War of the Hashtaggers

May 31, 2016 11:15 AM

How Toronto's craziest Twitter war ended up in court (slTorontoLife)
posted by Kitteh (45 comments total)

He also devised something called “snoetry,” where he stamped his slogans into patches of snow. Like Guthrie, Elliott was often on Twitter—his handle was @greg_a_elliott and his bio read “Designer, poet, lover, friend.”

Already, I know exactly where this guy's behavior is going. Sentimentality is the heavy perfume worn by the morally gangrenous.
posted by Countess Elena at 11:25 AM on May 31, 2016 [35 favorites]

Twitter drama is even more boring than furry drama. I wish everyone well, but it's amazing to me that all this gets blown up to the point of actually going to court.
posted by hippybear at 11:42 AM on May 31, 2016 [6 favorites]

Hm, this doesn't sound like a crazy twitter war. It sounds like a kinda creepy older arts guy kinda creepin' on younger women, thinking because he's not actually directly propositioning them or threatening them with violence that no one could possibly be upset, right?
posted by Frowner at 11:43 AM on May 31, 2016 [29 favorites]

Twitter drama is even more boring than furry drama. I wish everyone well, but it's amazing to me that all this gets blown up to the point of actually going to court.


On the other hand, I would love to see some furry drama actually going to court.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:46 AM on May 31, 2016 [8 favorites]

That would be both interesting and horrifying. Yes.
posted by hippybear at 11:53 AM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

Actually, it's just confusing.
posted by little onion at 12:05 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

Twitter drama is even more boring than furry drama. I wish everyone well, but it's amazing to me that all this gets blown up to the point of actually going to court.

Harassment is harassment, no matter the medium.
posted by Jairus at 12:11 PM on May 31, 2016 [12 favorites]

It sounds like a kinda creepy older arts guy kinda creepin' on younger women, thinking because he's not actually directly propositioning them or threatening them with violence that no one could possibly be upset, right?

Yep. The whole let me give you a ride, come to my car, I'll come to your car, etc etc is like Creepy 101.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:14 PM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

Creepy guy finds a new online outlet to be creepy in, film at 11, court date schedule TBD
posted by GuyZero at 12:17 PM on May 31, 2016

"Elliott had posted a grand total of 50,000 tweets in five years."

"...a tall order for someone who had been tweeting 300 times per day."

Actually, 28.

"Elliott never made any threats, but the quantity and persistence of his tweets was enough grounds to prosecute him."

I don't think it should be illegal to be pushy and creepy. The prisons are overfull already.
posted by crazylegs at 12:21 PM on May 31, 2016 [4 favorites]

Looks like the article missed one of the weirdest moments of the trial.
posted by clawsoon at 12:23 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

It’s hard not to feel sorry for Elliott at that moment: a middle-aged dad handcuffed and forced to sleep in the Don Jail over a bunch of angry tweets.

Oh, sure. Poor guy.

Five women filed official statements reporting that Elliott had harassed them online.

Well, feeling sorry didn't last long.
posted by maxsparber at 12:24 PM on May 31, 2016 [18 favorites]

Anyone who has seen GAE's (real) Twitter account can see he's a total creep show. This article is a wee bit too "fair and balanced," if you catch my drift. Cribbed largely from National Post's self-hating misogynist, I can only assume.
posted by Yowser at 12:29 PM on May 31, 2016 [7 favorites]

His lawyer is now challenging the Toronto Police Service to crack down on a parody account that made Elliott sound homophobic.
posted by clawsoon at 12:34 PM on May 31, 2016

I think this article kind of exposes one of the problems with the medium and the interaction, though - the sense that there is no clear, overwhelming, standard, regardless of ideology, for how to interact with people on the internet.

For example - the thing that started this whole twitter war, was her doxxing of the guy who made the punch-Sarkeesian-in-the-face game, and her contacting of a potential employer to tell them not to hire him. Is that criminal harassment? Or is it not considered criminal harassment just because the guy is an asshole and "Deserves it"? Should assholes be protected by anti-harassment law?

I know that I'm supposed to cheer for her and boo for him because she is a feminist and I am a feminist, because he seems like a creepy dude and I hate creepy dudes. But I don't see a difference under the law between ladies 'righteously' inserting themselves into dude-conversations, and dudes 'creepily' inserting themselves into lady-conversations. Was it creepy for the dude to be like "I will help you with your sprained ankle, pretty lady"? Fuck yeah. But it isn't criminal for creepy dudes to say things to you in public. Sometimes I've wished it was! But it's not. And after she requested he stop contacting her, it seems like he did.
posted by corb at 12:45 PM on May 31, 2016 [6 favorites]

For example - the thing that started this whole twitter war, was her doxxing of the guy who made the punch-Sarkeesian-in-the-face game, and her contacting of a potential employer to tell them not to hire him. Is that criminal harassment?

For sure it isn't criminal harassment. My telling your boss about a shitty thing you did is a complaint. My contacting you repeatedly and all your friends repeatedly after you tell me to stop sure could be criminal harassment, though.

But it isn't criminal for creepy dudes to say things to you in public. Sometimes I've wished it was! But it's not. And after she requested he stop contacting her, it seems like he did.

Sometimes it is criminal. Like if that creepy dude has a court authorized peace bond saying he can't say things to strangers in public. And GAE for sure kept contacting her after she requested he stop by posting with a low-traffic hashtag being used for an event Guthrie was hosting while she was hosting it, which is super obvious to anyone who understands how Twitter works.
posted by Jairus at 12:52 PM on May 31, 2016 [9 favorites]

One of the lines stood out to me because I struggle a lot with this.

If I believed some of her tweets were counterproductive, was it victim blaming?

Like I know how shitty women get treated on the Internet. I know how some will often translate firm demands for respect and boundaries into "counterproductive" oh so quickly. I know some men don't even need tweets to be counterproductive before they'll unleash their fury.

It irks me when someone doesn't want to have anything to do with anyone and it's not just block and leave it alone. But I know people rarely respect a block with new eggs being made but in this case the guy was clearly sticking to his own account although enlisting obnoxious twits.

I'm sorry. Now I'm wondering whether I overstepped a line by bringing up how hard it is for a white dude in this thread and I'm sorry if I did.
posted by Talez at 12:52 PM on May 31, 2016

But I don't see a difference under the law between ladies 'righteously' inserting themselves into dude-conversations, and dudes 'creepily' inserting themselves into lady-conversations.

You know that the "beat up Anita Sarkeesian" game was another example on online harassment, and was part of a campaign of terroristic threats of violence that included bomb threats and constant murder threats, yes?

If it helps any, I have not found any evidence that her doxxing the author of that game did him any harm. If he could prove harm, I suppose there would be a case that could be discussed, but at this moment we're comparing apples and oranges.
posted by maxsparber at 12:55 PM on May 31, 2016 [13 favorites]

Is that criminal harassment?

No.

264 (1) No person shall, without lawful authority and knowing that another person is harassed or recklessly as to whether the other person is harassed, engage in conduct referred to in subsection (2) that causes that other person reasonably, in all the circumstances, to fear for their safety or the safety of anyone known to them.

Marginal note:Prohibited conduct

(2) The conduct mentioned in subsection (1) consists of

(a) repeatedly following from place to place the other person or anyone known to them;

(b) repeatedly communicating with, either directly or indirectly, the other person or anyone known to them;

(c) besetting or watching the dwelling-house, or place where the other person, or anyone known to them, resides, works, carries on business or happens to be; or

(d) engaging in threatening conduct directed at the other person or any member of their family.

Source.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:02 PM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

Last March, on International Women’s Day, Elliott addressed Guthrie for the first time since 2012, using her handle as a hashtag. “I hear ‘drinking male tears’ leads to ‘throwing urine at women.’ #amirightfolks,” he tweeted.

So after all that shit, he goes back in for more? Fuck him. Just... I can't even. We shit on women for not being perfect victims? This asshole isn't a perfect innocent if after the charges and bullshit he's gone through he's going back in for more.
posted by Talez at 1:05 PM on May 31, 2016 [13 favorites]

So after all that shit, he goes back in for more?

He doesn't really have anything to lose, now.
posted by Jairus at 1:06 PM on May 31, 2016

He doesn't really have anything to lose, now.

I think it's more that he's had previous instances of bad behavior sanctioned as legal.
posted by Talez at 1:08 PM on May 31, 2016 [7 favorites]

Assuming Mr. Elliott gets 8 hours of sleep, 300 tweets in a 16-hour day is 3.2 tweets per minute, or one tweet every 18.75 seconds.

No, that's 3.2 minutes per tweet, or one every 3.2 minutes.
posted by w0mbat at 1:13 PM on May 31, 2016 [5 favorites]

Assuming Mr. Elliott gets 8 hours of sleep, 300 tweets in a 16-hour day is 3.2 tweets per minute, or one tweet every 18.75 seconds.

I think you did the calculation the wrong way round, there. It would be 1 tweet every 3.2 minutes.

This article is a wee bit too "fair and balanced," if you catch my drift.

I didn't have to get far through to get that idea:

I generally avoided this corner of Twitter. It was cliquish, and I bristled at the nuance-flattening phrases like “rape culture,” “victim blaming” and “tone policing.” The 140-character limit made it hard to avoid sloganeering.

posted by Pink Frost at 1:16 PM on May 31, 2016 [11 favorites]

Also, she quotes Christie Blatchford as though she was some sort of impartial observer. Could she not get anything good from Sue-Ann Levy?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:20 PM on May 31, 2016 [5 favorites]

I know that I'm supposed to cheer for her and boo for him ...

Judging merely from the story at hand, none of them seem like people I'd want to be around. There were more than a few moments in the story that I wanted the Judge to sentence everyone involved to getting a life.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:35 PM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

Huh.

Based on how the Toronto Life article summarizes the law, I'm not sure that I can disagree with the verdict. It really doesn't seem like he contacted any of the women after he was asked to stop (I am agreeing with the judge here that tweeting with a hashtag isn't the same as communicating with someone, even indirectly).

But at the same time, this doesn't seem "right," so I wonder where the law goes wrong. Should it be illegal to tweet at someone who has you blocked? What about tweeting at someone 28 times a day if that person keeps tweeting back at you?

If Twitter didn't "suck" at dealing with harassment, what would they have done in this situation and when?
posted by sparklemotion at 1:37 PM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

It really doesn't seem like he contacted any of the women after he was asked to stop (I am agreeing with the judge here that tweeting with a hashtag isn't the same as communicating with someone, even indirectly).

He did contact the women after he was asked to stop, directly tagging them in tweets. The judge found that he harassed Guthrie. From the ruling:

After Ms. Guthrie wrote telling him to stop on September 9, Mr. Elliott did not tweet using her handle until November 9.

What about tweeting at someone 28 times a day if that person keeps tweeting back at you?

If you call my number 28 times a day that's behavior that can warrant a harassment charge, even if I have my phone set to send all your calls to voicemail.
posted by Jairus at 1:50 PM on May 31, 2016 [6 favorites]

Glad that this author brings up that this is an edge case where the guy's unwillingness to hide, tweeting under his own name, not deleting stuff, and delusion that he is engaging in discourse rather than purely stalking, makes him accessible and easily catch-able, where the vast amount of twitter harassment is anonymous, virulent, immediate and untraceable. Twitter's issue is less weirdos like this guy and much more the egg armies.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:53 PM on May 31, 2016 [7 favorites]

What I'm trying to say is these boundaries are not well defined and maybe can't be for many years.

These boundaries actually are well defined. Phoning someone is a form of contact. Tagging someone on Twitter is a form of contact. If you contact someone repeatedly after they tell you not to, that can be harassment. The judge found that GAE did this via Twitter and that it was harassing. The Crown did not prove that the harassment was criminal. But it was harassment. There was no grey area there in the ruling.
posted by Jairus at 2:01 PM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

Mod note: One deleted; please don't turn this into a discussion of Metafilter or hypothetical things happening at Metafilter. Thanks.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 2:02 PM on May 31, 2016

Phoning someone is a form of contact. Tagging someone on Twitter is a form of contact

To take a non-Metafilter example: if someone sends you 17 Candy Crush requests on Facebook, is it the same as them sending you 17 phone calls that go to voicemail? What if they tag you in 17 photos? I mean, it's irritating! But I'd argue that in general, we have a social expectation that that stuff is only minorly intrusive - you can block it out pretty easily, it doesn't physically protrude into your life.

And because the internet is new-ish, we don't really have a good scale of "Okay, a tag on twitter is slightly less intrusive than a tag on Facebook, is less intrusive than a direct message to a lot of people, is less intrusive than a message just to you...."

Because Twitter, in particular, is viewed as some sort of amorphous public conversation between all people at all times, I think it has different social rules that no one is really quite sure of. A case in point - I have a lot of friends that have tagged Lin-Manuel Miranda in tweets about Hamilton. These are people that would be appalled and horrified at the notion of calling him on his publicly listed phone. They would think that was stuff that only "crazy fans" would do. But tagging him or using hashtags he creates is considered just a fun way to be a part of the community. Am I communicating with LMM every time I tag something #hamiltrash? Or is it more like a Letter to the Editor of a Fanzine?
posted by corb at 2:11 PM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

To take a non-Metafilter example: if someone sends you 17 Candy Crush requests on Facebook, is it the same as them sending you 17 phone calls that go to voicemail? What if they tag you in 17 photos? I mean, it's irritating! But I'd argue that in general, we have a social expectation that that stuff is only minorly intrusive - you can block it out pretty easily, it doesn't physically protrude into your life.

Contact doesn't have to be intrusive to be contact. If you send me a Candy Crush request you are contacting me for the purpose of playing a game with me. If you tag me on Twitter you are contacting me to draw my attention to the tweet. If you call me you are contacting me for the purpose of a phone call. If you tag me in a photo you are contacting me to notify me that I am in a photo. The fact that there are generational and technological gaps on social etiquette when it comes to contacting people via new mediums doesn't change that it is contact.
posted by Jairus at 2:15 PM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

Tagging someone on Twitter is a form of contact.

Is it really though? I see a big difference between replies: "@sparklemotion hello, would you like some ice cream" and mentions "I think @sparklemotion would like some ice cream"*

A reply is something sent directly to me, and shows up on my home screen. A mention shows up on my notifications, if I choose to look at them. (I'm not saying that the answer is for harassed women to stop looking at their mentions, that would be just as BS as telling them to stay off of twitter). Neither of those things happen if I have the user blocked. (I don't think that the answer is to put the onus on harassed women to block all harassers manually either).

I don't mean to rules-lawyer this, but what if someone tweeted "I think sparklemotion would like some ice cream" -- is that a form of contact? If not, why? If so, then are we saying that any mention of a person's alias/name in public is a form of contact?

For me, I guess, I understand why a person should be able to control who contacts them. I have a harder time drawing a hard line that says that a person should be able to control who talks about them. And I do think that twitter blurs that line in a way that 28 calls to my cell phone doesn't.

*I'm purposefully choosing innocuous examples to keep the grossness of what this guy was actually tweeting out of the debate.
posted by sparklemotion at 2:44 PM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

A reply is something sent directly to me, and shows up on my home screen. A mention shows up on my notifications, if I choose to look at them.

Both show up in the same place for me, my notifications.

but what if someone tweeted "I think sparklemotion would like some ice cream" -- is that a form of contact? If not, why?

If tweeting that is knowingly going to trigger a notification to you that it was tweeted by them, yes. If not, no.
posted by Jairus at 2:50 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

Fully onboard with the slippery slope that leads to people going to jail for spamming with mobile game invites.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:50 PM on May 31, 2016 [14 favorites]

Also, what happens when I get a phone call and what happens when someone tags me on Twitter are basically the same thing. My phone is all "Hey this thing happened do you wanna do something about it", and if I ignore it, it goes away -- very quickly with Twitter, and after about ten seconds with a phone call. Like, they're both just an app telling me I have a thing I can engage with or not. Same with a Google Hangout request. Or a Snapchat. Or whatever. I don't think there's anything magical about contacting me using the phone app that doesn't apply to contacting me using the Facebook Messenger app or the Twitter app.
posted by Jairus at 2:55 PM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

When Ms. Guthrie says Mr. Elliott tweeting to/at her every half hour is harassment, I believe her.

Just so we are clear, I see no mention of Elliot tweeting at (or mentioning) Guthrie 28 times a day. He sent 50,000 tweets total over 5 years, which averages out to 28 a day. In my hypothetical, I considered whether it would be harassing to tweet at someone 28 times if it was part of a conversation.

But that being said, given that we believe that Guthrie was being harassed, how do the laws or rules change so that the Elliots of the world can be held to account?

If tweeting that is knowingly going to trigger a notification to you that it was tweeted by them, yes. If not, no.

Since blocking will also block those notifications, is there anyway to know that a notification will be triggered?
posted by sparklemotion at 2:57 PM on May 31, 2016

I have not found any evidence that her doxxing the author of that game did him any harm.

Is that the standard you want to promote?
posted by GhostintheMachine at 3:24 PM on May 31, 2016 [7 favorites]

what if someone tweeted "I think sparklemotion would like some ice cream" -- is that a form of contact? If not, why?

If someone tweeted I think sparklemotion would like some ice cream that's not a form of contact; if they tweeted I think @sparklemotion would like some ice cream that is. Without the @ sign it's just mentioning them; with the @ sign it's trying to get their attention.

This is why people like Kameron Hurley tell their readers "All I ask if there’s a pile-on is for you to NOT tag me if you argue with trolls."
posted by Lexica at 3:28 PM on May 31, 2016 [4 favorites]

> If Twitter didn't "suck" at dealing with harassment, what would they have done in this situation and when?

We'll never know!! twitter being garbage at this is like the Polaris of internet service issues
posted by boo_radley at 3:41 PM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

While reporting this story, I spent an entire day reading Elliott’s tweets. By the time I was done, I was convinced that any reasonable woman would find the sheer volume of his tweets frightening. Then the next day, I read Guthrie’s tweets and groaned aloud. “Why are you antagonizing him?!” I wanted to scream at her. I sympathized with Guthrie, but I found myself questioning her behaviour, trying to make it fit into my own muddled gender politics. If I believed some of her tweets were counterproductive, was it victim blaming? I began to see the story less as a harassment case than a litmus test of how feminism operates online.

This really mirrors my thought process. So often when I see twitter disputes escalating, I see two sides predisposed to ramp things up as much as possible, mobilizing supporters and turning it into an ideological battleground rather than a much simpler personal matter. Would this have all been avoided with a simple, "dude: leave me alone." and blocking, rather than using him as fodder for the latest apocalyptic drama? But then, yes, how can I say "you should have done THIS but not THIS", doesn't that make me part of the problem? I think this is the ground the article is exploring. Part of the trial seemed to hinge on "at what point does 'EVERYBODY @ THIS CREEP' campaign-waging turn into 'I'm actually fearing for my life now'", and what agency, if any, is employed in that change of affairs. I don't know if I have an answer, and I doubt it's for me to decide.
posted by naju at 4:16 PM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

I wish I could say that the best way to keep any online conflict from escalating is to just walk away, but one of the things about twitter is that most of it happens on public, and even if you walk away you can come back a month later to find that others have continued to escalate it "on your behalf", even if that is what you didn't want.

Personally, I've found that the best thing to do on twitter is simply not to respond when someone is trying to push your buttons. Just let them rant. You can read the tweets, and it might take every bit of your self-control to keep from responding, but you simply do not respond. It might continue to get ugly, others will probably contribute to the ugliness. But even then you don't have to respond. It doesn't require blocking (although the mute function is helpful). But if ugliness continues, and you keep being referenced in the ugly tweet chain, it becomes really difficult.

In all, I've found the best thing to do on twitter is to pick and choose who follows you, who you follow, and make sure those people are worthwhile people to have in your timeline. Life is too short to be involved with this kind of stuff.
posted by hippybear at 2:29 AM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

Is that the standard you want to promote?

As a legal standard? Yes, harm is pretty basic.
posted by maxsparber at 4:01 AM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

The judge's ruling. In case you have all day.
posted by Paddle to Sea at 11:25 AM on June 1, 2016