On 7/15/2020 4:09 PM, Jaroslaw Rafa via mailop wrote:
Dnia 15.07.2020 o godz. 12:59:39 Grant Taylor via mailop pisze:
On 7/12/20 11:28 AM, Paul Ebersman via mailop wrote:
But in these tense times, lots of PoC/non-white/non-cis get hate
emails, death threats, etc.
Death threats seem like the warrant more effort to stop than spam.
If someone would send death threats to me, I'd rather would like to receive
them, so that I can know whether I'm actually in danger and optionally
report to the police or whatever...
+1 (as a DNSBL operator who has received a few death threats - I'd also
rather know about them, than not)
ALSO - I've heard of examples of credible threats from criminals
directed towards people in the internet security industry myself
included - but I have yet to see any evidence that PoC/non-white/non-cis
get a disproportionate amount of "hate,emails, death threats" that are
racially motivated. I'm not saying that it doesn't ever happen. But for
the past 24 years (and ongoing), I've operated a mail server that serves
a large number of users who are in Macon, Georgia - a city that is
majority black, in the deep south - I had (and still have) - many
thousands of users spread across dozens of organizations from that
community - with many many POC users - and in those 24 years - I don't
recall a single example of someone asking me to block an email or sender
because of it containing a racially motivated threat or hate speech. But
every few months, I do get a request to block someone for harassment -
typically a former unstable/disgruntled employee - but there wasn't ever
any racial angle involved.
Again, not saying it doesn't ever happen - but I'm suspicious now that
this thread is turning into a slippery slope towards trying to get spam
filters to start filtering email based on biased political ideology, not
merely blocking criminals and true threats/harassment. There are many
out there that define "hate" as simply that which which they disagree -
and who are perfectly happy with silencing others for purely
political/ideological gain.
MEANWHILE - SADLY/IRONICALLY - if you report a indisputable criminal
phish to google or microsoft - (I think both?) - they'll tell you that
unless they are ordered by a judge to block the account, they won't lift
a finger. For every one such alleged racially-motivated threat that this
thread is trying to fix - there are likely 10s of thousands of phishing
spams being sent from Google and Microsoft platforms every day. Not
saying that this makes the other problem OK - but these two platforms
DOMINATE the email scene now - and if they won't lift a finger to
terminate the account of a criminal phisher - I think it would be
strange for them to be willing to block someone or terminate an account
for alleged "hate speech"? ...which makes me question all the more the
motives/goals of this thread. Email is suppose to be about consent, not
content.
Having said that, whenever there is ever there is a credible threat that
would physically harm someone and/or break the law as a means towards
harming someone if carried out - I'm all for that account getting
terminated and the person prosecuted. I don't doubt that some of this is
racially motivated (though I have yet to see that 1st hand, so I think
this is much more rare than advertised!) - but I think if such threats
are dealt with across-the-board, everything else will sort itself out -
and that will prevent this from turning into an underhanded attempt to
turn spam filtering into the big brother "thought police". Such a threat
shouldn't need a racially motivated angle to be acted upon anyways, and
the ethnicity of the victim likewise shouldn't be a factor into whether
or not they get protection/justice - or a factor in how MUCH
protection/justice they receive - since that kind of bias would be
racism, too.
--
Rob McEwen
invaluement
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