Thursday, April 12, 2007

Daily Kos is soft on death threats to bloggers

I'm sure Alan Berg thought the same thing before he was murdered.

Daily Kos
Look, if you blog, and blog about controversial shit, you'll get idiotic emails. Most of the time, said "death threats" don't even exist -- evidenced by the fact that the crying bloggers and journalists always fail to produce said "death threats". I suspect many are like[...]

[...]It's not as if those cowards will actually act on their threats. For better or for worse, this isn't a country in which media figures -- even hugely controversial ones -- are routinely attacked by anything more dangerous than a cream pie[...]

8 comments:

Radish said...

Kos is awful damn ignorant (which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who reads his blogs). People (mostly men) have been using the Internet to stalk and threaten women (even un-famous women) since it first opened up to the masses. It's not even the medium--people have been stalking, threatening, and attacking celebrities since vaudeville. Probably earlier than that...

I've also known women who falsely claimed to be stalked online in order to elicit a sympathetic response, or got a vulgar e-mail and wholly overreacted. That this happens doesn't negate that it actually happens to some people.

As far as bloggers, the incident that stands out in my mind (and that I haven't seen referenced at all in the Kathy Sierra discussion) is the nutjob who threatened to sexually abuse Jeff Goldstein's toddler--she was charged with actual crimes in at least two states. I'm sure if anyone e-mailed Kos a serious promise to mess with his wife or child, he'd be on the phone to the authorities in no time flat.

Purple Avenger said...

That was Deb Frish who was after Goldstein.

digitalbrownshirt said...

I'm pretty sure that "Kos" isn't the kind of guy that would have a wife or child, if you know what I mean. Maybe a partner, but not a wife. Not that it matters.

I'm also pretty sure that if I emailed a death threat to Kos he'd be first in line to complain about it. I've never got a death threat before, just hate mail. For some reason everytime I offer to meet one of my "fans" they change their minds about wanting to kick my ass. Internet tough guys.

beakerkin said...

PA

As you know I regularly get threats and invasion of privacy on a regular basis. It is not as if I am a household name.

These far left types are hateful and get unhinged in a heartbeat. A clod named Troustsky asked if I write about left wing anti-semitism too much. Would he even ask think that thought much less state that to a Gay or Black blogger.

These far left blogs post about Israel and the Jews more than I do.

Purple Avenger said...

The US Civil Rights Commission is about to launch a poster campaign on university campuses about the anti-semitism on college campuses.

I noticed this while cruising the US Printing Office web site. Apparently the USPO is doing the posters for them.

I was going to do a post on this, then I lost the link somehow.

Mike said...

Kos' point was that a code of conduct isn't going to work with people like those who threatened Kathy Sierra. It's just a way to control online speech. Come on, dude, for the love of God this is like gun control. The very people you are trying to disarm are the sort of people who won't think twice about respecting such "niceties" as a request from the government to "kindly disarm, please!"

The only way to deal with trolls like this is to get their info from the ISP, and say "So and so, I know who you are and you've been making death threats against me. I won't hesitate to shoot first and ask questions later if you ever show up at my door unannounced looking even remotely hostile."

Purple Avenger said...

I agree the code of conduct is a crock, but to dismiss threats as insignificant is off base.

With the moonbats shooting up and trashing republican campaign headquarters during the 04' election season, I take them at their word, because there are some deranged ones out there.

Mike said...

Actually, Kos is telling them to get a grip and most of that crowd happens to be liberal women. I think that it's good for him to tell his liberal counterparts to get a grip. My position is very simple. If you are threatened, get a gun and any other weapons you can use to defend yourself. Be smart, be armed and don't take crap off of anyone that has threatened you. I just happen to have a hard time respecting people who cannot bring themselves to protect themselves, and that is, IMO, the core of the problem with Kathy Sierra. She totally crumpled in the face of some aggressive trolls.