Open Discussion:
By now you probably know that Reddit super-troll known as Violentacrez, Michael Brutsch, was recently outed by Gawker’s Adrian Chen as the man responsible behind Reddits featuring sexualized images of minor girls, photos of dead kids, rape jokes, secret nude or sexualized photos of women taken without their knowledge, incest, “choke a bitch” and others.
You probably also know that Brutsch has since lost his job and is being shunned by society as a whole.
But what should happen to Brutsch and others like him who exploit children, either perfectly legally (so far), on the Internet? How about the man who took a partially-nude photo of Canadian middle schooler Amanda Todd via webcam, then used the photos to blackmail her for more sexualized content, and when she refused, shared the topless photos via social media…eventually leading to her devastating suicide?
Recently, the hacker group named Anonymous tracked down the man whom they assert may have been the one who took the webcam photos of Todd, and released his name into social media. That man had already been arrested on charges of a sexual nature with another underage girl. He has since received death threats, and maintains his innocence in the death of Amanda Todd.
What do you think should happen to Violentacrez in real life? Should he be charged with child pornography or some other crime?
What should happen when the police accurately determine who is responsible for the semi-nude photos of Amanda Todd?
How are these two men different from one another? How should their cases differ as far as the law is concerned? Should vigilante groups such as Anonymous even be taking part in the search for the perpetrators?
In what way can we, as parents, help protect our children from predators like Amanda Todd’s tormentor or anonymous Internet trolls like Violentacrez was?
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Well, step one should DEFINITELY be to post his real name and image so that he can be publicly shamed, because that’s not even remotely hypocritical!
Maybe next we should all get together and cheer about the fact that he lost his job, because vigilante justice is definitely the way to go.
After that, we should all pat ourselves on the back for our strength of moral fiber when it comes to participating in what amounts to a lawless public beat down, because we all took the high road, didn’t we? Nothing says “justice” quite like “post his image and real name all over the Internet so that thugs can easily plot something that we’ll call ‘revenge’ even though ‘socially acceptable bullying’ is probably a more accurate term.”
Maybe, a year from now, we can all recall the exceptional courage it took for us to publicly shame someone in the first place! Good for us!
So posting a fully-clothed and consensually-taken image of an adult is hypocritical because we condemn him for posting non-consensual semi-nude photos of minors?
Hmm. Not seeing the link.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. It’s never a defense to say “But he was REALLY bad, he totally had it coming.”
We have a justice system for a reason. Don’t like what he’s doing? Change the law.
Thing is – you have to EXPOSE the wrongdoing and the wrongdoer before you can ever hope to seek justice.
A horrid pedophile, bully and racist has now been exposed. Now let justice take it’s course
This is a mischaracterization. If they wanted REAL justice, an email to the authorities would have sufficed.
You only publicize a man’s face and identity if you are looking to promote vigilantism.
A horrid pedophile, bully, and racist have now been exposed? What are you talking about. If he is a pedophile, then so is everyone that has went to a swimming pool with minors, gone to the beach and looked at someone under the age of 18, or saw someone walking on the streets and though “Wow, s/he looks nice, I wouldn’t mind being with that” with out knowing their age. Take a look at the “woman” who sat outside twilight movie screening screaming at the male actors in the movie, they’re pedophiles also.
Secondly, how is he a bully? He posted images to annoy people, we all do. He posted them in a section that you only went to if you wanted to see stuff like that, such as rape jokes, dead kids, ect, not in places you stumpled upon randomly. I, myself, enjoy a good dead babie joke and one of my brothers died when he was 2 months old. He didn’t go out and shove your face in these “bully” subreddits, he had them hidden and you are encouraging ruining his life about it.
Finally, I see nothing that deams he is a racist. Just because he makes racial jokes doesn’t mean he is racist. I make blond jokes all the time, but I find blond woman to be incredibly attractive. I make white people jokes and I’m white, so am I racist against myself? What about the black/idian/british jokes I make? The blacks/indians/british people I make them to know that I’m doing it in jest and the moment someone does it and is actually racist, I’ll help to step in and show them just why they’re wrong.
You are living in a black/white world, Polentacruz, and one day, hopefully soon, you’ll step out of it and see that just because someone disagrees with you it doesn’t mean they’re racist, satanic, or anything else derogatory you can think of.
With that out of the way, what he did was completely legal, he didn’t break any laws, nor did CNN or any other reporting agency. His company fired him because they didn’t want his “bad” image to tarnish theirs, and that is a consequence of his actions, but nothing more should be done.
Looking at people and finding them hot, in the privacy of your own head, does them no harm. It does them no harm even if they’re minors, as long as you behave yourself like one of Dan Savage’s Gold Star Pedophiles, and never actually approach said minors sexually or provide a market for other people molesting said minors to produce porn for you.
Posting non-consensual photos of people to a forum on the Internet inviting other people to view them sexually *does* do them harm. It does them harm even if they’re adults (being featured in Internet porn without your permission can harm your employability, and being featured in Internet porn for people who specifically get off on the fact of your not having consented is reasonable cause for fear for other reasons), but especially if they’re not even adults. At least one teenager has been bullied into suicide as a result of an adult posting scantily clothed images of her to the net; at least one other had to withdraw from school and be home schooled because the images followed her wherever she went. It’s an activity that has a high risk for the minor if anyone in the minor’s set finds out about the image on the net. Not at all the same thing as finding someone hot in the privacy of your own head.
This isn’t at all the same thing as commenting on the hotness of the actors in the Twilight movies, since those movies involve consenting adult actors playing the roles of high school students. (Adults commenting on the sex appeal of actual child actors, as opposed to adult actors playing high school students, I’d consider creepy.)
(Publishing a sex tape of Hulk Hogan, on the other hand, is arguably somewhere in the same category as creep shots of *adults*, though not of minors.)
If he had been going around his neighborhood posting flyers of almost naked underaged girls he would also have been fired and shunned, and no one would have been upset about it. He made very bad decisions because he assumed that he would remain anonymous and now he is upset because people can link him to those bad decisions.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that he claims that he is entitled to anonymity when doing really disgusting things just because it’s the internet. But just because it’s the internet doesn’t mean it isn’t real and that actions don’t have consequences.
Exactly the right thing happened to Violentcrez. His actions were linked to his real world persona and everyone is now able to make a value judgment about him for themselves. He’s just mad because he never thought he would have to face the consequences of his actions.
That doesn’t seem to be an apt comparison: things posted “around the neighborhood” would be forcibly placed in the public eye. You would have to shut your eyes not to see them. This is an offense.
By contrast, you can only view a specific subreddit if you deliberately go looking for it.
Put simply: there is no real comparison.
“By contrast, you can only view a specific subreddit if you deliberately go looking for it.”
That’s a non sequitor. The offense isn’t against the people who view the specific subreddit. The offense is against the people (some of them minors) who non-consensually get sexualized photos posted in public places.
Please.
The photos were all taken in public. They were images of public spaces. There is no harm in the public seeing you as you present yourself in public.
You can imagine harm if you want, but that doesn’t make it real.
So posting a fully-clothed and consensually-taken image of an adult is hypocritical because we condemn him for posting non-consensual semi-nude photos of minors?
It might be considering the real world implications. Those guys getting fired makes since. Being brought up on charges and punished makes sense.
But putting their real name and other information on the net attached such accusations? Those may be scum but your comment makes me wonder.
Is there any circumstance where it is actually wrong to out someone to the world like this?
“Is there any circumstance where it is actually wrong to out someone to the world like this?”
If you’re not damn sure they did the thing you’re accusing them of, would be one obvious circumstance.
Was this all proven in the courtroom or is it just based on hearsay and “investigators”.
What should we do with them?
Step 1: Ensure everyone has a safe upbringing, kill off abuse in all forms.
Step 2: Ensure we have adequate mental health treatment plans and combat anything that could lead a person to hating life so much.
Step 3: Teach children internet safety
Step 4: If we still get trolls, etc, let the law handle them. Minor trolling can get community service, more severe can get jailtime. Even then they still probably need some form of help I’d guess.
Step 5: Innocent until proven guilty, stop posting accusations unless proven. This guy shouldn’t have lost his job based on accusations, if he was found guilty then I can understand why he’d be fired.
Step 6: Could be to change the laws, but I think even clothed pictures of “jailbait” are illegal anyway if used for sexual purposes.
I disagree with public harassment like that, I’d rather the courts handle it. If they get it wrong and end up making someone lose their job then what will people say or do? In the U.K there have been people assaulted simply because their house is listed on the sex offender registry, that offender moved but the site didn’t update. Posting their name n photo like this is just a vigilante act I think.
What’s interesting is that the Canadian police said the guy accused by anon for the Amanda Todd case is the wrong guy. Also if they did hack his computer, wouldn’t that make it inadmissible in court and severely jeopardize the case? Posting their name n photo like this also jeopardizes the right to a fair trial, it’s trial by media and I believe threatens the ability for a jury to be unbiased. Will you all pat yourselves on the back if the accused walks because of the public prosecution?
I think at least under Australian law it’s illegal to post about the accused’s previous criminal history, is it similar in the U.S? Social media is really fucking up the innocent until proven guilty basis of the court system I think. It’s why I try to refrain from making judgment, that’s the police n judge’s/jury’s job.
But hey don’t let me stop you fucking up someones life because of accusations.
I think (and this is coming from high school government classes, not any higher expertise) that, in America at least, that the evidence is admissible in court as long as the POLICE go through the proper channels to obtain it. Anonymous is just tipping them off in this case. For example, the police can’t just seize the guy’s computer, but they can go to a judge and say that they’ve been tipped off that this guy has evidence on his computer and they should be issued a warrant to seize his computer for investigation.
If they hacked into his computer then he can argue the evidence was planted though. Wouldn’t that destroy the case?
This man and others like him should be definitely charged with child pornography and other related crimes. Just because trolls are behind a screen does not make them immune to the crime they have committed towards society. Laws need to changed to include ‘trolling’ as an unlawful act – and quickly. I personally think our communities and more importantly our children are at risk. Internet safety ed from the moment a child is on the Net is paramount!
I don’t approve what he did, but making trolling illegal is the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard in my entire life.
And the reason being? Hasn’t done much good to our society so far! Posting child pornography is illegal
He never actually posted pornography, that’s the whole reason for Gawker’s vigilante justice; if he had actually posted child porn, then thefeds would be involved.
As it stands, he posted legal pictures in a place where they would only be found if someone was purposefully looking for them.
In short, we’re now being asked to participate in a public shaming because th morality polic are telling us to. You know, the same tactics used by evangelical Christians and the Rush Limbaugh, using shame as a weapon to enforce your morality against others who have not actually broken the law.
Because you and the mainstream media fail to understand what trolling is. When you say something like that it just shows how little you understand of the internet culture.
You incorrectly correlate trolling with the posting of child porn. Posting child porn is already illegal, and there is no need to update laws in that regard. “Trolling” is a social term used to describe a certain type of online behaviour that involves intentionally using false logic and controversial views (that you don’t actually hold) to enrage someone. By using it as a blanket term for “all the things those horrible people on the internet do” the issue is only clouded in confusion and rhetoric.
Child porn is already illegal.
Abuse and harassment is already illegal (or should be, no argument there)
But a witch hunt over people who commit actions deemed to fit an umbrella term which anyone can add to is “the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard in my entire life”
I think internet harassment should be illegal. Trolling tends to include behavior that people find obnoxious like “derailing” an internet conversation. Derailing is often times subjective. I’ve seen people accused of derailing when some of their posting was associated with the topic, but introduced a related concept that the regular users on the forum didn’t agree with. I myself was “accused” of derailing recently because I responded to a derailing post, but the person making the post (a regular user of the site) was not accused of derailing.
Boo, hoo. He used his anonymity the way vandals use the cover of darkness. He left a trail that any dedicated sleuth could follow. Now he’s lost his job, which he probably never spent any time on because he was always on reddit, and people know him for the jerk he is. Boo hoo. The internet is returning us to a reality where we’re in a small town where everybody knows everybody. You have to consider that before becoming a big fat pervy troll. We have to consider what we say in “reality”, so he should have done that before he vented his pathologies online. He should have considered the risks. Now he has to face the consequences – you know, like a man.
Not sure what being fat has to do with it.
“The internet is returning us to a reality where we’re in a small town where everyone knows everybody.”
This is quite a telling twist on the usual privacy perspective, one that I plan to share in the future
Okay so there are two issues here: 1. was Gawker encouraging vigilantism when it published Brutsch’s info? 2. Should there be a law against what Brutsch did?
So let’s take a look at what Gawker did. Did it publish Brutsch’s address? Nope. Did it even publish the name of the company Brutsch used to work for? Nope. Did it give you a bullet points list of his offences and say “this cannot be tolerated,” or something? Nope. It published an article…an ARTICLE about Brutsch. Why did the author feel the need to expose Brutsch’s real life identity? Because he is a journalist, and that’s what journalists do. They find stories and they write them. This includes publishing the names of people they are writing about.
And, of course, let’s remember that when the guy from Gawker called him up, Brutsch kept talking to him. Brutsch could have hung up the phone and refused to continue the interview. Doing so would have made the story a lot smaller. Let’s also remember that Brutsch has sense gone on television and done interviews. There was no call for vigilantism…just someone reporting a story.
As for the second part, well there’s a word that I’m not seeing used enough in these comments: CONSENT. He facilitated and encouraged the publication of photos which were taken without the subject’s consent. Now I am against this when it’s done by the paparazzi to celebrities, and I am most certainly against this when it’s done to underage girls (or boys if that were ever to happen). Consent is why I will defend the right of the two women in Two Girls One Cup to be able to make and publish the video they did, but I will condemn Brutsch for publishing non-pornographic photos of underage girls.
I haven’t watched and will never watch Two Girls One Cup…I’ve even avoided any detailed description of what actually happens…I just know it’s disgusting and I don’t like watching disgusting things. But it’s important that they are free to make that video and distribute that video (while giving parents the ability to restrict whether their children view that video, of course). But, of course, they all consented. They consented to do what they did, to be recorded, for that recording to be posted online….consent.
One of the other subreddits Brutsch was in charge of was literally just about taking photos of women without them realizing it. That is, actually, illegal and it’s creepy. I use that word on purpose…it’s fucking creepy.
Brutsch should not be praised or defended for helping take away these women and girls’ ability to give consent to their image being used.
HeatherN,
They reported the man’s name, they included a picture of his face, they told us what state he lived in, and if you read carefully, they also give us a city. Did they give us a street as well? No, but you’ve got to be kidding yourself if you believe they took ANY precautions against vigilantes. Indeed, the fact that he lost his job should already be proof enough that they were able to exact extra-judicial punishment.
The fact remains that you disagreed with what he did personally, and so you are now making excuses for bad behavior on the part of Gawker. There can be no excuses for this sort of behavior. If he has broken the law, then alert the authorities. Otherwise you are serving only to incite the very sort of terror that you rail against.
HeatherN you talk at length about consent, and yet it is clear that ViolentAcrez did not consent to having his own image put up on the Internet: he actually pleaded with Gawker not to out him. The hypocrisy here is so telling. If you believe consent was necessary, then it is wrong to post ViolentAcrez photo. You only approve because you want him to suffer, and that is a terrible motive.
Wrong. I do not want him to suffer. If he is being threatened at all because of this then he deserves what everyone deserves, for those threats to be investigated and for police protection. I imagine (though of course I do not know) that Gawker would agree. As I said, Gawker reported the news…they did a piece of investigative journalism. They didn’t call for vigilantism, and they didn’t step outside the bounds of what is reported in any news story.
So now revealing someone’s personal information to the world about criminal and disturbing activity before (or maybe at the same time) as law enforcement is investigative journalism?
If he is being threatened at all because of this then he deserves what everyone deserves, for those threats to be investigated and for police protection.
You know how this investigation and police protection could have been made easier? By turning over the goods he dug up to the authorities instead of sharing with the world.
Some people would suggest that being in a public space negates the right to privacy. Should we criminalize taking pictures if someone is standing in the background and didn’t consent? I think it depends on how the picture is used. It might be OK to take the non-consensual picture, but placing it for mass consumption could cross the line, but does a newspaper need to get the permission of everyone in the background in order to reprint a picture? Does the camera person need to get permission from the crowd before they pan a shot?
If Gawker posted his picture and his name, that takes it to another level. If they posted his state and city, then they’re setting him up for vigilante justice. You might disagree because you feel he deserves it, but how does where he live impact the nature of what happened? Unless the laws or the internet access in his state are different, this is not something necessary to the story.
I think you’re making a freedom of the press argument concerning posting this other information. What was he doing that was news worthy? How did it serve the public interest to out him? If he committed a crime or someone killed themselves over something he did, then I can see the public interest. I don’t know that you can make that claim because a picture might be a hidden cam picture. There are some porn movies about BDSM that have “spoiled” the video by interviewing the actors after the shoot especially the one being punished because they seemed so real that people could have mistaken it for such. A lot of movie makers would be in trouble if a mere depiction of a sexual assault or privacy violation was tantamount to the real thing.
Could they have satisfied the public interest by exposing the site and soliciting public comments?
Is not Gawker the same gawker that posted the Hulk Hogan sex tape?
I believe these blogging heads/CNN 24 hour streaming have an inordinate amount of power – good and bad – an Olympian tweet, a “binders” comment, sex video game tropes and raising big cash….I mean, it’s harder to buy an assault weapon than it is to have a blog with stupid and dangerous opinions!
Right, people seem to have some difficult understanding the difference between reporting a story and calling for vigilantism. So, for reference: the register-her.com site provided by AVfM…that’s a call for vigilantism. Katherine Heigl, for example, is on that site. It is simply her name and her supposed offences listed in such a way as to spark anger. Now, when a magazine writes a story about Heigl and discusses where she lives and posts a photo of her, that’s not a call to vigilantism. That’s a story. Just for a bit of comparison…
HeatherN,
There was NO NEED to include both a state and a city in the report, or to describe the type of job he has (also included). The story would have been every bit as effective without those bits of detail, and yet they were included. If that is not an outright call for vigilante justice, then it is most certainly reckless disregard for whether or not extra-judicial punishment is meeted out (which, as noted above, it most certainly was when it comes to ViolentAcrez employment). At a minimum, Gawker should not be encouraged to behave so irresponsibly. They cannot cause injustice and then claim the moral high road.
Furthermore, the story was most definitely NOT “Hey, look there’s a guy who does this!” instead the story was “Here is the man who does these things, this is his name, photo, and some information on where you can find him!” Indeed, the ENTIRE POINT OF THE STORY was to out the man’s identity. This is why it was a call for vigilantes to take revenge: because the whole story was outing his identity. I’m sorry but it’s clear that the goal here was always an extra-judicial attack, and all the attempted moralistic summer-salts in the world cannot avoid that conclusion.
Hi Heather – the concern is over whether the direct/live/real identification is required for the story. We are the audience, and whether it’s a Bob or a Max is very irrelevant to me, and therefore, it must also be irrelevant to the story. The story could have been made just as personal: middle aged, family, part recluse by necessity of the work, part of the 47%, and all without sharing his image and name. The image and name is a straight-up business decision. It has little to do with journalism.
As far as I can tell Katherine Heigl is condemned for an advertisement she made where she made light of genital mutilation of people. She willingly put herself, under her real name, in the spotlight. Her own words will be enough to make people angry. I assume the people behind register-her want to highlight the “genital mutilation culture”, which is a huge problem in the US. Showing celebrities making light of genital mutilation, supports their point of the prevalence of beliefs which support genital mutilation.
So, for reference: the register-her.com site provided by AVfM…that’s a call for vigilantism. Katherine Heigl, for example, is on that site. It is simply her name and her supposed offences listed in such a way as to spark anger.
How exactly is:
Celebrity Katherine Heigl and her husband Jason use human castration and hatred of men as a promotional device for their charity to neuter dogs. in 2011, Heigl filmed a public service announcement for Funny-or-Die in support of the neutering of cats and dogs to prevent unwanted animals being necessarily destroyed by animals shelters. The punchline of this campaign was the claim, made by Heigl that her motivation was a hatred of testicles, and that she is unable to castrate human males – yet.
The statement, intended to be humorous betrays an awareness that male targeting violence is increasingly common, and treated as slapstick comedy.
this action happened almost simultaneously with Katherine Kieu Becker pleading not guilty to severing her husbands penis with a knife and throwing it in a garbage disposal.
The actress’s willingness to endorse male targeted sexual mutilation betrays a bigoted indifference to sexual violence, and justifies her inclusion on this registry in the category of bigot.
plus name, city, and birthday “listed in such a way to spark anger?
Now, when a magazine writes a story about Heigl and discusses where she lives and posts a photo of her, that’s not a call to vigilantism. That’s a story. Just for a bit of comparison…
And your comparison fails. If anything the Heigl entry you speak of is actually less troublesome than the Gawker outing due to the fact that Heigl’s exact location is not given. And considering that she has suffered absolutely no consequence from her commentary on that subject (I guess the outrage over human animal relations is saved for when it happens to women like in those PETA ads).
Right, people seem to have some difficult understanding the difference between reporting a story and calling for vigilantism.
Honestly it looks like you are the one having difficulty. It looks like you pulled this example in an attempt to boot strap it to generic MRA anger. “Look at what those MRAs are doing! They are bad so you know the things they do are bad!”
And I still ask my original question.
Why wasn’t this information just shared with police? Why give it to the entire world?
Now to clarify I don’t think the outing was specifically done as a call for vigilante justice anymore than the register her article (and no it’s not a call for vigilante justice). What I do believe is that there is an attitude that is some vigilante justice were to just land in his direction it wouldn’t be such a bad idea (and I would agree that the register her article was done in the same light).
The difference is heathern is that sexual-based crimes, especially the pedophilia panic stuff destroy reputations whether you’re innocent or guilty. Katherine willingly put herself in the spotlight by making that Advert and her reputation has barely been tarnished, she’s still in her career. That guy was fired straight away. The genital mutilator was already in the news and proven in a court of law to have cut off his penis (if it wasn’t proven then I wouldn’t want her photo/name in the paper). They didn’t post the women’s locations though yet for the anon-guy they posted his fucking address, and the other guy I believe they posted his city. How is that comparable?
Being a loud-mouthed bigot, especially female, doesn’t have the same reputation damage. Hell I’ve seen guys lose their jobs for sexist comments against women, haven’t seen a woman lose her job for sexist comments against men. Plenty of feminist sites do the same shit the register-her site does, they list plenty of males as bigots, misogynists, etc. Hell look at all the shit on the republications and their war on women, I saw people copping every negative label, their name, their face. If register-her promotes vigilantism then so does the majority of popular feminist websites I’ve seen.
It’s not hard to understand. Post a story before proven in a court of law about a male who is doing quite questionable stuff to underage girls in a society with a HUGE FUCKING PEDOPHILIA HYSTERIA, where men have their lives destroyed by accusations alone, where vigilantes have beaten up people who were innocent because they moved into a house that a sex offender used to live in but the details didn’t change…….NOT comparable to a popular hollywood actress who said/did some misandrist shit. If saying misandrist shit made you lose your job, get harassed by feminists/mras/whoever, turned you into a pariah, put your life in jeapoardy because of save’the’kids’hero’wannabe vigilantes are willing to kill you, where if you went to jail you’d be put into a special section because the rest of the prison population wants to hurt you badly because you harmed kids then maybe it’d be comparable.
It’s REALLY not a hard concept to understand. Not every crime is treated the same way. Hell you can laugh about cutting a guys dick off on tv as a woman and keep your job, say something misogynist as a male and you lose it. Comparing it to Casey Anthony before trial would have been more appropriate and I don’t think she should have been in the news until proven guilty.
“Brutsch should not be praised or defended for helping take away these women and girls’ ability to give consent to their image being used.”
I don’t defend him if it’s true, he’d be a piece of shit. I defend the right to not have vigilantes fucking up peoples life when they could be guilty or innocent. Let the courts decide!
Also your argument sounds like he didn’t care about their consent so shy should we care about his? If he raped those girls, would you be ok with him being raped as payback?
While I do think Violentacrez got pretty much what he deserved, I’m not so sure about Amanda Todd’s alledged stalker. With ‘crez it’s pretty clear he did post these things and was responsible for them. He should bear that responsibility. With the alledged stalker it’s NOT clear he was responsible for harrassing Todd. Anaonymous plastered his face all over the internet because they THOUGHT he MIGHT be responsible.
What happens if there’s an investigation, and it discovers this guy is totally innocent? One more life ruined. If they had suspicions, they should have gone to the cops with the evidence.
In response to the question posed by the editors:
Probably not very much. It’s not against the law to be an Asshole… so in the great Internet tradition, those online forums that don’t want particular Assholes around can ban them, and let them stew in their own wretched hive of scum and villainy. There are lots of Significant People in history who were Assholes. When something has to be said that people don’t want to hear, it’s usually an Asshole that is the one who says it. Which is why it’s important to protect the right to be an Asshole, a right held dear by such people as Tucker Max, Larry Flint, Christopher Hitchens, Fred Phelps, Malcolm X, Andy Kaufman, George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Voltaire, Thomas Paine, Samuel Adams, and Socrates.
Of course, people also have the right to, say, not hang out with known assholes. If you’re going to be an asshole, you should be willing to own it. In the U.S., at least, there isn’t very much you can say on the Internet that will literally get you thrown in jail, and I don’t really know how much actual harm can be attributed to the actions of Violentacrez. There’s a lot more of a need to be anonymous in certain other countries which I shall not mention here.
On the other hand, the person who contributed to the suicide of Amanda Todd probably did break the law, or could at least be found liable for her death in a civil lawsuit. (Of course, I Am Not A Lawyer.) I have no idea whether or not the person accused by Anonymous is guilty, though.
Amanda Todd’s abuser should be booked for distributing child porn, period. As for Violentcrez, I’m sure he isn’t enjoying the non-consensual exposure that he has been getting… even though he did the same thing to dozens of other people. Sucks, doesn’t it? Some might say “what goes around comes around”, and it has come around in a big way. Hackers may not be able to make arrests, but they can expose creeps and dole out their own form of justice when the state fails to do so.
This is what I think. If they committed a crime, they should be prosecuted. If anonymous committed a crime when they tracked them down, they should be prosecuted. Whether anyone would convict them is another question or what should happen if they were convicted. I believe that harassment is already a crime at least in the local jurisdiction in where I live. It and internet stalking should be a federal crime if it isn’t.
As for society aside from the death threats, violentacrez is getting what he deserves. No one has to be your friend. In many states, you don’t have a right to a job. There are “protected” classes or reasons for wrongful termination such as race can’t be used to determine who is hired or fired, but unless he can show some bias or other unfair reason he was fired, he’s SOL.
I am concerned with the level of proof required to convict someone in the court of the interwebs. The guy in the Amanda Todd case denies being the stalker. I’ve even heard that the police have ruled him out. Although some think that the police just don’t want the public’s involvement at this point. What should happen if anonymous “outed” the wrong guy and something happened to him?
Mike L., Thank you for your posts on this thread. You’ve echoed a lot of the comments I would’ve made. Those that I’ve read in this thread defending Gawker and Brutsch’s outing are victims of the oh-so-easy temptation to confuse justice with revenge. They think that him getting what he did to others makes this whole, but as you stated, Mike L., it’s simply revenge, and it serves no productive purpose. So you get him fired and put him and his family in financial hardship. Congrats. Also, too many confuse our defense for his human rights as a condoning of what he did. This is NOT a defense of the man’s actions. It’s important for people to realize this.
“What should be done with Violentacrez?” Nothing. He did nothing illegal. The answers lie not in punishment but in self-improvement and love toward others. And unless you think distasteful things should be illegal, unless you think we need punish anyone who eyes a teenage girl, unless you believe that we can punish the world into being good, this shouldn’t even be a question on a site with Good in its name.
I think violentacrez deserve what is done to him. Anonymity does not give you the right to be an ass.
Also, what he did is troubling. Many crimes uses the cloak of anonymity (like wearing masks) and secrecy (another term for privacy) to do their deeds. They do horrid acts because they know that no one would put the blame on them. What violentacrez did might not be criminal (and did you know it’s only criminal if the law states it is so?) but it is wrong, it would not take much time before his deeds could turn criminal if it continues.
Violentacrez abuses this anonymity believing that he would be saved from social stigma because he could not be identified. He intentionally disgraced people while hiding behind the computer screen. But then an action creates an equal but opposite reaction. His actions creates hostility from other people who does not like what he is doing. Sooner or later one would act against him.
And then, people seem to confuse illegal from immoral or annoying. Many would probably agree with a guy for punching an annoying person even if that person did nothing illegal.
They also mistakenly equate not illegal to mean to do nothing. That certainly does not make sense. And what about Chen? What he did is not illegal either.