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Internet Abuse, a Pre/Trans Dilemma?

Posted November 5th, 2011 by stefano

 

Can the internet be controlled?  This question is no doubt plaguing governments around the world.  From a Western orange perspective, an uncontrollable internet affording everyone free speech is good for helping liberate people in oppressive regimes.  It has helped the people of #occupy to go global.  But arguably it might damage the world;  WikiLeaks is sometimes characterised as "liberating" by Western green, whilst some from an integral level might call it "terrorist", depending on the reasons.  

Those macro scale problems are reflected in relatively small scale stuff of internet media, blogs, and forums. 

 

In An occupational hazard? writer Cath Elliott talks about trying to deal with people posting abusive material about her online.  After managing to get some action by site owners, there merely followed worse material shortly after:

That page is still up and running, because to be honest it was at this point that I caved. Because I realised that it didn’t matter what I did next, the Internet is too fucking big for me to take on. And also because I’ve been around long enough to know that bullies like Richard ‘Ricardo’ White will always be able to find a way to make people like me feel like shit.

 Cath concludes:

No, I don’t think I should have to put up with abuse like this and accept it as simply an “occupational hazard”. I  shouldn’t have to, but I do have to, because I don’t see that I actually have any other option.

 

Meanwhile British celebrity Rob Brydon says he is shocked by the evil abuse he gets on Twitter:

At its best it is like a little community, it's rather pleasant, and you follow the people you're interested in. But not everyone does, of course, because you get this most incredible abuse.

You think to yourself: why would a person ever want to be so horrible and abusive? It is remarkable what people will say. It just reminds you that all the evil in the world is from people, so maybe we shouldn't be surprised. But some of the stuff I get is absolutely shocking.

So, if you're having a day with perhaps a bit of doubt it can take a little chink at your armour. But I guess it goes with the job and it has to bounce off you, really.

 

But the law is not entirely blind to the web.  In a rather surprising turn, a UK man was recently jailed in a rather shocking case of trolling on the internet, for the mocking of the suicide of a teenager:

Sean Duffy, 25, wrote abusive messages on Facebook tribute pages and even uploaded videos to YouTube taunting the youths and their families, as part of the practice known as “trolling”.

Among his victims was Natasha MacBryde, 15, who died when hit by a passenger train near her home in Bromsgrove, Worcs, on Feb 14. The next day Duffy posted comments including “I fell asleep on the track lolz” on the Facebook tribute page created by her brother James, 17.

Duffy then posted images captioned “Lauren’s epifit” and “Lauren’s rotting body” and created a YouTube video with a picture of a coffin saying “Happy Mothers Day”. He signed off the video by writing: “I don’t know why you’re all crying down there, it’s soaking here in hell.”

 

The internet's relative freedom, anonymity, and efficiency, allow awful material to be widely broadcast, and for people to feel terrible personal abuse.  The paradox though is that same freedom and efficiency has also allowed some material to be broadcast which, from our own altitude of say orange, green or teal, we would feel good about, especially despite the trouble it may cause to say, disliked foreign governments.

I suppose it isn't strictly a paradox -- we're talking about two different kinds of material.  The problem is how do we feel about the internet, and how do we assign responsibilities for its control.  

Should a forum host be responsible for the content that appears on the forum?  Should it have moderators?  Should it maintain a standard by deleting any material that's not compatible with the group's norms?  

Or do we simply say that the internet is a public free space and we actually would rather have it kept free, in this new age of global linking and exchange, this new age of free information, this new age where the tweet from a man in the streets of Cairo or Islamabad can appear on your screen in seconds, firing up hearts and minds, and to protect that openness, we take it upon ourselves to grow a thick skin against the flames from the viler and disgusting elements?

Can we champion open unprotected exchange for the sake of post conventional love, and to do that, take it upon ourselves to tolerate pre conventional hate?

 

In a subsequent thread Stanley wrote "Stefano has taught us that cyber-stalking criminals are being successfully prosecuted, convicted, and incarcerated",  apparently in reference to my blog here, where I wrote

" In a rather surprising turn, a UK man was recently jailed..."

the key word being "surprising" as in, I mean it is an extreme.  Stanley seems to think it should be the norm.  I disagree.  I was hoping this blog might draw some discussion on the DILEMMA between freedom and rules.    

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yep or maybe

Posted November 5th, 2011 by Annie

Stefano,

I really hope you are not comparing this to what we have been talking about with Stanley. I don't consider "hate" as a motivator to anything that goes on here. We are not purposely (as far as I can tell) seeking revenge or terrorizing each other. We are having disagreements on inquiries...heated no doubt, but our passions are limited to those more positive expressions.

I am curious of the fame that these people experience by sensationalizing the death or pain of others, we are all outraged, but our anger at this injustice seems only to feed his/her frenzied taunt.

The internet has given an echo to our voice, we can now - from the privacy of our own homes, sling rocks and arrows with ease, so why can't we recognize the impersonal wind that is blowing. We have a serious misalignment of domains, trolling will only be effective until the personal is brought back into context. When this kind of behavior is no longer sensationalized, but treated as ignorance, he/she will experience no fame (however deranged).

That is only one form that it takes, we have also seen the personal attacks by those that we know, or those that want to shut us up or muddle the sound. We take our words seriously and expect others to do the same, we treat our voice and ,our own perspective as something we own, so consequently those that disparage our words disparage us. The fact is...we are all just adding to a particular movement, we are not moving anything by our self. If today someone wants to press on with a topic, while others want to slander it - we probably will not get very far. If we think we are doing this alone, sure, this is a big problem! The truth seems closer to what we can agree on doing together, when WE are in agreement, not much if anything, could stop us. We really don't know the impact we are having, today it just may be a single idea that begins to take seed in a million different ways. Had we never argued or became angry with each other we would have never traveled down this road. Maybe we never would have considered how seriously we take our self, or began to examine what belongs to the collective.

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Wrong Question

Posted November 5th, 2011 by Stanley

First of all, I agree that it is indeed hatred that has been fueling the the cyber-stalking that has been going on here for way to long and which has not just been limited to only me. Of course the stalkers would not likely admit to this in public.

I am also beginning to reseach the possible civil and criminal legal consequences for the people here who have been comitting this crime. I agree that more people need to be incarcerated so that they will begin to take this crime more seriously.

But I don't think that your question; can the internet be controlled is meaningful in this case. The question here is; will Integrallife continue to conspire to aid and abet cyber-bullies on it's own site, which it is responsible for? In my opinion, if it fails to take measures to stop crimes being comitted on its site it is culpaple of civil and criminal conspiracy.

 

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"Community Guidelines enforced here (hopefully)"

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Posted November 5th, 2011 by admin
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Yes

Posted November 6th, 2011 by Stanley

Stefano said. "the key word being "surprising" as in, I mean it is an extreme.  Stanley seems to think it should be the norm." He is right in that I believe that in extreme cases of repeated and harmful cyber-stalking when the victim has repeatedly asked for this to cease it should be the norm to prosecute and incarcerate the criminals. We may see this occur in our very own community.

What I predict happening is that people will eventually learn that they have a right to be free from cyber-stalking, the vast majority of stalkers will learn to stop doing this, and only an extremely low number people will be left to prosecute.

 

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"Community Guidelines enforced here (hopefully)"

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Hey David

Posted November 6th, 2011 by Stanley

I went to post the comment below to your comment and it seems to have wiped your comment off for some reason. Could you repost it please. You expressed some wonderful ideas. Sorry.

 

Thanks David

 

It is nice to see some clear headed thinking around here. I would propose these guidelines;

 

·        Do not post text or images that would tend to personally hurt or embarrass another person.

·        Do not continue to send messages to someone who has said they want no further contact with you.

·        Do not attack others with personal pejorative labels like calling them levels or accusing psychopathology.

·        Do not gang up on others to make them subject to ridicule.

·        Do not post false statements aimed at humiliation.  In fact don’t post false statements about persons period.

 

These guidelines are based on a basic definition of cyber-stalking. They would apply to everyone unless someone willingly gives others permission to do otherwise. I and most others driven off this site have never given this permission but others might want to and that would be their choice.

 

I think that there is a difference between laying oneself open to personal attack and challenge but we could discuss this on another day.  It is nice to hear your voice here. I think that if we had a stronger community of decent people here there would be less space for the kind of shenanigans that have been going on here.

 

 

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Wow

Posted November 8th, 2011 by Jennifer Grove

"WikiLeaks is sometimes characterised as "liberating" by Western green, whilst some from an integral level might call it "terrorist", depending on the reasons. "

That is not only incorrect, but also completely useless.  It is useless for us to speak about what stages say or do what. This community is filled with people who are expressing less than middle or late vision-logic ability in the cognitive line. They cannot make accurate assessments of stages. They don't even properly understand what those stages are referring to. If you look at the List of Lines and the Life Questions they ask, you can see that none of them are asking, "What is real?" 

The best we can achieve in these forums are an agreement among the uninitiated. Most likely we will only achieve disagreement. The gate-keepers of truth charge up to and over $1,000 for a good quality test. And then what? You think we'll find agreement about what is real then? Nope. The irony is that determining what is real loses its significance as you go up (as well as sideways). Because something more important takes its place and makes it obsolete. The above list should give you a few clues. 

I doubt that hate is the motive for Cyber-Trolling/Bullying/Stalking.  It seems more like indifference to me. And that is far worse and more dangerous. Here is a quote from someone who is voicing the typical Troll mindset: 

"I lived in New Orleans during the police strike in 1979 and it was the best Mardi Gras of my life.\

If you live in Canada and what you say is true you must be an asshole magnet. Try demagnetizing yourself."

This idea of "demagnetizing" one's self is the common theme. 

Folks who don't feel into the interiors of others and feel no obligation to care for them are unable to comprehend the problem. They will see a violation of "freedom of speech"  and may accuse the other of "needing everyone to agree with them" and punish them for feeling pain. The only things they see as important are the ideas being discussed and the power to defeat arguments about those ideas. Whoever has the power to defeat arguments (any power will do!) is the winner! That is the world they live in. There is nothing beyond that. They may claim "Sensitivity" is merely a disguise for the need to control others and set up their own corrupt ruling party. Some gullible people even believe that because they can't detect interiors of others and won't see the difference.

Without the f2f connection, a large section of the population seems to become Mind Blind just as if they had Asperger's Syndrome. And like many Aspergians, many of these people are convinced that they are superior because they are less vulnerable. Their rhetoric is often similar. It is easy to see why some descriptions of Integral can attract them (autonomous, accepting, etc.) - because those terms do not indicate whether those are pre- or trans- versions. People with Cyber-Mind-blindness get to come here and get a pass as "enlightened". 

There are pre/trans versions of sensitivity as well as indifference. A pre-sensitivity version of indifference is exactly that: indifference that hasn't yet had its eyes open to other people's interiors. The trans-sensitivity version of indifference has seen the interiors of others and made some attempt to resolve conflict in a way that respects those interiors (as opposed to merely respecting rules, as we are accused of) but has failed and so must end the transmission. The pre-indifference version of sensitivity is caring as a result of fusion and inability to distinguish boundaries of self. Trans-indifference sensitivity is exactly what it sounds like: a result of normal development which proceeds to the expansion and overflowing of care from a nourished and well-boundaried self outward to others. 

I believe that Stanley's rhetoric of calling this "hate" a "crime" is the result of projection. Stanley is a sensitive person who can feel into the interiors of others and assumes that everyone else can as well. This happens to me as well. There is nothing morally wrong with this, it's just probably incorrect. Yes, Virginia, there  really are people who don't see how this violates legitimate social agreements. 

As unmitigated conflicts become more advanced and intractable, each side regresses further. Those who are comfortable at regressed places because their goal is to win the argument and any tool in the tool-box will do - most likely started the shit and will remain standing in the end. Those who feel more and more demoralized as things progress because they will be forced to choose between behaving in a way that is morally reprehensible to them or leaving - if leaving is even possible -  most likely didn't start the shit.

Only those who have eyes to see this can see it. 

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"The Left Hand Path, not merely the Right ... must take the lead."

~SES pg. 148