#greater internet fuckwad theory

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The real problem with anonymity

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TUCSON (Mar 9-10), then San Francisco (Mar 13), Anaheim, and more!

According to "the greater internet fuckwad theory," the ills of the internet can be traced to anonymity:

Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Fuckwad

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/greater-internet-fuckwad-theory

This isn't merely wrong, it's dangerously wrong. The idea that forcing people to identify themselves online will improve discourse is demonstrably untrue. Facebook famously adopted its "real names" policy because Mark Zuckerberg claimed to believe that "Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity":

https://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2010/05/14/facebook-and-radical-transparency-a-rant.html

In service to this claimed belief, Zuckerberg kicked off the "nym wars," turning himself into the sole arbiter of what each person's true name was, with predictably tragicomic consequences:

https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/

Facebook is, famously, one of the internet's most polluted reservoirs of toxic interpersonal conduct. That's not despite the fact that people have to use their "real" names to participate there, but because of it. After all, the people who are most vulnerable to bullying and harassment are the ones who choose pseudonyms or anonymity so that they can speak freely. Forcing people to use their "real names" means that the most powerful bullies speak with impunity, and their victims are faced with the choice of retreat or being targeted offline.

This can be a matter of life and death. Cambodian dictator Hun Sen uses Facebook's real names policy to force dissidents to unmask themselves, which exposes them to arbitrary detention, torture, and extrajudicial killing. For members of the Cambodian diaspora, the choice is to unmask themselves or expose their family back home to retaliation:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/facebook-cambodia-democracy

Some of the biggest internet fuckwads I've ever met – and I've met some big ones! – were utterly unashamed about using their real names. Some of the nicest people I know online have never told me their offline names. Greater internet fuckwad theory is just plain wrong.

But that doesn't mean that anonymity is totally harmless. There is a category of person who reliably uses a certain, specific kind of anonymity to do vicious things that inflicts serious harm on whole swathes of people: corporate bullies.

Take Tinyletter. Tinyletter is a beloved newsletter app that was created to help people who just wanted to talk to others, without a thought to going viral or getting rich. It was sold to Mailchimp, which was sold to Intuit, who killed it:

https://www.theverge.com/24085737/tinyletter-mailchimp-shut-down-email-newsletters

Tinyletter was a perfect little gem of a service. It cost almost nothing to run, and made an enormous number of peoples' lives better every day. Shutting it down was an act of corporate depravity by some faceless Intuit manager who woke up one day and said "Fuck all those people. Just fuck them."

No one knows who that person was. That person will never have to look those people in the eyes – those people whose lives were made poorer for that Intuit executive's indifference. That person is the greater fuckwad, and that fuckwaddery depends on their anonymity.

Or take @Pixsy, a corporate shakedown outfit that helps copyleft trolls trick people into making tiny errors in Creative Commons attributions and then intimidates them into handing over thousands of dollars:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/24/a-bug-in-early-creative-commons-licenses-has-enabled-a-new-breed-of-superpredator/

Copyleft trolling is an absolutely depraved practice, a petty grift practiced by greedy fuckwads who are completely indifferent to the harm they cause – even if it means bankrupting volunteer-run nonprofits for a buck:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/02/commafuckers-versus-the-commons/

Pixsy claims that it is proud of its work "defending artists' rights," but when I named the personnel who signed their names to these profoundly unethical legal threats, Pixsy CEO Kain Jones threatened to sue me:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/13/an-open-letter-to-pixsy-ceo-kain-jones-who-keeps-sending-me-legal-threats/

The expectation of corporate anonymity runs deep and the press is surprisingly complicit. I once spent weeks working on an investigative story about a multinational corporation's practices. I spent hours on the phone with the company's VP of communications, over the course of many calls. When we were done, they said, "Now, of course, you can't name me in the article. All of that has to be attributed to 'a spokesperson.'"

I was baffled. Nothing this person said was a secret. They weren't blowing the whistle. They weren't leaking secrets. They were a corporate official, telling me the official corporate line. But they wouldn't sign their name to it.

I wrote an article about for the Guardian. It was the only Guardian column any of my editors there ever rejected, in more than a decade of writing for them:

https://memex.craphound.com/2012/05/14/anodyne-anonymity/

Given the press's deference to this anodyne anonymity, it's no wonder that official spokespeople expect this kind of anonymity. I routinely receive emails from corporate spokespeople disputing my characterization of their employer's conduct, but insisting that I not attribute their dubious – and often blatantly false – statements to them by name.

These are the greater corporate fuckwads, who commit their sins from behind a veil of anonymity. That brand of bloodless viciousness, depravity and fraud absolutely depends on anonymity.

Mark Zuckerberg claimed that "multiple identities" enabled bad behavior – as though it was somehow healthy for people to relate to their bosses, lovers, parents, toddlers and barbers in exactly the same way. Zuckerberg's motivation was utterly transparent: having "multiple identities" doesn't mean you "lack integrity" – it just makes it harder to target you for ads.

But Zuckerberg couldn't enshittify Facebook on his own. For that, he relies on a legion of anonymous Facebook managers. Some of these people undoubtably speak up for Facebook users' interests when their colleagues propose putting them in harm's way for the sake of some arbitrary KPI. But the ones who are making those mean little decisions? They absolutely rely on anonymity to do their dirty work.

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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/04/greater-corporate-fuckward-theory/#counterintuit-ive

#pluralistic #tinyletter #enshittification #greater internet fuckwad theory #real names #nymwars #intuit #mailchimp

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

To the people who genuinely cannot believe that there are people talking like assholes on the anonymous asshole judgement blog: why. Genuinely, why. Are you unfamiliar with the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory (more politely , the online disinhibition effect) or are you just so cynically obsessed with being Correct that you forget what the average user is like on twitter. You are very irritating. Just like as a person.

[britts-galaxy-brain]

LO loves grandstand about how much "has a life" doesn't she? Her videos say she "Goes outside and talks to people" and she's always telling others to "Touch grass" and accuses them of being man-babies.

Yet when I read about how controlling she is, it always makes me wonder just how the hell she functions as an adult in person. Like, does she have to be the center of attention in public all the time too? How the hell did she handle working in retail without having a meltdown?

She really is the poster child of the "The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory" isn't she?

As far as I know based on what she told me directly and what she's said publicly, the only time she leaves the house is to visit her family.

She got fired from her coffee job because she was too stubborn and antagonistic. The one time she brought up a group of RL friends, it was to complain about how she had a falling out with them for similar reasons. Most of her partners' friends and family end up openly disliking her.

She is so insufferable, selfish, and controlling that she can't maintain a job or RL friendships. That's why she relies on her audience and internet friends. She has to be in control of the narrative at all times, and she has to be able to avoid consequences to her actions.

#lily orchard

[gefdreamsofthesea]

This is just an occasional reminder that you should never actually take what anyone on the Steam forums says seriously because they are mostly trolls with a few actual bigots. The genuine bigots are a concern but I've seen people getting distressed over troll posts and they're just doing the GIFT (Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, in this case) thing and you should not listen to them.

[bread-tab]

somethin' 'bout what it means to be "internet poisoned" has just become clear to me, an' it's that

the vices of "internet poison" belong equally to the rich class, the educated class and the working class. it's anti-intellectualism. it's puritanism. it's (i don't know the proper word for this) bullying people using the tools of advanced rhetoric, as often learned in higher ed. it all comes together into something both complex and incredibly shallow: an environment where people hide behind words in order to be nasty.

any arguments of "it's *those people* that are the problem"—directed generationally, or by education or background or culture or whatever—are just distractions from that core problem.

this has been my defense of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, thanks fer listenin'

#discourse

[dalenthas]

Something I just realized about the rise of terrible people on the Internet. Ignoring for a second that the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory has been around since the late 90s, the problem is one of Moderation. No I don't mean people should use the Internet a moderate amount (though that might help), I mean that the condensing of hundreds of individual forums and chatrooms into Facebook and Twitter means the number of Mods per person has gone waaaay down.

According to a quick Google (ie, unverified numbers), there are approximately 2 **billion** active users on Facebook.

One Discord server I'm part of has a decent sized community, a few hundred users, about 100 of which are active in any real sense of the word. There are 5 moderators. That's 5% of the active community. For Facebook to achieve that ratio, they'd need to employ 100 million moderators. That's more than 1000 times more people than Facebook has ever employed.

No wonder they have trouble keeping the Nazis off their platform. Twitter isn't even trying anymore.

#cw nazis #facebook #moderation

[shrapnelstars]

I also think it's time to re-introduce the concept of GIFT to newer generations.

GIFT stands for Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, and basically means that once someone gets online and settles into anonymity, they get more brazen and say insane shit they wouldn't say IRL.

Twitter is that, plus the modern need for some people to constantly possess some kind of moral superiority over everyone else.

#estoy thinkin

[humanfist]

tl:dr Prof Smith previously provided a theory of internet outrage that can be (loosely) summarized as “The main issue is that social media, especially twitter, amplifies the voices of people who are already Like That IRL.” New research mostly supports his theory. Showing strong evidence that social media amplifies the impact of dickish posts relative to non-dickish posts and that people who are Like That online are mostly the same people who are Like That IRL. One finding that is loosely inline with the spirt of his theory, but not predicted by the original version is that people do seem to become more dickish as a result of using social media where dickishness is rewarded. The theory has been tweaked to accommodate this.

#the shouting class #polarization #politics #social media #competition to #the greater internet fuckwad theory

[frickyesforumweapons]

#Reaction Image #Penny Arcade #Web Comics #The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory #Queue

[thecraftybear]

What is it with people, discussion and manners? You get into a perfectly civil argument over one thing, use a related case in point from your personal experience, and suddenly they go all personal on you, drawing some weird and overblown conclusions, before accusing you of derailing the discussion. And once you’ve proven them to be the derailing factor and staved off their absurd attacks, they suddenly disappear and delete the whole damn subthread.

Rude.

#not tumblr this time #facebook is full of assholes too #gift #aka the greater internet fuckwad theory #only some people don't bother with the anonymous part

[sir-adamus]

my advice to anyone dealing with internet toughguys making nuisances of themselves in their inboxes right now (the greater internet fuckwad theory proving itself again) is to just ignore it

don’t give them the satisfaction of occupying any amount of your time by wasting your energy on replying, don’t even acknowledge it - just keep up blogging and enjoying the gifs and art and textposts and whatever you enjoy and let them stew in their own shit

it won’t stop ‘em, but they’re giving you the last word by sending this shit anonymously anyway, so do yourself a favour and don’t let them have the first word at all

[tanadrin]

and like if you’re a racist troll online or w/e you’re pretty clearly in the wrong and should apologize or just delete your twitter for good; but so many people these days seem to make a sport of deliberately misreading other people’s intentions online, or reading them in bad faith, that the bar needs to be set quite a bit higher; and while it was an imperfect philosophy in many ways, the old adage of “don’t feed the trolls” still applies pretty well to a broad subclass of small-time internet dickhead regardless of context. like, the odds of anybody actually successfully changing the opinion or behavior of someone who is Wrong on the Internet is essentially zero, and I think most people sort of know that--which makes me wonder what people think they’re accomplishing by being a dick to each other online (besides the obvious, of course, which is the thrill of righteous anger and the relief of a disposable [to them] target they don’t have to be socially responsible to).

when this phenomenon reaches the scale of, like, pan-internet celebrities or meatspace celebrities it sometimes gets called “cancel culture” these days, and some people seem Very Worried about it, but really it’s the exact same dynamics as discussed in the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, it’s just that we’re all a lot more online these days.

[lake-lady]

holy crap, that anon was rude. But I think it pretty much fits the "Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory" (Normal person + anonymity + audience = total fuckwad) anyway, sorry to read all that. Keep up the awesome blog an being yourself. Much love

Thank you very much, kind soul! Yeah and it also fits the lack of reading comprehension that Tumblr users are notorious for 🤣. I said this previously but I rly am blocking random strangers like if we've been mutuals for 3 years and we chat sometimes I probably like you and won't just block u for posting about your bf, chances are I do sorta care at that point!

I just dont wanna be bombarded with performative relationship/sex posts

#asks #asks answered

[irradiate-space]

Stayed up way too early this morning writing a post that isn't necessarily a callout post, but will be read as if it is one. How do you put up "this person is hazardous" signs without directing attention to that person?

Now I'm thinking about ways to warn The Tumblr Public Personas (who I don't really know) about This One User's habits, without really directing any attention towards This One User. It seems impossible, because the easiest method of disarming This One User is to tumblr-block them, preventing them from rebageling your content or sending you notifications, but in order to tell people to do that, I have to say their name, which by Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory means they will receive hate.

I'm trying to have empathy for this person, because they're clearly in a bad place, but I don't think that excuses the things they do. I don't want to worsen their situation, but I also don't want them to continue to worsen others' situations, and the only method I see for blocking the latter results in the former.

#callout posts #vagueposting

[argumate]

the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory hinged on anonymity, but we see people behaving like complete dicks even though they have their full name and work history in their Twitter bio; however this is still a form of relative anonymity in the sense that any individual member of the mob feels anonymous compared with whatever target they’re hassling, especially given that the hassling isn’t even happening on a face to face basis.

getting caught out by someone screenshotting DMs is still a thing, our intuitions for public and private spaces are still messed up online.

[dasha-aibo]

GIFT means Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. Aka Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Fuckwad

Ah, I remember now, thanks