And really? You think it’s ok to make fun of and to troll the memorial site of a young girl who was molested and then committed suicide? How the hell is that any less fucked up than anything BB has said?

“Gosh, yes. Because when someone says “I’m going to rape you, slit your throat, and piss on your corpse” it means “Let’s discuss the nuances of feminist theory over tea and cookies.””

Thanks for illustrating my point by missing it entirely. I couldn’t have done a better job.

Here, just this once…

“I’m going to rape you, slit your throat, and piss on your corpse”

Translation: Here is the most obvious bait I can throw out to you. Now rise to it so I can claim pwnrship of your silly ass and have a good laugh about it.

You are right to assume that the author has no interest in “the nuances of feminist theory.” Believe it or not (and I’m almost certain you won’t), this statement likely has nothing to do with feminism. The misogyny is skin deep – low hanging fruit that is almost guaranteed to go straight to your most obvious vulnerable spot and provoke a tizzy, and it sounds like it worked.

However justifiable your outrage, the most it can do is fuel the drama. They are playing a game with you, (yeah, a nasty one – but just a game) and you are ignorant of the rules. Hint: the only way to win is to refuse to play.

Now, I dare you to respond to what I’ve said with more butthurt. I won’t bother responding to it, but I will regard it as an unconscious admission that you are as into the drama as they are.

Hey. I’m yet another Anonymous. Self-righteous from head to toe, generally misinformed, and more or less doomed to a non-descript and generally shameful life.

I am, however, a teenager. I’m fifteen years of age, already a /b/tard, one of the Legion.

My motivation for going with the flow? None. None whatsoever. For me, /b/ is just another part of my life. It’s a way to blow off steam, it’s a way to lash out at anyone who’s different than me. It’s a way to express twisted ideas without my parents seeing them, or even being able to recognize who wrote them were my parents to check out /b/ right now. When one of the Legion call out for some /b/ackup, I happily obey, get shit done, and go about posting my angsty, violent, atrocious teenage thoughts once more.

Perhaps I go with the flow because it allows me to stop thinking, like Tim Robbins’s character in Jacob’s Ladder; having led a life of deep troubling thought, he decides to pick a job that doesn’t require him to think at all after the war is “over.” In being a part of a generation that values vacuousness, I struggle with bullshit every day, and being a fat sack of hormones doesn’t help either. So giving into /b/’s will is what helps get me off at the end of the day, no matter who I’m attacking.

tl;dr– BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWW. I’m full of angst and lash out without reason.

If you care to talk further (or if you’re one of my /b/rothers and wish to spam me about how I should GTFO for being an emofag), my e-mail is:

adamantforgery@yahoo.com

A death threat is NOT leaving a message on their blog that says “ILL KILL U BITCH”.

Let me parse that. Does it involve any verb to do with killing? Yes.

Does it suggest that the one who sent the message is going to do the killing? Yes.

Does it have a direct object of the verb “kill” who is a person? Yes.

Looks like it has all the elements of a death threat to me. Not even your “bullet in a mailbox” scenario has that much.

Now, when any of your lot use the above argument in court, seeing that argument get the drubbing it deserves would make for some truly “epic lulz”.

You think it’s ok to make fun of and to troll the memorial site of a young girl who was molested and then committed suicide? How the hell is that any less fucked up than anything BB has said?

Why, TBD, didn’t you know? It’s because the bedwetting legion said so that’s why!

I’m going to pop some corn and wait for the outrage from the basement dwellers, who will continue to throw butthurt tantrums over being called racist and misogynist, while insisting that they don’t care what we think.

I’m not sure I can accept the idea that a bunch of teenagers are proud of being obedient little trolls at their masters beck and call. If it’s true, I shouldn’t have sneered at the film “Idiocracy”, because we are in for a lot more trouble than WPE has caused.

Nullifidian: Do you consider every piece of pornography spam you get in your email to be considered sexual harassment? Do you report every incident to the local or federal authorities? By your logic, you should! They are unwanted advances of a sexual nature, and should be treated as such.

If you don’t, then perhaps there is hope for you. Perhaps you will one day realize you are putting too much stock into a completely hollow gesture.

If I go to some website or blog completely at random, regardless of the topic or purpose, and I post “ILL KILL U BITCH” as a comment to the latest entry by them, is that a death threat? By the to-the-letter, text book definition of it that you provided, maybe. But am I actually threatening them, do I actually have intent, purpose, or an ounce of desire for the person to die? No, that’s retarded!

It has been said so many times that it is almost routine to type at this point. Anonymous does not care about you, your ideals, who you are or what you believe. They care about what will get the biggest knee-jerk reaction out of you, and the more you rattle the cage, the more they will keep doing it.

Maybe one day, people will actually understand that, instead of writing it off as a self-justification or… whatever you people want to call it.

“Maybe one day, people will actually understand that, instead of writing it off as a self-justification or… whatever you people want to call it.”

Way to make a point.

My question ED Editor is why do you care?

I don’t see Anonymous here explaining themselves. Do they really want or need apologists? The justifications you have presented are pretty flimsy logically speaking. No justification at all, in fact, would have a bit more integrity, imo. (Mind you, this is coming from somebody who actually UNDERSTANDS the apparently slippery concept of racial or sexual attacks that aren’t racially or sexually motivated.)

Why is it important that Anonymous be understood? Is that the goal here? Because when I decide I want to attack someone that’s one thing, but when I want to be understood I take it as an article of basic common sense that attacking people is a piss-poor way of reaching understanding – and that’s true of relatively reasonable people, never mind the blind-to-all-but-their-own-BS ones that Anonymous seems to live for.

If the point of all this was to make a point and not just to cause an epic shitstorm, I’d have to say that the lulz are on Anonymous – but I don’t think there WAS any real point beyond the drama of it all.

Anyway, the lulz are pretty much over with at this stage, and it looks like yawnz from here on out – unless anyone has something really insightful to say. (I doubt it.)

With all the word-fuckery going on in this thread from so many sides, it’s a safe bet that nobody is going to come to an understanding of anything they haven’t already married themselves to as their a priori position. I can’t tell you how much this reminds me of American politics.

Fail all.

One last point, that I’m just throwing out there:

I grew up in the seventies and eighties. I got to see the entire process, both in my culture and on a personal level: I was sensitized starting from an early age to oppression issues (which I still consider real, however far more complex than I think even most involved people realize), I was a natural for radicalization and and was pretty fiercely militant for a decade or more, then I began to get disgusted with it as I saw how many people prostituted their ideals as excuses for their bad behavior, and how a new set of double standards had replaced the old ones, how reason and principle often took a back seat to emotions, resulting in some very compromised political dogma – this around the time American culture was was having a similar reaction to politically correct speech, and the like.

Make no mistake, South Park, ED, Anonymous and the whole current generation of kids who are into saying any shocking and offensive thing for the lulz are the PRODUCT of political correctness. Slurs are the forbidden fruit now that are more gratifying even to the people who DON’T really mean it, than the ones who do – precisely because they know it’s wrong. That’s what makes it so damn funny.

I’m not saying it’s right or wrong – I honestly don’t even know, at this point. I don’t necessarily like it that the youth that will inherit America are (to generalize) a lot of shallow, instant-gratification-junkie guttermouths who can’t spell or think critically. But it’s what IS, and it’s probably going to get worse.

And it’s been said elsewhere, but anyone who can’t handle it, can’t handle the internet. Sorry.

My advice is to learn to defend yourselves properly, from the inside out, because thin skin is a serious liability.

Maybe living in a society where anyone can say any offensive thing will have the positive effect of forcing us all to get over ourselves and ignore bullshit. Maybe we can learn to focus on the substance of things instead of just scanning other people’s speech for things to be outraged by, or buying into constructs that are just traps (like the two party system).

Or maybe we will just end up with a society of rude, ugly jerks to grow old in without any Social Security – which is pretty much what we’re arriving at.

Like I said, I don’t know – and I’m just about beyond caring. Again, American culture is just like our politics – yuck-o! As far as I’m concerned, as vile as I find all the mess that’s going on, as depressing as it is to live in a cultural and political cesspool that is at capacity and still going, I am convinced at this point that whatever is happening in America is what NEEDS to happen.

Usually these things have a way of correcting themselves, but I hope at least to be living on another continent by the time it comes to that.

Funny Spectator, how we arrived at similar conclusions and cynicism from apparently different angles, but the same formative years and timeline.

The politically correct mindset wants a society free of offense, and those purveying it don’t realize just how truly Orwellian that would be. The current trend of rebellious crudeness (SA, the Legion, etc.) are a natural response to the idiotic excesses of the PC crowd.

‘Natural response’ isn’t to say that the DDOSing, etc. are justified, but the chosen rhetoric of the current youth rebellion is entirely predictable.

Anyway, the lulz are pretty much over with at this stage, and it looks like yawnz from here on out . . .

Couldn’t have said it better myself. I did it for the lulz.

Some of you seem to be making the same argument that has historically been made in favor of ignoring bullies. History teaches us that your argument is wrong, but some people won’t give up the myth.
Bullies don’t go away, they just change targets from time to time, until one of the targets finally bashed them in the head with a rock. Packs of bullies, unchecked, escalate until they kill someone. Every perp I have ever interviewed has made the same claims of not meaning anything by it, and it just happened, and there was nothing that could be done to prevent it, and the victim brought it on themselves.
A Spectator, seems to think that his best solution is to do nothing himself and move to a country where the people are willing to do something. There’s a classic self justification myth.

“A Spectator, seems to think that his best solution is to do nothing himself and move to a country where the people are willing to do something.”

That’s not what I think.

“There’s a classic self justification myth.”

Sticks and stones… I wasn’t aware that I was justifying anything, or that I have to.

Anyway, what do you propose I do?

What are you actually doing?

My only contribution has been an attempt to illustrate clearly how some of the reactions only egg the attackers on. I don’t expect any thanks for it, I know better. And the accusatory tone of comments like yours don’t come as a surprise either. Anyway, I put it out there because I felt like it (and maybe to see if anyone here actually UNDERSTOOD what I was saying – so far, no). I don’t owe it to anyone.

“Bullies don’t go away, they just change targets from time to time, until one of the targets finally bashed them in the head with a rock.”

Bashing them in the head with a rock is indeed a more effective strategy for dealing with bullies than whining on a message board. You’re getting warmer.

“Packs of bullies, unchecked, escalate until they kill someone.”

This is true enough, but there is a big difference between online and IRL harassment – which is not to say that there couldn’t have been serious consequences to these shenanigans.

It sounds like something for the law to deal with, or not.

The damage so far by my estimate: Some possible crank phone calls, a few sites temporarily downed and a buttload of hurt feelings. The first two I personally consider over the line. The last is just a part of being online, albeit an unpleasant one.

Again, what does anyone propose to actually do about it (I mean besides a lot of silly e-squabbling – which is just “moar lulz” for the jackasses who started it all in the first place)?

“Every perp I have ever interviewed has made the same claims… [that] the victim brought it on themselves.”

Boom! Right here is the telling bit for me. There are those of us who see things in black and white, and those who see shades of gray. I have a feeling that may be the real difference between you and me.

Were the attacks excusable. No, shutting down people’s sites, and making intrusive and destructive phone calls cross the line, as I have said before. The other post content related ugliness is bad too, but it is nothing more than a nuisance, part of the price of a free cyberspace, and not worth blowing out of proportion – which is what the perpetrators WANT anyway.

Do the people responsible deserve to get their asses in a sling? Sure. You won’t get any argument from me. But whether or not that happens is out of my hands, and, frankly, there are more important things.

Are they just making excuses for themselves when they say that they didn’t mean anything by it, or that the victims asked for it? Yes, and it’s nauseating. There is no justifying some of the things that have happened, and I might be able to retain a (tiny) shred of respect for them if they didn’t even try.

DID the victim bring it on themselves?

While most of the people who ended up on the receiving end were innocent bystanders who had done nothing to call this abuse to them, if we look at some of the primary targets, this is where the gray begins for me.

In reality victims DO sometimes call abuse to themselves, and a victim mentality is a good place to start. In reality victims are liable to become abusers without even realizing it. They feel totally justified by virtue of their victimhood, and Biting Beaver is a textbook example. If she IS cramming her young sons full of Dworkin as an indoctrination tool, she is a deeply sick and abusive woman. (She is also the kind of mother that is often a key ingredient in the making of a misogynist predator – so if her fears come true, it will most likely be because she made them.) While I feel for those kids, I also feel strongly that the way Anonymous went about addressing the situation was only likely to make things worse for the kid if it got anywhere substantial. I also feel that the justification that they were doing it for the kid is bullshit – they were doing it for the lulz, and the kid was, in fact, just another potential victim of Anonymous, whether they were aware of it or not.

But Beaver didn’t get their attention for nothing, and if CPS gets brought in I will personally feel better. (Not that there is any guarantee that they would actually be able to help the situation either.)

Then there is Heart who thought ED was A-OK when they were trolling with a phony Craigslist ad and outing the respondents – so much so that she reproduced the page on her own site. This post is getting long enough, and her various hypocrisies are already well documented.

Did she deserve to have her site shut down? No.

Did she deserve SOMETHING?

Sorry, I’d have to say, probably – but if it were me I’d have limited it to just calling her on her BS, although she doesn’t seem like the type who is capable of seeing error in herself.

It’s too bad for Beaver and Heart and their ilk that other people (assholes) aren’t as gentle as me. And I guess it’s also too bad for a lot of people who didn’t do anything out of line, but caught the heat anyway.

What can I say? It’s a too bad world.

I do my best.

To extend A Spectator’s point a little further, Heart and Beeb would have been far less likely to draw such extreme reactions were they not so devout in refusing any meaningful discussion on their own blogs. Hell, even if they refused commentary altogether it’d be one thing, but they have practiced a method of only allowing the weakest opposing comments through, which they then dissect, discard, and lock out further discussion after allowing their followers to shriek at teh menz to their heart’s content.

Furthermore, Beeb was the one who proudly broadcast her Sitemeter games, forwarding Google search results along to the FBI, then got hysterical when people took offense. Gee, for however many actual, y’know, criminals she forwarded IPs along for, was she expecting them to thank her? Can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.

So yeah, damn little sympathy for those two and their immediate circle of sycophants, and a lot more for those who got hammered for being in their ideological vicinity.

Right, a spectator, BB is a crappy parent because she has political views you disagree with. Oh noes! Let’s have the whole street vote on what views are acceptable and confiscate the kids of anyone who steps outside the lines. Unfortunately, from what I can see from these 4 posts I think you’re a deeply disturbed idiot, so kiss the kids goodbye and have them waiting by the front gate for CPS, we can’t take the risk of any more kids being abused by your stupidity. Shit dude, I just heard the guy next door tell his son raping and killing women isn’t okay, we’ve got to save that child from these messed up Dwarkinite views before he’s scarred for life! Bring BB’s abusive ex and meet me for the commando raid.

Another Spectator, awesome point. Heart and BB have no right to control their own spaces just because they pay for the bandwidth. I demand that they turn over control of their pages to me (continuing to pay for them of course, they owe me that much), give me access to their bodies, and I demand that they buy me a car. We need less of BB’s crappy parenting and more of the kind that produced these fine specimens. He, my neighbor also has a political bumper sticker, and I disagree! OH NOES! I’ve been hammered by being in his ideological vacinity! HELP ME!!!!!!!!!

Ed Editor, a) are you BB’s mom? because if you’re instead some kid who doesn’t know the woman, I don’t really think your insight into what she truly feels in her heart is that great b) fine, let’s say you’re right. Let’s say that now she knows her son’s been looking at porn, if she could go back in time (btw–she can’t, it’s not possible, calm down) she’d choose not to have him. So? How the hell do you know that your parents, or mine, or whoever’s wouldn’t make a different choice if they could do it over. She’s not actually doing anything close to threatening him, maybe CPS should be concentrating more on the millions of kids who are beaten, raped, killed, starved, etc rather than raking over people’s diaries to see if they even expressed any exasperation towards their kids when the kids weren’t around? Maybe, just maybe?

Zeham

Your childish deliberate misreading and distortion of my comments doesn’t really rate a detailed response. I’m sure any reasonably intelligent adult can read my previous comments without coming away with the idiotic notion that I think there is something wrong with telling your kids that raping and killing women is bad. The most generous assumption is that this was a silly attempt to provoke an emotional response from me.

If you can’t even make an effort to address my arguments intelligently don’t expect me to waste my time dealing with you.

A spectator,
Had you made an intelligent argument, I’m sure it would have been responded to in kind. Instead you said this: In reality victims DO sometimes call abuse to themselves…

Perp talk.

Zeham

And in reality they sometimes do. Sorry that doesn’t jibe with your dogma.

“Perp talk.”

Jackass talk. You sound just like one of the more juvenile Anonymous. Lmfao.

I won’t bother responding to it. . .

Yeah, so much for that. Think you might be projecting a bit there, kiddo.

“Yeah, so much for that. Think you might be projecting a bit there, kiddo.”

Do you actually have something to discuss, or are you just here to indulge in cheap pot-shots? Any moron can do that.

No, if you take a look back, Sheelzebub has contributed nothing other than Easy Mode sarcastic responses or wild retorts to at-a-glance readings of others’ responses.

Nullifidian: Do you consider every piece of pornography spam you get in your email to be considered sexual harassment? Do you report every incident to the local or federal authorities? By your logic, you should!

Uh. No.

First of all, nothing I’ve said is based on principles which are mine alone. In fact, I’ve simply been pointing out that threatening rape and death is a violation of federal law.

In this context, the law recognizes a difference between death threats and spam (although spammers can have criminal charges thrown their way for other things).

Perhaps you will one day realize you are putting too much stock into a completely hollow gesture.

I don’t think so. If you think that misogyny is funny, then you are a misogynist. If you think racism is funny, then you are a racist. Hiding behind amorality is no excuse; it just makes you a Little Eichmann.

If I go to some website or blog completely at random, regardless of the topic or purpose, and I post “ILL KILL U BITCH” as a comment to the latest entry by them, is that a death threat? By the to-the-letter, text book definition of it that you provided, maybe.

And that’s the definition that’s going to form the basis of a criminal case in federal court.

But am I actually threatening them, do I actually have intent, purpose, or an ounce of desire for the person to die? No, that’s retarded!

How do we know? That’s the nature of these sort of anonymous internet death threats. One can blow them off, but they might be genuine. The internet is not blessed with a mind-reading functionality.

It has been said so many times that it is almost routine to type at this point. Anonymous does not care about you, your ideals, who you are or what you believe.

And by the same token, I don’t give a shit about Anonymous. I don’t care about their motivations, I don’t care about their ideals or lack thereof, I only care about what they do. And what they are doing is illegal and abhorrent. If you’re going to make it okay to ignore the ideals and opinions of your targets, don’t whine to me that I’m just not getting you because I focus on what you do, rather than what you say you’re after. I don’t give a damn what you’re after.

Wow! I had no idea this conversation was still going on. Seeing as Anon has basically lost interest in this (as they always do eventually), I moved on but I suppose I should respond to what’s been said to me since the last time I commented.

thebewilderness,

You may see the attacks against them as “beside the point” but those people are important “right here, right now” too. You asked me how many ways do I need to say it. Well, I guess that depends on how long your “perp” buddies continue to victimize women of color, women with disabilities, sex workers, and trans-gendered women because, you see, I do “give a shit”. I care about these women too much to just remain silent while folks like Heart and her pals threaten, harass, and endanger them.

So, if you want to talk about about the victims, let’s talk about them instead of wasting time crying for all of the world’s bullies who have finally met their match.

No actual bones broken, as far as I can tell…

That’s what I figured.

My heart goes out to BB for the things she has gone through in her life. Nobody should have deal with abuse. Nobody should spend their lives in fear. I’ve dealt with similar issues. That’s what makes it hard for me to flame her now.

I love liberty. The constitution guarantees freedom of speech that in unencumbered by the government. BB enjoys that protection. So does Mr. anonymous. Getting booed off stage, getting impolite feedback for stupid, sexist comments…that is part of life, isn’t it?
Feminists have plenty of private boards to sound off on. Based on what I have read, it seems like she just shot her mouth off in the wrong forum.

A 13 year old having harangues about his sexual habits posted on a public forum is as offensive as any other form of pornography. And that’s what it was. Exploitation of a child. Pure and simple. Her pain is regrettable but it should stop with her. Her son does not have the capacity to process the lifetime of pain she has had to bear. BB, have faith in what you have taught him. Let him try, and fail, with the knowledge that he has the unconditional love of at least one person in this long.

You call it a DOS attack, but the truth is that those comments pissed off A LOT of people. An acknowledgment of that fact would really prevent further incident IMHO. Not all anons are stupid kids. I fear her identity will be discovered eventually if she does not deflate the situation. Of course she loves her kids and wants what is best for them. She has the mind of an educator, and wants to make a better world.

If she went public again, disabled anonymous replies, explained her state of mind and maybe (gasp) said some positive things about her son, who knows? Anon does not forgive, but he might move on, if there are no more lulz to be had.

The only other option is to retreat from public life. This would be a tragedy. BB has a unique perspective, and one I would leik to hear. But she did retreat, and now I have to post on here in the hopes she will read this.