I posted a bit on KiwiFarms a bit about six/seven years ago. I became involved somewhat involuntary as I was editing on RationalWiki at the time and there was rather a lot of conflict with the whole "GamerGate" thing going on, and I had no idea what that was about. I didn't care much for the anti-gamergate people on RW as I felt they were ... unpleasant ... and they kept talking about this "KiwiFarms" thing. So I created an account and figured I'd talk to some people to see what it's all about and hear out the other side a bit.
At the time, from what I saw, it wasn't actually so bad. I would consider it distasteful, even offensive at times, but from what I've seen they weren't organizing harassment or bully campaigns. The general attitude was something along the lines of "haha, what a loser/idiot", and in some of the more tragic cases it was also followed up by "but this is very sad to see :-(".
I don't recall seeing the targetting of people based on their sexuality or gender identity. The range of opinions on things like GamerGate were fairly diverse, but the main attitude was "petty manchildren crying about muh gamez".
Plenty of stuff I disagreed with, and plenty of comments that I would describe as being made in bad taste or downright offensive, but my take-away was that, at the time, the description of a vile nest of horrible reactionary alt-Right bullies as some on RationalWiki claimed it, was pretty off the mark. We had plenty of trolls on RationalWiki for sure, and some pretty vile ones too, and most people on KiwiFarms thought they were just a bunch of losers. Yet, somehow, they were still attributed to KiwiFarms shrug.
I don't know the details of the this situation, and it's been six years so all sorts of things could have changed, but based on my previous experience I'm very hesitant to immediately jump to the conclusion that it's a "forum of people that bullies vulnerable people until they kill themselves" because I've seen all sorts of hyperbolic claims before and found them untrue. Maybe it's correct this time, but ... yeah. Fool me once, fool me twice...
And if this comment wasn't controversial enough already: I feel this stuff is sometimes taken way too seriously, and that this is actively harmful to people like Near. I completely understand why they would feel upset if people say ugly things about them, but a lot of this crowd seems to provide only validation and recognition for being upset, and not enough "just some rando losers on a forum, get over it and stop crying". I don't think this is helping and an (unintentional) but vicious feedback loop. The fact of the matter is that the world has ugly people saying ugly things. This has always been true for all of history, and will always remain true. It sucks, but we can't change that. You can either shrug at insults or slurs, or you can become very upset with it, and it's absolutely not a given unchangeable fact that "getting upset" is the only possible action.
I don't want to put too much weight in this letter as it's obviously written from a place of grief and anger, but it mostly seems to externalize Near's problems to KiwiFarms. It seems to me that their problems were mostly internal, as is usually the case with people suffering from long-term depression. Perhaps the external KiwiFarms "pushed them over the edge", but that's not the same as being the primary cause. This is important because if you focus on the wrong things you're not going to solve whatever problems you have.
However, no matter what I say here, or what the facts of the case may be (maybe it is as bad as claimed, maybe not) I think ... none of that will really matter here anyway :-/
There are literal celebratory posts over someones suicide on there.
They reposted the Christchurch massacre video and the owner called the NZ police fags when requested for logs. Even if your opinion is ‘freedom of information’, the owner being outright offensive to the staff involved in responding to the content is a pretty good indicator that the site is a cesspit.
Being edgy is not the same as intentionally driving people to suicide. Like I said: distasteful and offensive? Sure. But that's not what's being alleged here. Any and all nuance is lost here and the worst possible assumptions are being made.
Near attributes the owner of the site as a key cause of their suicide. It sounds like they made efforts to contact the website to remove the offending threads. Did you even read the article?
Yes, of course I read it. And I found the email exchange with Null and them as well, the letter their friend wrote, some other things on Twitter, this HN thread, the other HN thread, skimmed a bit on that KiwiFarms thread.
There was a fairly short thread with a bunch of people not being very nice, but that's about it, then nothing for a year, and then Near came back with "I will give you my life savings if you remove the thread", which then escalated to essentially "I will kill myself if you don't remove the thread", and a day later they did.
And while I every reason to believe it's all genuine, ... that doesn't automatically mean every claim is true. If I were to say "my conversation with hsbauauvhabzb on HN made me commit suicide" then I might be very sincere and genuine in this, but that doesn't mean you did anything wrong, and even if you did, doesn't mean that you singularly caused my suicide.
I've heard all of this before and when I went out to verify and found that a that time much of it wasn't true, and that a lot of things attributed to KiwiFarms were just not related to them at all. And now I can't really find anything either. Distasteful, offensive, and often just outright shitty? Sure. Intentionally driving people to suicide? Not seeing it. Being shitty is not the same as harassment. It's just not. It's just a bunch of losers dramawanking.
Repeated or organised ‘harassment’ is called bullying.
Bullying is a well accepted cause of suicide. It might not occur straight away, maybe the victim becomes mentally or emotionally unstable as a result and terminates their life some time after the actual events occur. I fail to see a distinctive difference between ‘driving somebody to suicide’ and ‘bullying without the intent to cause suicide’.
But sure, downplay it as ‘dramawanking’ because you’re unable to empathise or see perspectives other than your own.
This does not engage with anything I actually I've said, and you are unfairly putting words in my mouth as I never said "bullying without the intent to cause suicide", or implied anything even close to that, not did I claim that harassment is not bullying. I strongly resent this and I think your comment is extremely unfair.
And then...
> you’re unable to empathise or see perspectives other than your own.
... it gets even worse ... "Agree with my take or you're a monster". Sigh...
> that doesn't mean you did anything wrong, and even if you did, doesn't mean that you singularly caused my suicide.
I means, if you kept saying what he did was wrong, that what he did pushed multiple people to suicide in the past, and that you went as far as offering your life saving in hope to make it stop.... and he kept going... I kind of think he did something wrong and he is responsible.
Once you are aware of how you hurt someone, and you keep doing it knowing that... well yeah you are responsible for that damage, even if in other cases it doesn't hurt.
All of this is way beyond that too. Theses kinds of forums dehumanize people, and that's where it goes too far. Sure Near could have avoided KiwiFarms, but once someone has been dehumanized, once he is no longer someone, but just a joke, it's easy to keep going once you are outside of there. Maybe a huge majority of the members keep it on the forum only (doubt it, but possible), but for sure a some use that as fuel to keep going.
What about all the doxing too? I have an hard time seeing how you could justify that.
At the time, from what I saw, it wasn't actually so bad. I would consider it distasteful, even offensive at times, but from what I've seen they weren't organizing harassment or bully campaigns. The general attitude was something along the lines of "haha, what a loser/idiot", and in some of the more tragic cases it was also followed up by "but this is very sad to see :-(".
I don't recall seeing the targetting of people based on their sexuality or gender identity. The range of opinions on things like GamerGate were fairly diverse, but the main attitude was "petty manchildren crying about muh gamez".
Plenty of stuff I disagreed with, and plenty of comments that I would describe as being made in bad taste or downright offensive, but my take-away was that, at the time, the description of a vile nest of horrible reactionary alt-Right bullies as some on RationalWiki claimed it, was pretty off the mark. We had plenty of trolls on RationalWiki for sure, and some pretty vile ones too, and most people on KiwiFarms thought they were just a bunch of losers. Yet, somehow, they were still attributed to KiwiFarms shrug.
I don't know the details of the this situation, and it's been six years so all sorts of things could have changed, but based on my previous experience I'm very hesitant to immediately jump to the conclusion that it's a "forum of people that bullies vulnerable people until they kill themselves" because I've seen all sorts of hyperbolic claims before and found them untrue. Maybe it's correct this time, but ... yeah. Fool me once, fool me twice...
And if this comment wasn't controversial enough already: I feel this stuff is sometimes taken way too seriously, and that this is actively harmful to people like Near. I completely understand why they would feel upset if people say ugly things about them, but a lot of this crowd seems to provide only validation and recognition for being upset, and not enough "just some rando losers on a forum, get over it and stop crying". I don't think this is helping and an (unintentional) but vicious feedback loop. The fact of the matter is that the world has ugly people saying ugly things. This has always been true for all of history, and will always remain true. It sucks, but we can't change that. You can either shrug at insults or slurs, or you can become very upset with it, and it's absolutely not a given unchangeable fact that "getting upset" is the only possible action.
I don't want to put too much weight in this letter as it's obviously written from a place of grief and anger, but it mostly seems to externalize Near's problems to KiwiFarms. It seems to me that their problems were mostly internal, as is usually the case with people suffering from long-term depression. Perhaps the external KiwiFarms "pushed them over the edge", but that's not the same as being the primary cause. This is important because if you focus on the wrong things you're not going to solve whatever problems you have.
However, no matter what I say here, or what the facts of the case may be (maybe it is as bad as claimed, maybe not) I think ... none of that will really matter here anyway :-/