The Internet’s worst people have a new woman to hate: Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones

@ moggie

Since the key case of Godfrey -v- Demon (wow, that’s so long ago now) the English courts’ approach to service providers on the Internet has essentially been:

OK, we appreciate there’s too much traffic for you to actively monitor it; but if a victim brings something to your attention then you do have a responsiblity to investigate and remove the offending item if it breaches the law.

They’ll take into account things like how busy something is and available resources in terms of speed of response, but you can’t just wash your hands of it.

ETA: US law is a bit different as they apply ‘carrier immunity’ to internet stuff so it’s like how you can’t sue a phone company of someone harrasses you over the telephone, but the law is constantly evolving.

It’s interesting to note that this ban came about a week after German police raided the homes of dozens of self-proclaimed neo-nazis. They released a statement on the raids that said, among other things, the allowance of radical hate-speech online usually leads to radical hate-crimes in the real world and that if Twitter wasn’t going to take a stand on people calling themselves nazis, then they would.

@JSun : do you have a link with more information for that ? It look like a good news at least.

Thanks.

I really don’t know how Breitbart and Milo think.

They don’t.

@Weatherwax

“I don’t recall McCarthy’s body shape being fuel for even one joke.”

This is heartening for me. While I have enjoyed McCarthy’s performances in general, her indulgence in “conventionally unattractive” body-shaming humor has always left a bad aftertaste for me. It’s one of the reasons I don’t seek out her films after a very brief surge of loving her in “Bridesmaids”.

I would love to see her leave this particular type of humor behind, she’s funny in her own right without that hacky schtick. I may change my mind and go see Ghostbusters at the theater rather than wait for it to be available on streaming video.

Once again Milo is questioning his free speech being taken away and somehow they are trying to make the ban seem anti-gay?

Milo’s douchebaggery level just keeps increasing. It’s through the fucking roof.

Using his sexuality as a shield while encouraging racist and misogynistic harassment. Does that mean I get to call ol’ Milo a SJW now? Because I’m pretty sure that fits at least one of their definitions.

It seems like some variation of this shit takes place every other week now. Twitter really needs to find some countermeasure to this before most of its userbase jumps ship and it turns into a barren wasteland where only the distant sound of trolls eating each other breaks the silence. Whichever it goes with, it can’t happen soon enough.

… and somehow they are trying to make the ban seem anti-gay? I really don’t know how Breitbart and Milo think.

I’ve been called anti-gay for saying Milo Yiannopoulos is a POS of the highest order. I am gay, so clearly they aren’t concerned with facts. Just their persecution complex.

Whilst “Dont feed the trolls” is a pithy phrase, the euphemistic language obscures both what’s actually happening and what people are in fact expecting victims to do.

Of course it is entirely up to the victim how they deal with abuse and it’s not for anyone else to prescribe what is an ‘acceptable’ response.

But if we use plain language that phrase actually means:

“You are obliged to remain passive and not react in anyway in the face of targeted abuse of the most hurtful, vicious and dangerous kind regardless of the harm it causes you; otherwise you, rather than the abusers, somehow bear responsibility for that abuse”

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/2f/96/5f/2f965fbfaf3b608bef8e2afb36a97f31.jpg

Thank you @Weatherwax, I really like what you’ve outlined here as strengths of the movie. I was underwhelmed by the trailer, but also I just don’t see as many films at the movie theater as I used to, what with it being an hour’s drive each way, and having so many streaming options.

But everything I’ve heard so far (with the exception of that terrible trailer) has sounded very positive.

Sounds like there might be some freshness to that script after all.

On the ‘don’t feed the troll’ thing, I feel like it made sense in the context of old-school forums dedicated to specific things. Back then you would typically have a single troll in a largely peaceful community, the troll would often be a sock for a real member of the community and would troll by starting offensive threads rather than picking on one particular user. It made sense for the rest of the community to deal with them by ignoring and carrying on as normal.

Modern social media bears absolutely no resemblance to the boards of old, and to be honest I feel like even using the term ‘trolling’ to cover the vile abuse that gets heaped on people is downplaying that abuse, making it seem like a tasteless joke rather than the deliberate, unrelenting campaign of harassment that it is.

My brother and I figured out how useless the “don’t feed the trolls” advice was at an early age. This was pre-Internet though (god I feel old, and I’m not even 30 yet), so I’m referring to bullies in the real world.

The grown ups would always say how bullies only do what they do because they felt weak and helpless in their lives and so they picked on others to make themselves feel more powerful. Therefore, so they claimed, ignoring their antics would deprive them of that power and they would leave you alone.

My brother didn’t see it that way, claiming that if he tried to ignore the people that were irritating him they would just get louder. That’s exactly what happens in cyberspace, with trolls doubling down and lashing out at anything around them.

It’s this sort crap that keeps me away from social media, and society as a whole for that matter.

There’s definitely a breed of troll that you deal with by not acknowledging them. They’re the ones who show up in a Twitch chat and say “This game sucks”.

This shit is not only not trolling and not only doesn’t stop when it’s ignored, the target’s silence is its goal. They do this knowing full well that, if their target speaks out, there will be a chorus of “Don’t feed the trolls”. They know full well that they can count on their target’s ostensible allies to provide them cover by making the conversation all about how their target is victim-ing wrong instead of about how bigoted abuse should get you permanently banned from Twitter.