(no subject)

[olivermoss]

With Andrew Tate, Kiwi Farms, etc I keep hearing people hand wringing about how trying to silence them is going to just boost them. The Streisand Effect!

During the 2016 election I was roasted online for even being aware of things like Breitbart and Steve Bannon, who were all well known a year later and *not* from 'liberals spreading the word'. Most people were caught off guard by how bad they were, and a lot were dismissive of how bad they were at first because 'if they are so bad, we'd have heard about it'.

I do glance at the Philly DeFranco show daily to see what the topics are. His coverage is too shallow to be useful on any one topic and he sometimes gets the wrong end of the stick entirely, but his show is about fast moving topics. (If you don't know, he basically has a 'internet news' morning how meant to catch people up on stuff. He's not a bad guy, but the nature of the whole concept means his coverage is sometimes too early to the scene and wrong. But his coverage is so broad it's useful.) Anyway, when the Andrew Tate thing was blowing up he featured a clip from one specific youtuber who said she wasn't going to cover Tate because of how the YouTube algorithm works and how'd she only boost him. He showed this as an example of why sometimes it's better to 'suffocate' these things with a lack of attention. But, that was NOT what she was saying. She was saying that she has a very specific niche and coverage on her channel specifically would be a bad move, not that coverage was bad.

I've been on DW for a while and people do not like change. Denise didn't specify exactly why we were leaving cloudflare, but enough people know that the comments to posts about the disruptions to inboxes and captchas and VPNs have been mostly supportive... that's because most people know what is up and like that this site played a small part in disrupting a site dedicated to causing suicide. Some times they'd pick specific victims, sometimes they'd just spam LGBT+ suicide hotlines to keep people from getting through. How would Kiwi Farms have been forced offline if they weren't better known these days? Previous attempts, Contrapoint's Cringe video, etc all played a part. At no point in the past how-ever-many-days has anyone asked me what Kiwi Farms is or expressed that it was their first time hearing about it. Just a few years ago, the vast majority of people I interact with online would not have known.

Most of the time, attention to and explainers on these sites and people are best. There may be specific places and channels that they are best left off of, but that doesn't mean coverage in general is bad. Not knowing about this stuff is dangerous. Imagine being a trans creator a few years ago and not knowing to batten down the hatches against a Kiwi Farms dox? Imagine knowing about Kiwi Farms and having people think you are having a mental breakdown from being overly online when you talk about it? Imagine the impact on DW if the work / disruption / cost of leaving Cloudflare was being taken on without community support?

There are times and places to not mention things or to be vague, but that does not mean... did I just write a long post because I am annoyed at Philly D's sloppy internet news reporting? Yeah, I think I did.

Comments

[mistressofmuses]

I don't always catch his show regularly, but I generally like it as a broad view, though yeah, sometimes not the best takes ever.

But... yeah, no. Definitely better to shine a light on some of these shitty groups. Some fringe one-off asshole? Maybe it works to let him smother under the weight of his own douchebaggery. But these groups that have organization and actively recruit among other angry online assholes? Once a group poses any actual threat to people, it does far more good to draw attention to them (as warning to potential targets, in making "normal" people react with the type of disgust that ensures there's no normalization going on) than harm by giving them that attention.

Sunlight as disinfectant and all. Bad shit thrives in anonymity and being under the radar and pretending to be innocuous. Not letting them do that is important, actually

[olivermoss]

I think it's the 'Well if you ignored the bullies they'd just go away, It's your fault for feeding the trolls!' implication and the idea that ignoring them is somehow more mature.

Yeah, one off stuff should be ignored. Individuals no traction should be ignored. But I am sick to death of being treated like I am the problem for even knowing the dangers exist. Keeping this stuff secret is just letting minorities be preyed upon. It also lets people use dog whistles to find allies. I've watched my guild leaders go from not realizing when coded stuff is happening in chat to being very hardline about certain things.

[mistressofmuses]

It really does feel about the same... for being "conventional wisdom", "just ignore them" has never fucking worked.

I don't think "just ignore the bad things!" is actually the mature option, even if that seems to be the usual line. That also easily gets victim-blamey in the "well, if you weren't so LOUD about it, they'd leave you alone" sense.

I'm sorry people have been assholes about you trying to be aware/make others aware of potential dangers and threats. I'd love for those potential threats to never materialize and just fade away into irrelevance... but since that can't be counted upon, I'd rather KNOW the dangers that are out there, not be blindsided when suddenly it's a very big problem.

And that's also a big thing - recognizing dogwhistles and coded terms requires discernment. If you aren't familiar with the terms and HOW they're used, they can seem utterly innocuous! In some contexts sometimes they ARE innocuous! The only way to become familiar enough with the shady, threatening uses is... if people talk about them!

[olivermoss]

I feel like I've said 'it's better to treat people like adults and let them know risks' in a few of our conversations.

I feel like with political stuff, it's a bit of a serpent eating it's own tail. People on the left are so paranoid about seeming cringe or like a 'loony lefty' they don't want anyone to ever seem like they might be overreacting because it will drive people away. So that feels the idea that it's being mature and presentable to ignore the bad things, and then the bad things get to thrive.

Yeah, it's good for people running spaces to know dog whistles but... knowing them and keeping on top of them is a big mental load. When they were newer to streaming me and some other people had to have some very awkward conversations with them at times.

[mistressofmuses]

It comes up fairly often because it's true! Information - ACCURATE information - is one of the best things that you can have or that you can provide to others. I desperately WANT good information that will give me the opportunity to make my own decisions and determinations about things. I don't want to stumble into things totally in the dark, especially if they're the kind of thing that could be dangerous.

There's so much with political stuff that is truly about optics rather than accuracy or consistency or being genuine... and that for me is very frustrating. It's just an extension of respectability politics, and while I understand there is value in portraying your thoughts a certain way, it gets to a point where caring more about how it looks than what it says is utterly unhelpful.

Dog whistles are by nature difficult to keep track of, and if you're not part of one of the groups being targeted by certain ones, it's that much harder. And also by nature, there are constantly new ones to replace the ones that become too well-known and recognizable. It is a LOT to keep on top of.

[olivermoss]

Respectability politics always seems to be a losing game. Howard Dean's campaign fell apart after a single 'woo'. Al Gore took a beating and is still the butt of many jokes for a 100% factually accurate statement he made about his role in early internet infrastructure as part of government committee. It's like we're letting the other side set the rules, change the rules at their own whim, while we jump through hoops.

And yeah, I'll never understand people's reluctance to just say 'hey, yeah, y is x, btw' Just give people info. Say things. Don't obfuscate all the dangers and other things out there.

[mistressofmuses]

It's absolutely a losing game! It's a false appeal to some sort of "I promise that if you just make it perfect enough we'll like it" that doesn't exist. It doesn't MATTER how palatable a concept is made, how much it's watered down, and how many edges are filed off; it doesn't buy respect or consideration or fairness, it just harms the people who aren't "perfect" enough.
But there is no such thing - it's a game of constantly moving goalposts, trying for some reason to appease a group of people who do not care and do not want to care. Wasting time trying to perform to their satisfaction will never be anything *more* than a waste of time.

(And like... sometimes there are things worth considering in how you make your argument or state your position. That's part of providing good info - having it be accurate and articulated in a useful way. But that's not at all the same demand.)

Exactly!! I understand wariness about unsourced callout-style shit, but statements about "hey, this is actually a thing this group does" is so wildly necessary! How is anyone supposed to know about things that present dangers to them or those they care about if no one is allowed to talk about them?

[olivermoss]

It's like people on the left (I hate using that term but what else is an umbrella terms for dems and leftists who aren't dems?) have this weird youngest-sibling inferiority complex like we're scared deep down that the GOP are really the adults in the room. Urgh, that's a big topic all on it's own. I mean, the whole rise of breadtube was pretty much some people going 'okay, we will explain our positions with logic' rather than just the typical way a lot of people on the left react to any challenge.

[mistressofmuses]

Yeah, I don't think there's a better term for trying to include all the varying factions. But ain't that the truth? I don't know if it's the "common wisdom" that "everyone" gets more conservative as they get older, and that life experience somehow turns you into a conservative... That hasn't been my experience in any of my groups, but it seems like there's this deep-seated fear that yeah, the conservatives are the real grown ups, so we have to play by their rules in some fashion. And that's so self-defeating.