THE DRESDEN FILES Reading Challenge



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Friday, January 25, 2013

THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS – AND IT HAS GOT TO STOP

Like most people, I don’t really think about privacy issues on the Internet. I don’t think that most people worry overmuch about privacy on the ‘Net (although there are an absolutely ASTOUNDING number of people that think that they really can hide behind a monitor and the moniker ANONYMOUS). Well, gangers, I just got schooled in just WHY it is that privacy concerns should be uppermost in everybody’s minds.

Two of my friends got doc-dropped today. Just in case you don’t know what that term is, doc-dropping occurs when somebody gets all of a person’s private information – real name and all “handles”, physical address, all phone numbers, all e-mail accounts, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, 4Square, Reddit, Tumblr, Skype, where their kids go to school, where the person works – you name it, EVERYTHING – and then publishs it on a public venue. It’s contemptible because it’s usually threatened (and used) to punish a person for having an opinion that runs counter to their own stated positions.

It’s also damned DANGEROUS.

THINK about it, people. We live in a world where NOBODY is safe from anything. Look at the nasty habit of SWATing people that’s becoming so popular in Hollywood. Think of all the public figures who must be accompanied by armed security people wherever they go – and, also, think about a President getting shot in the street by a crazy person even though he was surrounded by armed men. Think about what happened to Gabby Giffords. And they weren’t doc-dropped. Now, think about what would happen if somebody with a grudge doc-dropped *YOU*. Scary prospect, isn’t it? And do NOT think that it couldn’t happen to you, because it can. It has.

There’s a group called Stop The Good Reads Bullies. It was started by a fairly incompetent writer who objected to bad reviews and started putting up fake reviews to make this author look better. This writer also picked fights with everybody that objected to the nasty comments that were made by this person (and I’ve read said comments, by the way) and, when this “author” was outed as a sock-puppet reviewer of the works that this author had published, made so much trouble on Good Reads that this author was kicked off the site and banned from posting there. So, this author started another group: Stop The Goodreads Bullies.

Unfortunately, they themselves are a group that is far more in love with bullying than the people on Goodreads ever thought they could be.

There’s been a squabble going on between a friend of mine and one of the male authors who is apparently a fairly big noise on this site. I’ve also read his books, which were an absolute waste of time. Good ideas, bad writing, needs an editor. He fancies himself as a poet – which I’ll promise you he isn’t – and a musician. Since I haven’t heard any of his music, I’ll suspend my judgment on that as well. He also apparently thinks that he’s the Goddess’s Gift to womankind as well. Be that as it may, I have read the relevant posts, and this male author is a complete jerk. He is as big a bully as the other author.

Now, they have erroneously identified a person that had absolutely NOTHING to do with the original squabble and have doc-dropped her. There is another person that is going to be doc-dropped who also has nothing to do with the original squabble. This sort of behaviour is far more suited to an elementary school playground – IN MY OPINION. I have no problem with supposedly grown adults behaving like spoilt five year olds, but I DO find it disconcerting that a bunch of frauds are yelling about being OUTED as frauds – and punishing the people that outed them. They were profiled on Huffington Post and the author was forced to publish a follow-up, explanatory article to his original article.

Here is a link to the original article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stop-the-gr-bullies/stop-goodreads-bullies_b_1689661.html. Here is a link to the follow-up article by the original author: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-losowsky/stop-the-gr-bullies-an-ap_b_1690134.html. And here is the link to Ray Garton’s masterful response: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ray-garton/stop-the-gr-bullies-_b_1696640.html

There are divergent opinions, of course, as to whether STGRB and their adherents are being noble in re helping people that have been or have been perceived to have been bullied, or whether they’re worse than the ills that they claim to be trying to cure. I’ll leave that decision up to you, gangers.

I know what I think.

2 comments:

  1. STGRB is worse than any percieved ills. You can't correct a wrong by trying to out-wrong it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. So, what you're saying is, that calling people a racist or a pedophile isn't bullying? Alrighty then.

    I find it rather amusing that people with no talent will berate those who do.

    I have never posted anything about you. I never knew you existed until now. Thanks for bullying me.

    ReplyDelete