The first three or four posts were reposted around the net and people commented on it.Xamonas Chegwé wrote:The problem with Pappagate was that a lot of people jumped to conclusions and posted shit all over the interwebz (including here) without actually checking out what the fuck he wrote! Had they looked at the thread in question and the response to it on this site, anyone that is not an idiot would have been able to see that it was nothing more than a bad joke that fell flat on its face. End of!
BUT, having heard of it, it was reasonable for anyone to come here and have a look to see if there was any substance to the rumours flying about. That most didn't bother and simply engaged in primate poop-flinging speaks volumes about them.
The direct analogy is that it would have been reasonable for the law enforcement authorities, having been alerted to this guy's post, to make discrete enquiries and assure themselves that he wasn't planning another Sandy Hook and then leave it at that. Their total over-reaction just shows them up as incompetents and makes the law they are attempting to uphold into what it so often is known to resemble, an ass.
How much investigating would they have needed to do before drawing their conclusions? They complain about sexism. Some of their points seem perfectly valid while others not so much. But one of the things they complained about were rape threats from supposedly rational minded atheists. That was the outside context.
The inside context includes the Ratzian sense of humor, you kinda need to read a few threads in the pub (which isn't public) and know Pappa's attitudes and values (which takes some time) to get that. I'm not saying that joke was OK in that context, but it was more understandable. Just as looking at the other context doesn't make the smearing of the entire forum's name OK. but it does make it more understandable.
Thing is, with Pappagate, nobody got prosecuted. We can't really call foul when we had quite a few longish threads about Rebecca and the Skepchicks. Actually though, if someone would have logged in and said "Hey Ratzfolk, that's not really appropriate" then maybe things would have been pretty cool. But as it stands, we weren't deprived of our right to make bad jokes so much as others exercised their rights to raise a stink over it. It sucks for us, but rights is rights.Făkünamę wrote:This is the exact same issue that was at stake in Pappagate. The freedom to make bad jokes. The freedom to say what one wants. He wasn't yelling 'Fire' in a theatre - he was posting on a MMO game forum.Robert_S wrote:It might be reasonable to aproach the kid and say "Hey, that's really not appropriate"
There is also a very real potential for joking being a plausible deniability tool for serious threats, as well as a potential for an innocent and seemingly obvious joke to be taken seriously if it bears enough resemblance to real threats and harassment.
To quote once again the unknown /b/tard: "We started out as educated people pretending to be ignorant sexist racists and ended up as ignorant sexist racists pretending to be educated."