Well, its not because of disease, unless unemployment from professional jobs is a disease. It's because of NGOs like Canary Mission which "dox" and publicly identify student protestors by name which might foreclose lucrative job offers in finance,corporations and media from employers which might not like controversy or anti-semitism. You might or might not think this is "fair", depending on your polutics.
(For the record, I think kiddies who think this is about "colonialism" are horribly misguided, writing this from Tel Aviv, but Im conflicted as to whether "youthful misdecretions" should cost them working for Goldman Sachs or some white shoe law firm. I was young once, long ago. That being said, Gaza really isn't Vietnam.
Protesting in anonymity is, in today’s world, a bit complicated.
For me, I have no concern over a protester wishing not to be identified, as I judge the ethics of protest based on the protest’s purpose and degree of civility. But I do have a concern over the implied meaning when someone masks themselves in public in order to hide their identity. It can be seen by many as a subtle threat, rightly or wrongly.
On the other hand, protesters simply exercising their right to free speech can be threatened and harmed if their identities are made public through “doxxing” by online vigilantes with malicious intent. Protesters should be willing to bear the effects of peaceful civil disobedience. Doxxing and its harmful results is not one of them.
Without transparency there is no trust. We marched in the 1960’s and 70’s maskless, proud of what we stood for… marching against the 2022 anti women’s healthcare decision by SCOTUS, we stood behind our principles of peaceful protests, and few wore masks. Many protestors are outsiders on student visas, professors on visas, and outside instigators. Who is sponsoring them? Where are journalists following the money trail? Where are the marchers for Syrians? Yemenites? Sudanese? Chinese? Rhawandans? Ukranians?
In the 60's and 70's there weren't mechanisms in place where literally anyone in the world can fund out who you are and get your personal info. Doxxing is dangerous and if I were participating in these protests I'd mask up too. Too many crazy people out there now who will hunt you down.
Add in that people are labeling anyone protesting as pro-Hamas .... you never know these days.
The point is, as Martin Luther King emphasized, that true civil disobedience requires .placing your whole self at risk ready for punishment, ready for jail, or even death. The night before he was murdered he told the striking workers that he may not be with them on the next day. He wasn't.
I agree with the spirit of this. However, I’m reminded of how kids getting their photo taken lately will put a hand over a portion of their face as a habit because of the risk of AI generated fakes using their likeness, often created by other kids with widely available apps. This is a bit more complicated now than it used to be.
I was in a sit-in at the U of Iowa in '68. Photos were taken and life was made miserable for some in the photos. Please note that many more people in Asia wear masks, and that this was especially the case for demonstrators in Hong Kong in recent years whose lives were endangered by being "outed" via photos. (Now with new tech, authorities probably only need to see your eyes.) Also, observe that the police are often dressed in riot gear purposely designed to prevent their identities from being revealed. So, I have no complaint about protesters today wearing masks. Think instead about how difficult it is to express first amendment rights in our supposedly free, Constitutional country.
I agree with the commenters who point out the difference in today's protest ramifications vs those of the past. AI and other technology puts today's protestors in a different kind of danger.
Having said that, I stand with the protestors. There. I said it. I am a huge fan of the Biden/Harris administration and applaud their great accomplishments, low unemployment, desperately needed infrastructure investment, support for Ukraine, and the list goes on. But our continued support of Israel's genocide in Gaza is beyond disgusting. If you provide the gun to the kid who mows down 20 classmates, are you not aiding and abetting murder? If after the kid mows down 20 classmates, you hand him more ammunition, are you not also the murderer?
The argument that opposing Israel's attacks on Gaza is antisemitic is a ridiculous stance.
This comment was posted on another substack blog - Certainly easy enough to check, right?
How many "interested" parties will make the effort to do that? I mean other than continue to blame Pres.Biden because he cannot control this corrupt head of Israel!
"It’s very easy to find a list of Tony Blinken’s many many trips to Israel and the Middle East. He’s been to Israel eight times since October 7, 2023. He’s been to the Middle East dozens of times since then negotiating with other countries to form a two state resolution, which Netanyahu opposes. Every time they are close, Netanyahu creates discord such as another attack on Gaza. Tony went to Israel again last month. His grandparents were in Auschwitz. He has the respect of heads of state throughout the Middle East. But Netanyahu, Putin, and Trump are the three headed snake, throwing in discord - the snake could care less about the innocents in Palestine. Blinken and Biden do. You can sign up on the State Department website they will send you email briefings every day on Blinken’s travel, that of deputies SOS and who is visiting State. I’ve never seen such a hard-working secretary of state. He’s living on an airplane. There are a few of the people on Substack, who are claiming Biden is ‘sitting in his hands’ not doing anything. If you listen to his press conferences, you will hear him say that he was on the phone again with Netanyahu. He is giving him hell and telling him to back off. But you can go a long way once you start reading, to inform people: “hey guys this is not correct. We have signed agreements since 1953 to give Israel military aid and Biden cannot abrogate those.”. And the press knows very very very well about these agreements. It’s up to us to plaster them and wide and ask the question: “what exactly do you want Biden to do?” And then let them know how Bush Junior and Connie Rice allowed Hamas on the ballot in 2006 without vetting them. How can anyone be a secretary of state doing that? The Republicans dropped the ball. That’s why we are here today. And I remember Hillary Clinton when we had flareups in the Middle East when she would speak about Hamas never should have been allowed on the ballot. If something isn’t right in front of our nose, we ‘other’ them. Nobody gets this situation more than Biden. He is the intelligence president because he reads the intelligence and he respects his intelligence departments. He knows exactly what is going on with Netanyahu, Putin and Trump. They’re using this to get Trump into office.
“Biden is not choosing to send military aid to Israel. He is abiding by prior written agreements.”
But Congress just approved another massive military aid bill to Israel. Tied to aid to Ukraine. I get it. So are we to understand that Congress is also anti two state solution? Pro genocide? I'm not being rhetorical and I truly appreciate the insights provided by this post.
Until someone made this comment on another site - I had no clue that it wasnt possible for Biden to magically fix this! I made the assumption - like many of us.
Not being sarcastic. I honestly didn't know that Biden couldn't make some kind of executive order to stop the arms transfers. I still don't entirely understand why he can't.
The sarcasm part was pointed at Congress's refusal to do anything constructive.
I believe anyone can go on the US State Dept site & browse around looking for the agreements starting in 1953 up to the present. It will take a little determination. I didnt go that far but the person who gave me the information did!! Its there - just have to look for it.
If I end up spending the time AND can find it I'll post a link.
I agree that anonymity feeds internet trolls who do not speak in good faith and are often just simply being jerks.
I’m not 100% in agreement on the student protesters of today. I believe there has been a change in our society that is not analogous to protests of the past. Yes, the FBI tapped MLKjr’s phone and some dozens or hundreds of others. They tailed a few leaders and infiltrated organizations, but things are different now.
Yes, a mask can be used by an infiltrator to hide their own identity, but the situation is more complex.
In Hong Kong we saw protesters wearing masks and carrying umbrellas to thwart ubiquitous facial recognition cameras that provided identities to the Chinese communist government. It was a survival strategy against a totalitarian state.
We are seeing similar oppressive tactics in the US and there is a very real chance that we could become a totalitarian nation in the near future. On college campuses conservative groups have used electronic billboard trucks - doxxing trucks - to post photos of protesters publicly ascribing ideologies to them that likely are not true, such as calling people who oppose policies of the State of Israel antisemites. https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2024/01/31/conservative-media-group-behind-doxxing-truck-returns-to-columbia-launches-new-website/
Doxxing, swatting, and similar activities that were basically impossible at scale decades ago have become common and serious dangers to innocent people. People who oppose the protests are working on what amounts to lifetime doxxing for students, calling for universities to deny graduation, to prevent students from receiving diplomas, and putting information on the internet that would prevent students from working in their field of study. These are very sophisticated operations. Very sophisticated.
It may seem tangential to bring up the large numbers of journalists who have been killed in Gaza at this point, but it seems impossible to believe Israeli defense forces haven’t been intentionally targeting journalists. In fact, we know Israel assassinated a woman reporter in the months before the Gaza “war.” Israel denied it was a targeted assassination but we know Israel lies about this sort of thing all the time and the reporter’s new organization (if I remember it was the WaPo or NYT) did a convincing analysis showing Israel lied. Further, we know Israeli intelligence is very good at installing tracking software on people’s phones. It isn’t a huge stretch to believe that Israeli defense forces tracked journalists through their phones and some “random bomb” “accidentally” killed the journalists.
It is not hard for a sophisticated college student to suspect something like that could happen to them at some point in a totalitarian future. The Mossad is legendary for its long memory and sophisticated assassination plots. Trump and Netanyahu seem alike in some ways.
Look, I’ve never hidden my opinions behind a veil of anonymity, but I’m a blacksmith and I work for myself. And I’m old. Not everyone wants to be a poor blacksmith their whole life.
This is complex. Another person who commented mentioned "doxxing". We now have AI tools that could crop the image of someone's face in a crowd and transform it to another setting altogether as "proof" of a crime or mis-deed. I don't blame them for covering their faces.
You guys started the validity of "anonymous source". I grew up in an era when Yogi Berra observed " never answer an anonymous letter". Newspapers validated comments and named sources before publication. You guys made up stories and sources to fit your agenda. Few trust the media, wonder why?
Any and all stories reported about "demonstrations" you promoted at Centennial circle in downtown Glens Falls. The Chronicle noted coverage of these events was not real news and "made up". I observed one myself and the "crowd " you reported totaled 5 people. Hardly a crowd and more like a Post Star "stir the pot" story. Phony story, end of Post Star...
"Over the decades, there were several times where sources asked us to pay for information." Isn't that news? Name just one of the "several times" this happened. Fact or Fiction? Of the several times, Name ONE. This was from Ken's column,,,,
Why are these protests even ON campuses??? During the Vietnam War, students were protesting being drafted to go to war. The U.S. is NOT fighting in Israel. There is no draft. Protest AWAY from the colleges! If I had a child in college, I would remind that child that I am paying for their education, which doesn't include protesting! Destroying college campuses isn't going to change ANYTHING in Israel!
I was disappointed by this column. I think that the student protesters are trying to heighten the public's awareness of the terrible stuff going on in Gaza. Whether or not the protesters wear masks is in my opinion, a minor issue.
I've always taken people more seriously when, like you, they put their name with their comments. I do think we'd have fewer online disputes and more restraint if people used their real names, but even more so if people were talking face to face. The mask has been used for a long time to inspire fear in the beholder and the boldness of anonymity in the wearer.
So why don't you require and validate who posts comments? I'm anonymous to validate the hypocrisy of being anonymous. Someone posted the name of the "anonymous" source. Wrong, but the false assumption is out there.....
I wasn't referring specifically to you, but ...
Anyway, I appreciate the compliment.
Agree!
Makes them seem like agents provocateurs.
Well, its not because of disease, unless unemployment from professional jobs is a disease. It's because of NGOs like Canary Mission which "dox" and publicly identify student protestors by name which might foreclose lucrative job offers in finance,corporations and media from employers which might not like controversy or anti-semitism. You might or might not think this is "fair", depending on your polutics.
(For the record, I think kiddies who think this is about "colonialism" are horribly misguided, writing this from Tel Aviv, but Im conflicted as to whether "youthful misdecretions" should cost them working for Goldman Sachs or some white shoe law firm. I was young once, long ago. That being said, Gaza really isn't Vietnam.
Protesting in anonymity is, in today’s world, a bit complicated.
For me, I have no concern over a protester wishing not to be identified, as I judge the ethics of protest based on the protest’s purpose and degree of civility. But I do have a concern over the implied meaning when someone masks themselves in public in order to hide their identity. It can be seen by many as a subtle threat, rightly or wrongly.
On the other hand, protesters simply exercising their right to free speech can be threatened and harmed if their identities are made public through “doxxing” by online vigilantes with malicious intent. Protesters should be willing to bear the effects of peaceful civil disobedience. Doxxing and its harmful results is not one of them.
Without transparency there is no trust. We marched in the 1960’s and 70’s maskless, proud of what we stood for… marching against the 2022 anti women’s healthcare decision by SCOTUS, we stood behind our principles of peaceful protests, and few wore masks. Many protestors are outsiders on student visas, professors on visas, and outside instigators. Who is sponsoring them? Where are journalists following the money trail? Where are the marchers for Syrians? Yemenites? Sudanese? Chinese? Rhawandans? Ukranians?
In the 60's and 70's there weren't mechanisms in place where literally anyone in the world can fund out who you are and get your personal info. Doxxing is dangerous and if I were participating in these protests I'd mask up too. Too many crazy people out there now who will hunt you down.
Add in that people are labeling anyone protesting as pro-Hamas .... you never know these days.
The point is, as Martin Luther King emphasized, that true civil disobedience requires .placing your whole self at risk ready for punishment, ready for jail, or even death. The night before he was murdered he told the striking workers that he may not be with them on the next day. He wasn't.
I agree with the spirit of this. However, I’m reminded of how kids getting their photo taken lately will put a hand over a portion of their face as a habit because of the risk of AI generated fakes using their likeness, often created by other kids with widely available apps. This is a bit more complicated now than it used to be.
I was in a sit-in at the U of Iowa in '68. Photos were taken and life was made miserable for some in the photos. Please note that many more people in Asia wear masks, and that this was especially the case for demonstrators in Hong Kong in recent years whose lives were endangered by being "outed" via photos. (Now with new tech, authorities probably only need to see your eyes.) Also, observe that the police are often dressed in riot gear purposely designed to prevent their identities from being revealed. So, I have no complaint about protesters today wearing masks. Think instead about how difficult it is to express first amendment rights in our supposedly free, Constitutional country.
I agree with the commenters who point out the difference in today's protest ramifications vs those of the past. AI and other technology puts today's protestors in a different kind of danger.
Having said that, I stand with the protestors. There. I said it. I am a huge fan of the Biden/Harris administration and applaud their great accomplishments, low unemployment, desperately needed infrastructure investment, support for Ukraine, and the list goes on. But our continued support of Israel's genocide in Gaza is beyond disgusting. If you provide the gun to the kid who mows down 20 classmates, are you not aiding and abetting murder? If after the kid mows down 20 classmates, you hand him more ammunition, are you not also the murderer?
The argument that opposing Israel's attacks on Gaza is antisemitic is a ridiculous stance.
This comment was posted on another substack blog - Certainly easy enough to check, right?
How many "interested" parties will make the effort to do that? I mean other than continue to blame Pres.Biden because he cannot control this corrupt head of Israel!
"It’s very easy to find a list of Tony Blinken’s many many trips to Israel and the Middle East. He’s been to Israel eight times since October 7, 2023. He’s been to the Middle East dozens of times since then negotiating with other countries to form a two state resolution, which Netanyahu opposes. Every time they are close, Netanyahu creates discord such as another attack on Gaza. Tony went to Israel again last month. His grandparents were in Auschwitz. He has the respect of heads of state throughout the Middle East. But Netanyahu, Putin, and Trump are the three headed snake, throwing in discord - the snake could care less about the innocents in Palestine. Blinken and Biden do. You can sign up on the State Department website they will send you email briefings every day on Blinken’s travel, that of deputies SOS and who is visiting State. I’ve never seen such a hard-working secretary of state. He’s living on an airplane. There are a few of the people on Substack, who are claiming Biden is ‘sitting in his hands’ not doing anything. If you listen to his press conferences, you will hear him say that he was on the phone again with Netanyahu. He is giving him hell and telling him to back off. But you can go a long way once you start reading, to inform people: “hey guys this is not correct. We have signed agreements since 1953 to give Israel military aid and Biden cannot abrogate those.”. And the press knows very very very well about these agreements. It’s up to us to plaster them and wide and ask the question: “what exactly do you want Biden to do?” And then let them know how Bush Junior and Connie Rice allowed Hamas on the ballot in 2006 without vetting them. How can anyone be a secretary of state doing that? The Republicans dropped the ball. That’s why we are here today. And I remember Hillary Clinton when we had flareups in the Middle East when she would speak about Hamas never should have been allowed on the ballot. If something isn’t right in front of our nose, we ‘other’ them. Nobody gets this situation more than Biden. He is the intelligence president because he reads the intelligence and he respects his intelligence departments. He knows exactly what is going on with Netanyahu, Putin and Trump. They’re using this to get Trump into office.
“Biden is not choosing to send military aid to Israel. He is abiding by prior written agreements.”
But Congress just approved another massive military aid bill to Israel. Tied to aid to Ukraine. I get it. So are we to understand that Congress is also anti two state solution? Pro genocide? I'm not being rhetorical and I truly appreciate the insights provided by this post.
I assume you are being sarcastic, right?
Until someone made this comment on another site - I had no clue that it wasnt possible for Biden to magically fix this! I made the assumption - like many of us.
Not being sarcastic. I honestly didn't know that Biden couldn't make some kind of executive order to stop the arms transfers. I still don't entirely understand why he can't.
The sarcasm part was pointed at Congress's refusal to do anything constructive.
I believe anyone can go on the US State Dept site & browse around looking for the agreements starting in 1953 up to the present. It will take a little determination. I didnt go that far but the person who gave me the information did!! Its there - just have to look for it.
If I end up spending the time AND can find it I'll post a link.
I agree that anonymity feeds internet trolls who do not speak in good faith and are often just simply being jerks.
I’m not 100% in agreement on the student protesters of today. I believe there has been a change in our society that is not analogous to protests of the past. Yes, the FBI tapped MLKjr’s phone and some dozens or hundreds of others. They tailed a few leaders and infiltrated organizations, but things are different now.
Yes, a mask can be used by an infiltrator to hide their own identity, but the situation is more complex.
In Hong Kong we saw protesters wearing masks and carrying umbrellas to thwart ubiquitous facial recognition cameras that provided identities to the Chinese communist government. It was a survival strategy against a totalitarian state.
We are seeing similar oppressive tactics in the US and there is a very real chance that we could become a totalitarian nation in the near future. On college campuses conservative groups have used electronic billboard trucks - doxxing trucks - to post photos of protesters publicly ascribing ideologies to them that likely are not true, such as calling people who oppose policies of the State of Israel antisemites. https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2024/01/31/conservative-media-group-behind-doxxing-truck-returns-to-columbia-launches-new-website/
Doxxing, swatting, and similar activities that were basically impossible at scale decades ago have become common and serious dangers to innocent people. People who oppose the protests are working on what amounts to lifetime doxxing for students, calling for universities to deny graduation, to prevent students from receiving diplomas, and putting information on the internet that would prevent students from working in their field of study. These are very sophisticated operations. Very sophisticated.
It may seem tangential to bring up the large numbers of journalists who have been killed in Gaza at this point, but it seems impossible to believe Israeli defense forces haven’t been intentionally targeting journalists. In fact, we know Israel assassinated a woman reporter in the months before the Gaza “war.” Israel denied it was a targeted assassination but we know Israel lies about this sort of thing all the time and the reporter’s new organization (if I remember it was the WaPo or NYT) did a convincing analysis showing Israel lied. Further, we know Israeli intelligence is very good at installing tracking software on people’s phones. It isn’t a huge stretch to believe that Israeli defense forces tracked journalists through their phones and some “random bomb” “accidentally” killed the journalists.
It is not hard for a sophisticated college student to suspect something like that could happen to them at some point in a totalitarian future. The Mossad is legendary for its long memory and sophisticated assassination plots. Trump and Netanyahu seem alike in some ways.
Look, I’ve never hidden my opinions behind a veil of anonymity, but I’m a blacksmith and I work for myself. And I’m old. Not everyone wants to be a poor blacksmith their whole life.
And I should have read some of the other comments here before posting a bunch of repetitive stuff.
This is complex. Another person who commented mentioned "doxxing". We now have AI tools that could crop the image of someone's face in a crowd and transform it to another setting altogether as "proof" of a crime or mis-deed. I don't blame them for covering their faces.
Good article Will!
You guys started the validity of "anonymous source". I grew up in an era when Yogi Berra observed " never answer an anonymous letter". Newspapers validated comments and named sources before publication. You guys made up stories and sources to fit your agenda. Few trust the media, wonder why?
Cite a story from the Post-Star when Ken and I were there that "made up stories and sources to fit" our agenda.
Any and all stories reported about "demonstrations" you promoted at Centennial circle in downtown Glens Falls. The Chronicle noted coverage of these events was not real news and "made up". I observed one myself and the "crowd " you reported totaled 5 people. Hardly a crowd and more like a Post Star "stir the pot" story. Phony story, end of Post Star...
"Over the decades, there were several times where sources asked us to pay for information." Isn't that news? Name just one of the "several times" this happened. Fact or Fiction? Of the several times, Name ONE. This was from Ken's column,,,,
Well said!
Why are these protests even ON campuses??? During the Vietnam War, students were protesting being drafted to go to war. The U.S. is NOT fighting in Israel. There is no draft. Protest AWAY from the colleges! If I had a child in college, I would remind that child that I am paying for their education, which doesn't include protesting! Destroying college campuses isn't going to change ANYTHING in Israel!
I was disappointed by this column. I think that the student protesters are trying to heighten the public's awareness of the terrible stuff going on in Gaza. Whether or not the protesters wear masks is in my opinion, a minor issue.
I've always taken people more seriously when, like you, they put their name with their comments. I do think we'd have fewer online disputes and more restraint if people used their real names, but even more so if people were talking face to face. The mask has been used for a long time to inspire fear in the beholder and the boldness of anonymity in the wearer.
So why don't you require and validate who posts comments? I'm anonymous to validate the hypocrisy of being anonymous. Someone posted the name of the "anonymous" source. Wrong, but the false assumption is out there.....