Freedom of Association on Twitter
So, yesterday, Oliver Traldi tweeted https://twitter.com/olivertraldi/status/1128380985891012609 which was then retweeted by Jesse Singal http://archive.is/O9YBP.
A brief search later, we find that someone is calling out everyone who follows Rabiz Khan https://twitter.com/BeesAndBaking/status/1128174370172616704, who is apparently guilty of the horrendous crime of believing that “Evolutionary biology explains why the vast majority of humans have innate heterosexual preferences and straightforward gender identities.” — from https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/evolutionary-theory-crowning-achievement-western-civilization/ (which I’m not planning on reading, and is irrelevant to the rest of this story).
Traldi’s main point is that calling out people for following a twitter account of a person who you don’t agree with is absurd. His first implication is that this type of callout is neither normal, nor virtuous. He then asks why following is interpreted as endorsement. Also, how does following/endorsement actually translate to a tangible effect, and why must people be policed for their follows?
Here’s what I want to say:
Imagine that this “follows=endorsement and endorsers must be ostracised” has been the norm for 4+ years, and was explicitly encouraged and celebrated by mainstream news sources. Imagine if this misguided doctrine was even implemented by government agencies as a result.
That’s exactly what happened with Randi Lee Harper’s GGAutoblocker.
TL;DR Harper received mainstream press coverage as one of the amazing programmers taking tech back from evil GamerGate for her work on the GGAutoblocker. (http://www.newsweek.com/one-womans-new-tool-stop-gamergate-harassment-twitter-288008) Looking at the source code, it basically just blocks anyone who was following two or more “bad people” on Twitter. She was making reportedly making $4,600 per month (via patreon) on this technology and the OAPI she founded, which then both instantly disappeared into the void, never to produce work again. She is still regarded as an online expert for this incredible, groundbreaking work, which was accidentally used by Sweden. This caused instant backlash from tons of journalists who were blocked for their follows. (https://adland.tv/adnews/how-did-sweden-blocklist-pewdiepie-israeli-foreign-ministry/181798845#1496733516.51)
Imagine a blocklist that includes, say, Rabiz Khan, Jesse Singal, Katie Herzog, and Oliver Traldi as #cancelled accounts on twitter. If you follow at least two, you’re blocked, and this blocklist is spread around by mainstream news sources.
(too lazy to write this out right now, instead have some random reddit threads where I talked about this before. All the info is there, I’m just not able to write it out specific for this piece right now.)
For people who don’t know why this is hilarious, Randi Harper’s primary claim to fame is the GGautoblocker. [What it does is look at the twitter follower lists of “ringleaders” and if someone is following two or more “ringleaders” they get added to the blocklist.](http://www.newsweek.com/one-womans-new-tool-stop-gamergate-harassment-twitter-288008) It’s very simple to get those lists. It doesn’t care at all that someone could be following people they don’t agree with/associate with/etc.
The list is then shared using BlockTogether, which someone else made. Basically that just allows you to share blocklists with other people. BlockTogether became pretty famous when Sweden labeled a bunch of people as nazis: https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/6bazsd/the_swedish_institute_a_swedish_govt_agency_and/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/6daenw/the_sweden_blocklist_pewdiepie_was_on_it_because/ were some of the threads about this.
As a side note, if you just change the [sourcelist.txt](https://github.com/freebsdgirl/ggautoblocker) from
>Nero
>FartToContinue
>PlayDangerously
>roguestargamez
>TheRalphRetort
>RealVivianJames
>CHOBITCOINto some random SJWs, what would that blocklist look like?
It gets even funnier because she continues to rest on the laurels of a couple hundred lines of python code that gather lists of twitter handles that she wrote 3 years ago. One of her most recent interviews https://mic.com/articles/184353/overwatch-developer-update-jeff-kaplan-harassment-problem#.h9mWecUAk describes her as “Randi Lee Harper, the founder of the Online Abuse Prevention Initiative”
Yes. http://onlineabuseprevention.org/ is a world famous organization that totally exists and does work. You can see their award winning work on their github https://github.com/oapi, blog https://onlineabuseprevention.wordpress.com/, facebook https://www.facebook.com/Online-Abuse-Prevention-Initiative-276953485762099, twitter https://twitter.com/join_oapi?lang=en, patreon https://www.patreon.com/freebsdgirl and wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Abuse_Prevention_Initiative.
[Spoiler alert](/intensifies), nothing’s been touched since 2015 (AKA their founding). Well, Patreon has their final update September 2016…. [which is great because in April 2016 the Patreon was reported as raking in $4700 per month](https://archive.is/SXSVu#selection-3175.140-3179.1).
Oh shit! Did you manage to get in contact with Randi Lee Harper? Does she still work? Does the OAPI still exist? Do her patreonbux go toward… anything?
Last time I took at the OAPI and Harper’s work, I found a relatively dead patreon, an overwatch stream, and got Zoe Quinn to say that she has no idea what OAPI does anymore.
Zoe Quinn was talking about her book on KQED radio, listed on wikipedia as a Board of Directors member for OAPI. https://ww2.kqed.org/forum/2017/10/04/zoe-quinn-on-gamergate-fighting-online-harassment/ Was asked about OAPI. The question/answer is at 45:43 “Can you please ask Zoe Quinn about her work with Online Abuse Prevention Initiative and Randi Harper? She is listed as one of the board of directors, but the website is outdated. No recent news that I can find. The Patreon also has not been updated in a year, with most updates being backer only. Is that still an active organization? What do you do with them?” “That’s more Randi’s bag, I don’t know where she’s at with that stuff.” Can’t find more information about the group’s work or if they still exist.
The GG blocklist hasn’t been updated on github for months (with the actual functional parts still unchanged since their birth), OAPI is completely radio silent, and yet Harper still makes it to interviews introduced as “[Randi Lee Harper, the founder of the Online Abuse Prevention Initiative](https://archive.is/nSMmr)".
Also, I got blocked when I started asking questions. Keep in mind, this org was hitting [$4,700 per month](https://archive.is/dZElF) at its inception, much of her fame seeming to stem from her involvement with the autoblocker script (which I still think is almost humorously primitive).
Just so you know, someone who did this with the [twitter API](http://www.newsweek.com/one-womans-new-tool-stop-gamergate-harassment-twitter-288008) milked it for literally years, boosted herself to e-celeb status, and [still gets articles written](https://mic.com/articles/184353/overwatch-developer-update-jeff-kaplan-harassment-problem#.ZQJLTiwUO) about her as the founder of the Online Abuse Prevention Initiative.
She also collected [$4,700 per month on patreon](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/13/online-abuse-how-women-are-fighting-back) as a result of the automated blocklist. Also, the blocklist generated was pretty similar to the one that later drew controversy when a [Swedish agency](https://adland.tv/adnews/how-did-sweden-blocklist-pewdiepie-israeli-foreign-ministry/181798845) used it.
… What I’m trying to say is that there’s no shortage of people that would throw money at you for a few simple lines of python or perl. You should look into your monetization scheme. You don’t even have to update it. [Ever.](https://github.com/freebsdgirl/ggautoblocker)
As a side note, OAPI still lists Zoe Quinn on their board of directors, despite Quinn saying that she’s no longer involved during a radio interview: https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/74oc4z/zo%C3%AB_quinn_on_gamergate_fighting_online_harassment/do01yjo/
