[HN Gopher] A Vast Web of Vengeance
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A Vast Web of Vengeance
Author : tysone
Score : 34 points
Date : 2021-01-30 19:29 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| sebastien_b wrote:
| Wow.
|
| The most "revenge" thing I ever did was to send a copy of the
| town's noise bylaw, anonymously, to a nearby resident who had
| held a very loud "backyard concert" on labour day weekends over
| the previous two years.
|
| They didn't have one the third year.
| danso wrote:
| The last line FTA:
|
| > _Yet even that hasn't solved the problem. See for yourself: Do
| a Google search for "Guy Babcock."_
|
| The first "traditional" result for Babcock's name is now the NYT
| story, but the first 5+ (even moreso on mobile) are thumbnails
| [0] showing his image with a text overlay of his name and
| "paedophile".
|
| The first 3 thumbnails link to the sites cheaterboard dot com,
| cheaters dot news, thecheatalert dot com. The fourth thumbnail is
| a Pinterest account linking to a ripoffreport post.
|
| All these "top" results feature the same "content" [1] - the
| victim's name spammed repeatedly, along with "paedophile" and
| "racist POS".
|
| I know spam abuse detection isn't trivial, but this seems like
| the most basic kind of spam abuse that Google claims it knows how
| to downrank.
|
| [0] https://i.imgur.com/gosroWQ.jpg
|
| [1] https://i.imgur.com/kFI9XNc.png
| sebastien_b wrote:
| Yeah I'm not sure it was a good idea of the author to include a
| link to that search from the article (seems like that would
| boost the existing results).
| blakesterz wrote:
| I think I'd argue that it was a good idea. This isn't me
| linking to that from my blog that gets 100 views to a post.
| This is the NY Times linking to that. Love them or hate them,
| them linking to something will get attention, and I would bet
| that attention will lead to changes.
| sebastien_b wrote:
| Good point.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Just get used to it.
|
| It will come a time in US when people will come to understanding
| that the Internet exists, and one does not take any random thing
| on the Internet at face value.
|
| I've been on the Internet under a few identities since 1998, and
| has since stopped much trying hiding.
|
| The more your online notoriety goes, the more your IRL
| consequences snowball.
|
| I've been to many countries, and in most of them you cannot
| character asassinate anybody by randomly calling guy's workplace
| and telling "guy A is a dreaded pedophile!," and at most it will
| make people chuckle, and remark on you being famous.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| A simple thing would be for Google to de-list slander-based sites
| like the ones described in the article. Or just personal name
| search for things like that.
|
| At the same time, it's remarkable that people put credence in
| completely random sites that let anyone post anything.
| sebastien_b wrote:
| Towards the end of the article they state this is what Googles
| has started to do with sites that make it hard to get false
| info removed (like requiring a fee).
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(page generated 2021-01-30 23:00 UTC)