How an Online Mob Doxxed an Innocent Man (nymag.com) 158
"An innocent man faced a torrent of online threats and abuse after being mistakenly identified in a viral video in which an angry cyclist hurt a child," reports the BBC:
Mr. Weinberg was falsely identified when the wrong date was attached to the initial appeal made by the police in Bethesda, U.S. Mr. Weinberg used the popular fitness tracking app Strava, which showed him as having been on the Maryland bike trail on that day.
However on the correct date he was working at home...
Once his address had been shared by others — a practice known as doxxing — the police had to patrol the area for his safety, reported New York magazine... Mr. Weinberg has since received dozens of apologies from people who abused him online.
Weinberg mistakenly thought his app only shared his bike-ride routes with his network of friends, New York Magazine reports.
They add that Weinberg also discovered tweets wrongly accusing another man — a former police officer in Maryland — which had been retweeted and liked more than half a million times. And that the woman who'd posted Weinberg's home address later "deleted it and posted an apology, writing that in all of her eagerness to see justice served, she was swept up in the mob that so gleefully shared misinformation, depriving someone of their own right to justice.
"Her correction was shared by fewer than a dozen people."
However on the correct date he was working at home...
Once his address had been shared by others — a practice known as doxxing — the police had to patrol the area for his safety, reported New York magazine... Mr. Weinberg has since received dozens of apologies from people who abused him online.
Weinberg mistakenly thought his app only shared his bike-ride routes with his network of friends, New York Magazine reports.
They add that Weinberg also discovered tweets wrongly accusing another man — a former police officer in Maryland — which had been retweeted and liked more than half a million times. And that the woman who'd posted Weinberg's home address later "deleted it and posted an apology, writing that in all of her eagerness to see justice served, she was swept up in the mob that so gleefully shared misinformation, depriving someone of their own right to justice.
"Her correction was shared by fewer than a dozen people."
Mob justice is bad (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole criminal justice system and civil court system was developed over a dozen centuries to avoid it. Outrage mobs and lynch mobs are evil, even when they're correct.
Too bad we don't have schools to teach people these sorts of things. I bet they know the state capitals though.
More apologies to come? (Score:5, Insightful)
I am wondering when the mob will start apologizing to RIchard Stallman, since they were raging at him base on a factually-incorrect statement about what he said (which came with an interpretative guide that made him out to be a monster that he was not).
Similarly, when will the angry mob apologize to James Damore for raging at him based on factually-incorrect statements (and similar misinterpretations) of what he said in his company memo?
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Be careful what you wish for. Do you mean a shower as in hot water coming down from above, or a shower as in forgetting to zip his pants on a day he's going commando?
Re: More apologies to come? (Score:2)
He was talking about RMS, not Trump...
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Direct Quote:
Previous poster (unknown): Giuffre was 17 at the time; this makes it __rape__ in the virgin islands.
Stallman: I think it is morally absurd to define "rape" in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.
After that he goes on about how she may have been coerced but that Minksey may not have known that when he had sex with her. He found a copy of the deposition, then requested someone else download it for him because he thinks Javascript is evil. So wrong for him to run but OK for someone else.
There was nothing factually incorrect about people were upset with him about. He somehow fixates on the part of the conversation that says the professor didn't know she was unwilling, but forgets the part
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RIchard Stallman, since they were raging at him base on a factually-incorrect statement about what he said
Don't confuse and outright lynching based on completely wrong information with a misinterpretation of a statement. There's nothing factually-incorrect in how the "lynch-mob" derived meaning from what Stallman said, and that doesn't get changed by the "I didn't mean that" statement afterwards.
I sympathise with the guy but at the same time a man who built his career on both computer programming as well as legal text should know better than run his mouth using potentially ambiguous language on a socio-politica
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Nope. You have, at best, read the mutilated versions prepared by a leftist outrage mob with the explicit purpose of gaslighting the useful idiots such as yourself. They have succeeded. Find and read the original version, with references and everything.
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I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.
--Richard Stallman
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I took that quote from here [stallman.org]
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I'm wondering when people will stop abusing the word gaslighting: as the word refers to a pattern of severe psychological abuse which obviously does not apply to the matter of the public discusison about these people.
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Outrage mobs and lynch mobs are evil, even when they're correct.
They are criminal.
Too bad we don't have schools to teach people these sorts of things.
However we have tribunals and courts to teach those people something.
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"However we have tribunals and courts to teach those people something."
I agree with the sentiment. It made me think about the difference between how the words teach and educate can be used, and assuming the expression "courts to teach those people something" is more synonymous with "courts to sanction those people with something" than "courts to educate those people on the matter so they can recognize it sooner", hopefully in cases like these the education side isn't left at most indirectly addressed.
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The whole criminal justice system and civil court system was developed over a dozen centuries to avoid it. Outrage mobs and lynch mobs are evil, even when they're correct.
Too bad the criminal justice system hasn't developed far enough to go after the people responsible for putting this guy's life in danger.
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Except now you can get almost anyone's home address just by googling their name and zip code. Try it. Doxxing used to require a trip to the city or county headquarters but not anymore!
And the politicians won't do anything about it. Why? Because the government pays for a service to hide their private contact information from the internet and so politicians don't think doxxing is a problem.
Similarly, politicians with taxpayer funded health plans don't think we need universal health care. News at 11!
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Re:Mob justice is bad (Score:5, Insightful)
It's easy to see when other people are forming a mob. It's not so easy to realize that you're becoming part of a mob yourself.
The emotions that drive a mob -- fear, anger, the pleasurable anticipation -- operate a place lower in our brain architecture than critical thinking. They have absolute priority over logic in shaping our immediate perceptions of the world.
Since critical thinking is powerless to overrule emotion, you can't prevent mobs by teaching critical thinking. People have to practice critical *feeling*, which is nothing more or less than this: the deliberate cultivation of doubt. When certainty accompanies actions that are violent, extreme and irreversible, it's never a good thing.
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They have absolute priority over logic in shaping our immediate perceptions of the world.
We used to have this thing called "self control" that allowed us to prioritize logic and reason over raw emotion. It seems to be a lost art. Not saying that control was perfect, but it was a thing.
Since UNDEVELOPED critical thinking is powerless to overrule emotion...
Fixed that for you.
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No, my observation is that how well someone can think critically in low-emotion situations has little bearing on their judgment under emotional duress.
That's because when emotions are in the driver's seat, critical thinking faculties switch from decision-making to rationalization. From an evolutionary standpoint this makes sense. Emotions exist to provide standard behaviors that do not need to be figured out on the spot; when you see the tiger stalking in the grass, you run.
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And as I said, we used to be better at stepping back a bit. It was part of the culture, including when under duress.
Meanwhile, in the case at hand, most people seeing the video were sitting in a nice safe air-conditioned space hundreds to thousands of miles away from the event that happened hours before. If THAT qualifies as emotional duress, it's worse than I thought.
It's good to react to things like a child being bullied by an adult, but it's important to take a beat to make sure you have the right adult
Re:Mob justice is bad (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure that it's impossible to teach people how to overcome this mentality, but it's probably difficult to practice because you need a large group of people in order to practice it. Even if you're aware of the mechanisms, it's probably not enough to overcome that actual emotion without repeated exposure to those kinds of situations. Even with that I wonder how well people can overcome thousands of years of evolution that have wired humans to behave this way.
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Perhaps roleplay; Physical Education class to get adrenaline pumping then straight after into a psychological exercise? The "what if" of setting up groups, and letting people experience first hand what happens to their own mental makeup in different situations.
I suspect that proposal is absolutely full of flaws, but some way to expose people and "inoculate" them to adverse conditions is something that I think society needs.
It's well known that exposure to things reduces their impact and expression (this is
Re: Mob justice is bad (Score:2)
"The whole criminal justice system and civil court system was developed over a dozen centuries to avoid it."
That's correct, our modern justice systems have been reformed and evolved over the centuries guided by a need to protect us from ourselves, not at all because of abuses of authority, tyranny, persecution by authorities.
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
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And notice that the hard left is out there, right now, in the middle of a pandemic they claimed was so serious we had to destroy our economy to prevent from killing us all, rioting and destroying property and demanding that we abolish the police.
Gee, I wonder why the hard left might be demanding the right to riot without police?
Re:Mob justice is bad (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole criminal justice system and civil court system was developed over a dozen centuries to avoid it. Outrage mobs and lynch mobs are evil, even when they're correct.
Too bad we don't have schools to teach people these sorts of things. I bet they know the state capitals though.
In recent history all the violent mobs came from the hard left; the progressives.
Also notice; the mob in this story are all progressives - the suspect they were after was apparently anti-george-floyd-awareness.
Re: Mob justice is bad (Score:2)
Re: Mob justice is bad (Score:2)
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Sure they do. It's that liberal indoctrination that's causing Republican outrage mobs [ranker.com].
And when did Colin Kaepernick become white?
I'm I the only one old enough to remember (Score:3, Insightful)
These guys have never been the friends of nerds. They gave us wedgies for fucks sake.
Re:I'm I the only one old enough to remember (Score:4, Insightful)
Cancel culture sucks regardless of who's doing it, but if the religious right still held any real sway we wouldn't have legalized marijuana in many states or gay marriage for that matter. There's a new set of pretty tyrants in town for now, but eventually they'll become old cat ladies and either die or be relegated to nursing homes and we'll get some other set of assholes throwing their weight around and annoying everyone else.
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i lol'd at this comment. where tf is he-man. also wtf happened to care bears
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when the religious right demanded we boycott pretty much everything? Heavy Metal. D&D. He-Man.
This has been going on for thousands of years, during which gay people and so on merely wished to be tolerated and left alone, and not actively camp8gned against with laws and mobs.
Now the shoe is on the other foot and people are getting upset.
And my observation is the lament that toleration of others was not learned. I cannot blame the attempt at controlled destruction of the other side, but it should not be.
Re:Mob justice is bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure they do. It's that liberal indoctrination that's causing Republican outrage mobs [ranker.com].
Huh. So boycotts = death threats, riots, murder, and secession. Got it.
And when did Colin Kaepernick become white?
Since birth, because his mom's white [wikipedia.org]. Why are you so racist as to ignore half his heritage? Are you one of those that counts a person with a drop of African heritage as a black? Are you that racist?
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Funny, I said outrage mob. Why are you creating a strawman?
You're forgetting your own rule [baystatebanner.com], LynwoodRooster.
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Funny, I said outrage mob. Why are you creating a strawman?
So in your mind, boycotting a business (which is what you linked) is an outrage mob. What do you call hundreds of thousands injuring people, destroying property, and attempting to secede from the US?
You're forgetting your own rule [baystatebanner.com], LynwoodRooster.
WTF does that mean? Is it my rule? Prove it, please. Prove I support that rule - or you can say you're wrong.
My guess, is you'll toss off a smarmy comment and slink away, because you know you're showing your own hatred and "outrage mob" mentality by literally lying about another person. In other words - y
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My theory all is about getting rid of Trumo is still at a 100% explanatory rate. Let's test the prediction and see how fast this all dies down if he loses.
Re: Mob justice is bad (Score:2, Interesting)
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Oh, so you'll treat outrage mobs as being limited to the left until we establish a moral equivalence? Well here you go [khn.org]. Threats to life and physical safety. Perhaps you missed the news about Fauci [nytimes.com]? Or don't public officials count in your view?
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And when did Colin Kaepernick become white?
Not even related. It's easy to overlook this due to the mob-enforced narrative, but...
Re: Mob justice is bad (Score:2)
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The Chinese seems to be popular to vilify, with too many stories of old men being pushed down and young ladies punched in the face.
Seems some politicians have been using them as a scapegoat.
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Some of these people came over to build the railway in the 19th century. If you figure that punishing people based on their ancestry is right, I guess vilifying Americans of European descent for keeping slaves is OK.
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Yes, let us thank Xi for what Chinese immigrant workers did over a hundred years ago. That'll be brilliant.
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Looking back at my original comment, it seems I left out the local part, locally people of Chinese descent are being vilified.
It's really quite amazing. (Score:3, Insightful)
That twitter will mark as incorrect a factual statement by Trump, but will allow retweeting, without any editoralisation, the home address of an innocent man some half a million times.
Good thing they're protected, eh.
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I expect that eventually we'll regain some sanity, but I h
Re:It's really quite amazing. (Score:5, Informative)
There's a simple solution - that I'm sure poor Mr. Weinberg learned good: don't do Twitter, or Strava, or Facebook or any stupid social media, and no-one will mistakenly dox you. Shit like that doesn't happen if you don't share information needlessly.
Re:It's really quite amazing. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a simple solution - that I'm sure poor Mr. Weinberg learned good: don't do Twitter, or Strava, or Facebook or any stupid social media, and no-one will mistakenly dox you. Shit like that doesn't happen if you don't share information needlessly.
What makes you think he was on twitter, or that he shared his own information? Imagine, for a minute, that you are not on twitter - someone else looks up your address and tweets it as the address of a convicted paedophile. What do you do then, smart-ass?
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Weinberg wasn't on Twitter, but he was using Strava. Some smartass wrongly matched his self-publicized whereabouts wtth that of a child molester.
If he hadn't been on Strava, none of this would have happened, is what I'm saying.
Don't share your location, keep your trap shut online if anything you say can be traced to your real-life persona. Sure an angry ex or a jealous coworker may decide to dox you, but online vigilantes and other SJW idiots you don't know can't hurt you if they don't have any information
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Weinberg wasn't on Twitter, but he was using Strava. Some smartass wrongly matched his self-publicized whereabouts wtth that of a child molester.
If he hadn't been on Strava, none of this would have happened, is what I'm saying.
Don't share your location, keep your trap shut online if anything you say can be traced to your real-life persona. Sure an angry ex or a jealous coworker may decide to dox you, but online vigilantes and other SJW idiots you don't know can't hurt you if they don't have any information on you. That's called reducing your attack surface area.
I quite likely have your address right now.
And I know this sounds omnious and troll quality, but hear me out. I've been crawling public websites indexing anything that looks like an address for the past 7 years. No matter how careful you are, one of your contacts are less careful and has shared your information. Computers never forget. I have not done even a smidgen of research into your digital footprint, but I'm pretty sure some bit of data will have leaked and that's all I will need to share out your
Re:It's really quite amazing. (Score:4, Insightful)
You are crossing the line between recommending people protect themselves, and victim blaming.
If he hadn't been on Strava, none of this would have happened, is what I'm saying.
If she hadn't been wearing that dress, none of this would have happened, is what I'm saying.
If he hadn't been jogging while black, none of this would have happened, is what I'm saying.
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That's not a solution. What you're effectively saying is "Have no engagement with modern society, be exiled by fiat by random people who should have no authority at all over you. Be nowhere near modern society or living, and you'll be fine."
Which is exact pandering to the wrong point. You're going to extremes to 'fix' a flaw which is the root cause. The root cause being misinformation, and people's propensity to believe a "celebrity" who has not rational base on which to be authoritative, simply because
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I have a simple question: How do you fact check every post on Twitter (or any other social media platform) ?
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Then we end up with a situation where the one who started this thread rails against Twitter because the post was buried further down in the list for trending posts and didn't get checked.
Which is why I posed the question - because it's impossible to go through everything that is posted on social media and that will lead to indignant post about how social media is biased or isn't doing enough or have some nefarious agenda etc because they didn't catch something.
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but will allow retweeting, without any editoralisation, the home address of an innocent man some half a million times.
Twitter only asked people to fact check Trump. I would suggest it probably doesn't help to ask people to fact check the man's home address. ;-)
Also I'd cut them some slack here, there's 500 million tweets every day. It's not possible to check them all; 499 million of them aren't near as important as the tweets from the leader of the "free" world (Fuck 2020 and Trump for putting us in a situation where that word needs quotes around it).
Re: It's really quite amazing. (Score:2)
Trump has made a factual statement? A true one? Wow - please share...
Libel (Score:2)
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I'd go further, with "wreckless endangerment"
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I'd go further, with "wreckless endangerment"
"They endangered me without smashing into my car!!! I demand justice!!!"
:-)
Sounds good to me
Macaque monkeys (Score:5, Insightful)
Except some of us. Some of us are more evolved than the 'average', apparently, and we won't stoop to that sort of behavior. But there aren't enough of us. The rest of the two-legged animals on this planet are going to doom us all by refusing to evolve. They'd rather continue to fling their own feces and smack others around with a broken tree limb than actually stop and think, even pretend to be 'civilised', if they can get away with giving in to their animal impulses.
I don't think we, as a species, have yet earned the right to survive. Climate apocalypse, pandemics, war, asteroid strikes? They're all coming to get us, because the Universe is judging us as unfit to continue existing, and sure as fuck unfit to leave this planet and spread out into the solar system and our galaxy like some sort of plague. We'll wipe ourselves out one way or another before that happens BECAUSE WE, AS A SPECIES, SUCK.
Want to hate on me for saying this? Fling your shit at me in the form of moderation points? Post your vitriol and hate in response? Go right ahead. One way or another you're agreeing with me, validating me, proving that everything I've said here is true and accurate. You're been JUDGED and you can't escape it, all the fake-ass 'righteous indignation', all the denial, none of it will save you from the Judgement. BAD, BAD HUMANS, SHAME ON YOU, SHAME ON YOU ALL!
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Our species evolved to thrive in a violent world. The animal kingdom is not a kind place. So, we have instincts and proclivities that are well suited to our former existence as hunter-gatherers out in the wild. That includes plenty of violence.
We can't erase millions of years of neural-net reinforcement with the wave of a hand. Actually, the level of success we have had at creating civil countries where most people are generally safe and well-behaved is a testament to the amazing flexibility of our brai
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Except some of us. Some of us are more evolved than the 'average', apparently, and we won't stoop to that sort of behavior. But there aren't enough of us.
Shakespeare wrote a play about the difference: education and philosophy. Education and philosophy make civilization and keep us from acting like wild animals.
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Yeah, but then you have to listen to an old, dead white dude who was probably racist, so we should just topple any statue to him, ban any plays or movies inspired by his clearly-hateful screeds, and burn his books.
If only we could doxx him, too...
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If only we could doxx him, too...
He hasn't gone anywhere lately.
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Pathetic wannabees. (Score:2)
Doxxers are nothing but pathetic cowards who hide behind the internet to make themselves feel important while lashing out like fucking idiots. They should be rounded up and have their faces smashed in with a hammer. I volunteer to do it.
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Wasn't he complicit in his own doxxing by installing a publicly-broadcasting location tracker on himself?
Oh, but he wasn't aware it was publicly broadcasting? Maybe we need to regulate this area of "informed consent" then. Although, I do suppose there was a clickthrough EULA, where he gave his implied consent.
Here's what I do to track my fitness - I have a stopwatch and an OpenOffice spreadsheet. They are physically incapable of broadcasting my location to anyone.
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Hey, you used the internet. We can now do anything we want to you because there's a path to discovering your home address (note, it _is_ possible to work out someone's home address from their IP address if you have access to the low level information all the way).
That's essentially your argument; if you want to communicate in a modern fashion, you are complicit in anything I choose to do to you. That works equally for using the telephone, or even regular mail. Hell, having a name and address and letting
Not only Twitter (Score:3)
"Her correction was shared by fewer than a dozen people."
And this tread will have no more than 50 comments.
Think about that for a moment.
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With this comment it's at 61.
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Man your post did not age well. 107 and counting. I thought about it and came to the conclusion you don't know people very well.
Can this guy sue any of these people? (Score:2)
Is there any legal basis for this guy to sue these people? These scum bags could have gotten him hurt or worse.
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I'm sure there is. But first he actually has to find them. That involves discovery and subpoenas to social media companies. In other words $$$
tha fug? (Score:2)
You know, when you think about it, American politics is merely 2 equally oposite sides of 1 anrgy mob. See my sig for a deeper understanding.
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You're correct, but I'm not talking about non-politicians or wanna-be politicians. I'm only talking about actual politicians. Of course, the problem with my argument is that I have to include the media in some agreeable way, aside from politics, regardless of whether the media is controlled by politicians or not. This problem seems to be by design.
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Objection here. The Seattle PD never attempted to secede from the US. And their attempt at protest by abandoning their precinct, hoping to be able to go "We told you so." if it was looted, backfired on them when things simply returned to normal now that the cause of the violence had so conveniently removed itself from the equation. Businesses are happy that customers are back and delivery trucks are no longer being blocked from the area, residents are happy they're no longer having to dodge chemical warfare
So scary (Score:2)
I wonder... was there ever any real attack on someone in a situation like this? Who is actually scared of those idiots? I wouldn't expect some some basement dwelling loser to actually get outside, come to my house and attack me. It's not exactly pizza gate or Fox News doxxing abortion doctors. The chances that this will catch the attention of some lunatic or someone will actually decide to break the law over this is tiny. I think I wouldn't pay much attentions to this people. Am I wrong?
In a word? (Score:3)
Am I wrong?
Yes [slashdot.org].
Any of these "basement dweller loser" types you mention can all too easily compel the police to come to your house and shoot you dead.
Arrest the woman, charge the police! (Score:5, Insightful)
She intentionally didn't verify the facts and because she didn't, she caused abuse to another person, which should make her responsible for the abuse.
On another note, why the fuck did the police have access to that data? People have to stop sharing their personal information so willingly, without a regard for what happens to it once they give it up. The police intentionally misdated the video, and they intentionally misdated it by not going through a strict verification of the data. They took the data at face value, which any average person knows can't be done reliably without some form of log / audit trail. This should also make the police responsible for the abuse, yet will either party be held accountable?
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On another note, why the fuck did the police have access to that data?
Because the crazy doxxers had access to it.
The police intentionally mis-dated the video,
Intentionally? Or mistakenly? Because if it's the former, they may very well have destroyed the prosecutor's court case against the correct person. "So, the police can't even get a date stamp off of a video correctly? Why should we suppose they got it right the second time around. Reasonable doubt. Case dismissed."
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Tracking, no thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why many of us don't want to be tracked, logged, shared or even aggregated. The internet is quick to anger and never apologizes.
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You were making a lot of sense until you got to aggregated. Then your post ceased making any kind of sense at all. He didn't get doxed because Stava was keeping aggregate statistics, he got doxed because he had his permissions set open and completely public.
In other news if you don't want your dick picks on the internet it is highly recommend to wear pants in the shopping mall.
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Who cares if they were wrong? (Score:2, Insightful)
Nothing new under the sun etc (Score:5, Interesting)
Social media mobs are merely one more iteration of such as the Khmer Rouge, French Revolution mobs all the way back to such as the Roman mobs.
The problem posed by history is why they are allowed power.
Re: Nothing new under the sun etc (Score:2)
... and the American Revolution mobs?
Once again we see how dangerous (Score:2)
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His crime was monitoring his fitness levels when biking. Nothing more than that. The rest of the shit show was because you're not allowed to have ANYTHING today without attaching your name and credit card info to it.
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