Violence on blogs, the Bileblog, and parochialism

First off, as preamble, let me say that the situation with Kathy Sierra really bothers me. There's no situation in which I'm comfortable threatening people directly, whether it's Ann Coulter or Kathy Sierra or ... heck, anyone. I've been on the wrong side of violence. I see no reason for it to be propagated.

Tim Bray posted something about it recently as well ("On Aggression") that highlighted something. In it, he calls out Hani Suleiman on the Bileblog:

In the Java community, there’s this guy named Hani who has a blog called the bileblog that I won’t link to. Its contents are almost entirely viciously obscene rants against individuals and factions in the Java community, based on Hani’s perception of their technical or ethical failings. Hani seems to have a fixation on violent, degrading male-male sexual abuse and this constitutes the core of his attack technique.

He gets away with it—is fairly popular in fact—because he’s also funny. A couple of years ago I and another person were talking this over and proposed a scenario: suppose one of Hani’s victims were mugged by four or five random hoodlums and beaten up severely, while the hoodlums made witty and amusing remarks to entertain the passers-by and watchers. Would the violence be OK because of the leavening with humor? I don’t think so. So why is what Hani does OK?

You see, my understanding of the law is that any undesired aggressive physical contact can constitute “assault”. I think the law needs to be clear that there is some line which, when crossed by a flamer, carries similar consequences, legally. Yes, it’ll be tricky and involve judgment calls; but then most ethical/legal issues are and do. I Am Not A Lawyer; it may be the case that, in some jurisdictions anyhow, we already have a satisfactory legal framework.

Tim's reading here is a little odd. To my recollection, Hani doesn't actually threaten people: it's more like this kind of text:

What Fleury contributed to the world of Java is a personality; love him or hate him, the man certainly deserved to be hated. His incoherent ramblings, the perplexing capitalization, the weak and tenuous grasp of the English language gave us all a lot of ammo, and made for some very entertaining drama.

The fact that he’s also a shady, dodgy, and thoroughly despicable scam artist also helped tremendously. Who can forget the great astroturfing story? It’s nice to see a company bigwig who will get his hands dirty, and openly misbehave in ways that one only expects particularly handicapped children to.

Note the lack of "Marc should be beaten up," or "Marc should be killed." Especially in context, the "hated" part is painted a lot like a soap opera villain. Hani's crude, and his level of discourse is hilarious - because it's more of a commentary on the pointlessness of blogs and public forums than it is anything else. It's rather ironic that the people who take blogs most seriously are the ones who are often most upset that someone's mocking - or making a mockery of - their chosen soapbox. The joke's on them, not the people mentioned in the Bileblog, although the people mentioned also get a little.

Now, let's bring this back home: Kathy Sierra's situation should NEVER have occurred. People implying physical abuse (panties wrapped around her face!? A noose!? Threats of sexual abuse?) are sad, sad human beings - I hope they get help. They need it.

But to assume that everything unpleasant is wrong? Nonsense. I find it funny that Americans are the ones who see the bileblog in context, while the "more tolerant" Europeans - and Canadians - are unable to tolerate it. Is it because of the imagery? I don't know. I just think it's parochial behavior, not the cosmopolitan approach that people would like us to think they have.

Grow up, people, on all sides.