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Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

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242 points LinuxBender | 4 comments | 18 Nov 24 00:39 UTC | HN request time: 0.865s | source
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BLKNSLVR ◴[18 Nov 24 01:50 UTC] No.42169029[source]▶
I'm unwisely and unadvisedly wading into this half-cocked.

Swatting wouldn't even be a thing if <any number of logical things>

- Anonymous calls should be treated with high levels of suspicion as to their legitimacy

- First response training that's even moderately appropriate

- Situational awareness beyond what one's been informed by third parties

- Empathy for all humans

- Any kind of notion of that a scenario may not actually be as described by a single anonymous voice

A very (un)funny irony is that there are numerous stories I've read about domestic violence victims being arrested, as opposed to the attacker, which implies there's some level of suspicion in some circumstances about the information the police are being fed. Swatting, as a thing, indicates there's some kind of hero-pressure build-up that overrules any kind of <all the things I listed above> whereby that pressure has the possibility of impending release.

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stavros ◴[18 Nov 24 01:58 UTC] No.42169065[source]▶
It's a US cultural thing to either avoid blaming the police for anything, or make excuses for them. Brutal police behavior is seen as either acceptable, or what even desirable. I've seen reddit posts where a protester slightly taunts the police and gets pepper sprayed in the face, and all the commenters were gleefully saying things like "fuck around and find out", without even thinking that maybe there wasn't enough fucking around to warrant any finding out.

When you try and point this out, you're called various names, because apparently you either support the police 100%, or you're a criminal.

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1. Nursie ◴[18 Nov 24 02:25 UTC] No.42169183[source]▶
Disagree - community moderated quality floats to the top under such systems, exposing the better posts to more eyes and downregulating low-quality shitposting.

It can certainly lead to echo-chamber mentality, but without it we'd see more low-effort, low quality posts drowning out discourse.

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2. bruce511 ◴[18 Nov 24 04:27 UTC] No.42169709[source]▶
You're assuming that down-votes are used to assess the quality of the post, and not agreement with the content.

I would suggest that both appear here. Personally I would prefer votes to be on quality of post rather than popularity of position as that leads to the possibility of examining an issue from multiple viewpoints.

(When responding to a post that has been thought out, but down voted, I feel the need to point out that although I disagree, I'm not the one downvoting.)

I do think that voting improves the quality overall. But a better system might be separate options for 'agree/disagree' vs 'quality / pithy' posts. (I also thinkbthis would be horrible UI, so meh)

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3. hipadev23 ◴[18 Nov 24 04:37 UTC] No.42169748{3}[source]▶
Yep exactly. I’d argue they create echo chambers far more than we’d like to admit. It’s also not simply voting but also algorithmic of sorting content by likes, and implicitly excluding anything under a certain threshold.

I’ve felt this way for nearly twenty years now, coinciding with the rise of reddit, twitter, and facebook alongside the decline of forums, blogs, and rss.

On any topic with even slight amount of contention, you very quickly see people aligning toward the one-true-belief because they observe and react to the crowd supporting that opinion.

4. Nursie ◴[18 Nov 24 04:42 UTC] No.42169763{3}[source]▶
> I would suggest that both appear here.

They do. It's not a perfect mechanism.

> But a better system might be

Yeah we've had 20 years or more of sites trying to find a good formula now. Slashdot's ratings and meta-ratings back in the day, where you rated something as Insightful/Informative etc, and then every so often you were asked to review other user's ratings so their future ratings could be weighted ... technically interesting but really cumbersome.

I like HN's choice not to display ratings on other people's posts, and I like the simple UI. I think it's better with up and down votes than without... I don't think we're going to find a perfect scheme but that doesn't mean we should abandon the imperfect ones.