Minnemooseus writes:
quote:
The main points I remember from listening a couple of weeks ago:
The best thing for the protesters to do, would have been to totally ignore him.
Yeah, I listened to that podcast. I generally like OtM, but they have a serious blind spot when it comes to political coverage, all too often falling for the false equivalence of the left and the right. For example, in their coverage of the protests against Trump, they talk about the claims of "professional protesters" and point out the silliness of claiming that George Soros is behind the Women's March...and then heavily imply that it's a silly argument regarding the Tea Party...
...neatly forgetting that Fox News directly subsidized the Tea Party. Their programming regular showed hosts supporting the Tea Party and at least one rally, they sent their hosts to the events to be featured speakers.
[that, and host Bob Garfield doesn't think there's anything wrong with calling someone a f---ot.]
So in listening to Holiday pull the "Don't feed the trolls" lever, I recognized that this was OtM trying to pretend that they're the rational ones out of some sort of need to be seen as "fair and balanced."
PZ Myers had a good response to Allen Clinton's attempt to play that card:
Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god. That is so painfully stupid.
It’s wrong. People like Yiannopoulos are playing to a crowd, and it’s not us. He throws bloody red meat to assholes, and thrives on their approval. What gave 4chan a bit of corrupt power was not liberals either avoiding or criticizing them, it was a gigantic mutual circle-jerk of horrible people reinforcing each other’s regressive views. Ignore them and you’re just giving them room to grow.
It’s also the kind of thing only an oblivious man who has not been the target of the concentrated hatred of the mob could say. Yiannopoulos and his ilk have been ranting, pointing their fingers and screaming shrilly, at people for years. The women who have been doxxed by his kind will tell you that ignoring them doesn’t help when you’re stalked, when you get bomb threats, when your inbox is clogged with detailed plans to rape you. The transgender individual who was gaily outed by Yiannopoulos in public doesn’t have the option to just ignore him.
This guy claims he can effectively deal with trolls by "ignor[ing] them or respond[ing] with kindness." Bullshit. That works with small numbers of casual haters that you can deal with one on one. But clearly he has never had to cope with a swarm of fanatical, obsessed people who find his identity itself to be offensive.
Don’t feed the trolls
does not work. Seriously. I’ve got experience in this area, and even at that, I have not been the focus of the same flamethrower of hatred that others have experienced.
Weirdly, this guy is delivering his archaic and useless advice at a time when we’re finally getting through to demolish Yiannopoulos’s authority. He lost his book deal, he has just resigned from Breitbart, and none of this was accomplished by ignoring him. It was by keeping up the pressure, exposing him for what he is, and letting his own words turn him into a pariah.
Do you know who we should ignore? Ignorant liberals who keep on indignantly informing us of the same wrong solutions, over and over.
I should like to emphasize the next-to-last paragraph:
"None of this was accomplished by ignoring him. It was by keeping up the pressure, exposing him for what he is, and letting his own words turn him into a pariah."
Remember, Yiannopoulos made those statements a year ago. We've known for quite some time about his pedophilia.
But people ignored it. He was just some blowhard that nobody thought anything of. The people at Berkeley were just whining little snowflakes who couldn't handle people with a different opinion.
I should like to point out that anybody who thinks it's OK for CPAC to disinvite him, for Breitbart to push him out, for Simon and Schuster to rescind his book deal has no basis to complain the next time the students at a college express their displeasure at someone coming to speak at their campus. We've already established that the right are simply prostitutes for their political correctness...we are merely haggling over the price. They have their limits as to what is allowable and if you cross it, you are to be cast aside.
It seems the cliche is true: The only way to get them upset is to be caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy.
Some of us seem to think that sex crimes aren't the threshold of bad behaviour.
[And on a related note, Bill Maher needs to pay attention to Larry Wilmore and Jim Jeffries and go F off himself. He had nothing to do with Yiannopoulos's downfall. And for him to gloat over Y's flame out while simultaneously whining about himself having his invitation to speak rescinded is the height of irony.
Especially since Maher also defended pedophilia, or has everybody forgotten his defense of Mary Kay Letourneau?
Once again: Dead girl or live boy. Apparently it's OK when he gets a boner.]
Rrhain
Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.
Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.
™ Version 4.2
