Cyber-Bullying

Cyberbullying is the use of social networks to repeatedly harm or harass other people in a deliberate manner.[1] According to U.S. Legal Definitions, "cyber-bullying could be limited to posting rumors or gossips about a person in the internet bringing about hatred in other’s minds; or it may go to the extent of personally identifying victims and publishing materials severely defaming and humiliating them". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberbullying

I think there's a huge breadth of issues getting put together under GamerGate, and an equivalent variety of shaming/action appropriate...

• 0. You spend hours every day trapped in a chair. (school, cube-farm)
• 1. You choose to spend additional hours consuming (games, media, useless goods)
• 2. What you consume communicates/reinforces lame/dishonorable values. (GTA, The View, spectator sports, religion....)
• 3. You respond to criticism with rude/demeaning/threatening words.
• 4. You encourage mob swarms of people making rude/demeaning/threatening words. (Note the challenge in treating GamerGaters differently from GMO-protesters.)
• 5. You harass people by sharing their private info online.
  • 5a: sharing their Real Name (cf NymWars)
  • 5b: sharing their pictures, address, names of children, social security number, etc.
• 6. You harass people via offline media (phones, snail mail)
• 7. You harass people in person.
• 8. You commit a crime against their body or property

There are legal channels for #6+, and I'm not much interesting in pushing legal actions into the lower tiers.

I think having online means of shunning/Nudging people at lower numbers would be a good thing.

I think doxxing anonymous offenders at #4+ at the level of publicizing their name and email address or workplace is probably pretty reasonable.

I'm not sure Twitter/Facebook should be expected to enforce values in the #0-3 range. I'd prefer they act more like a Common Carrier, and provide tools for others to down-vote the "obscene".

And, of course, beware mis-use of the term Censorship.