Saturday, June 30, 2012

On being smeared by the Mad Gastronomer and Karnythia

If you Google my name, it's quite possible you will see in the search results a couple of thugs with Tumblr accounts who go by the name of The Mad Gastronomer and Karnythia smearing me as something which I am not, as anybody who knows me will tell you, and as my blog posts will attest.

But thanks to the confluence of Tumblr and Google, these thugs can get away with branding me falsely as something that I hate.

Now of course if they ever see this post, they will immediately smear me some more using their Tumblr accounts, because that's what they do. That's all they know how to do.

I took down my original post discussing this issue because some of the scarier followers of the Mad Gastronomer and Karnythia accounts were sending me creepy messages. And so of course since I made the changes the Mad Gastronomer called me a "self-editing racist."

She also thinks that the web site "Engrish.com" which I link to, is racist because it displays bad English translations. Because apparently pointing out that some translations are wrong - sometimes humorously wrong -  is "racist." But I 'll bet that she's never written to Engrish.com to complain. Because she enjoys the politics of personal destruction, not actually confronting real enemies.

So, since these Google/Tumblr smears are not going away, the least I can do is tell the story of what happened and defend myself from the thugs and their mob.

Here's the story:

John Lennon and Yoko Ono co-wrote a song called “Woman is the Nigger of the World” in 1971. They were making a point about the status of women: that no matter how oppressed a group is in the social hierarchy - and the slur “nigger” represents that oppressed group in this context - women are even more oppressed.

You may disagree with their use of an offensive word to make a point, but it is absurd to claim that the use of “nigger” in this context is in itself racist. You’d have to be a Philistine to believe such a thing.

I saw some people saying that John Lennon and Yoko Ono were racists for writing that song and I disagreed on Facebook, where your real name is displayed for anybody to see.

So eventually, when I did a search on my name via Google, I discovered I was being smeared online using my real name, by the "Mad Gastronomer."

I emailed the Mad Gastronomer privately and asked her to take the smear down. Instead she retaliated by smearing me yet again. The effect is intensified when her Tumblr friends posted her comments about me on their Tumblr accounts, which is very easy to do.  

Now, why should you care? Because it could happen to you. Anybody for whatever reason could smear you, whenever they want, in Google results and you can’t do a damn thing about it. It’s perfectly legal.

The term for the technique of smearing someone through Google searches is known as “Google-bombing.” There is an excellent paper on this issue online called Cyber Civil Rights by Danielle Keats Citron, which recounts a 2007 incident of attacks on female students at a law school:
The attackers waged a “Google-bombing” campaign that would ensure the prominence of offensive threads in searches of the female students’ names...

Leaf explained that posts should include the adjective “big-titted” next to the woman’s name. “Big-titted [name of female student]’s name is never to be used in parts – it must always be [name of student] at the least, and ‘big-titted [name of the student]’ ideally” with pictures of her accompanying the thread. This would work because search engine algorithms assign a high rank to a web page if sites linking to that page use consistent anchor text. Posters admitted their desire to intimidate and harm the female students...”
You can’t entirely eliminate the potential for Google-bombing being used to smear you, but you can make it less likely to happen: by shutting the hell up. Keep your opinions to yourself. No more free and open debate, certainly not on Facebook.

I am sure that the people at Tumblr and Google and Facebook did not forsee the confluence of their companies having this effect but nevertheless, it happened: they have provided a means for Google-bombers to quickly and easily shut down public discourse through intimidation.

I'm sure the Mad Gastronomer and Karnythia are proud of themselves.


UPDATE: I said they were nasty extremists - here's what one of them said about me:


good job you stupid white bitch

That's the kind of people who support Rebecca Scott the Mad Gastronomer. Vicious misogynists. It's not a surprise - this whole thing started because they attacked SlutWalk for using the word "slut." They probably hate PussyRiot too, for using the word "pussy."

And if they think that using tumblr to smear me further makes a difference - sorry it doesn't. Rebecca Scott the Mad Gastronomer's lying slur against me already comes up at the top of the Google hits - so use tumblr to try to hurt me all you want  - it's not going to make a damn bit of difference.

Go hate on someone else for awhile - maybe find someone who really is a racist - there are plenty out there. You're an idiot to waste your time harassing me if you actually sincerely CARED about racism.

Here are some groups you can help out - go make a real difference instead of jerking off online:

Southern Poverty Law Center

ACLU

The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights

Or you can make a big difference right now - since the Republican party is trying to prevent non-white people from voting - why don't you sign up to help get out the vote instead of obsessing over a two-month old blog post?

Fla. Republican: We wanted to suppress black votes
In the debate over new laws meant to curb voter fraud in places like Florida, Democrats always charge that Republicans are trying to suppress the vote of liberal voting blocs like blacks and young people, while Republicans just laugh at such ludicrous and offensive accusations. That is, every Republican except for Florida’s former Republican Party chairman Jim Greer, who, scorned by his party and in deep legal trouble, blew the lid off what he claims was a systemic effort to suppress the black vote. In a 630-page deposition recorded over two days in late May, Greer, who is on trial for corruption charges, unloaded a litany of charges against the “whack-a-do, right-wing crazies” in his party, including the effort to suppress the black vote.