Yosem Companys, the moderator of Stanford Liberation's Liberationtech list has started a long polemical fight about my objection to his moderation on the list. (Der, I realize that "censorship" is technically only something that state actors can perform, but I'm using the term generically to capture the ways in which this powerful actor suppresses intellectual discourse using the same dynamics of a state censor, replete with lustration.)
Yosem has a particularly bad case of a vexing and annoying tekkie tic, and that's the copypasta virus of forums and lists, where people cut and paste the exact words of others and argue with them line by line. This method naturally breeds lack of thought, lack of context, literalism, and "gotcha" playing -- Yosem ought to think more about psychology instead of reading faux-science psychology studies that "prove" that you have to moderate speech to have a discussion -- part of the civility fallacy.
Most forums managers are uneven in their moderation and therefore completely undermine any notion that moderation breeds civility; they also fail to moderate the real problem-posters on the lists as they are allied with them -- this is a very old story. A list like libtech plays to its core group followers, and as Jacob Appelbaum, the hero-coder, is one of their main darlings for all kinds of political and personal reasons, they could hardly allow speech against him.
I try to avoid the copypasta approach to a dialogue as I think it's witless and long and ugly to look at -- and of course, that's the idea, to wear people out and think it's a "he said, she said." But it's not. These are matters of principle about a public affair.
Yosem may not be aware of the specifics of libel law -- few list moderators overreaching and practicing censorship are. To even get past a judge, a libel case has to illustrate a) that the speech was untrue, i.e. not be defeated by a "truth defense"; b) that it was maliciously false, i.e. knowingly and deliberately false; c) that it caused damage to livlihood.
Public figures enjoy even less protection under libel law, i.e. it is much harder to sue them, since Times v. Sullivan and related Supreme Court decisions. You can call a public figure names, you can make critical speech about him, and he cannot sue you, because to do so would harm democratic discourse and place a chill on speech.
Most forums moderators don't know and don't want to know First Amendment jurisprudence, usually haughtily and defensively hiding behind the private nature of their operation. But it would be good if they'd stick to these few principles, because it would get rid of 99 percent of the claims of "ad hominem attacks" and "libel" and all the other nonsense one finds on lists. In moderating my own blogs, I have a simple rule: you cannot incite damages. You can call names, say whatever wild thing you want, rant and rave, but you cannot incite or cause damages, i.e. tell people to call someone at home with prank calls, or incite a DDOS attack on their server, or launch a libel suit against them.
Having to play the geeky copypasta game perforce, I'm now going to paste again each and every statement I made regarding Jacob Appelbaum in my reply to his "rebuttal" o f my original post, and I'm going to illustrate that not only are these statements legitimate even by the lights of the moderator's rule of "no personal attacks"; I'm going to illustrate just what suppression of a public matter is taking place here by overbroad application of silly notions of civility that in fact are designed to protect those in power.
Yosem has written the following defense in the comments below this article:
Catherine: "It's about Jacob Appelbaum slamming Ultrasurf... because it's a competitor for USG funds."
That's what the first message you posted on the list said. I was so glad you raised the issue. Your second message, however, restated the points and had personal attacks, so it got moderated.
Catherine: "You can just summarize and respond in whole paragraphs, um, I can read and recall my own text."
It's for the benefit of other readers, so they know what I'm responding to.
Catherine: "A few rounds of criticism on your list isn't something that somehow burns the eye."
That's why I was so pleased that you posted your first message. The second message added a personal attack, so it got moderated.
Catherine: "There's no need to do any sociological studies of libtech posters. I get it already."
I meant it for the benefit of the community. It would be interesting to know the answer.
Catherine: "You are moderating one of the key discussion lists of the Silicon Valley feeder-school, Stanford U..."
Thank you for saying so. I never think of the liberationtech mailing list as being key to Stanford, especially since there are so many Stanford lists that are way larger than ours. So that's nice of you to say... :)
Catherine: "No, we can't agree to disagree because there is no 'we.' I'm not in your collective, and I won't be 'rounded up' and 'brought along.'"
But you are a member of Liberationtech! You're a member of the community by virtue of your membership in the mailing list. And we're glad to have you... :)
Catherine: "Let's not pretend something else has happened here and you're performing some public service for civility -- you're not."
I didn't think of it that way. But I guess you're right: It is a public service to preserve civil and constructive debate, as you suggest.
Catherine: "You've done something wrong here, caved to pressure from somebody, some professor or mentor or business man or something..."
There's no conspiracy here. To summarize once again, your first message was posted and provoked complaints. Your second message was construed as a personal attack by neutral observers, so it got moderated. That's all that happened.
Catherine: "and you've suppressed criticism of a hacker star, Jacob Appelbaum."
But we didn't suppress criticism. Your first message was posted! :)
Catherine: "I imagine you'll be hearing this criticism from more than me, and outside of your list, soon enough..."
I'm always glad to see debates about issues related to liberationtech on the mailing list, so I'm looking forward to it.
By now, the reader is thoroughly assured that Yosem is quite the little prat. For the record, I'm not a member of anything to do with Stanford University. Machines don't make communities; real principles and the rule of law and organic connections do. Those aren't present on this machine list with literalist code-like moderation and binary thinking. I have lots and lots of mailing lists coming into my email box, everything from the Tea Party to the Nation to the Daily Kos. That doesn't make me a "member of their communities". It makes me merely someone who likes to read lots of different viewpoints. That you make someone forcibly a member of your likeminded community merely because you force them to sign up for a mailing list is creepy and tribal -- but typical of how geeks think.
So here, excerpted from my post, are just the statements directly about Appelbaum and my defense of them to illustrate a) they are not personal attacks even by the lights of the cramped notion of them that Yosem has b) even if by some stretch some thin-skinned geek could find them a personal attack, given the public importantance of a public figure getting public funding, they are merited:
We all know the timing of this and your manner of performing this "service" are politically motivated by a war for the soul -- and the funding -- of the Internet Freedom programs in the US government and in general, a war in cyberspace over the very meaning of Internet freedom.
Indeed, Appelbaum's claim that he had to publicly denounce the efficacy of the circumvention software Ultrasurf appeared at a crucial time when funding matters are being decided, and most important, whether funding will continue for certain grantees without further demands or restrictions, or from certain departments of the US government versus other departments. Indeed, there is a war in cyberspace for the soul of the meaning of this freedom, namely whether Hillary Clinton can pursue the opening of authoritarian governments abroad via the Internet, or whether a concerted lobby of radicals can undermine that program by claiming that she is hypocritical if she doesn't radically expose the government at home and cease prosecution of WikiLeaks. That's really what it amounts to.
If you want to harp on honesty in advertising, you should start first at home and acknowledge that the military pictures and claims implied by military affiliation on your website don't add up.
Appelbaum has technical arguments against Ultrasurf, but he also has a psychological one: he claims they falsely advertise their ability to anonymize the user. Perhaps that's true. But more to the point, then it's true of ANY circumvention software, and we can start with Jacob's Tor, since it contains vulnerabilities as well.
There's also the misleading claims of government approval implied in their advertising. As I reported here, the Navy no longer funds Tor; the original programmers in the Navy who worked on the predecessor of Tor are no longer in the Navy; the one remaining programmer who did contribute to Tor doesn't work on Tor anymore and has evidently no association with it. We actually have no evidence that the military continues to use Tor; perhaps they do, perhaps they don't, but the end of their funding and the end of their contribution to the code development are matters on the record, possibly related to WikiLeaks (and code contribution appears to have ended in 2003).
We see no evidence that the military continues to use Tor or support Tor or you in any fashion; indeed, you are under investigation by a grand jury precisely for your relationship to WikiLeaks, which is in turn investigated for incitement of the hacking and stealing of classified documents from the US government. Shouldn't users get a disclaimer involving *that* on your can of goods?
Pointing out that Jacob is under investigation of a grand jury isn't a slur or a slam, but a statement of highly relevant fact. He is! And this has repercussions not only for his project, but for how we see his position in the war in cyberspace. WikiLeaks is an enemy of the United States, being investigated properly for inciting and publishing secret documents. Yes, inciting, because the chat logs between Lamo, who cooperated as an informant with the FBI, and Bradley Manning, show that indeed he was in touch with Assange and did appear to be under his direction.
Other information that came out at a trial hearing indicates that contrary to what Assange claimed, indeed he and Manning were communicating. Appelbaum's relationship to Assange is clear -- he openly supports and represents WikiLeaks at public meetings.
Users should indeed get some kind of statement from Tor leadership that they disassociate themselves from criminal acts committed with Tor as a matter of policy -- but they fail to do this because they don't want to appear to be "chilling speech" as they claim others do. I'm not aware that they have any statement about their attitude toward Appelbaum and the WikiLeaks case -- they likely applaud it. Even so, the fact that Jacob has now taken a job at Washington State University as a researcher, and the fact that it's not clear if he continues to get his reported State Department-funded salary of $98,000, perhaps people at DRL or other agencies of the US government have the same problem as I do: the appearance of a conflict of interest; even the actuality of a conflict of interest in someone opening governments abroad, but then turning around and claiming the US itself has to be undermined and overthrown as well.
'I don't need to be in a "depth" about DC lobbying and Internet funding programs to state the obvious which needs to be said here: there's a great deal of hustling going on, there is jockeying for power, and you're thick in the midst of it.
There is indeed, and the timing of Jacob's publication of an attack on Ultrasurf is highly suspicious -- it comes at a time when there is competition for funding, and for the conceptualization of the program and for which agency of the US government should be involved.
Whatever supporters you have in the USG -- and you're coy about them -- surely have to be wondering what they have gotten themselves into, and as this involves *taxpayers' funds* we all get to examine this despite all your claims of our ignorance and lack of "depth".
Indeed, Jacob *is* coy. Who are his backers at this point in time? These backers have no concern about his investigation by a grand jury for his relationship to WikiLeaks? They think this is just the unjust hostilities of the Department of Defense or the Department of Justice, and will go away? They take his side and think it's just fine and dandy that the US government is hacked and its military files and diplomatic cables are stolen and publicized? Really?
I'm finding that hard to believe, even knowing what I do about some of the soft types at State. My guess is that Appelbaum doesn't have any active, avid support for his anti-security-state antics at State now. My guess is that he has been quietly "let go". Funding from the Navy stopped in 2010; funding from DRL or IBB or other acronyms may continue with the understanding that it is only for Tor development, not for Appelbaum's salary -- I'm speculating that it would make sense for those bureaucrats to cover themselvse in this way. When did the State Department cease the funding of Appelbaum, the WikiLeaks enabler? Well, probably not soon enough, knowing how funding cycles work and how far in advance approvals are made for the future, but probably as soon as they were able...
The necessity of a deadline or a publication in the first place isn't at all demonstrated and is only your own politicized imperative. The forced "outing" of these concerns in a tendentious package doesn't seem to have achieved your goals.
There was never any objective deadline for the attack on Ultrasurf to be published. It only exposes the problem to bad actors, especially authoritarian governments, and undermines a colleague in the field. Why was this done now? Indeed, Appelbaum was politicized -- wishing to wrest funding away from Ultrasurf. There is a lot more to this, in fact, which will come out eventually.
If you didn't give this immediately to the Chinese or Iranian or Syrian governments or their agents and think you should get credit for that (!), then...why do you think publicizing the report on your open web site *now* somehow exonerates you?!
Indeed, Appelbaum's claim that he delayed publication because he didn't want the bad actors to get his critique seems really fake when he...publicizes it after all. Why does he think he's exonerated now, indeed! He really thinks this is a warning to users? His English-language blog on an obscure website? That's the only justification he could have, but it's a lame one.
That's just plain wild -- and evidence of the alternative universe which you appear to inhabit.
Indeed, Appelbaum lives in an alternative universe, where the worst enemy of the free Internet in the world is the government of his own country, where the SOPA or CISPA legislation can seem "like" the Chinese or Iranian or Syrian suppression of speech that even involves jailing, torture and murder, where the purposes for limiting the Internet even narrowly are governed by law in a liberal state with an independent judiciary. It's important to keep illustrating the hyper-vigilant, hysterical, edge-casing world in which he and other tekkies live in as they analyze these public issues. If this is viewed as an insult, it's a completely mild one, and hardly any worse than Jacob's own attack on me as "out of my depth, and it shows" which the censor let past.
But you're part of a band of critics and re-tweeters that have savaged it, and clearly you think either you can throw it your way or do without it.
Morozov with wide attention on Twitter and numerous followers and re-tweeters immediately picked up Appelbaum's attack on Ultrasurf, as did other influencers. Morozov indeed is a savage, savage critic of the USG's Internet Freedom program. Appelbaum's coy notion that he "likes" this program is really misleading, because he obviously likes WikiLeaks a lot, too, and this is indeed a conflict of interest.
I'm not required to provide a solution. My job here is to question *your personal accountability* once again in presenting a *tendentiously-framed finding* and doing it publicly. There is absolutely no benefit to be gained from the coercive *public* nature of what you're doing except to throw Internet freedom programs *your way*. You may have overplayed your hand here.
Everything here is a statement of fact. It does involve personal accountability to be taking money from a US government program even as you support its enemy, WikiLeaks, which is trying to bring it to its knees by radical "transparency" in the form of theft and publication of classified cables. There isn't any benefit to publishing an attack on a competitor, both a competitor for funds and a rival for the ideological notions of what circumvention has to be, proprietary vs. open source. Indeed he is gambling on the idea that if he can sink Ultrasurf he can capture the faction of the State Department that advocates open source uber alles and doesn't mind WikiLeaks -- and indeed there is such a faction, in some form. Indeed, the continued successes of Jacob Appelbaum lets us know there is such a faction.
You've identified yourself as a "bully" -- I haven't used that term. But I do insist that you explain why on earth you can claim altruism and collegiality with these people at Ultrasurf if all along your plan was to "out" them.
Indeed. How can Appelbaum claim altruism when he exposes not only developers but users to harm from the Chinese government? It's no good saying that "it knew anyway" because you should never make an authoritarian government's work easier for it. Again, the timing of his outing of this report he kept private for months is really subject to question.
As for evidence that what you're doing is helping authoritarian governments, I'll go back to *your own claims* in which you said you refrained from publicizing this so as not to give comfort to Syrian, etc. governments. Huh? So what changed?!
It's not a personal attack to accuse people of helping authoritarian governments, when he himself has set up a paradigm: that he did not publish his report because he didn't want to place it in the hands of hostile governments. Huh? What could possibly justify placing it in the hands of hostile governments now then?!
Open source bullying, coercion and ideological haranguing are not open society or an open market. The right to be wrong about software isn't coterminous -- as you've mischieviously suggested -- with demanding publication and forcibly outing people you believe to be wrong even if they are wrong.
Indeed, this is bullying and coercion -- outing a critique of a competitor for funds just when these matters are being decided; exposing him to discredit and harm just when the ideological war is being fought to determine what kinds of circumvention tools should be backed. Even if Ultrasurf was the sieve he claims, it would be no worse than Tor, which also has its technical and political vulnerabilities as I've outlined, and publicly venting this would serve no purpose other than to win an ideological war.
None of my statements are "personal attacks". They are demands that a public figure with public funding come to account. That's normal in a democratic society.
It's interesting to note what Jacob Appelbaum did after my reply was censored.
He posted a prank post to the list to make it appear as if I myself had posted, just using a common rewrite trick.
He sent a message that said
"Catherine Fitzpatrick has written" with the message number and then put
"Nice story bro"
A variation on the 4chan/Anonymous tag "cool story bro" which is a kind of putdown to any long story or rant on a forums and a signal that he is with that ethics-free hacker culture. Surprise, surprise!
He did that to make it appear as if he could use his "magic powers" to spoof my posts on that list. *Rolls eyes*.
What is he, 12 years old?
I asked Yosem whether in fact he spoofed it -- it's a common thing to take someone's known email address and use it to spoof with. Yosem said "the message bounced," i.e. only I saw my cc copy of the pranked message, the list didn't see it.
Even so, "I saw what you did there." It's a psy-war technique to make somebody think they are being hacked and spoofed in order to rattle them. Big man!
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