Activism & Doxing: Stephen Miller, ICE And How Internet Platforms Have No Good Options
from the and-for-fun,-the-cfaa-and-scraping dept
Last month, at the COMO Content Moderation Summit in Washington DC, I co-ran a "You Make the Call" session with Emma Llanso from CDT. The idea was to turn the audience into a content moderation/trust & safety team of a fictionalized social media platform. We showed numerous examples of content or accounts that were "flagged" and then showed the associated terms of service, and had the entire audience vote on what to do. One of the fictional examples involved someone posting a link to a third-party website "contactinfo.com" claiming to have the personal phone and email contact info of Harvey Weinstein and urging people "you know what to do!" with a hashtag. The relevant terms of service included this: "You may not post personal information about others without their consent."
The audience voting was pretty mixed on this. 47% of the audience punted on the question, choosing to escalate it to a supervisor as they felt they couldn't decide whether to leave the content up or take it down. 32% felt it should just be taken down. 10% said to just leave it up and another 10% said to put a content warning flag on the content. We joked a bit during the session that some of these examples were "ripped from the headlines" but apparently we predicted the headlines in this case, because there are two stories this week that touch on exactly this kind of thing.
Example one is the story that came out yesterday, in which Twitter chose to start locking the accounts of users who were either tweeting Trump senior advisor Stephen Miller's cell phone number, or merely linking to a Splinternews article that published his cell phone number (which I'm guessing has since been changed...).
Splinternews decided to publish Miller's phone number after multiple news reports attributed the inhumane* decision to separate children of asylum seekers from their parents to Miller, who has defended the plan. Other reports noted that Miller is enjoying all of the controversy over this policy. Splinternews, citing Donald Trump's own history of giving out the phone numbers of people who anger him, thought it was only fair that people be able to reach out to Miller.
This is -- for fairly obvious reasons -- a controversial decision. I think most news organizations would never do such a thing. Not surprisingly, the number spread rapidly on Twitter, and Twitter started locking all of those accounts until the tweets were removed. That seems at least well within reason under Twitter's rules that explicitly state:
You may not publish or post other people's private information without their express authorization and permission.
But, that question gets a lot sketchier when it comes to locking the accounts of people who merely linked to the Splinternews article. A la our fictionalized example, those people are not actually publishing or posting anyone's private info. They are posting a link to a third party that purports to have that information. And, of course, in this case, the situation is complicated even more than our fictionalized example because Splinternews is a news organization (owned by Univision), and Twitter also has said that it has a "newsworthy" exception to its rules.
Personally, I think it's the wrong call to lock the accounts of those linking to the news story, but... as we discovered in our own sample version, it's not an easy call and lots of people have strong opinions one way or the other. Indeed, part of the reason why Twitter may have decided to do this was that supporters of Trump/Miller started calling out the article as an example of doxxing and claiming that leaving it up showed that Twitter was unfairly biased against them. It is a no win situation.
And, of course, it wouldn't take long before people started coming up with clever workarounds, such as Parker Higgins (citing the infamous 09F9 controversy in which the MPAA tried to censor the revelation of a cryptographic key that broke the MPAA's preferred DRM, and people responded by posting variations on the code, including a color chart in which the hex codes of the colors were the code), who posted the following:
— Parker Higgins (@xor) June 20, 2018
Would Twitter lock his account for posting a two color image? At some point, the whole thing gets... crazy. That's not to argue that revealing someone's private cell phone number is a good thing -- no matter how you feel about Miller or the border policy. But just on the content moderation side, it puts Twitter in a no win situation in which people are going to be pissed off no matter what it does. Oh, and of course, it also helped create something of a Streisand Effect. I certainly hadn't heard about the Splinternews article or that people were passing around Miller's phone number until the story broke about Twitter whac'ing at moles on its site.
And that takes us to the second example, which happened a day earlier -- and was also in response to people's quite reasonable* anger about the border policy. Sam Lavigne decided to make something of a public statement about how he felt about ICE by scraping** LinkedIn for profile information on everyone who works at ICE (and who has a LinkedIn public profile). His database included 1595 ICE employees. He wrote a Medium blog post about this, posted the repository to Github and another user, Russel Neiss, created a Twitter account (@iceHRgov) that tweeted out info about each of those employees from that database. Notice that none of those are linked. That's because all three companies took them down (though you can still find archives of the Medium post). There was also an archive of the Github repository, but it has since been memory-holed as well.
Again... this raises a lot of questions. Github claimed that it removed the page for "violating community guidelines" -- specifically around "doxxing and harassment, and violating a third party's privacy." Medium claimed that the post violated rules against "doxxing" and specifically the "aggregation of publicly available information to target, shame, blackmail, harass, intimidate, threaten or endanger." Twitter, in Twitter's usual way, is not commenting. LinkedIn put out a statement saying: "We do not support or condone what immigration authorities are doing at the border, but we can’t allow the illegal use of our member data. We will take appropriate action to ensure our members’ data is protected and used properly."
Many people point out that all of this feels kind of ridiculous, seeing as this is all public info that the individuals chose to reveal about themselves on a public website. While Medium's expansive definition of doxxing makes things interesting by including an intent standard in releasing the info, even if it is publicly available, the whole thing, again, demonstrates how complex this is. I know that some people will claim that these are easy calls -- but, just for fun, try flipping the equation a bit. If you're anti-Trump, how would you feel if a prominent alt-right person compiled and posted your info -- even if publicly available -- on a site where alt-right folks gather, with the clear intent of having hoards of Trump trolls harassing you. Be careful the precedent you set.
If it were up to me, I think I would have come down differently than Medium, Github and Twitter in this case. My rationale: (1) all of this info was public information (2) that those individuals chose to place on a public website, knowing it was public (3) they are all employed by the federal government, meaning they are public servants and (4) while the compilation was done by someone who is clearly against the border policy, Lavigne never encouraged or suggested harassment of ICE agents. Instead, he wrote: "While I don’t have a precise idea of what should be done with this data set, I leave it here with the hope that researchers, journalists and activists will find it useful." He separately noted that he believed "it's important to document what's happening, and by whom." That seems to actually make a strong point in favor of leaving the data up, as there is value in documenting what's happening.
That said, reasonable people can disagree on this question (even if there should be no disagreement about how inhumane the policy at the border has been*) of what is the appropriate way for different platforms to handle these situations -- taking into account that this situation could play out with very different players in the future, and there is value in being consistent.
This is the very point that we were demonstrating with that game that we ran at COMO. Many people seem to think that content moderation decisions are easy: you just take down the content that is bad, and leave up the content that is good. But it's pretty rare that the content is easily classified in one of those categories. There is an enormous gray area -- and much of it involves nuance and context, which is not always easy to come by -- and which may look incredibly different depending on where you sit and what kind of world you think we live in. I still think there are strong arguments that the platforms should have left much of the content discussed in this post up, but I'm not the one making that call.
When we ran that game in DC last month, it was notable that on every single example we used -- even the ones we thought were "easy calls" -- there were some audience members who selected every option in the game. That is, there was not a single situation in our examples in which everyone agreed what should be done. Indeed, since there were four options, and all four were chosen by at least one person in every single example, it shows just how difficult it really is to make these calls. They are subjective. And what plays into that subjective decision making includes your own views, your own perspective, your own reading of the content and the rules -- and sometimes third party factors, including how people are reacting and what public pressure you're getting (in both directions). It is an impossible situation.
This is also why the various calls to mandate that platforms do this or face legal liability are even more ridiculous and dangerous. There are no "right" answers to these decisions. There are solutions that seem better to lots of people, but plenty of others will disagree. If you think you know the "right" way that all of these questions should be handled, I guarantee you're wrong, and if you were in charge of these platforms, you'd end up feeling just as conflicted as well.
This is why it's really time to start thinking about and talking about better solutions. Simply calling on platforms to be the final arbiters of what goes online and what stays offline is not a workable solution.
* Just a side note: if you are among the small minority of ethically-challenged individuals who gets upset that I describe the policy as inhumane: fuck off. The policy is inhumane and if you're defending it, you should seriously take time to re-evaluate your ethics and your life choices. On a separate note, if you are among the people who are then going to try to justify this policy as "but Obama/others did it too," the same applies. Whataboutism is no argument here. The policy is inhumane no matter who did it, and pointing out that others did it too doesn't change that. And, as inhumane as it may have been in the past, it has been severely ramped up. There is no defense for it. Attempting to defend it only serves to out yourself as a horrible person who has issues. Seriously: get help.
** This doesn't even fit anywhere in with this story, but scraping LinkedIn is (stupidly) incredibly dangerous. Linkedin has a history of suing people for scraping public info off of LinkedIn. And even if it's lost some of those cases, the company appears to take a pretty aggressive stance towards scrapers. We can argue about how ridiculous this is, but, dammit, this post is already too long talking about other stuff, so discuss it separately.
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Filed Under: activism, content moderation, doxing, harassment, ice, internet platforms, phone numbers, stephen miller, takedowns
Companies: github, linkedin, medium, twitter
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Except for the part about the #Trumpcamps, those are obviously unconscionable - that is an easy answer.
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Newsworthy...
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It's a no-brainer. Change my number and move on.
"One of the fictional examples involved someone posting a link to a third-party website "contactinfo.com" "
You don't take it down. What if it were a link, to a page with a link and so on. How far does one go?
This policy and the people behind it get everything they deserve no matter where it comes from. (Insert Godwin's law here.)
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Re:
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Outrage
> justify this policy as "but Obama/others did it too," the
> same applies. Whataboutism is no argument here. The
> policy is inhumane no matter who did it, and pointing out
> that others did it too doesn't change that.
While I agree it's inhumane and it's inhumane no matter who did it, it's not 'whataboutism' to point out that those who are so outraged now and are clutching their pearls and running for the fainting couches over this policy said absolutely *nothing* about it when it was being done by President Hope & Change, so the all the hysterical outrage now rings a more than little false and has quite a whiff of political opportunism to it.
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Re: Outrage
While I agree it's inhumane and it's inhumane no matter who did it, it's not 'whataboutism' to point out that those who are so outraged now and are clutching their pearls and running for the fainting couches over this policy said absolutely nothing about it when it was being done by President Hope & Change, so the all the hysterical outrage now rings a more than little false and has quite a whiff of political opportunism to it.
Two thoughts on this from others. I tend to agree with this from Parker Higgins:
https://twitter.com/xor/status/1009111208337735680
"So in response to "Where was the outraged then?" First, it doesn't matter. Here is the outrage now. But second, it was always there, simmering beneath the surface, and if you haven't seen it then maybe you're not the expert on these issues that you thought you were."
My other thought is the one raised by comic John Mulaney here: https://vimeo.com/267873811
Many people didn't call it out during the Obama presidency because -- generally speaking -- people felt that he was at least marginally competent in what he was doing. We can disagree about that -- and you can go through our archives and find that we here at Techdirt called him out on lots of awful behavior around forever war, drone strikes, torture apologia, mass surveillance, criminal justice, asset seizure and more. But the point Mulaney makes is a valid one. People didn't pay attention not because of "hopey changey" but because they generally had trust in what the government was doing.
But now that there's a horse in the hospital, people are paying attention because of all the craziness. And that's why it's good that people are using that set of circumstances to become aware of the bad stuff. And the proper response is to then FOCUS in on stopping the awful, inhumane practices. Not to bitch about how you're the fucking hipster who knew about it before everyone else, or to attack people for finally realizing something inhumane was going on.
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Re: Re: Outrage
1. No he didn't. Not to this degree, not with this goal,not to this level of inhumanity. If that were true, it wouldn't have required a deliberate policy change to put this into the news. Pretending otherwise is stupid. There WAS family separation under Obama, just like there IS still measles in the world. It's just not as widespread or horrible as it used to be. That degree makes a difference.
2. Even if none of the above were true, the "Obama did it too!" folks would essentially be people presented with a crises and then, instead of focusing on that crises, would instead like to point out that we didn't point out the crises earlier. It's akin to the living room of your home being on fire, having the entire family doing nothing, then it gets to your 2nd floor and, instead of everyone getting the fuck out of there you have one insolent little shit of a kid shoutting about how we never mentioned the living room fire and refusing to move. It's incredibly stupid.
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Re: Re: Re: Outrage
And you know this how? I don't think you know anything.
"There WAS family separation under Obama, just like there IS still measles in the world. It's just not as widespread or horrible as it used to be. That degree makes a difference."
Got it... some terrible is okay if my side does it, but when the other side does it... make sure it really looks bad. We know the game by now. If that pisses you of then maybe you should have thought about how much you guys keep overplaying every little problem like the sky is falling.
"2. Even if none of the above were true, the "Obama did it too!" folks would essentially be people presented with a crises and then, instead of focusing on that crises, would instead like to point out that we didn't point out the crises earlier."
This is what hypocrisy does to people. They get tired of you calling out their messy houses while standing in a messy house!
"It's akin to the living room of your home being on fire, having the entire family doing nothing, then it gets to your 2nd floor and, instead of everyone getting the fuck out of there you have one insolent little shit of a kid shoutting about how we never mentioned the living room fire and refusing to move. It's incredibly stupid."
So is Trump the 2nd floor here? Is this admission that you accept that Obama did the same?
The only thing I see in all of this is constant outrage acting like everything done wrong is new. It's not, it was not even new under Obama, it is just how the world turns and like it has been said many times. Those in power turn a blind eye, those without act like they just got a black eye.
You don't care about these children other than to advance an agenda or be part of the outrage crowd.
If you really cared you would support military action against these countries driving these people to these situations, but oh hell no, we can't have that... better to let several of them die trying to make it to our borders... to hell with the rest! And when they do finally make it... turn them into a political football while you still do nothing and eat cake.
Hope you feel real good about your corrupt logic. Don't help, make them suffer until they get to your door first... then whine when others don't to all the helping.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Outrage
If you really cared you would support military action against these countries driving these people to these situations"
In the forest of stupid you wrote above, this takes the cake. How many times has war, or forced regime change for that matter, made things better for anyone? How many times has war reduced the number of refugees?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Outrage
"How many times has war reduced the number of refugees?"
He doesn't care, he only has to rage against whatever people write here. Whether or not there's any internal logic to his arguments is not relevant to his mind.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Outrage
In any case, as I pointed out before, some of those shouting the loudest take advantage of cheap labour courtesy of undocumented workers.
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Hey, handy phrase, at least when excuses YOUR side!
Childish responses are always handy when "liberals" have to dodge.
For instance, Israel MURDERED over 100 protesters (including journailists and children) recently, besides permanently injured up to amputation or worse thousands more, and not a hint of it here at Techdirt besides my comments.
So, you've found another phrase to copy/paste whenever you would otherwise have to be consistent. -- DODGING is the only aspect of life that you're good at.
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Another handy phrase is Off Topic Jackass
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Re: Hey, handy phrase, at least when excuses YOUR side!
Because it has absolutely nothing to do with the remit of this site? There's a lot of stories that aren't written about here. I wasn't whining when there was nothing written here about the recent upheaval in Spanish government - because this isn't the venue for that. If you want to discuss that particular event, go to a site where it's relevant to anything.
We can always tell when the article is accurate and the comments are on point, because you have to whine about irrelevant distractions.
"DODGING is the only aspect of life that you're good at."
Well, at least he has one thing, unlike some people.
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Re: Re: Outrage
You did not respond to the argument. You appealed to the authority of a comedian (the smartest person you are aware of, right?) and then tried to claim that it was not okay, but people* ignored it because they felt iconoclasm and dissent would harm the greater movement. Ignorance was okay because the government had the right idea overall. Who cares if some people were hurt? Your third-grade views on politics are simply more important. That is incredibly stupid and you should feel ashamed for writing it.
The sudden concern for kids or anything is your feeble attempt to show how empathetic and caring you are. You know it is safe and popular. You want to fit in. You have to show everyone that you are on the correct side. So you can all feel good about your complete lack of doing anything to solve any problem. You believe. That is enough.
*People who are not Mike Masick, even though he completely ignored it for the same reasons that they did.
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Re: Re: Re: Outrage
You did not respond to the argument. You appealed to the authority of a comedian (the smartest person you are aware of, right?) and then tried to claim that it was not okay, but people ignored it because they felt iconoclasm and dissent would harm the greater movement. Ignorance was okay because the government had the right idea overall. Who cares if some people were hurt? Your third-grade views on politics are simply more important. That is incredibly stupid and you should feel ashamed for writing it.*
Can you tell me where I said it was okay? Can you say where I "appealed to the authority" of the comedian, rather than simply using it as an explanation of why the whataboutism is misplaced?
I'll wait. Thanks.
Hmm. Still waiting.
Guess I'll just keep waiting...
The sudden concern for kids or anything is your feeble attempt to show how empathetic and caring you are. You know it is safe and popular. You want to fit in. You have to show everyone that you are on the correct side. So you can all feel good about your complete lack of doing anything to solve any problem. You believe. That is enough.
You clearly do not know me.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Outrage
Nothing in your response to original comment actually supports your position. The tweet blames the asker of the question for not looking hard enough without any evidence that people did care. That is a very logical and adult response. The comic bit is cute, but does not disprove the post your disagree with (but you had to include it because "comedians are the great philosophers of our time" or whatever inane thing you say to your equally guileless friends).
Remember what you wrote: "Many people didn't call it out during the Obama presidency because -- generally speaking -- people felt that he was at least marginally competent in what he was doing."
So the person you responded to was right, but it does not matter because you actually do care and people should care not and they always cared, but people do not care now because they dislike the president even though you admit that they did not care them because they liked the then president. Nice logical response.
It goes deeper than just liking or disliking president. Partisan ignorance explains part of it, but it is not all that is at play. You are also so concerned now because other people are. You know that your bogus zeal will get you attention and praise from other people who care about this more than anything else until something else is on twitter's trending topics.
Your concern is superficial and about you feeling good. You want to relish that tribal identity and know that you are superior to the "ethically-challenged individuals". Because you are so good and concerned with the plight of others. You hate something now that it is popular to hate it. If only we could all be like you.
And you said I don't know you.
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And you said I don't know you.
It's uncanny. You got almost everything wrong, Kreskin.
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Re: Outrage
Let's solve the problem and talk about who noticed it first later.
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Re: Re: Outrage
I can't speak for some, but I can speak for myself.
Trump is a pile of shit, my problem with it now is that NOW there is an uproar. Why? Because Trump and that is the ONLY reason.
Yes we should put a stop to this shit but how about those that had their heads turned STOP defending Obama while bitching at those defending Trump.
Neither side has and moral high road here, it's pretty discusting if you ask me and more time AGAIN is being spent not your side is worse!
no your side!
nuh uhhh YOUR SIDE!
It's petty and ridiculous. Everyone here is bitching and moaning over the treatment of the victims while saying and doing nothing about the bullies causing the damned problem in the first place, which means... it's politics as usual, not about being humane!
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Re: Outrage
While a desire to see the best in Obama's administration and a desire to see the worst in Trump's administration might help explain the disparity in coverage, That doesn't make this less horrible. Claiming that the outrage is fueled by political opportunism is classic whataboutism, because it inherently acts to downplay the inhumanity of what is happening, and downplay the shifts in scale and the administration's efforts to wash their hands of their own policy decisions in the minds of those who support the administration.
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Re: Re: Outrage
> opportunism is classic whataboutism
Nonsense. About 80% of the people who reflexively yell 'whataboutism' are only doing it to shut down any examination of their motivation or to hide hypocrisy. It's the most abused and inappropriately invoked of all the logical fallacies ('whatboutism' is actually the silly social media name for the tu quoque fallacy).
There's nothing either inappropriate or logically fallacious in analyzing the motivation of one's opponent in a debate, and/or noting how one's opponent reacted to similar circumstances differently in the past as a way of illuminating that motivation.
The tu quoque fallacy only applies if that's *all* you do. If all you do is complain about the Obama part of the problem without acknowledging the Trump part, you've committed a tu quoque violation. But if you acknowledge the problem exists no matter who is responsible, there's absolutely nothing inappropriate in pointing out past hypocrisy on the issue where it appears to exist.
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Re: Re: Re: Outrage
WELL SAID!
Whataboutism was created "explicitly" for this purpose! I consider anyone using that word to be knowingly using it as such as well!
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Re: Re: Re: Outrage
In civil discourse, statements have purpose, to express an idea. And the 'final words' of the paragraphs and the statement as a whole are generally considered the conclusion(s). When faced with an inhumane policy made worse by the current administration, if the response is to admit the inhumanity but then questioning the motives of those upset about the inhumane policy, and end by stating that their outrage over the policy is fake, you conclude that despite having a valid reason to be upset, they are not genuinely upset, and since you leave it there, without providing a way out of the insincere outrage trap, you make it impossible to question the decisions of this administration without a verifiable history of questioning the policies of a previous administration. And so when questioning your motives, we assess the result of your statement, which is to invalidate the criticism of the policy you admit is inhumane and wrong, and conclude your intent must be to blunt the criticisms of the administration currently in play. And since you yourself have admitted the policy is a bad one, the only motive I can divine is to score partisan political games. In other words, deflect criticism of
Because as much as you 'acknowledge' the inhumanity, your statement seems focused on saying that those who claim the inhumanity bothers them are all liars seeking political gain, which can accomplish nothing but continue the cycle of inhumane treatment, because there can be no critics of the inhumane treatment, no matter any distinctions of scope or scale, nor evidence of prior outrage.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Outrage
> suggesting we can be genuinely outraged at these events,
> you end on the point that no, we cant be, because we
> weren't outraged in the last administration
Which I didn't actually say, but why let the facts get in the way, right?
I didn't say no one should be upset or that no one is allowed to be upset. I merely pointed out that those that are beating their breasts the loudest have some explaining to do regarding the puzzling way their butthurt waxes and wanes depending on who's sitting in the Oval Office.
> You imply that the new policies are equivalent to the old
> policies, which is simply not true.
I implied no such thing. You may have erroneously inferred it, but I didn't imply it.
> And the 'final words' of the paragraphs and the statement
> as a whole are generally considered the conclusion(s).
Perhaps in a formal academic thesis, but the comments section of an internet blog? Don't make me laugh. I don't accept the imposition of your self-serving criteria on my comment so that you can give more weight to the words you most disagree with.
> you conclude that despite having a valid reason to be
> upset, they are not genuinely upset
Some of them aren't genuinely upset, particularly the ones with the power to do something about it but choose not to because letting their political opponents twist in the winds of the very outrage they're stoking is to their benefit.
Years ago, the 9th Circuit ruled that the gov can't detain children with their parents if they're being prosecuted for illegal entry.
Given that, the government has three choices:
(1) Separate the kids until the parents' cases are resolved; or
(2) Turn the whole family loose into America consequence-free and send the message that if you show up with your kids, the gov has to give you a free-entry pass, which will then result in a deluge of illegal alien families showing up with their kids; or
(3) Stop enforcing the law altogether and throw open the border to the entire Southern Hemisphere of the planet.
Options 2 and 3 are de facto 'open borders' and even though they could, the Democrats have no interest in passing a statute to override the 9th Circuit's ruling because they *want* this to be the choice. They want it because it forces anyone who tries to enforce the borders and have any kind of effective immigration law to be faced with wailing harridans calling them Nazis if they do.
And as for all this hand-wringing and pearl-clutching over separating children from parents... well, no one likes to see that, but DHS currently has around 12,000 minors in custody. Of that 12,000, over 10,000 of them arrived here WITHOUT their parents. Which means the kids' own parents did the separating and sent them on a life-threatening journey through the wilderness with strangers. Anywhere else under any other circumstances, that'd be called criminal child abuse and neglect, and the authorities would be praised for taking custody of those kids. They're prosecuting a mom in Maryland right now for neglect for allowing her 9-year-old to play in a park near her own house by herself. They took that kid away from her parents. No one's having palpitations about that and calling the Maryland cops "Nazis". But thousands of parents leave their kids with murderous coyotes and expose them to everything from starvation and heat stroke to trafficking and rape, and for some reason the U.S. government is the bad guy in that scenario.
But it doesn't serve the 'open borders' agenda to acknowledge any of that reality. It's much more effective to just scream "Nazis!" like a bunch of hysterical assholes in order to trick low-IQ voters into an emotional reaction favorable to 'progressives'.
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Two Points
2. Children should not be locked up just because their parents are.
Therefore, people with children should not be locked up, even if they do break the law.
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Re: Two Points
1. Children should *not* be separated from their parents.
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Re: Re: Two Points
I agree, no children should be separated from their parents, but how do they know who is really the parent here? Human trafficking takes on many forms in these situations.
Without proof it is not really a hard thing to understand why the kids get separated. Does it suck, you bet, but what what is the over/under for how many liars there are at the border? How would you rest on your conscience if a rapist got to keep a kidnapped child because we stopped separating them/trying to find out who are parents? There are still cultures that are okay with murdering homeless kids in the street to this day.
Humans only care so long as they can advance their agenda's using the problem at hand. The real people actually helping do not care about getting human recognition and often are never noticed.
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Re: Re: Re: Two Points
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Two Points
Separating kids until there is reasonable certainty of their parents has nothing to do with charging anyone with crimes.
"was made to create a deterrent to immigration"
You mean deterrence to "illegal" immigration? It's okay we already caught your bias.
I do not support charging anyone with a crime just for trying to get into a country, though I shed no tears for them getting caught and shipped back. If they actually break a law "other than illegal entry" then sure, charge them.
But that really has nothing to do with separating kids even though you are going to go ahead and do everything you can to package those issues together to advance the tireless agenda.
I would be for mostly open borders, if the welfare state disappeared, but as long as we have that... we can't survive open borders because as the EU proves, a nation will only die from the hordes of people too weak to fight for themselves against those "actually" oppressing them but strong enough to demand that others "not oppressing them" should provide for them!
I have no problem with taking good care of the kids... the adults can kiss my ass.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Two Points
I agree that we should probably just kill the children and their parents. It seems to make the most sense.
I mean they are "illegal" so shouldn't we just eradicate them?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Two Points
We don't want the immigrants coming here because they are going to use our federally funded programs and thus we are subsidizing these people right?
So we need to put the kids in federally funded prisons so we don't have to subsidize these people.
This is some solid reasoning if you ask me.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Two Points
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That there isn't a way for workers to become 'documented' when they take jobs no one else wants is just terribly, terribly sad. And to think, unemployment is so low, yet there are unfulfilled jobs these people might take. Hmm!
Do you always think in so narrow a dimension. BTW, have a flag.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Two Points
And even if they're not paying any income tax, in most states they're still paying sales tax every time they buy something.
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Re: Two Points
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Re: Two Points
Except we are both locking up children because their parents are locked up, and separating them from their parents.
Your logic is valid, but your premises (and therefore conclusion) are unrelated to the current situation (and the first premise is false in nearly every ethical system).
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"Private" information
The first person to post it may have violated this rule. After that, the information is no longer private, so cannot justify bans on the re-posters. Not unless Twitter rewords that rule.
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Re: "Private" information
The person who put their own information on Linkedin is the person who made it non-private.
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Re: Re: "Private" information
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Posting the number, clearly violated Twitters terms.
Linking to the article required a leap of imagination to make it forbidden for Twitter.
The BS about the ICE employees boils down to one simple thing for the platforms, no matter how much we like our moral position this government can, will, does launch lawsuits designed to cause havoc, damage, chaos against those seen as not loving dear leader.
Taking data they willingly made public & pretending it is forbidden knowledge is creating special classes of people. (would they have done the same actions if someone managed to scrape a public group on FB of white supremacists?)
The problem is "harassment" is in the eye of the beholder, the platforms refuse to make cut & dried positions to stay in. The definitions are constantly expanding to account for everyone favorite microagressions & eventually the policy is useless because if 1 person has a sad drop the ban hammer.
It should scare people much more than it is right now...
- federal lawsuits are used to punish not loving dear leader
- the rules apply more if you can command media attention
- they are willing to go multiple steps beyond to punish (phone number I can see, link to a story that contained it wha?)
- This is being used to alter reality to conform to the wishes of a few, imagine if FB had been able to scare everyone into not talking about Cambridge Analyticica.
Time to stop demanding platforms do anything beyond be a platform. Create hard red lines people can't cross & enforce those not keep bowing down & expanding over and over.
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Re:
The things people are calling "platforms" in this story are publishers too. Email is a platform. Twitter is a platform, a publisher, a dictator of policy, a software implementation...
Is that not something "beyond be[ing] a platform"?
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Re: you are clearly pushing a rope uphill
In fact, they are platforms, they are not publishers and you do not get to collect brownie points for pushing the agenda the hate crowds do.
Mostly their intent is to force FB/Twitter/Google to promote their hate speech as it's free speech and 1st Amendment blah-blah.
We know this bullshit. It will not pass muster here.
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Re: Re:
An individual E-mail provider may be (and probably is) a platform, but E-mail itself is a protocol - or rather, an assortment of protocols and standards, which interoperate to enable a particular result.
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I don't think most of the folks here at TD are able to understand this logic. They like most others will be more than happy to join the hivemind when it suits then only to pay lip service to the opposite for the same convenient reasons.
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harry POTTER vibrating magic broms
In the early days of my NAMBLA organizing, I was against this sort of thing.
But after I helped elect the Goiod Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona,(may the lord continue to bless his soul) I realized that Satans minions work evil, and niggardly blackmagic.
So I learened scripturing to Fight the pure evil of free speech online, and.bad werdz that cause my brain to blow circuit
Now,I feel bettter knowingw what blowing feels like~Stonewall, 1969!
I am free now....
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People know that crossing our borders illegally will not be treated well by our government. Those must be some pretty bad parents to do that knowing what their kids will be going through.
Just saying.
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Re:
It is not illegal to claim asslyum. Refugees apply from outside the US and asslyum is applied for when in the country.
The separation of families was specifically stated by Sessions to be a deteriant for migrating families.
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Re:
Which would you consider worse? the risk of going to jail in a country that would treat you better as a prisoner or risk death and certain poverty where you came from?
Perspective is a sunovabitch here.
The problem I have with those on the left is the fact that they don't want to fix the problem, they need it to continue for political expediency!
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Re: Re:
I agree, very privileged, and very lucky. The question is, do we want to allow anyone in the world to come here? Will that improve our life? If not, do we have a responsibility to those people anyway?
Not an easy situation, that is for sure.
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As humans we should try to help others if we can. But the problem with responsibility is a question designed to intentionally place guilt on the guiltless.
Why is it USA's responsibility to allow all the refugees in but also NOT allowed to destroy the government that caused it? Why am I now MORE responsible to take care of their children rather than take care of my own? How did they become the overlords of my responsibility? If it is okay for them to tell me what I should do, why can't I tell them what to do? Is it because I disagree with their solution that makes me the evil one? Why are they not evil for disagreeing with my solution?
I am okay with helping where we can, but it is just intellectually dissonant to say that we have a responsibility and stopping there. Yes we all have responsibilities, but when decide between my children and theirs... mine are going to win a double headed coin toss.
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Re:
Most of the comments are not on topic, so I will add my two cents.
Actually, it's your comment that is way off topic.
People know that crossing our borders illegally will not be treated well by our government. Those must be some pretty bad parents to do that knowing what their kids will be going through.
Alternatively, these must be some pretty desperate parents, who recognize how dangerous things are where they are now to attempt to seek a better life for their children in the US, despite knowing how awful the US may treat them.
The idea that you are justifying this bullshit as a deterrent and then blaming the parents? Fuck off.
Just saying.
Yeah, sure.
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Re: Re: OOOH! The Mansick is getting tetchy!
Clearly you're FOR unlimited immigration. All countries have a right and duty to control borders, period.
Israel sure protect its borders, doesn't it? Palestinians were just near to The Wall of the apartheid state and the IDF murdered over a hundred of them, injured thousands with live ammo! Not a word from you about Palestinian rights, though -- for some Whataboutism.
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It's NOT okay for us to take military action against the nations and leader thugs causing this but it is okay to only care about those that did not die during their trek to the border... all the others that died trying to get here can... as you put it "Fuck off" right?
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It's NOT okay for us to take military action against the nations and leader thugs causing this but it is okay to only care about those that did not die during their trek to the border... all the others that died trying to get here can... as you put it "Fuck off" right?
I didn't say any of that. Why do you constantly feel the need to misrepresent what I say?
Will you answer this question today, or like earlier this week disappear or deflect?
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"Internet Platforms" are at present NOT a good idea, then!
First, all should recall / learn: Masnick holds that "platforms" have their own "First Amendment Right" to arbitrarily suppress any "natural" person using them, at best shunted off to obscure sites. The US Supreme Court in Sandvig decision is on verge of explicitly labeling "platforms" as Public Forums, as I've maintained all along, and Masnick opposes.
Anyhoo, any consideration of this topic would NOT consider the contrived examples, but refer to what magazines and other media practiced before the insanity of "platforms" that have immunity for what's published -- but WITH the power to arbirtarily control mere users -- an inherent contradiction, on top of the already bad idea of every yahoo yelling.
We need more yahoos like Masnick paying for own site, EXCEPT UNLIKE Masnick with close control by fair-handed Moderation by common law rules, not the hidden partisanship of suppressing only dissent here with the lie of an opaque "voting system" that never hides comments of fanboys.
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All arguments I see out there are debating means to prevent that outcome from happening.
This reports a multi-variable scenario narrowed to a one-variable case, withholding information of the complete position to characterize the public figure. The one-variable simplification is selected to incite outrage in the public at the target. Pairing that outrage with availability of contact information maximizes the risk to the target victim of harms occurring while those who kicked it off stand back holding their hands in the air claiming no involvement.
This is the SWATing model. Create story phoned in to a police department designed to incite a response. Pair that third-party response with availability of address maximizing the risk to the target victim. SWAT raids the home, if harms come to the person stand back holding hands in the air claiming no involvement.
It bears repetition. No one is arguing for families to be separated.
All arguments are debating means to prevent that outcome from happening. Particularly whether families stay together after crossing into US territory illegally, or whether families stay together by not entering the US illegally at all (by for example visiting a US embassy in other countries to apply for asylum).
A suitable response for those doxxing in this case would be those reserved for people who SWAT another.
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Re:
Everyday doxing happens all the time but because it's not over some internet fight it gets no press. All those anonymous people in our lives now have access to all our information online, as do we theirs. This means, effectively, that no one can or should be trusted.
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Thinking that does not make someone a bad or unfeeling person because today someone would die without it.
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Thanks techdirt for making CNN looked balanced
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Re: Thanks techdirt for making CNN looked balanced
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Re: Thanks techdirt for making CNN looked balanced
I thought this was a tech site.
New here?
What here is anti-American bias? Go ahead. Point to a single sentence that is anti-American. I am anti-inhumane treatment. Is that anti-American?
your TDS is out of control so now I urge pro America readers to leave this antiAmerican propaganda site
wut?
where you can get tech news without every article becoming politicised. Adios dipsbit
Yup. You're new here. And now you're gone. You won't be missed.
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Re: Thanks techdirt for making CNN looked balanced
Stop, don't, come back.
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Your orchestra sucks
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Re: Thanks techdirt for making CNN looked balanced
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These platforms are swamped in do-somethingist mission creep. Always ratcheting up the censorship to appease whoever shouts the loudest. And there is always someone to shout for more. It never ends, nothing will ever be enough.
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Re:
Can I steal that?
Do-somethingist mission creep...
Wel said, but I would also add dog loving, misanthropic Aspergers masquerading as Thad.
Hey~wheres my dog pirn?
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Puzzled
Is that really needed? Seriously, I get sooooooo many posts from linkedin that I have it flagged as spam on all my accounts. Who needs to scrape when they SEND you the info via email whether you want it or not.
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Expectations of Privacy in Public
Many people point out that all of this feels kind of ridiculous, seeing as this is all public info that the individuals chose to reveal about themselves on a public website. While Medium's expansive definition of doxxing makes things interesting by including an intent standard in releasing the info, even if it is publicly available, the whole thing, again, demonstrates how complex this is.
I'm with Medium, as foolish as it sounds. The reason is, people tend to put up information on websites such as Linked In with the intention of promoting themselves to their peers and to potential employers, not to provide low-hanging fruit for someone with a social or political grudge who can't get at the real target so hit the people lower down the food chain, as it were.
Yes, I know that logically, that information is there and you should always assume that whatever information you put out there can and will be used for nefarious purposes by the worst people around. However, most of us aren't logical, are we?
So... what do we do? I'm on Linked In and I've put my employment history there. So... a few years ago, a reputation-wrecker troll went after me for a laugh and I had to defend myself to my bosses on several occasions. The legal team was involved. So... should I remove that information in case El Trollio comes back to take another swing at me?
Every action has inherent risks and while the ones I take don't always pay off in the long run it hasn't really done me that much harm to put up personal information about myself online. The alternative is to be an e-hermit living in the online shadows, unwilling or unable to fully engaged with the world around me. No thanks.
So yes, there are few good options — for anyone who wants to be connected online.
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Re: Expectations of Privacy in Public
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Re: Re: Expectations of Privacy in Public
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Curious Mike... did that game in DC cover Peter Fonda's actions?
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Unlawful immigrants, which by their action in unlawfully crossing the border, have broken a law are, as any other law breaker who is detained, separated from their children.
Instead of spending who knows how much on detention camps of any kind, housing and feeding and providing medical care for all these unlawful immigrants, we just catch them, wait until the bus is full then transport to nearest border crossing and put them back in to Mexico?
Mexico: WHAR GARGLE WHAR NOT OUR CITIZENS!!!
USA: You didn't seem to have that problem when they entered your country the 1st time to get to the US border.
Is it sad that these people have had a terrible existence in whatever country they are coming from? Absolutely!!
But, we have our own issues here. Homeless, unemployed, uneducated, poverty stricken, people without adequate health care, violence, crime, corrupt government, and the list goes on.
Go down the list of issues people give for asylum seeking:
Gang violence? Yep we have it.
Poverty? Yep here too.
Drugs? Check.
Corrupt government? Uh huh. ( both sides )
No housing? Yeah, look at any major metropolitan area.
No health care? Gee we have that problem too.
Religious/racial/age/sex discrimination? That too.
So pretty much we have all the same problems.
How about we take care of our issues first?
Of course we could accept anyone who wants asylum, like they did in Europe. Check with London, Paris, or Stockholm to see how well that's working for them.
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Re:
I've heard it stated, repeatedly, that some people who showed up at the official border-crossing checkpoints to apply for asylum that way have still been separated from their children. (When I search for articles to back that up, however, all I'm finding so far is reporting on the family-separation issue more generally.)
What about unlawful immigrants who are applying for asylum?
By your statements, they must be both separated (as unlawful immigrants), and not separated (as asylum applicants).
(Also: in "any other law breaker who is detained", that qualifier neatly identifies one critical part of the issue. Not every law-breaker gets detained, or needs to be; the zero-tolerance-policy decision to treat every illegal border-crossing as requiring detention is exactly part of what's being objected to.)
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Re:
Also, yeah, there are problems everywhere but there are a few things to point.
1- some places have fewer/less glaring problems
2- sometimes you are screwed in your country even if the problems aren't that bad (US is a shining example)
3- you don't know these people so you can't possibly know their motivations but one thing is pretty clear: you don't go through Hell (ie: the desert conditions in the Mexico-US border or the Mediterranean sea in a paper boat) if you aren't desperate enough
Just my 2 cents.
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I wonder...
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington DC, 20500
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Re: I wonder...
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