To say that something can only be ethically wrong or ethically right is a rather black-and-white way to see things. A spectrum can't exist without endpoints to define it, but is there truly nothing in the middle?
Also, you are in fact saying that free speech (vis-a-vis anonymity) should in fact be allowed to protect illegal activity. If people cannot be tied back to their harmful actions, that is de facto protection.
If you do not think it's OK to kidnap someone and lock them in the basement, how is that any different from putting someone in prison?
If you do not think it's OK to force someone to give you large sums of money, how is that any different from imposing a fine?
If you do not think it's OK to force someone to do unpaid labor, how is that any different from a community service requirement?
All of these are tools used by societies to punish those who would do harm to others; in so doing, they enforce social order. This form of doxxing is no different. To compare it to outing a closeted person is a gross false equivalency.
I'm not the one giving the just outing of this the imprimatur of "ethics". I merely said there was nothing ethically wrong with it, in contrast to your assertion that it is ethically wrong to force him to face the consequences of his acts.
This is not a free speech issue. The actions of creepshots amounted to invasion of privacy at the absolute least, and arguments could be made for charges as serious as harassment and stalking. Free speech should be absolute, but doesn't mean it should shield someone from the consequences of other crimes they commit by doing so.
Will this person's life be ruined? Not by a long shot, though he will probably be inconvenienced for a time. The thing about doxxing is that the consequences one faces are determined entirely by the actions that doxxing ties to them. No one cares when a garden-variety troll gets doxxed, and even the more spectacular examples get written off quickly: it takes something truly egregious, as this case is, for there to be any truly major or lasting effects. The harm to his life is entirely self-inflicted: he could not deserve it more.
Frontier justice should indeed be left to the frontier, but in this particular sense the Internet is a frontier. It cannot be policed in any practical way by the centralized authorities that are typically responsible for this sort of thing in the real world, and so the frontier model is appropriate.
This is a case of someone who has abused his anonymity to harm people without facing the consequences. The appropriate punishment is for the anonymity he has shown he cannot be trusted with to be taken away from him -in a word, to be doxxed- and to face the consequences he had hoped to avoid: the things that happen in the real world to people who do what he did. There is nothing philosophically, morally, or ethically incorrect about this.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Moral reasoning can be a tricky thing
Also, you are in fact saying that free speech (vis-a-vis anonymity) should in fact be allowed to protect illegal activity. If people cannot be tied back to their harmful actions, that is de facto protection.
Re: Comparison to outting gays and lesbians
If you do not think it's OK to force someone to give you large sums of money, how is that any different from imposing a fine?
If you do not think it's OK to force someone to do unpaid labor, how is that any different from a community service requirement?
All of these are tools used by societies to punish those who would do harm to others; in so doing, they enforce social order. This form of doxxing is no different. To compare it to outing a closeted person is a gross false equivalency.
Re: Re: Re: Moral reasoning can be a tricky thing
This is not a free speech issue. The actions of creepshots amounted to invasion of privacy at the absolute least, and arguments could be made for charges as serious as harassment and stalking. Free speech should be absolute, but doesn't mean it should shield someone from the consequences of other crimes they commit by doing so.
Will this person's life be ruined? Not by a long shot, though he will probably be inconvenienced for a time. The thing about doxxing is that the consequences one faces are determined entirely by the actions that doxxing ties to them. No one cares when a garden-variety troll gets doxxed, and even the more spectacular examples get written off quickly: it takes something truly egregious, as this case is, for there to be any truly major or lasting effects. The harm to his life is entirely self-inflicted: he could not deserve it more.
Re: Moral reasoning can be a tricky thing
This is a case of someone who has abused his anonymity to harm people without facing the consequences. The appropriate punishment is for the anonymity he has shown he cannot be trusted with to be taken away from him -in a word, to be doxxed- and to face the consequences he had hoped to avoid: the things that happen in the real world to people who do what he did. There is nothing philosophically, morally, or ethically incorrect about this.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Millennium.
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