headline fix needed.

otherwise teach us to online swallow.

"beat" me to it

katie, do you know the main arguments that climate contrarians are leaning on? you seem open minded enough to at least entertain the lines of reasoning.

On the topic, this reminds me of how the pipe of discourse and criticism of obama's at best incrementalist and at worst, wolf in sheeps clothing presidency, was monopolized by the idiotic tea party types, who used despicable racist sounding lines of reasoning that drowned out any other skepticism of the man and president. That monopoly of the contrarian position was a bummer because there were a good number of things to critique Obama on, but the focusing on the lowest hanging fruit of discourse meant that to occupy any position of incredulity of obama's saintliness or even general helpfulness, was to seemingly take the side of the idiots shouting about the least credible critiques of obama.

I feel a little bit like the same is true, in the article's cited article we have some interesting issues worthy of at least some varied discussion, but now with stories of hateful trolling (will have to take their word on it, probably true,) to think differently on any of these issues is to stand with trolls who threaten and misuse our language and public spaces of discourse.

Naturally this all works out well for entrenched beliefs and people stay in their ideological camps, funny how that works. In the case of the professor, and in light of the value of victimhood in todays times, the value of her argument just went up as her victimhood increased. carbon doesnt always come before temp, but these days victimhood sure does cement credibility to an argument outside of the intrinsic values of the argument.

Katie, do you believe that calling someone transphobic (in McKinnon's case) or posting a piece that someone has written (in Dauber's case), is as bad as a "rape threat," a threat to "cut my throat," or receiving "an envelope that contained white powder?" You didn't link to the tweets so I can't say for sure that they weren't as bad. But I find it odd that you felt the need to call out the "victims of online pile-ons" as "instigators" when it sounds like they didn't do anything threatening or illegal.

Just saw @5's response. I think they hit it on the head.

Also, I believe you meant to use "fallible" in this sentence: "This showed Hodgdon that her own tribe was failable, which ultimately was a life-changing thing to finally see."

One thing I've noticed - that many have noticed - is that intersectionality is "obsessed" with ranking things within a power or privilege dynamic - and most importantly, adherents place themselves reliably at the bottom of that hierarchy (most hilariously confirmed when you see people engage in the oppression olympics. I have a coworker who introduces herself as "a queer woman from a poor rural family" at meetings (I work in SF, this raises no eyebrows).

Anyhow, one facet of that is an assumed asymmetry. Misogynistic sexism is worse than misandrist sexism because of the power differential - women cannot hurt men in the same way men can, for example (this exists for any type of privilege axis, such as racism/sectarianism/etc).

I challenge that assumption. My basis is, "what is power?". When I engage online, what power do I have? The answer is basically none. I can persuade (or shame, or be hostile towards) with my words, but that's it. I don't have an army of people I can call upon to back me up, to harass my opponent on twitter, etc. Meanwhile, I've been set upon a few times (most upsettingly by the supporters of a certain female SF city council candidate who I criticized [for her trump-like taunting of a disabled person], and since I use my real name on twitter, I was "doxxed", although I replied that anyone who wanted could come to my house or office and 'talk it out' - no one followed up on that offer because keyboard warriors are keyboard warriors)

I'd argue that that's fundamentally an expression of power. In the language of the knapsack: "I can assume that if someone disagrees with me, that hundreds of people will support my opinion regardless of what it is and attack any dissenters". That's a privilege I certainly don't share, despite my straight-maleness, despite my middle-class aspirations. If I get #canceled, nobody will care, and there won't be a debate. Meanwhile, I couldn't cancel AOC if I had video of her using a flamethrower on border refugees while dancing to an Edie Brickell song. Why does the rhetoric assume that I have the power in an overwhelming majority of interactions?

@8 to clarify - I actually agree that the power differential does matter, I'm not wedded to two-sidesism. I just think we're operating on outdated definitions of power. Imagine if the US interacted with the rest of the world as if we'd just been freed from England's colonist yolk, and we were the plucky underdogs on the global scale. That was true - for about the last twenty years of the 18th century - but is clearly not true today.

"Her [Hodgdon's] friends weren’t just being bullies; they were, based on empirical evidence, objectively wrong. This showed Hodgdon that her own tribe was failable, which ultimately was a life-changing thing to finally see."

It is painful, when that pedestal fails....

"'I'd hate to see self-identified liberals abandon free expression as a core value just because it's unpopular with a shrieking minority of authoritarian jerks online,' Rosenfield says."

Me too.
Great article -- I salute your balls.
Thanks, Katie!

"If you want to cozy up to someone, there may be no better way to do it than to gossip about the people you both hate.”

Ain't this the truth. Anytime I want to get close to someone, I bring up how awful Screech on Saved By the Bell was. I mean his obsession with Lisa bordered on stalking. Creepy turd.

jesus, Katie Herzog, you can work prostitution apologism into any article, can't you.

Great article. I'm a lifelong liberal, and in recent years, I too have been utterly fascinated by how my own side seems obsessed with shaming and call-outs. I haven't been publicly shamed before, mostly because I've seen it happen to other people and I'm absolutely terrified of it happening to me, but it's a truly sad sight to behold.

I've known for a a long time that incivility, trolling, and harassment existed on the political Right. But I suppose I'm more fascinated by the Left's brand of it lately because I'm more disappointed that it's happening.

Jesus. If that story about Jade is true, it's no wonder that the Right calls us liberals snowflakes and mocks us. Arguably we deserve it.

@5 @6 I think you are engaging in what progressives commonly dismiss as "whatabouting" and "legalism".

The kinds of leftist slanders Herzog describes go far beyond mere "criticism" and the consequences to one's livelihood - especially in such leftist dominated fields as academia and media - can be, as we are increasingly seeing on a near daily basis, utterly devastating especially to those just getting started in their careers.

There may even a case to be made that the threats of violence you hold out to be so much worse, while certainly terrifying, are very unlikely to turn out to be truly credible whereas the harm from, say, having your book pulled from publication or TERF accusations flooding your tenure review boards' inboxes, is very real indeed.

This is the obvious, often explicit, goal of those who initiate such pile-ons and that their language it is not illegal in no way diminishes the effects, nor is an excuse for malice.

This is why social media has become toxic. It started out well, but even the creators are against it at this point becuase it's causing all sorts of mental disorders. I have gotten completely off all of social media sites and my carbon footprint online has been minimal (a lot of it is from my own conspiracy theories). But I feel that my anger and hostility towards things has calmed down and my mental health hasn't been more clear (I was inherently political when Bush and Obama were in office). I urge people if they get caught up in all of these causes to settle down and take a step back and look in the mirror.... Social media (or what I now call label society) has been used for some good, but the hate is just extreme now on all sides. And unfortunately we have an idiot president who used it to his advantage and people have eaten it up to almost cult like levels. I participated in the Occupy movement and the Nato convention in Chicago (when there were more police than protestors) and I support BLM and all rights, but like in my feminist classes I took in college - there has to be a level of equality because not everyone is going to support your opinions and political ideologies. I only hope that these social media sites see this and begin to try to monitor this and quell it at all levels... Otherwise I see hate from all sides eating up everything and this anxiety and depression from an individual perspective continuing.

@19 I get what you're saying. I think Herzog's point is that the WaPo framing of these kinds of abusive online practices solely as coming from oppositional ideologies isn't the whole story, but you're right, as a direct rebuttal it doesn't quite measure up as it were and that's entirely her fault.

I suspect (for what its worth my knowing literally nothing about her) however that she's being deliberately gentle. One can easily find plenty of examples of online left-on-left incitements to violence no less horrifying than those right-on-left detailed in the WaPo article, ANTIFA and trans-activism coming particularly to mind as unfortunately frequent sources. Could it be that Herzog is loth to stir that nest since, as I said above, its actually more likely to be directly affected by that than some crazed right-wing rando typing from his parents' basement bunker?

Regardless, my point remains that there's still more to the examples she does talk about than just "getting dragged on campus or losing friends", it's often, and often intentionally, about someone losing their job, meaning, potentially, food on their table and a roof over their head.

Excuse me, but that more than sucks...

Thanks!

Some folks need to use their commitment to some orthodoxy's package deal as proof of their moral superiority to those they consider reprehensible backsliders and equivocating wimps. Some will glom on to an orthodoxy to mask insecurity about peer group rejection, personal failures, and inability to synthesize diverse perspectives. It's politics, it's life, it's people, and it won't change anytime soon. Commit to an honest grappling with the world's full complexity, hang out with folks who do the same, and live the life of an authentic, free-thinking citizen. And don't dwell too long on the village scolds who renounce their allegiance to you because you prefer rocky road to chocolate or strawberry. Life's too short for mindless pettiness. Pick your battles wisely, and don't forget to enjoy yourself sometimes.

@21 speak for yourself, some of us actually believed in all that golden rule, two-wrongs-don't-make-a-right stuff as kids (and as adults). But yes I agree modern dog piling is just updated grade school bullying made more subtle for discerning adults

11: Spot on! Screech didn't have a chance with Lisa! He didn't have a chance with anyone human, really. Maybe he should've built a robot or gotten a blow-up doll. I can totally see him living in a basement somewhere with his sex doll, "Breathy McScreech".