i_B]

20. Just as an example...

...online nastiness can and does translate into real life

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6059726.stm

[marble falls]

3. An example of a post I would vote down. If it weren't for the net the misogynist gamers and Palmer..

would be operating in the dark.

[bullwinkle428]

4. Add Bill Cosby to that list as well.

[bemildred]

6. Indeed. nt

[BlancheSplanchnik]

13. ^^^^^^^

This. This. This. A thousand times, THIS.

[ToxMarz]

7. Gamergate had nothing to do with "Internet mob justice"

It was a campaign of harassment within a particular group of Internet users. And Cecil the Lion is not so much mob justice, but universal outrage most effectively being expressed over the Internet. This is a pretty lame comparison. But I'm sure they'll get some Internet attention and clicks for their advertisers, which is what they want. Sometimes those mobs with pitchforks have a valid grievance.

[A Simple Game]

11. In the Cecil the Lion case all the attention may cause a few other trophy hunters

to rethink their next hunt. Not all "internet mob justice" is a bad thing. Would history be different if the internet were in place when Hitler was making his move to take control of Germany?

[salib]

8. Yes. A large number of us pile on.

I know I have. Not. Good. Dangerous even.

[Shrike47]

9. Cyber mobs, however threatening and officious, are immanently avoidable. Get off your computor?

In the Palmer case, people have taken it beyond the twitter sphere, but that is extremely unusual. These days a lot more people know about your misdeeds, but most of them are not in a position to act on that knowledge. They just attack on line. Go to the coast for a couple of months and something else will be the outrage du jour.

[Live and Learn]

10. TY I hate the reationary mob cry for retribution over a single incident and

am disheartened to find it on DU as well.

Add to the list the calls for a life sentence for the woman who may or may not have been texting and accidentally killed a beloved bicyclist.

Unless a person is a4 real threat to society, there is no reason to lock them up. Sentences should focus on rehabilitation and repayment to society or those harmed.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

12. As much as I despise what Palmer did...

...the super contagious mob mentality that has so quickly sprung up around this event is both scary and dangerous. Speaking out against what he did is one thing, turning it into some hyper-vindictive mob environment involving such visceral hate rhetoric with numerous threats of violence is quite another.

Suppose he had not gone into hiding, would he even still be alive? And if someone had shot him dead outside
his dental practice, would any serious investigation follow to find his killer?

The mob justice mentality has no place in civilized society, and what has happened in this instance sets a wrong-headed and dangerous example for our younger generations.

These lessons have been taught, but it seems they have yet to be learned:

[Live and Learn]

21. +1 nt

[djean111]

14. The thing is, I believe that many present-day politicians are depending on mob mentality

to win. Right now, the internet disseminates knowledge - good, bad, false, whatever. Genie is out of the bottle.
I don't think that censorship is the answer, because who gets to decide?
Knowledge is power, no matter how inconvenient or bad it is for some. Without the internet, who would have known about ALL of the killings/murders by police? Too easy to cover that sort of thing up, if we relied on just newspapers and network news. The internet is a disruptor to carefully managed news, just like solar and wind are disruptors to fossil fuels and nuclear facilities.

[Igel]

16. Here's a flaw.

Not all that's billed as knowledge is knowledge. Some is false because it's too soon to be verified; some is false because it's convenient; some is false by design.

You don't know about ALL the killings/murders by police. You know about the claims of some of the killings/murders, and you know about other deaths believed to be (falsely) killings/murders.

The Tulsa Riots happened because of social media, old style. A black guy was on an elevator with a white woman. What happened on that elevator is still a mystery, neither of them talked and they were alone in an era without surveillance. But lots of people knew and knew that they knew. They had knowledge. It spread. What that knowledge was changed. Most of what was said wasn't in front of the police building. That black man wasn't lynched. The police had dealt with a lynching not a year before and were afraid there'd be another, so they squirrelled that black man away in jail, refused to give him to the crowd, and got him out of town before the jail was raided.

The previous lynching in the area worked the same way but the police couldn't stop it. Something happened, rumors spread, and they were deemed knowledge. As the rumors changed, they were all true. Finally the mob went from whispering "on the (social) net" to being in person, and the guy was picked up, beaten, and hanged as part of a public spectacle.

Now, one DUer yesterday objected that nothing that Palmer or his guides could say would mean crap because they weren't sworn statements. Nothing *against* Palmer or his guides were sworn statements, but that was okay. Nothing about Sandra Bland or the Gamergate woman were sworn statements, but that's okay--we believe who we want because we have the Truth. Nothing against the guy who was lynched a number of months prior to the Tulsa Riots. They also had the Truth.

(That name of the lynching victim isn't in most lists of those lynched in the South, though. Had it been a movie, at the end there'd have been the disclaimer, "No black lives were lost in the making of this atrocity.&quot

Another example: After the Newtown massacre a lot of schools had active-shooter drills and such. My school, a week before winter break, suddenly had a drop-off in attendance. A couple of days before break half or more of my students were out sick, and the administration was swamped with calls about threats made against the school. Apparently we'd gotten a number of threats that on this day or that day a bomber or a shooter or a number of shooters would attack the campus. A lot of parents knew this. A lot of students knew this. It was massively disruptive. But oddly, none of the teachers or students or administrators had actually gotten a threat. Half a dozen other schools in the area had the same rumors.

That's the power of the Internet. It's a massive disruptor, or can be. It can also be carefully managed and manipulated. When you can't tell what's true and what's false, it makes it hard to tell the difference between something that's just false and something that's a lie.

[avebury]

18. Cecil will become the pubic face on the movement to outlaw

trophy hunting of endangered species. It will take what you call mob mentality to pressure airlines to stop transporting animal trophies, push countries into making it illegal or banning the transport of trophies, to prosecute their hunters and their guides and so on. There should have to even me an extradition request to send hunters back to the scene of their crime to face teh consequences of their actions, particularly if the hunter publicly admits to killing the endangered/protected animal.

[geek tragedy]

19. Why not compare gamergate to blacklivesmatter

while they're trying to be obtuse and wrongheaded?

Gamergate was a bunch of misogynist bottom-feeders getting their jollies by threatening to rape women.

Pointing out actual wrongdoing and seeking accountability for horrid crimes is one of the redeeming features of the Internet.