Category: someone is wrong on the internet

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freedom of speech rants someone is wrong on the internet

You keep using those words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.

So there was the thing over at Jim C Hines’ blog, where I made the mistake of reading comments and once again it made me wonder if we could claim that part of humanity is just something we found on the curb, like an unwanted couch. Jim canceled his Reddit Q&A because there was a really gross thread on Reddit where rapists were talking about the hows and whys of the awful things they’ve done; he gave an ultimatum that either that thread needed to go, or no Q&A from him.

Immediately, whining about freedom of speech ensued. This is not an uncommon reaction, I’ve noticed.  Christian apologists for Chick-fil-a have been applying this juvenile argument as well, to tell us we’re all being mean for not buying their delicious hate chicken and thus tacitly endorsing their anti-gay agenda. Apparently, freedom of speech has been redefined on the internet as, “I have a right to say anything horrible I want and you’re not allowed to protest or try to stop me.”

No. That’s not how it works. And there’s no cognitive dissonance necessary to believe in free speech as a right (via the Constitution) and not wanting to let trolls shit all over your comments section.

This would be because while we all like to say we’re part of the government of the United States, this being a representative democracy and all, none of us are actually the government, and none of us are making laws. The power of the state (and now of large corporations) can be a horrible, chilling thing, and it should be kept well away from speech, even really reprehensible speech. (Because of nothing else, one man’s reprehensible speech is another man’s important point.)

But as I said, I’m not the state, Jim C. Hines isn’t the state, and any website with a commenting policy that keeps a terminal asshole buildup from occurring is also not the state. We’re administrators of our own blogs/websites, and whining at us about freedom of speech is equivalent to whining at your mom because she won’t let you say fuck in the house, and about as effective.

Is it hypocritical, though, to say you believe in free speech and at the same time police jerks on your own space? (Or refuse to share space with shameful people?) No, I don’t think so. I have just as much a right to express my opinion as the next person – and actually more, when it’s my personal space. I’m not obligated to let my obnoxious Ron-Paul-loving neighbor put a campaign sign on my lawn. Likewise, I’m not obligated to let words that are abhorrent or abusive stand on a space that is mine to control. Want to say awful things? Get your own space.

But what about Jim demanding Reddit take the thread down as a condition for him doing the Q&A?

In the world of emergency medicine, unconsciousness implies consent. In the world of speech, silence likewise implies consent, and agreement. Appearing quietly in the same space as something you find abhorrent implies that you are all right with the existence of that abhorrent thing.

And I think that’s an important part that often gets left off on these rants about free speech.

Outside of the realm of law (which obvious does not apply here because hey – not the government!) words have meaning, and consequence. When you run across something despicable, you have a very limited set of choices – you can ignore it, say nothing, move on, or you can protest. If you say nothing, if you do nothing, your silence provides your tacit agreement.

That’s why it’s important, for example, that Anonymous showed up to stand between the Westboro Baptist Church and the attendees of the memorial in Aurora, CO, even if WBC didn’t show up. Why it’s important that Chick-fil-a is facing a boycott for their anti-gay policies. Why when you hear someone say something racist, or sexist, or homophobic it’s important that you argue, even if it means making Christmas dinner kind of uncomfortable.

Some of the most important speech you will ever make is to stand up and say “No, this is wrong, and I refuse to be part of it.”

Related: Civility and free speech at Talking Philosophy. This also addresses why it’s not contrary to believe in free speech and simultaneously demand a minimum level of civility in your blog. And unlike my opinion, contains no swear words.

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rants reference post someone is wrong on the internet

I Give a Homeopathic Fuck About Your Entitled Whining

Dear Sir and/or Madam:

Thank you very much for bringing to my attention the important issue of (circle one):
a) white people losing their privileged position/racial majority in this country
b) your deep feelings that gay people getting married somehow renders your marriage less special
c) your barely concealed rage that we no longer live in a fictionalized version of the 1950s
d) your horror that Christianity is no longer the accepted default religious position and those damn Muslims/Humanists/Atheists/Sikhs/etc insist on existing
e) the basic unfairness of a universe that refuses to allow you to scientifically support your religious/crackpot ideas
f) your deep philosophical point that I am fat/a chick/a chick that doesn’t wear make-up/obviously some kind of lesbo/a hippy pinko feminazi/etc therefore am incapable of being right
g) [write-in space here for issues not covered]

Your opinion is not actually important to me at all. In light of that, please allow me a moment to explain just how little I actually care.

Imagine, if you would, that in the deep recesses of the past my blackened, shriveled excuse for a heart was capable of giving a fuck about you. Not because I thought that you might actually have had a point, but rather because I could recognize your basic humanity and thus stir myself to the level of empathy necessary to give a single, lonely fuck about what you had to say.

This single, sad little fuck ran up against the crushing behemoth of your entitlement. I attempted to engage in reasonable conversation on the misapprehension that such a thing is actually possible in the comments sections of most websites. But then the jaw-dropping assertion that, say, pointing out that straight white men have it kind of easy is somehow racist hit my poor little fuck like a rocket sled crashing into a block of ice. That fuck I gave was easily shattered into at least one hundred pieces, one or two of which I was able to recover for later use.

I would have tried to recover more of my poor, pulverized fuck but you burnt my fingers with your incoherent inability to spell or use even the sophisticated grammar of a second grader and I retreated rather than suffer further.

And then that just kept happening. 

Over and over again, I attempted to give you what remained of that original fuck, and you continued to crush it under the weight of your certitude that life is spectacularly unfair to you because there are people who, shockingly, want the same opportunities you were born with.

Thanks to the internet and the free range of jaw-droppingly stupid opinion available for instant consumption, the fuck I once gave has now been divided and diluted to the point that you could search through every molecule that has ever existed in the universe and find no trace of it.

So at this point, the best I can manage for you is a homeopathic fuck at a dilution somewhere past 400C. Which, if you believed in magic, might actually have some kind of meaning. But given that I’m a woman of reason, it means I literally have no fucks to give you at all. In the entire universe, not one single fuck exists of mine that can be yours in regards to your entitled whining. Ever.

Have a nice day.

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feminism someone is wrong on the internet

Don’t Use This Argument Because OMG Children Are Starving in Africa

Raise your hand if this is a familiar source of tooth-grinding frustration: “Shame on you for being concerned/upset/worried about thing X, because thing Y is way worse.”

(This post started as a comment over at a post Jen wrote about comments Richard Dawkins made. But this annoys me enough, I want to just make it a post all its own. And also, I want to detach it from GettingHitOnInAnElevator-gate. Because really, it’s a more general complaint and what Richard Dawkins said is just one example.)

Now, I’ve run across this faux-argument mostly when I bring up an issue as a feminist, but I’m sure that it happens on other topics1. In one instance (among many), a couple of years ago I got in to the middle of a dogpile on the World of Warcraft forums because several of us female type humans had the audacity to say that we thought there was a particular thing in the game that was probably intended to be cute, but we found it sexist, creepy, and insulting. And immediately, that argument got pulled on us. We’re not allowed to complain that something in the game sexist and insulting because women in less socially liberal countries are under the thumb of some really horrible misogynists.

There are a multitude of reasons that this “argument” is a steaming pile of bullshit:

1) We are capable of being concerned with more than one thing at a time. And we can be concerned about an array of both large and small issues and speak out about them. Feminist women and our feminist male allies are – and this comes as a shock, I know – capable of multitasking.

2) You (directed at the general “you” that uses this ridiculous argument) do not have any way of knowing what I have and have not done toward the cause of women in less privileged countries. And further, it does not matter because you have no right to dictate to me what I can and can’t be concerned about.

3) You may think that thing X is less important than thing Y, but you must also acknowledge that I am directly affected by thing X, and that potentially gives me more power to do something about it. There is a limit to what one of us can do on our own about a giant issue in a far away place; we can donate money, we can volunteer, we can work to raise awareness. A “smaller” issue that affects you personally is something that you can act much more directly on. So you know what? I cannot personally end the practice of female genital mutilation. But I can personally try to change something that affects me directly – to use the WoW example, as a paying customer of the company that’s doing something offensive, I can make a stink about “Hey, I think this is BS.”

4) EVERYONE performs this sort of mutlitasking and issue triage. Everyone. Trying to tell someone they shouldn’t is frankly hypocritical.

5) Also, if you are that concerned about thing Y, why the hell are you wasting your valuable time and energy arguing with silly wrong-headed feminazis on the internet instead of combating thing Y?

6) Every time I hear this argument, this is what I hear: “The issue you have chosen to speak about is one that I dislike or makes me uncomfortable, and I don’t really have a good answer to it. Therefore I will try to shame you with my powers of sarcasm in to shutting up because OMG children are starving in Africa.”

Ultimately, it comes across as almost less insulting if your “argument” is just a baldly stated “go make me a sandwich,” because at least then it doesn’t sound like you’re pretending to be on our side.

Please, just let this argument go; it’s not going to convince anyone, and is frankly going to fan the flames of anger because it sounds so damn condescending. There are a lot of other ways to deal with something you think is turning in to a tempest in a teapot. Ignoring it could be one course of action, since for some reason basically telling people to shut the hell up on the internet doesn’t work unless you have the power to simultaneously kill everyone’s broadband and melt their smart phones. Maybe just saying “I don’t consider this an issue so I’m going to go do something else” would come out as more positive, and you can have a smug little thrill that you’re totally the only adult in the room as you go flouncing away.

Or hey, maybe trying to understand why people are freaking the hell out about something you consider to be a non-issue could be worth a shot. You never know.

1 – Hm, maybe along the lines of “You shouldn’t whine about ‘under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance because there are countries where being an atheist will just get you executed!” And so on.