There’s a battle raging presently over at Ophelia’s and Stephanie’s over a guy by the ‘nym of Franc Hoggle. I say ‘nym, because a real-life friend of his learned of his online identity, evidently by him outing himself to this friend — leading to his friend discovering his blog, Grey Lining (no link, sorry). Said friend decided to tell Ophelia Franc’s real name so she could use it to defend herself and the rest of us by extension from his ongoing misogynist, anti-feminist, anti-FtB, anti-Ophelia and downright obsessive anti-PZ campaign.
To be clear, Franc Hoggle, despite making a great many oblique and yet threatening comments like “if I were a woman, I’d kick [Ophelia] in the cunt”, has never directly threatened anyone. In his nascent proto-Mabus state, he has compared PZ Myers, popular atheist blogger and small town professor of biology, of being like Idi Amin and Kim Jong-Il, the only admitted difference being that PZ was lacking only the opportunity to commit mass-murder.
The constant drumbeat of anti-feminist sentiment from his site and his commentariat (whom we would probably leave largely alone if they would only stop staging raiding parties!) is evidently intended to inculcate a hostile environment for our bloggers, shaming and othering and invoking fear to speak our minds lest we incur the wrath of some people who happen to think that including feminism in the skeptic and atheist blogosphere is the Wrong Direction For The Movement™. But he has made no direct threats to anyone, and short of the fact that he has visited the Melbourne-based Global Atheist Convention in 2010 under his real name, and PZ was planning on being at the 2012 GAC, he poses no physical threat to anyone in real life.
Yet.
Primarily because not many people in the real, non-blogospheric part of the world actually know that Franc Hoggle’s actions are being perpetrated by a person who goes by a different name altogether in meatspace. You know, because Franc Hoggle looks like a real name. The anonymity of the internet is being used presently to provide this person with a shield he can use to protect himself from all the attendant fallout that would inevitably result from waging a four-months-and-counting campaign of hatred against an entire gender. And anyone who supports them, especially our ostensible deity figurehead “PeeZus”.
On the internet, anonymity can allow a person to espouse a particularly unpopular or government-censored position. It can also allow you to, if you’re willing to cheat the system by developing multiple screen names or accounts on various networks, amplify your voice beyond other folks’. You can, as with the case of the You’re Not Helping guy, build “sock-puppet” accounts and pretend like you have a small chorus of like-minded individuals on your side.
Or you can slip from one identity to another after one’s utility is used up, like Franc Hoggle did with his previous identity, Felch Grogan. Over at Atheist Nexus, Felch evidently acted as unofficial vigilante, unilaterally deciding to “out” three people’s real life information for relatively minor offenses like spamming or not being an atheist. Franc has also explicitly declared that Stephanie should out him, over on the Elevatorgate Challenge #4 thread. I guess the suspense is killing him.
So the case for outing Franc is relatively solid — for one, we have a months-long internet demonization campaign completely divorced from reality which threatens to spill over into the real world; secondly, we have Hoggle using the exact same tactics rather liberally on “small-timers” who are definitively not out to cause as much emotional harm as Hoggle has managed thus far; third, people generally want Franc’s real-life acquaintances to have the opportunity to learn what he’s up to on the internet in case they need to decide to dissociate themselves with him (e.g., forcing him to “wear his colors off the field”, to steal Stephanie’s phrasing); and fourth and most relevant, Hoggle himself says we should. However, a large proportion of the bloggers at FtB know Franc’s real name, and yet none of us have yet outed him. Ophelia feels that by being told she can’t out him, the defenders of this pseudonymity are condoning further abuse, helping hold the shield that Hoggle uses to protect himself from the splash damage of his invective. And yet, she has still not outed him. She has in fact stated that she has no immediate plans to do so.
There have been a large variety of arguments made against revealing Hoggle’s real name to the internet, the primary being that we are not the adjudicators of who is abusing their pseudonymity on the internet — that we are not a Star Court, that we do not have any moral authority to make the decision with which we are presented. There is fear that if we out Hoggle for his contributions to inculcating a chilly climate for women, others’ pseudonymity will be targeted in cases where Hoggle’s supporters decide our pseudonymity is less important than the damage they feel we’re causing to the community.
Additionally, acting as a damping mechanism is the fear of escalation of the selfsame campaign of vitriol and smear, where people who are so obsessed as Hoggle has become might see any attempt to out him as a personal attack. He has already decried the “smear tactics” of forcing him to own his actions in real life as well as on the internet. Certainly his defenders consider us as engaging in a personal attack. Some have expressed fear that it is when an obsessed person loses everything — and pseudonymity is pretty easily construed as a valuable thing to lose, and could very well be the last thing Hoggle has, aside from his sycophants — that they will “go nuclear” and lash out in a potentially very violent manner. We of course cannot act as psychologists based only on the ASCII characters he’s spewed forth onto his screen at great volume, but when faced with a potentially very bad situation like that, it’s only natural to want to protect one’s self from the worst-case scenario. Delusional, perhaps, but self-defense is hard-wired, and nothing we should under any circumstances abrogate (especially if I wish to remain consistent with my opinions about Rebecca Watson and Elevator Guy).
It is my earnest opinion that the entire skeptical-atheist blogosphere (meaning, the section of the two communities where the Venn diagram overlaps) is fractious in another and rather novel way. There are schisms of which we are already keenly aware in this community, e.g. the “New Atheist” / “Accomodationist” sections of the movement. There is a similar schism in the process of forming, between those who want to encourage more female participation in the movement where it has largely been a chilly climate for women in the past; and those who feel the community is perfectly open as it stands, and any attempt to improve the climate for women would be an abrogation of men’s rights. This last group is, by all accounts, comprised of a rather significant proportion of Men’s Rights Advocates, anti-feminists, and outright misogynists.
Yes, it’s well possible to become an atheist and skeptic without critically examining the plenary role that the patriarchal establishment has had in creating the disadvantages that men face, blaming instead those women that are pushing to deconstruct the patriarchy that leads to the disadvantages that both genders face. Just because you’re appropriately skeptical on one topic doesn’t mean you’re appropriately skeptical on all topics — and in fact, you’ll often find that to justify their misogynist presuppositions, people will engage in hyper-skepticism with regard to every mundane detail of every story offered by a woman just because it was told by a woman. And I suspect that this movement we’re seeing in the skeptic-atheist blogosphere is an echo of a larger movement going on internet-wide presently, where simply blogging on the internet as a woman will earn you death and rape threats, sexist name-calling, or demands for sexual service (as though these women are simply being uppity because they are lacking in the “being stuffed” department). In fact, there is an anti-misogynist-bullying campaign hitting even the mainstream media lately, indicating that this pushback against the constant and pervasive sexism everywhere on the internet may have hit a tipping point.
I mean, hell, I’m a guy, and just blogging in support of women, I get called all manner of things by these same misogynist trolls — “mangina”, “pussy-whipped”, “puppy dog”, “parroter”, “misandrist”, “gender traitor”, and my new personal favorite, “Jason Bieber”. Among other such grade-school taunting. It’s kind of nice that I never got a chance to stand up to bullies as a kid, but I’m getting a second chance now.
But I digress.
The case against outing Franc Hoggle boils down to one of respecting the pseudonymous rights of those who wish to participate in this community without having to risk themselves in their real lives. The biggest problem with that stance is that it also entails protecting people who want to tear down this community, out of fear that they will retaliate against our community members. I strongly suspect that there will always be some faction on the internet who wants to destroy what progress we’ve made in including women in the dialog, and that faction will not always “play by the rules”. In fact, one of them has already posted some otherwise less-than-public information about Stephanie Zvan’s current employment as a bargaining chip against her outing Hoggle, though it apparently isn’t information you’d need a private investigator to obtain. I don’t see this fear of retaliation as something that should paralyze us into inaction in the face of rampant bullying. But I’m also not seeing very many cogent arguments offered with respect to Stephanie’s challenge.
Frankly, if there’s a good argument against outing Franc Hoggle that outweighs the very real trauma being done to the psychology of some of our members and to the inclusiveness we’ve hoped to foster with regard to women in the community, I haven’t seen it yet. And that’s despite 552 comments in the thread at Stephanie’s where people are explicitly asked to provide a good reason that overrides women’s right to feel safe and protected by this community’s members.
quick editing note: Your paragraph right after “go nuclear” is cut off.
Yeah — we’ve been having some problems with revision control on the backend owing to some MySQL caching we’ve implemented to alleviate the server stress. We’ve outgrown our current server (no kidding, right?) and will be upgrading again shortly.
I’ve restored the intended paragraph. And corrected an instance of “freind”, which is simply poor use of spell checking on my part.
I’m very much in support of a right to pseudonymity on the net. However, as far as I’m concerned, a right abused is a right forfeited.
He outs others, he should get outed for that alone.
@Jason, thanks for the correction. I’m working on composing a reply, for what it’s worth.
The one about kicking me in the cunt? I take it as a threat, I can tell you that much. Mind you, not of the kind that I think he’s about to put into effect, but that doesn’t zero it out.
Imma tell everyone your real name! Wait a minute… 😉
Since this Franc guy has already given his blessing, what more is there to discuss? It’s no longer a question of violating his wishes. I can’t imagine there is a valid reason not to do it.
No, that comment he made was a threat, I’m pretty sure. A threat does not have to be too explicit these days in the US to get you busted.
I think that the risk of retaliation is minimal, not because I believe that the Hogglites wouldn’t, but because I think that they’ll eventually reach that point without provokation.
It’s obvious that there’s no depths the Hogglites won’t sink to; they’re already starting to try to unearth personal information about their targets. Nobody knows what minor offense will cause them to this – but at this point, it looks like they’re just looking for a half-baked excuse, and not a valid reason.
Replying to Jason’s OP: that’s a great consolidation, and I concur with almost everything you say, but you’re still making a very fundamental assumption error throughout. You’re still talking as if outing Hoggle is going to stop him:
But there aren’t inevitable consequences for hating on women online. There aren’t even inevitable consequences for actually raping women in real life. As near as I can tell, anonymity may not have much to do with the majority of harassment:
from Melissa McEwan on Shakesville, source
If outing him has little or nothing to do with stopping him, then there’s no reason to say that someone who declines to out him, or someone who objects to it (such as myself) is necessarily enabling his abuse thereby.
There are other reasons for outing him that have nothing to do with stopping him, however, and they’re mostly emotional, as you listed above: Making a public statement against harassment, encouraging others to speak up, helping his targets here feel safer and better supported. Even being seen as not condoning his abuse is a possible emotional benefit, completely separate from actually doing anything that might stop him. Those are all valid and important reasons to take public action against a harasser.
But I still say choosing to out Hoggle AS that public action has potential real-world risks that need to be considered against the obvious social and emotional benefits. For the purposes of public statement-making, it’s useful to consider him a symbolic representative of the hordes of hateful assholes who make women’s lives hell wherever they dare speak out. But he’s not just some random hater; most of them don’t dedicate four months of their lives to obsessively targeting a few individuals. The fact that this one DOES puts him in a special category of risk, as I said in Stephanie’s thread:
IF Hoggle is this type of harasser (which none of us here can know) then we can’t assume he’ll respond like a reasonable person. His statements can’t be taken at face value. For instance, quoting you Jason:
A reasonable person would say they didn’t mind being outed because they actually didn’t mind. An obsessive type might say that because they WANT their target to put up a fight to justify their own abuse; or because the aggressor can’t tolerate any show of weakness or admit that his victim might conceivably have any power over him. Dangerously obsessive aggressors can’t tolerate any loss of face, and the more public the smackdown, the greater the insult and the more justification they feel in lashing out.
Elsewhere I compared outing Hoggle to getting a restraining order against an abuser. Most people who know anything about domestic violence know that it’s dangerous to advise a woman in an abusive situation to get one. The victim FEELS like the system’s on her side now when she’s still at a disadvantage. She may feel more protected and safe than she really is. The aggressor may see the restraining order as an intolerable insult that must be avenged, while the piece of paper itself has no power to stop him. The only benefit to a restraining order, if the aggressor chooses to disregard it, is that there’s a paper trail for the NEXT time he abuses someone. Not necessarily the original target, either; smacking down an aggressor in the workplace can result in them taking it out on their family, for instance.
That’s why I can’t in good conscience support outing Hoggle, even though I agree with everything you and Stephanie and Ophelia and PZ have said about the need to speak up against this plague of harassment of women and stop it however we can. I think this whole community believes Hoggle should be treated like any other random misogynist asshole. Every principle we hold dear supports taking public action. But there are times when standing on principle can get people hurt.
“SLIPPERY SLOPE!!!!”
“ORWELLIAN INFORMATION CONTROL!!11!!”
“FASCIST DICTATORSHIPS!!!!”
Yeah, that’s all I got.
I’ve been contemplating a blog post on this for a while. I conspicuously stayed out of Elevatorgate. I just wasn’t all that interested- I barely knew who Watson was before the shit hit the fan- I thought the whole argument was silly and I thought it would just go away. I’m no clairvoyant, obviously.
I really do feel for some of their gender concerns. I just can’t stomach all the binary “If women aren’t evil cunts you’re a gender traitor”, “Outing Hoggle is misandry” bullshit. I don’t like that people can’t have a conversation about the very real threat of rape culture on women without some asshole interjecting that being engendered male is sooo much worse. I wouldn’t come into your blog and interrupt a discussion of male circumcision with chants to “buck-up” and be glad you’re not a woman.
I think Parse makes a good point that obviates much of what Pteryxx says — in that escalation is pretty well inevitable at this point. They’re already trying to dig up dirt on Stephanie, wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to do the same with PZ or Ophelia (or that they have already done so numerous times in the past). They’re looking for ways to step up their two-minute hate to something a little longer-lasting than two minutes.
I’m kind of getting the feeling that at this stage in the game, there’s no good course of action. It’s unpalatable all the way around. Stand up to their bullying, they continue. Ignore them, they continue. Out Hoggle, they continue. Don’t out Hoggle, they continue. The obsession has already reached a point where it’s self-feeding — no matter what anyone does, it’s grist for their hate mills. Only thing that would stop them is if we went silent and let them become the True Representatives of the One True Path of Skepticism — that is, a complete free-for-all where offending people is the highest virtue.
If it was just me, I’d out Hoggle, be damned the consequences. But those consequences are, as Pteryxx points out, are potentially wider-scope than even limited to the FtB bloggers.
I disagree with this assessment. The case for many people boils down to their disbelief that misogynistic attacks constitute harassment and abuse.
I think those people are idiots. We have laws against harassment and abuse. People shouldn’t get a free pass on that simply because ZOMG ITS TEH INTARWEBZ!!!1!
Jason, a correction: the next GAC in Melbourne is actually next year – 13 to 15 April 2012 if you want precision.
On the hypothetical Venn diagram, if atheism, scepticism, and anti-feminism are shown as overlapping circles, then the slimepit crew occupy the several intersections in the anti–feminist circle.
Rebecca Watson is an especially convenient target for these people, since she largely speaks and writes on the confluence of feminism, scepticism, and atheism. But anyone within the atheist and skeptic circles who is in opposition to the virulent anti-feminism of these people could easily become a target – and I also would be inclined to guess that the rampant irrationality of the anti-feminists may be driving some previously disinterested people towards the feminist circle, thanks to the process of consciousness raising that has been occurring.
His name isn’t Joshua Meggitt, by any chance, is it?
Well, he’s in Australia. So, no. It would be nice to say there’s only one guy ranting about violent death on the internet, but there isn’t.
Phillip — I’ll update the post shortly. And yes, I am glad that this wedge is being driven and people are tuning in to realize what kind of bullshit women have to put up with in general have to deal with.
Joshua Meggitt is in Coburg, which is a suburb of Melbourne, in Australia. The same city that hoggle lives in. I’m not making any claims that it is actually him, but your statement is irrelevant.
But the comparable example is interesting anyway. Does anyone want to cry about poor Mr Meggitt now?
Oh. There’s a Coburg, Oregon too. But you’re right, the Joshua Meggitt that shows up on LinkedIn (first page of Google search) is in Australia.
Franc is a cyber bully and should be treated as such. http://www.bullyonline.org/related/cyber.htm
For a good read check out Marieke Hardy’s Men call me things. And I know their names.
Wait, really? Someone posts info on Stephanie, and that’s simply got to be a false flag operation excusing escalation? Except… where’s the escalation?
19: “Franc is a cyber bully”
How many LOLs are there in the world? Not enough to mock this idiocy. Check out the work of PZ Meyers and his crew they are all about the cyber bullying.
Please, provide links. Especially with timestamps that show that they’re not responses to responses to responses after long series of butthurts experienced by your dear and cherished Hoggle.
Haha looks like Alethea H. Claw beat me to it!
Seems like he IS a bully:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber-bullying
“Cyber-bullying can be as simple as continuing to send e-mail to someone who has said they want no further contact with the sender, but it may also include threats, sexual remarks, pejorative labels (i.e., hate speech), ganging up on victims by making them the subject of ridicule in forums, and posting false statements as fact aimed at humiliation.
Cyber-bullies may disclose victims’ personal data (e.g. real name, address, or workplace/schools) at websites or forums or may pose as the identity of a victim for the purpose of publishing material in their name that defames or ridicules them. Some cyber-bullies may also send threatening and harassing emails and instant messages to the victims, while other post rumors or gossip and instigate others to dislike and gang up on the target.”
He can’t make a reasoned argument without resorting to sexual slurs and hate speech. Any response from FTB bloggers makes him feel he’s in charge of the exchange, even when they run logical rings around him. He’s so desperate for any recognition that he is escalating and encouraging his followers to do the same. He’s a bully.
Jason: Did it occur to you that there is no such thing as bad PR? I recognized that PR plant as soon as I saw it at ERV. and if not a PR bitch move, then an infiltration by a cop-minded person.
1) someone who never shows up there, before or since plants information
2) you guys fall for it
3) you guys protect that snippet as your own cherished piece of “victimhood”
Jason–go take a look at how the cops fucked over protesters at the G20 using “blac bloc” gear. You can fiond it online fromn the G20 in Toronto.
Then, compare that tactic to all the right wing “voices” at Greg’s or Stephs blog (Pterryx arguing FOR the security industry? At Greg’s, some federal agent arguing ‘for’ the need for the cops to have guns?? Are you guys f#$@#!ng nuts to entertain that dialogue??)
Yeah–Pass The Popcorn, wasn’t it? You guys really should be ashamed of yourselves to be doing it, or condoning it, much less to believe that anyone but some right-winger WOULD do that.
It’s the tactic of controlled dissent.
Csoar: By your definition,and the terms of your link, he is even less of a bully than others who are present in the discussion.
And for the thick-skulled, just so you know, criticism of public figures is as necessary to democracy as the occasional spilling of blood–unless, of course, you are a right winger or a cop, in which case, all speech that you cannot understand, or that you can’t logically disagree with is bad.
Alethea @16 Franc doesn’t live in Melbourne or Victoria. Franc isn’t Joshua Meggitt.
I’m not claiming he is Meggitt. I’m claiming there was a similar case in which someone has been outed.
But people have previously described him as being from Melbourne. Do you know otherwise?
Yes.
Hoggle may have stepped over the line with the cunt-punt comment directed at Benson. As for the rest, it’s borderline self-parodying hysteria, especially the comparisons to Marzuke. The latter regularly showed up in comments threatening to “crucify”, “pummel”, etc. bloggers and said things like “the police cannot protect you”. Hoggle is just ridiculing you guys, mostly deservedly so. This whole “out Hoggle” fiasco is just further proof that FtB is approaching an online Jonestown level of paranoia.
Prof Myers has stated more then once that Hoggle’s level of obsession and commenting style remind him very much of Mr. Mabus when he first started spamming him emails.
Hence the whole Mabus in training thing.
No, he’s ridiculing himself. He just doesn’t realize it.
….
….
….
So… you don’t see something strange about concluding your comment with that line?
How much work would it be to compile a dossier of Hoggles works, and then give that and his real name to the psychiatric authorities. Perhaps if he was taken in for evaluation it might give him a wake up call.
Not a good idea to allow him to escalate. These problems need nipping in the bud somehow. Tricky. Whatever you do is going to result in splash damage and the knack will be to minimise that.
Abortion eliminates a lot more potential women than men.
It also eliminates a lot more minorities that whites.
As David Duke said, if not for Roe v Wade there would be 20 Million more blacks in this country than there are.
Why do you think the old white men on the Supreme Account REALLY approved it?
The only thing that leaves me a bit hesitant on whether Hoggle should be outed is the recent example of DawahFilms vs Thunderf00t.
julian, the difference is that I’m being deliberately hyperbolic in that sentence, whereas comparisons to Marzuke appear to be entirely literal.
And PZ may say that, yes, but considering that he’s a very frequent target of Hoggle’s ridicule, you’d have to be an idiot not to take with a grain of salt.
In much the same way he was targeted by Mr. Mabus. That’s the point. It isn’t meant to mean that Mr. Hoggle is as bad as Mr. Mabus or that he posses a similar threat to people’s well being. It’s meant to communicate his behavior reminds some very much of David Mabus in the early days and that this is worrying, not only for others but for Mr. Hoggle as well since that sort of obsessiveness is not healthy.
“It’s meant to communicate his behavior reminds some very much of David Mabus in the early days and that this is worrying, not only for others but for Mr. Hoggle as well since that sort of obsessiveness is not healthy.”
This is a little disingenuous. If I recall correctly, Marzuke initially became notorious on Pharyngula for ranting about Nostradamus and claiming that Randi had cheated him out of the million dollar prize. I’ve been commenting on Pharyngula long enough to know that obsessive trolls (Robert O’Brien, “hoody”, usually creationists or Christianists of some sort) came and went, and didn’t phase PZ at all. The simple fact of the matter is that Franc Hoggle has gotten under the skin of a few bloggers here, and they’ve resorted to feigning fear for personal safety as a fig-leaf over their petty retaliatory measures.
In the atheist chat of which I am a member, we had a Christian gentleman (I use the term loosely) come in to complain bitterly about Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris, and the way in which he felt Christians were being shut out of science jobs in academia. He claimed to be a Christian and scientist of a certain very specific type who had recently published an article on a very specific topic in his narrow field. His choice of username was evidently a common variation on his real name, and we identified his IP address (we check routinely to see if a new chatter is an old troll sockpuppeting). He also made some claims based on what he said was his personal experience. While doing so, he let drop a few other pieces of personal information.
This individual was arguing that we should accept his arguments based on his credentials and experience, but he was shy about telling us anything about his identity. OK, now. We don’t simply accept “because I said so” arguments. (If we did that, we’d be religious.) So I checked his claims and other information out, and in less than fifteen minutes I was able to identify him, with a high degree of confidence, as a certain individual.
I told the six or so chatters who I thought he was, and one of them thought I was way out of line in doing so. I agreed that I probably shouldn’t have done so in the main chat. I didn’t think I was in the wrong, though, because the man was using his identity and credentials to argue that we should give weight to his arguments. I thought that all I was doing was independently verifying his identity claims.
When someone’s a public intellectual and insists that we should take his unvarnished word for it when he makes an argument, because he’s a Famous Scientist, don’t you think it’s legitimate to check his identity and qualifications, even when he isn’t as forthcoming as you’d like him to be?
@TylerD
Those pharyngula trolls were pharyngula trolls. They hadn’t branched out like Mr. Mabus did or Franc Hoggle has. They were, mostly contained within the confines of pharyngula and there was no indication these were people he’d be at risk of dealing with out irl. The same cannot be said of Mr. Hoggle (as he seems to be an active member of the skeptic/atheist/thingie community) so it’s natural to be a litte more weary of him than you would someone else.
And yes you are right, Franc Hoggle has likely gotten under Prof Myers skin in a way most trolls don’t. But that doesn’t dismiss the comparisons to Mr. Mabus. In fact it becomes a very decent explanation for why Mr. Hoggle has achieved what most people don’t; finding out there’s someone out there you may very well be meeting or have dealt with who harbors a resentment towards you and your friends that is eerily similar to that of another man who’s obsession and mental health have landed him in a psych ward.
They’re feigning fear? Care to back that up some how? It sounds like something you couldn’t possibly know and it smacks of an incredibly dismissive and condescending attitude towards others.
Going back to Joshua Meggitt – definitely not hoggle.
Don’t forget, everyone at FTB knows who hoggle is, and can tell anyone else who’s curious. Lots of people know who hoggle is at this point. It’s not going to stay sekrit for long.
Oh and don’t take Tyler D for an impartial observer – his first entry into this dispute was to call me a cunt. Nothing else – that was the entirety of his comment: just: cunt.
That’s Tyler D.
Yep. And horror of horrors, you let his comment out into the sunshine for all to see, which you weren’t supposed to do according to the poor censored folk at ERV’s! I hope he’s really proud of it, because that is exactly the reason why I have zero respect for him.
I’m thinking my next post will have to be on the difference between moderation and censorship. You’d think it’s easy to tell the difference — censorship is when a person’s voice is systematically rubbed out of public sight wherever it happens to be. Since nobody at FtB has any ability to delete comments on other blogs, they’re not being censored.
[…] necessary on the internet broke out. Interestingly, despite my not seeing any good reason to keep Franc Hoggle’s identity a secret, I consider most of the points on anonymity to be absolutely correct. Anonymity protects people […]
“Someone posts info on Stephanie, and that’s simply got to be a false flag operation excusing escalation”
Um…you can’t be serious? If you were, you would consider that as an option. But this post is part of that escalation, and there are others. She is posting a few herself. Rapeflation in cyberspace works that way.
I can’t state with certainty that it is or isn’t just some PR B.S., but the fact that you would dismiss the option immediately reveals that you likely know I am right–because any actual ‘security’ anxiety or concern would have considered that possibility. It also sort of reveals a naivete on your part, or a willing complicity.
What I can say, is that if anyone involved actually gave a shit, and wanted to be an adult, and also, to prove that it was a ‘real’ DOX,and not more Pheminist orchestrated PR, then, like adults everywhere, they would write Ms. Abbie Smith a nice letter, and request an IP–instead of slamming, bashing, abusing and harassing Ms. Smith all over the net for her choice to allow an open, uncensored debate–the kind adults have.
Which team YOU GUYS might also consider if you were adults, and not merely plotting a ‘troll honeypot’. But who said adults were even IN this conversation?
And, contrary to popular belief, it is counterproductive to reference or cite because it lends support and bloghits to misandrist, man-hating crypto fascists, supporters of male rape, and bloggers who generate revenue by labeling people with their dogmatic approach to conversation, and generating web traffick.
Yes, Porn, I am serious. While I’m willing to entertain the possibility that someone dredged up something about Stephanie that she herself would not be harmed by, building a false-flag op that would justify some amount of escalation, I’m not going to default to it as the most reasonable explanation. You also pointed ERV’s denizens to me explicitly, before I joined this particular permutation of the ongoing internet sexism fight, pointing out how utterly boring I am. I’m not going to say you were just trying to drum up hits for me out of some twisted sense that you’d be doing me a solid. While that’s also an explanation, it’s not the most parsimonious. It’s not one I’d accept without you at least suggesting it first. I don’t generally talk about all the unevidenced options that I dismiss when I make suggestions about what happened where and when, so I simply assume unless better evidence comes along that someone on the anti-FtB side of the fence is responsible. And since there are no real ill consequences of someone reporting on their Google-Fu, I’m not terribly worried about it.
If you’d like to doublecheck with ERV, I’d also be interested to find out whether “Pass the Popcorn” was an actor in this play already. I would be surprised, however, if it turned out to be someone from FtB’s side. Surprised and irritated, because I fucking hate false flags.
As for corollary evidence, there’s apparently the incoming Google searches including her name, and the top one was for “Stephanie Zvan analyst”. (Another was, she tells me, “stephanie zvan is awesome”, which was the oblique “that made me giggle” comment at her blog.) So someone’s actually researching her, who doesn’t have ready access to the information off the top of their heads.
Another bit of evidence is that this particular bit of information isn’t as important as the fact that someone’s digging. Stephanie doesn’t have any secrets online, she’s said. So anything that’s actually on a Google search, even twenty pages deep, is probably not terribly incriminating unless they were looking for someone to go troll and get her in trouble with her job. I likewise don’t talk about where I work, not because I think they’d care about my opinions, but because they don’t involve my workplace in any way, shape or form. I’m pretty scrupulous about keeping my work and home lives separate. And where there are incursions, they’re in the direction of more work, less home.
So yes — the event of “dropping docs” on Stephanie is actually not terribly damaging, and not terribly important, and Stephanie’s said so herself. It’s not there to excuse any escalation. And given that there isn’t an escalation — I don’t know if Ophelia’s planning on revealing Hoggle’s real name any time soon — I don’t see how you can default to the least skeptical position automatically. Perhaps, since you’re on better terms with ERV than anyone from FtB, you could ask for the IP and provide it to me? You know how to get a hold of me privately, you’ve done it before.
What an interesting doscussion. You guys really know how to shit on your own toes don’t you? Go back there, re-read what you said, and then ask yourself what trust is; consider this below:
Imagine–just imagine this once plausible scenario: there’s a real big story happening somewhere! And in journalism those who break big stories are called sources, not journalists- someone who has a story needs an outlet for a story!
Go look up the video that pornanalyses suggested, and then we can talk. I think I know what he is saying.
Have you seen this?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/5912936/CIA-following-Twitter-Facebook
Your perspective, evidenced above for all times sake on the internet, puts in to the official record that you are not to be trusted in matters of–shall I say ‘activist’ matters? Really, ask yourself.
Which reminds me of this presidential candidate whose cousin I was talking to the other day…oh, never mind: your whole crew just outed yourselves as potential allies in anything but immature name games and trolling.
When real journalists get real stories, they get them from sources, not from blog flame wars and high school name games.
Good luck with that freethought revolution you are starting though! Try not to burn yourselves too much with all that Machiavellian pettiness and name-fame whoring.
You speak MRA troll? I have a couple questions, do they use dwarven runes or do they not have any kind of written language. What porn posts often looks like a random collection of syllables and occasionally words he’s picked up and I imagine if I saw the real deal I may (finally) be able to communicate with the trolls.
[…] aspect of this campaign and one possible course of action that we’ve stumbled across, having had Franc Hoggle’s identity dropped into our laps by one of his real-life acquaintances, has repercussions that have drawn out a contingent of slimepit denizens to amp up the silencing […]
The case against outing Franc Hoggle boils down to one of respecting the pseudonymous rights of those who wish to participate in this community without having to risk themselves in their real lives.
If you used the US Mail to harass and threaten people anonymously, you WOULD be in deep shit if your identity was learned.
If you threatened people anonymously over a phone line using a pay phone but were caught at it, you would be in deep shit if your identity was learned.
If you try to solicit children anonymously over the internet for sex and get caught at it, you’re in deep fucking shit when your identity is learned.
So just why is it that threatening and harassing WOMEN anonymously over the Internet, gets anyone a free pass?
I call bullshit.
I call it a prime example of MISOGYNY.
Your perspective, evidenced above for all times sake on the internet, puts in to the official record that you are not to be trusted in matters of–shall I say ‘activist’ matters? Really, ask yourself.
Projection on a massive scale. Who the fuck are you, and why should anyone care what you think?
Which reminds me of this presidential candidate whose cousin I was talking to the other day…
Hello, John Scumbag Kwok. Hint: Name dropping won’t work here. People here known powerful people, too. You’d be surprised who some of us know.
oh, never mind: your whole crew just outed yourselves as potential allies in anything but immature name games and trolling.
More projection. By the way, do you have a point?
When real journalists get real stories, they get them from sources, not from blog flame wars and high school name games.
So you’re stupid about journalism, too?
The best journalists get stories from EVIDENCE. Sources better have verifiable EVIDENCE, moron.
This is not a blog flame war, cupcake. Numerous female bloggers–SOURCES, if you will–have reams of EVIDENCE about the scumbaggery of misogynistic pieces of shit.
Deal with it, douchebag.
Good luck with that freethought revolution you are starting though!
Thanks! It’s going great, since you’re too fucking stupid to have noticed!
<iTry not to burn yourselves too much with all that Machiavellian pettiness and name-fame whoring.
Try to get over yourself, cupcake. Sexism is real and it has serious consequences.
Deal with that, too, you passive-aggressive bigot.