internet | Bitter Gertrude

Sep 04 2017

Culture

The “Outrage Machine” and Calls for “Calm”

Connie Lim (aka MILCK) photographed by Rachael Lee Stroud. Source: milckmusic.com

A few days ago, I read an excellent article in Very Smart Brothas by editor-in-chief Damon Young entitled “Polite White People Are Useless.” Being a polite white person myself, my first reaction at seeing the title was that slight rise of defensiveness in the pit of my stomach– you know what I’m talking about, white people. That feeling of “BUT BUT BUT.” “But I don’t do this” “But I don’t mean it like that” “But I’m not racist” “But #notallwhitepeople” The feeling that immediately informs me: HERE LIES YOUR COMPLICITY IN WHITE SUPREMACY. Pursue this. Sit in your discomfort. Listen and learn.

Sometimes that feeling means it’s something I’m doing myself. Sometimes it means it’s something I’m letting pass unchallenged. So I used my discomfort as intuition and clicked on the article. In the article, Damon Young defines “polite white people” as “white people who call for decorum instead of disruption when attempting to battle and defeat bias and hate.” I let that slide at least half the time I see it on social media. “It’s just Facebook” is something I personally disagree with vehemently. Ideas put into the world do not wait for a particular venue to have their impact. Yet here I was, using “it’s just Facebook” as an excuse to avoid uncomfortable conversations. Ugh. Here lies your complicity in white supremacy.

While I was processing this, I encountered the inevitable calls for “calm” and calls against “constant outrage” in my various feeds, all from cishet white people with Christian heritage. I began to think deeply about this in the context of the VSB article. What do these people actually mean when they ask us to tone down the “outrage machine” or when they tell us an issue is “just a distraction?”

What are these issues about which we should be “calm”?

We’re battling literal Nazis. (“But they’re such a small group.”)

The Department of Homeland Security released a report in 2009 demonstrating that white supremacists were infiltrating law enforcement as a deliberate strategy and nothing was done about it due to conservative backlash. (“That doesn’t sound right.”)

And now several metropolitan police forces are quietly dismissing hundreds of thousands of cases (900,000 in New York alone), and paying out millions in settlement dollars due to police officers planting evidence (repeatedly in Baltimore) and arresting innocent people of color to meet quotas (“But they were caught, so, good, right?”)

The Trump Administration attempts to block police reform and coddles white supremacists. (“You can’t fight every little thing.”)

One of the worst natural disasters of our lifetimes has devastated Texas, causing an urgent humanitarian crisis. Thirty-one people have died and tens of thousands have lost everything and are living in packed shelters, yet now is the time Evangelical Christians (who make up a full quarter of our nation’s population) saw fit to release a document condemning all LGBTQ people and all Christians who support the human rights of LGBTQ people. By current estimates, there are about a million LGBTQ Texans, and LGBTQ people of color make up 55% of that. (“Evangelicals always hate LGBTQ people, so what does it matter?”)

I am barely scratching the surface.

On July 19, these young women participated in Jolt’s “Quinceañera at the Capitol,” a protest against Texas’ anti-immigration bill SB4 that celebrated Latinx culture while protesting racism. Jolt is a Latinx-run nonprofit focusing on issues of importance to the Latinx community in Texas. More at jolttx.org. Photo: @blurandgrain on Instagram

Calls for “calm” and posts denouncing the “outrage machine” are difficult to hear when it’s your family on the line. White Christians overwhelmingly voted for a man who ran on hate and support him as he governs from a place of hate. Hate of journalists; hate of women; hate of Mexicans; hate of Black people; hate of the disabled; hate of Muslims. He has a long history of racism and of courting white supremacists. While bigotry and racism are not new in this nation by a long shot, what we are seeing is a cultural moment where it’s become fashionable among a certain group of people to express these views openly. Now racism is an open badge of honor for some, a winking disingenuous pretense for even more. From the right it’s “I’m not racist; I just think the Confederate flag and Confederate statues are our heritage”; from the left it’s “Identity politics are holding us back; economic justice will solve racism, so we don’t need to work on it directly unless it’s obvious racism. And of course by that I mean racism that is obvious to me as a white man.”

This upswing in white willingness to be either openly and actively racist or to cast an abdication of responsibility for white supremacy as a greater good has already resulted in violence. Violent racists are emboldened by everything from outright encouragement to a lack of resistance. This new willingness to either openly express active bigotry or support it winkingly while pretending to oppose it extends to sexism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, ableism, transphobia, homophobia– everything people mean when they decry “identity politics.”

Demonstrators protesting the shooting death of Alton Sterling gather near the headquarters of the police department in Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Pennsylvania nurse Ieshia Evans embodies grace and power as she faces riot police in Baton Rouge at a July 2016 protest against the police murder of Alton Sterling. Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman

With all that in mind, what does it mean when people with privilege call for “calm” or an end to “constant outrage”? What does it mean when people with privilege scold others for responding to “distractions”— a label used almost exclusively for issues of concern to marginalized populations? What does it mean when people with privilege tell others to stop reacting to bigotry? Specifically what are they asking for?

What could they be asking for but silence? Less vocal insistence that the human rights of targeted populations be achieved and protected? A respite from open resistance?

When you ask targeted populations “aren’t you tired of the constant outrage?” it’s like asking someone getting beaten in an alley if they’re tired of getting hit. OF COURSE we’re tired of constant outrage. But what choice do we have? And if you have the cultural privilege that gives you a choice, it means something specific when you choose “stop reacting to distractions” or “I’m sick of the outrage machine.”

Decrying “distractions” and “the outrage machine” is just another aspect of privilege fragility. “I cannot take the discomfort that comes with your struggle for human rights, and I want to be the gatekeeper who decides what’s important enough to fight and what we should let pass.” When people with privilege set themselves up as the gatekeepers who decide what merits outrage and what does not, we are actively preserving that privilege. Gatekeeping is a major function of cultural privilege.

Image by Cheshire Isaacs created from the iconic Getty photo of Reno, CA resident Peter Cvjetanovic, among others, at the white supremacist march in Charlottesville, VA in August. For more, see cheshiredave.com

Now more than ever we need to take breaks for self-care during the chaotic Trumpian news cycle. We each cannot personally react to every new horror that occurs, especially as tribalism has replaced patriotism, frustratingly making the usual tactic of raising awareness through education far less effective. On the right, tribalism takes the form of continuing to support a president who defends people marching under Nazi, KKK, and white supremacist banners as “very fine people” who just happened to show up to a march advertised with images of Confederate flags, Nazi eagles, and the names of several of the nation’s most prominent white supremacists. On the left, it takes the form of supporting people who claim that “identity politics” are destroying us, as if issues of concern to the liberal base– women and people of color– are a detour from “real” issues (i.e., the issues important to white men). This constant barrage of nonsense is exhausting. But taking a break for your own self-care is a world apart from telling others they should shut up (“stop reacting to distractions”; “stop feeding the outrage machine”).

When someone is reacting to bigotry, especially if it’s bigotry you do not personally experience, especially if that reaction makes you uncomfortable, stop and listen. Think: why is this important to this person? What experiences have they had to make this issue crucial to them? What do they need to see from me as a person with privilege? Is my voice even needed in this discussion?

Nothing positive is contributed to the discussion– or to the world–by calling for “calm” in the face of bigotry, by scoffing at the “outrage machine” when people speak out against hate, by calling bigotry “a distraction,” or by denouncing “identity politics” when people are fighting for their basic human rights. I’ve been in conversations where people have been called out for this and responded so beautifully it moved me to tears. And I’ve been in conversations where the exact opposite happened.

Discomfort sucks. Believe me, I know. But the discomfort that comes from confronting your own privilege and your complicity in systems of oppression is nothing compared to experiencing that oppression. Most of us have an intersectional identity that encompasses some of both, so let’s use that to draw on when we see others speaking out about issues important to them rather than tell them their issues are “a distraction” or “just part of the outrage machine.”

Tagged activism, disability, diversity, feminism, internet, politics, racism, social justice, social media

Jul 22 2017

9 Comments

Bloviations, Personal Nonsense

Fire-Breathing Dragon

This is on several wallpaper sites. I’d love to credit the original artist if anyone knows who it is.

Recently I took down a blog post due to some threatening messages I received that, in part, excoriated me for being an “SJW.” They were not the first threatening messages I had ever received in that vein– not the 100th. I am a woman who writes on the internet, after all, and men send us threatening messages every single day. But these were, for reasons I will not disclose, particularly disturbing. One post about Disney casting (of all things) was, I felt, not worth it. I took it down.

Recently a local actor– a real life acquaintance– announced in a discussion of a racially-charged topic he was hosting on facebook that everyone should ignore my comments because I’m “one of those women who hates white men. If a white man cured cancer, she’d say it was oppressive to Black people.” And more foolishness. I skimmed it, rolled my eyes, and then blocked him, so I’m sure the quote is inexact.

I am struggling with the fact that I blocked him. I am struggling with the fact that I took the post down.

Ordinarily, I would delete and ignore random threats from lonely, angry men looking for someone to attack, someone to blame for their loneliness and anger. “Someone needs to rape some sense into you.” “You’re a stupid cunt who should keep her mouth shut.” “You will be crushed, like all SJWs will be crushed” something something glorious right-wing takeover goosestepping blah. If you are not ready for these, you are not ready to be a woman writing on the internet. These are the songs of the manbabies, sung into monitors lighting up otherwise dim rooms, dim minds, dim souls. They will sing songs of hate, anger, and loneliness until they die. Or until Mom comes downstairs and asks if they’ve done their Algebra II homework.

And ordinarily, I would take “ignore her” as a gauntlet thrown down, a challenge to demolish foolery in a war of words that I would– perhaps too greatly– relish. My brother long ago described me as a “fire-breathing dragon” in debates, an accurate depiction. Debating is as close as I will ever come to dominating a sports field.

Artist: Kekai Kotaki for Wizards of the Coast

Long ago I made a vow to engage with racism wherever I found it. That, I believe, is my duty as a white person, the basic entrance fee to “good person.” Yet twice in one week I walked away.

To say– We, as white people, need to be better, need to listen more, need to work hard to dismantle the systems of oppression in our culture, about which we have literal mountains of data proving both their existence and their impact– to say this, according to far too many white people, is “hating white men.” I do not “hate white men.” I recognize the existence of systems of oppression in our culture and I want us all to do better. I very much include myself in that. Yet I did not respond with any of this. I walked away because I’m having a “stressful week.”

I am a white woman and I can choose to recognize my privilege or ignore it as I go through my day. But I have seen the results of my privilege and the oppression of white supremacy and I can’t just walk away from that injustice. If the sacrifice I have to make is the good opinion of a handful of white people who refuse to look at this issue with sincerity and honesty, then so be it, because while we live under these systems of oppression, our brothers and sisters of color are being forced to sacrifice so much more.

And yet I walked away, twice in one week. I can’t decide whether to congratulate myself for my “excellent self-care” or kick my own ass for being a white feminist.

I know that I can’t fight every white supremacist I come across. I know I must “exercise self-care” and “recharge my batteries” and “take time for myself” and whatever else you’ve seen plastered across a blurry image of a waterfall on your aunt’s facebook. I know these things. So why am I cringing at my own behavior?

Fly, you fools

I’m not asking my readership to hand me cookies labeled “You Already Do So Much” and “Excellent White Person.” I am not excellent, at all, and I’m a writer, educator, and theatremaker, so I don’t know if “so much” describes what I do. I put words into the world and hope they find their way into someone’s brain. You can only fight with the weapons you’ve been given and these are mine. But I do not do enough. There is no such thing as “enough.”

And I walked away. Twice.

There is no answer you can give me. I did what I did, and it’s in the past. I have to live with my actions.

But I will never take down another blog post as long as I live.

Tagged activism, diversity, feminism, internet, racism, social justice, social media

Feb 03 2017

9 Comments

Culture

Stop Using the Word “Distraction”

Connie Lim, composer of the song that became the unofficial anthem of the Women’s March, “I Can’t Keep Quiet,” photographed by Rachael Lee Stroud.

I see a lot of confusion from white people about why “white liberal” and “white feminism” are derogatory terms and then I see a truckload of white people calling the Muslim ban a “distraction.”

“I don’t mean to imply it’s OK to ban Muslims, just that it’s a distraction from other things we should be paying attention to.” — every white person who has written an article about the “distraction” of the Muslim ban

A. I’m not understanding why these writers don’t understand the belittling implications of the word “distraction,” as if they were just hatched and flash-trained last week and are still working the kinks out in language acquisition, and B through Z. Calling the Muslim ban a “distraction” is racist. The Muslim ban is the problem itself. Whatever else Trumplethinskin and Bannon Wormtongue did during the Muslim ban chaos (and they did plenty), it was to make it easier to do more horrific things like the Muslim ban.

jfk-protest-immigrants-e1e9e7fb-3fc6-48de-85cf-b55bb57f1817

The protest at JFK against the Muslim ban, photographed by Stephanie Keith/Getty

Every action this administration or its leaders take cannot possibly be a “distraction” from every other action. It’s also nonsense to call any resistance action a “distraction” or, appallingly, “playing the shock event game”– as if fighting for Muslim lives is a “game” we’ve been baited into playing as a waste of time.

It’s ridiculous to label any resistance action as “playing into their hands,” and it’s even more ridiculous to state that a “shock event” like the Muslim ban was designed to “distract” us from the appointment of Steve Bannon to the NSC– an event that was on the front page of nearly every major English-language news outlet on the globe within seconds, an event that generated a trending hashtag on twitter, an event that launched thousands of thinkpieces. I googled “steve bannon nsc” to grab a link as an example, and I got 852,000 results.

It’s not escaping notice that massive protests to protect brown people were quickly characterized as a “distraction” that “plays into their hands” by white writers stating Steve Bannon’s appointment to the NSC is “far more consequential.” What is he doing on the NSC but furthering his very public anti-Islam agenda? How can anyone possibly conclude that a firm demonstration of our unwillingness to tolerate that agenda be a “distraction” from actions designed to implement that agenda?

RESISTANCE WORKS. Black causes, now more than ever, need support. Trump has already vowed to target “urban areas” for voter purges using “illegal voters” as his excuse. Unarmed Black people are still being killed by police. Black people are unfairly treated by every aspect of the criminal justice system. There is much to do, and resistance actions WORK. (Photo source: Arkansas Times)

You know what’s an actual “distraction”? Thinkpieces from white people that claim– without evidence– that resistance actions are useless and “playing into the hands of Trump and Bannon.” The resistance is having an enormous impact. Two GOP senators have now vowed to vote against Betsy DeVos due to public pressure from their constituents. Nordstrom announced it will stop carrying Ivanka Trump merchandise after they were targeted by a resistance boycott. The CEO of Uber resigned from Trump’s advisory committee after almost a quarter of a million people deleted the Uber app in protest of Uber’s actions during the JFK protest against the Muslim ban. Lyft has pulled advertising from the white nationalist site Breitbart, formerly headed by Steve Bannon, bringing the total number of companies to pull ads from the “alt right” sight due to public pressure up to 820. And that’s just in the past few days.

LGBTQ activists threw a dance party in front of Mike Pence’s house to protest his anti-LGBTQ stances on January 19, the most public resistance action on behalf of LGBTQ rights, but far from the only one. On January 31, Trump announced he would continue Obama’s protections for LGBTQ government workers. (Photo source: metro.co.uk)

This administration is losing support, and quickly, from both the left and the right.

Do not let anyone make you believe your resistance is “wrong,” “a distraction,” or “playing into their hands.” YOUR RESISTANCE IS MAKING A DIFFERENCE. Your work is important. PERSIST. RESIST.

Tagged activism, diversity, internet, journalism, politics, racism, social media, welcome to the resistance

Dec 19 2016

4 Comments

Culture

“Slacktivism” and Other Nonsense

SPEAK OUT. (If anyone has the original source for this please let me know.)

I don’t understand “that’s just slacktivism,” “there are bigger issues to discuss” and “you shouldn’t be discussing issues on social media; you should be doing something.” So much to unpack about the level of pure nonsense involved in this line of thinking.

1. Discussion of ideas is incredibly important. There are few things more important in the world, especially in the world of activism, than discussing ideas, educating others, spreading the word, (aka “raising awareness” or “creating public value”), and, one hopes, creating the support that enables action. Discussion *is* activism. The free and open exchange of ideas is one of our most cherished values. People who denigrate this, or pretend that any venue for this exchange of ideas has the power to devalue the exchange, are full of nonsense. The most important aspect of this is that these people know they’re full of nonsense. They engage in the discussion of ideas, big and small, both in person and online, all the time.

2. People who say things like, “Get off the computer and have face-to-face discussions in the real world” are laughably blind to the reality most of us live. Most of us can’t just leave our responsibilities behind, jump in a car or on public transportation, and head down to The Coffeehouse of Ideas every single time we feel like discussing an issue. We have kids, jobs, and/or mobility disabilities. We have workplace environments wherein these types of discussions are unwelcome or even impossible.

Most importantly, no one actually believes that online discussions are worthless. Everyone has seen the power of social media for spreading ideas, for good and for ill. While it’s a valid argument that in-person conversations are more effective in some ways, it’s a wagonload of nonsense to say that online conversations are worthless. People who make accusations like “social media posts are just slactivism” and “talking about an issue does nothing” are well aware that what they’re saying is not true.

3. What’s genuinely amusing about the people who make comments on social media like “posting on social media is worthless” is that they’re complaining about the worthlessness of posting on social media by posting on social media. They’re choosing an issue they care about– the supposed worthlessness of social media commentary– and using social media commentary as their tool of choice to publicly discuss it. Slow clap, people.

4. Creating false dichotomies like “There are more important issues we should be discussing” serves no one. If we size queen every discussion we have, we’d never be able to discuss anything but the worst possible atrocities. “I got a parking ticket! I really can’t afford this ri–” “BUT WHAT ABOUT GENOCIDE?” I’ve seen people complaining about discussions of diversity in film by saying “We have a neo-Nazi about to become president! Why are we discussing movies?!” as if those two things are not related, as if we didn’t have a mountain of evidence showing that art creates empathy, as if we didn’t have a mountain of evidence demonstrating the importance of representation. Again, almost everyone who pulls this kind of nonsense knows what they’re saying isn’t strictly true. They understand the interconnectedness of issues, and they know that your single post about an issue doesn’t mean that that issue is the only thing you care about. Yet they still will say “Why are you discussing this when there are more important things to discuss; this is a distraction.”

5. “Why are you just discussing this? Why aren’t you TAKING ACTION?” I think we all know these people believe the world revolves around them, but evidently they also believe that we all go into cryostasis when they’re not directly observing us. Of course they know that discussing issues online does not preclude action about those issues or any other, and they also know that those who discuss issues are far more likely to also take action about them. They know all of this, but they will still tell you to stop discussing an issue.

And again, it’s genuinely amusing that people will engage in an online discussion to scold someone for engaging in an online discussion. If they’re so disdainful of people who discuss issues online, why are they discussing issues online? Again, they know what they’re saying is not valid. The validity of the argument is not the point.

Refuse to be silenced. Source: curvemag.com

The point they’re trying to make is that you should be silenced. They are trying to silence you. The issue you’re discussing makes them uncomfortable, hits too close to home, or frightens them in some way. They are trying to assert control over what is deemed “important,” taking that authority for themselves, centering their worldview, and squelching different viewpoints.

Do not let them silence you. Now more than ever, we need to be openly discussing what’s happening in our culture. We need to be discussing issues both large and small and connecting the dots between them. We all need to be paying attention, but none of us can pay attention to everything all the time. We will all focus on different areas and catch different things. Our job is to understand how all these issues interconnect, not create false competitions between issues, or set ourselves up as gatekeepers of “importance.”

Our activism, our resistance, has never been more important. Pay attention. Never trust anyone who tells you to look away from anything. Connect the dots. Refuse to be silenced.

Tagged activism, internet, politics, social media

Dec 02 2016

Culture

Everything You Needed to Know About the “Alt Right” You Could Have Learned From Gamergate

Remember when Gamergate was happening? All those online attacks, threats, and harassment by the “alt right” pretending to be about “ethics in games journalism” but really just attacking, threatening, and harassing women and people of color for discussing the portrayal of women and people of color in video games? And everyone was like, “Oh; it’s just a minority of people doing that– just a fringe group” and “Well, some of them really do care about games journalism,” and “It’s just online harassment. Just ignore trolls!”?

Now people connected with the “alt right” are going to be in charge of the government. The man who was one of the unofficial heads of Gamergate, Milo Yiannopoulos, writes for Steve Bannon, at Breitbart “News.” Steve Bannon, Trump’s White House Chief Strategist, supported Yiannopoulos throughout the entire Gamergate debacle, and (just before his leave of absence to work for Trump) through the massive sexist and racist attack campaign Yiannopoulos led against Leslie Jones, the final straw that got Yiannopoulos kicked off Twitter because he finally attacked someone with enough fame and power to get people to pay attention.

Even those within Gamergate who insisted throughout that it was about “ethics in games journalism” still defined those ethics as keeping cultural criticism out of gaming. As video games became more and more complex, creating scripts and animation to rival major studio films, games criticism began to include the kinds of artistic considerations we within the arts are well used to. Critics began to consider the social context of games in addition to their basic functionality, sometimes critiquing games for their sexist portrayal of women, or for their lack of diversity. Even if it were about “ethics in games journalism,” Gamergate was defining “ethics” largely as “never talking about sexism or racism in games.” This is an important point, as there really are ethical considerations in games journalism, all of which Gamergate completely ignored in favor of sending death threats to a woman who creates videos about sexist tropes in games and an independent female developer who wrote a free game about her struggle with depression, among others. The “alt right” movement Gamergate considered personal attacks, harassment, and threats an appropriate response to arts criticism— led in part by Milo Yiannopoulos while he was supported and employed by Steve Bannon, soon to be one of the most powerful men in the world.

One of the most important things to note about Gamergate is how often they threw around the term “free speech” to defend attacks, threats, and harassment meant to silence discussion around sexism and racism in the video game industry. One popular talking point at the time was the fact that Anita Sarkeesian had turned off comments on her video series critiquing the portrayal of women in video games, Tropes vs. Women, both on YouTube and on her website, Feminist Frequency, when the attacks, threats, and harassment began, which was characterized as an attack on their “free speech.” This is important to note– they felt so entitled to attack, threaten, and harass this woman that they claimed it was a violation of their free speech when she refused to personally create a space on her website for them to do so.

One of the most important things we can do as citizens is connect the dots between events. Steve Bannon paid Milo Yiannopoulos while he led attacks, threats, and harassment against people advocating for feminism and diversity AND claimed it was a violation of free speech when special space was not created for these attacks to occur. When Yiannopoulos was booted from Twitter for violating their ToS in leading the sexist and racist attacks on Leslie Jones, the movement howled that Yiannopoulos’ “free speech” was being violated. Bannon paid Breitbart writer Jack Hadfield to write an article for Breitbart claiming Yiannopoulos was a “free speech martyr.”

While women and people of color are the canaries in the coal mine of shitty American trends– if bad things are coming down the pike, they’re going to hit us first– it’s also important to note that Gamergate was, at its core, a fight over arts criticism. While people are quick to dismiss art as “just a game” or “just a movie,” art is where we, as a culture, decide who we are, who we want to be, what we fear, what we value. Art is where culture is made. So it’s no surprise to me that this “alt-right” movement in part coalesced and gained popularity around two movements angry about the inclusion of women and people of color in art and arts journalism– Gamergate for video games, and Sad Puppies/Rabid Puppies for SciFi/Fantasy.

Yet the response to these attacks and their alarming ideology at the time was a collective shrug of the shoulders. The most popular response was “just ignore the trolls.” This piece of advice could not have been more dangerously wrong.

We should have listened to women and people of color when they first began reporting these attacks. We should have responded robustly and clearly: No, this is wrong. Instead we shrugged our shoulders and told them, “Just ignore the trolls.”

We could have learned everything we needed to know about the “alt right” from Gamergate, and instead here we are, once again, telling each other to “ignore the trolls,” telling each other to discount Trump’s outrageous attacks on free speech when they’re on Twitter, as if they weren’t part of a larger world view that seeks to limit free speech (here, here, here, here, here), as if they weren’t coming from a man we’re about to put into the most powerful position in the world with Steve Bannon at his ear.

When Steve Bannon paid Milo Yiannopoulos to write articles that aided Gamergate and its horrific personal attacks against people who dared to openly discuss sexism and racism in the games industry, that should have been enough right there to make everyone terrified of handing Bannon any sort of political power. Now he’s about to have more political power– unaccountable political power, since he’s in an appointed, not elected, position– than nearly anyone else in the world, aiding a presumptive president elect who attacks free speech relentlessly. The “alt right” has openly fought against free speech for years. The question is, Have we learned anything from it? Or are we just going to keep saying “ignore the trolls”?

Tagged civil rights, diversity, feminism, internet, journalism, politics, racism, video games

Oct 04 2015

6 Comments

Culture

“Peeple,” the Yelp-style app that rates people, is the worst idea ever, even if it’s a hoax. Especially if it’s a hoax.

“Peeple”? No idea. Maude, cancel my 10:30 so I can read this post.

What is “Peeple”?

Perhaps you’ve already heard about this proposed new app, “Peeple,” that’s designed to be a sort of Yelp for people. The premise is that anyone with your cell phone number can create your profile and post a review of you. Yes, you personally. You’re alerted via text message. If you do nothing, Peeple only posts “positive” reviews, meaning reviews of 3 – 5 stars, regardless of written content. If you claim your profile, you receive your negative reviews (2 stars or fewer) via your Peeple inbox. You have 48 hours to try to “work it out with the person” and convince them to “turn a negative to a positive.” If you can’t, the review goes live, and your only recourse is to defend yourself publicly. The founders of Peeple, Julia Cordray and Nicole McCullough, have repeatedly said that there will be no opt-out feature, meaning anyone who has– or who can find– your cell phone number can create a permanent profile for you without your consent, inviting others to post reviews of you, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

I don’t know . . . sounds like a harassment engine . . .

Cordray and McCullough have given vague assurances that they will have structures in place to minimize harassment and enable people to contest reviews with misleading or incorrect information. They claim they will personally review all negative reviews (again, not in content, just in star count), and that anyone violating the terms of service, which bans, according to their website, “profanity, bullying, health references, disability references, confidential information, mentioning other people in a rating that you are not currently writing a rating for, name calling, degrading comments, abuse, derogatory comments, sexual references, mention of confidential information, racism, legal references, hateful content, sexism, and other parameters in our terms and conditions” will be booted.

In case you were wondering, these are the people making decisions about what constitutes “racism” on Peeple. (Source: forthepeeple.com)

This Can’t Possibly Be Real, Can It?

Peeple is such a spectacularly bad idea that, in addition to the massive online outpouring of WTF, some people began looking a little closer at Cordray and McCullough (pictured above), among them Snopes, and started to float the idea that Peeple is likely “vaporware” (a nonexistent product announced but never produced), a hoax created to underpin a reality show Cordray and McCullough were creating about the development of an app. Peeple’s site features no less than ten “webisodes” entitled “Peeple Watching Documentary– 2 Best Friends Building an App in Silicon Valley in 90 Days.”

Another clue is the app’s website. As a writer who has done some professional copywriting for tech companies in the past, it’s immediately obvious to me that the copy in all sections has been written by an amateur. It’s rife with writing errors. Suspiciously so. Check out the first quote above– it mentions “confidential information” twice in the same list. The site also includes a note entitled “An Ode to Courage” that’s so self-serving and poorly written, it makes me wonder if the entire enterprise is a satire of app developers: “Innovators are often put down because people are scared and they don’t understand. We are bold innovators and sending big waves into motion and we will not apologize for that because we love you enough to give you this gift.”

While bad writing alone doesn’t point to a hoax, it certainly adds to the enormous lack of professionalism that is underpinning much of what’s creating suspicions.

Hmmmm. I was going to pose for this picture, but now that you mention it, that DOES sounds suspicious. Do go on.

Their failure to address basic, obvious concerns about privacy, consent, and intrusion demonstrates they have suspiciously low interest in probable legal complications.

They seem to have no understanding of social media harassment, which would be shocking for people creating a social media app. They appear (pretend?) to believe that possessing a cell phone number is proof of personal knowledge, when everyone online knows that to be laughably inaccurate. Their report and review policies are suspiciously weak, as if no one with expertise in the matter was consulted.

Finally, they have no legal right to the name “Peeple,” which belongs to a company that makes smart peepholes for your door (which actually look super-rad; you should check them out). Cordray and McCullough didn’t even bother to check the availability of the brand name before diving in. (Cordray appears to have belatedly– just last night, in fact– created a new twitter handle, @peeplereviewapp, and is offering $1000 for the “best new name.”)

Now that IS suspicious. Archibald, bring the coach around. We’re leaving.

If It’s Just a Hoax, What’s the Big Deal?

Whether the app is vaporware or not, Peeple is a Very Bad Thing.

Remember: Cordray and McCullough are clear that reviews with 3 – 5 stars will automatically post, regardless of content, and without your consent. Harassers and stalkers know precisely how to game systems, and it doesn’t take a genius to sort out that a damaging, harassing, or abusive review, carefully worded so it doesn’t violate the ToS, will automatically post if you attach a 5 star rating. There are millions of people out there who understand all too well the potential dangers that Cordray and McCullough have been callously brushing off.

Apart from the ongoing struggle with online harassment of women, there are specific vulnerable populations that are terrified of this app, and for good reason. There are places in this country where a person would be fired if their place of employment discovers they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. There are places in this country where transgender people have no legal protections. There are transgender people whose lives are at risk if their identities are discovered, particularly low-income people and people of color. Gay and transgender teenagers have astronomically high suicide rates as it is, exacerbated by bullying. Just asking people to click through a “yes, I am 21” screen does exactly nothing to protect a kid. How long will Peeple’s review process take? Two days? A week? While a profile outing or bullying a teenager remains up?

There are tens of thousands of people hiding from abusive exes or stalkers, and Peeple presents an enormous danger to them, even from well-meaning people. All it takes is a 5 star review from a customer or co-worker detailing the excellent service Name O’Person provides in Specific City, and boom. The damage has been done. Peeple won’t allow the profile to be taken down, and the review can’t be contested because it’s positive. Even if the profile could be taken down, there’s no way for it to be taken down quickly enough to protect people adequately. The internet is forever. There are people who barely escaped murder hiding in cities far from their abusive exes, keeping as low a profile as possible. Peeple has announced, essentially, that it plans to out them all, but LOL, “turn a negative into a positive!” Peeple is “a positivity app!”

People all across the country are terrified about what Peeple’s scorn for consent might mean for them and their families. Will I lose my job? Will I lose my children? Will I have to race into hiding, desperately seeking housing and a new job, because the man who swore to murder me will discover where I work? What if I can’t afford to move when I’m outed? Will my transgender college student, away from home for the first time, be bullied into suicide? Will my transgender daughter be killed on the street on her way to work? Will my stalker be able to trace where my children go to school if our location is posted?

And sure, there’s nothing stopping people from outing each other now– and they do– but Peeple is built specifically to aggregate and disclose information about individuals without their consent. Peeple’s sole function is to judge others without their consent, and deny them the right to opt out.

AND DENY THEM THE RIGHT TO OPT OUT.

Unlike other social media sites, Peeple enables others to create a profile for you without your consent, and denies you the right to delete comments on that profile, block harassers, or delete your profile entirely. Cordray and McCullough have decided that they, not you, are the appropriate judges of what constitutes your “confidential information,” as well as what constitutes “harassment.”

Peeple would be one-stop shopping for harassers and abusers, and that is terrifying millions of people while Cordray and McCullough brush off their concerns with casual cruelty.

If Peeple launches, there will be attendant invasion of privacy lawsuits launching, one hopes, in time to shut it down before it can get anyone killed. But the damage it’s doing right now– the terror it’s spreading among vulnerable populations, real people whose lives are on the line– is unconscionable.

I can almost understand wanting to launch a real app, and just lacking the expertise and intelligence to understand that your app is the worst idea ever, and why, and how to address those issues before you destroy your brand, someone else’s brand, several thousand lives, and your professional reputations.

But I CANNOT understand people who would persist in a hoax after being told, repeatedly, that they are scaring the living shit out of millions of people whose lives they would be putting at risk.

A Note To Julia Cordray and Nicole McCullough

Julia Cordray and Nicole McCullough, if this is vaporware, a hoax, and/or a fake premise upon which to launch your web series, you are truly despicable. You have repeatedly demonstrated no concern whatsoever for the personal safety or emotional and psychological well-being of our nation’s most vulnerable people. You’re terrifying people because you desperately want to be rich and famous. Well, you got the famous part all right– I hope infamous is close enough. If your app is real, and if you have one decent cell in your body– either of you– you will make this app opt-in, or you will allow people to pre-emptively opt out and/or delete profiles created for them before they go live.

Finally

I think the best and/or most frustrating part about all of this is how upset Cordray’s been over the criticism, and how ludicrous she looks trying to silence it while denying that right to others. It’s been a banner couple of ~~years~~ centuries for clueless, self-serving, arrogant, basic white girls, (here you go; with my compliments; help yourself; just one more; treat yourself), but this takes the cake.

Tagged civil rights, feminism, internet, social media

Bitter Gertrude

Blogging about Culture, Equity, and the Arts since 2013

Tag Archives: internet

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