(As a meta-level point, everyone, downvoting someone for asking for clarification on why you’re downvoting someone is not a good look.)
Hi Michelle. I’m sorry you’re getting downvotes for this comment. There are several reasons I strong-downvoted this post, but for the sake of “brevity” I’ll focus on one: I think that the OP’s presentation of the current SSC/NYT controversy – and especially of the community’s response to that controversy – is profoundly biased and misleading.
The NYT plans to use Scott Alexander’s real name in an article about him, against his express wishes. They have routinely granted anonymous or pseudonymous status to other people in the past, including the subjects of articles, but refused this in Alexander’s case. Alexander gives several reasons why this will be very damaging for him, but they plan to do it anyway.
I think that pretty clearly fits the definition of “doxing”, and even if it doesn’t it’s still clearly bad. The post is scathing towards these concerns, scare-quoting “doxing” wherever it can and giving no indication that it thinks the Times’s actions are in any way problematic.
In his takedown post, Scott made it very clear that people should be polite and civil when complaining about this:
There is no comments section for this post. The appropriate comments section is the feedback page of the New York Times. You may also want to email the New York Times technology editor Pui-Wing Tam at pui-wing.tam@nytimes.com, contact her on Twitter at @puiwingtam, or phone the New York Times at 844-NYTNEWS.
(please be polite – I don’t know if Ms. Tam was personally involved in this decision, and whoever is stuck answering feedback forms definitely wasn’t. Remember that you are representing me and the SSC community, and I will be very sad if you are a jerk to anybody. Please just explain the situation and ask them to stop doxxing random bloggers for clicks. If you are some sort of important tech person who the New York Times technology section might want to maintain good relations with, mention that.)
The response has overwhelmingly followed these instructions. People have cancelled their subscriptions, wrote letters, organised a petition, and generally complained to the people responsible. These are all totally appropriate things to do when you are upset about something! The petition is polite and conciliatory; so are most of the letters I’ve seen. Some of the public figures I’ve seen respond on Twitter have used strong wording (“disgraceful”, “shame on you”)) but nothing that seems in any way out of place in a public discourse on a controversial decision.
The OP’s characterisation of this? “Attack[ing] a woman of color on [Alexander’s] word”. Their evidence? Five tweets from random Twitter users I’ve never heard of, none of whom have more than a tiny number of followers. They provide no evidence of anyone prominent in EA (a high-karma Forum user, say, or a well-known public figure) doing anything that looks like harassment or ad hominem attacks on Ms Tam.
I hope it’s obvious why this is bad practice: if the threshold for condemning the conduct of a group is “a few random people did something bad in support of the same position”, you will never have to change your mind on anything. Somehow, I doubt the OP had much sympathy for people who were more interested in condemning the riots in Minneapolis than supporting the peaceful protesters; yet here they use a closely analogous tactic. If they want to persuade me the EA community has acted badly, they should cite bad conduct from the EA community; they do not.
The implicit claim that one shouldn’t publicly criticise Pui-Wing Tam because she is a woman of colour is also profoundly problematic. Pui-Wing Tam is the technology editor of the NYT, the most powerful newspaper in the world. She is a powerful and influential person, and a public figure; more importantly, she is the powerful and influential public figure directly responsible for the thing all these people are mad about. Complaining to her about it, on Twitter and elsewhere, is entirely appropriate. Obviously personal harrassment is unacceptable; if you give me a link to that kind of behaviour, I will condemn it, wherever it comes from. But implying that you can’t publicly complain about the conduct of a powerful person if that person is a member of a favoured group is incredibly dangerous.
That’s my position on how the OP has presented the current controversy. I think the way they have misrepresented those who disagree with them on this is sufficient by itself for a strong downvote. I also disagree with their characterisation of Scott Alexander and the SSC project, but as I said, I don’t want this comment to be any longer than it already is. :-)
(As a meta-level point, everyone, downvoting someone for asking for clarification on why you’re downvoting someone is not a good look.)
Hi Michelle. I’m sorry you’re getting downvotes for this comment. There are several reasons I strong-downvoted this post, but for the sake of “brevity” I’ll focus on one: I think that the OP’s presentation of the current SSC/NYT controversy – and especially of the community’s response to that controversy – is profoundly biased and misleading.
The NYT plans to use Scott Alexander’s real name in an article about him, against his express wishes. They have routinely granted anonymous or pseudonymous status to other people in the past, including the subjects of articles, but refused this in Alexander’s case. Alexander gives several reasons why this will be very damaging for him, but they plan to do it anyway.
I think that pretty clearly fits the definition of “doxing”, and even if it doesn’t it’s still clearly bad. The post is scathing towards these concerns, scare-quoting “doxing” wherever it can and giving no indication that it thinks the Times’s actions are in any way problematic.
In his takedown post, Scott made it very clear that people should be polite and civil when complaining about this:
The response has overwhelmingly followed these instructions. People have cancelled their subscriptions, wrote letters, organised a petition, and generally complained to the people responsible. These are all totally appropriate things to do when you are upset about something! The petition is polite and conciliatory; so are most of the letters I’ve seen. Some of the public figures I’ve seen respond on Twitter have used strong wording (“disgraceful”, “shame on you”)) but nothing that seems in any way out of place in a public discourse on a controversial decision.
The OP’s characterisation of this? “Attack[ing] a woman of color on [Alexander’s] word”. Their evidence? Five tweets from random Twitter users I’ve never heard of, none of whom have more than a tiny number of followers. They provide no evidence of anyone prominent in EA (a high-karma Forum user, say, or a well-known public figure) doing anything that looks like harassment or ad hominem attacks on Ms Tam.
I hope it’s obvious why this is bad practice: if the threshold for condemning the conduct of a group is “a few random people did something bad in support of the same position”, you will never have to change your mind on anything. Somehow, I doubt the OP had much sympathy for people who were more interested in condemning the riots in Minneapolis than supporting the peaceful protesters; yet here they use a closely analogous tactic. If they want to persuade me the EA community has acted badly, they should cite bad conduct from the EA community; they do not.
The implicit claim that one shouldn’t publicly criticise Pui-Wing Tam because she is a woman of colour is also profoundly problematic. Pui-Wing Tam is the technology editor of the NYT, the most powerful newspaper in the world. She is a powerful and influential person, and a public figure; more importantly, she is the powerful and influential public figure directly responsible for the thing all these people are mad about. Complaining to her about it, on Twitter and elsewhere, is entirely appropriate. Obviously personal harrassment is unacceptable; if you give me a link to that kind of behaviour, I will condemn it, wherever it comes from. But implying that you can’t publicly complain about the conduct of a powerful person if that person is a member of a favoured group is incredibly dangerous.
That’s my position on how the OP has presented the current controversy. I think the way they have misrepresented those who disagree with them on this is sufficient by itself for a strong downvote. I also disagree with their characterisation of Scott Alexander and the SSC project, but as I said, I don’t want this comment to be any longer than it already is. :-)