That apology couldn’t sound more coerced if he gave it on grainy videotape while kneeling in front of a row of guys wearing black hoods and CNN armbands.
He is mentally ill. He is the President of the United States of America for God’s sake.
This is middle school level childish behavior. I am embarrassed for all of us.
Doxxing can ruin lives, but when people spread calls for violence and hatred (as the redditor who made the wrestling/CNN gif had done, over and over again) from the cover of anonymity, what’s the proper response? I think people should be afraid that there could be serious reprecussions to spreading calls for violence and hatred from the cover of anonymity.
On the one hand, the redditor is a jerk and Trump is a bigger jerk for behaving like a redditor himself instead of like the goddamn President of the United States. On the other, CNN is straying into some seriously creepy territory there.
If you surveyed folks at the_Donald if they agree with the defense that his speech was all satirical, I have little doubt the vast maority of them would.
Because of all the shitposting there’s a different threshhold within that context or the context of the chan’s of what might be seen as crossing the line compared to a more general social media setting.
If CNN cares about investigating that type of speech, they should thoughtfully work on an expose that would take longer than 48 hours to create and consult with scholars on if it would be wise to dox anyone. If they want to embolden shitposters and open themselves to added scrutiny they can track them down individually as soon as they catch them in their crosshairs no matter how tangentially related to journalism that would serve a meaningful good.
I don’t buy this at all as a defense/explanation/rationalization.
They can do two things. I’m not advocating doxxing, necessarily, but I think it’s reasonable to investigate the phenomenon of people using the anonymity of the internet to spread advocacy for violence and hatred.
And I’ll note that they didn’t doxx this guy or even threaten to doxx him (at least according to the would-be doxxee – he apologized before CNN contacted him).
Well…
(bolding mine)
Whether that constitutes a “threat” is left as an exercise for the reader.
Okay, that can reasonably be characterized as a threat, I think. I still lean towards this being an appropriate response to the level of vitriolic hatred and calls for violence (including advocacy for mass murder) that came from the redditor, but I’ll acknowledge that this is a pretty new sort of phenomenon, and might warrant new thinking about journalistic ethics and the like.
It makes me think of Dan Savage’s rule for outing closeted gay politicians – outing is brutal, and should be reserved only for brutes (i.e. those politicians who use their position to advocate for anti-LGBT bigotry and/or discriminatory policies). Doxxing is similarly brutal, and perhaps it should also be reserved only for brutes.
Then CNN should have released his name.
Either the man’s name is a matter of public interest or it isn’t. If it is, release it. If not, don’t. Forcing him to apologize “or else” is blackmail, pure and simple.
He already apologized and removed the material before they made a statement about it.
It is if he rescinds the apology and starts doing what he was doing again that they would release his info.
But not before CNN were in email contact with him though. I can imagine a few careers are on the line depending what are in those email communications. Release the emails!
According to everything I’ve read, he apologized before CNN published anything or talked to him. I would agree with you if they threatened doxxing in exchange for an apology – but they didn’t do that, unless many reporting on this are lying.
So the guy apologized for making the GIF, or for racist postings, or both, or what? Not sure I understand why an apology was necessary unless he was forced to.
For posting many, many racist/bigoted and violence-advocating things, if I understand things correctly.
On one hand, I don’t care if you call it blackmailing or not. It is the natural social consequences for these actions–consequences that are often missing in the online world and lead to everyone being absolutely horrible. I think that, if you say or do certain things online, you should be afraid of being doxxed. We’d shut up nearly all the trolls that way.
However, in this particular circumstance, it plays right into the conspiracies the alt-right has about the news. This guy is being forced to change his mind by the evil news organization. Over a stupid video that the President tweeted–one which meant basically nothing. Sure, the guy has said other things that are horrible, but it’s the video that got CNN working on him.
They’re sending the message that they are some sort of mafia outfit that will get you if you disparage them. That’s not good for combating the message that they are fake news, or that the mainstream media is trying to control the populace.
If it were something more important that started this, I might feel otherwise. But this was just a stupid thing that happens all the fucking time. Someone doesn’t like something, so they Photoshop them into some image or GIF for fun. Sure, the President should not have tweeted it, but, from some guy, it’s basically nothing.
I guarantee you that it’s now going to be much, much harder to tell people that CNN is legit, and much harder to fight the whole MSM stuff. The only way I could see otherwise is if they really are so motivated by fear that they’ll change their minds. But, chances are, most of them know how to use Tor and won’t be afraid in the slightest. Just angry at an extreme overreaction.
I don’t understand why there aren’t 1000s of GIFs now of everyone in any movie clip, or wrestling clip, or whatever, taking down a guy with a CNN logo face. Hackivists are slacking I guess.
He was either forced to apologize, or decided to apologize in the midst of some “media outreach”. I cant imagine he suddenly had a dose of remorse hit him out of nowhere.
I can’t wait to see when trump and Putin meet and shake hands . trump love to crush the other person hand , I wonder how Putin is going to response when trump try this shit on him.
Is it not possible that others doxxed him prior to CNN and the apology was in response to those other people?
If this story is correct:
…then CNN found out who it was and attempted to contact him but he didn’t respond. But then, apparently knowing that the jig was up, the redditor made his apology and deleted all his old (racist and violence-advocating) posts. And afterwards, CNN posted that in light of his apology, they didn’t plan to release his name, at least as long as he didn’t get back into the abominable posting business.