Update: This post has now been edited in response to valid criticisms received in comments. I’m sure that it still won’t make everybody happy.
I’ve been quiet today because I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the great feminist DOS attacks of the moment and the long long long threads discussing them: who’s responsible, what they were reacting to, whether what they claim actually occurred, who’s right, who’s wrong etc etc etc. One of those threads is currently running at 1000+ comments.
Short summary:
- Womensspace, a website founded by radical feminist (and notorious successful ex-fundamentalist litigant) Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff aka Heart, has been shut down due to DOS attacks.
- Heart has discussed this on her blog, which is run on a separate site.
- At least one and maybe more script-kid “hacker” forums have bragged about the coordinated DOS attack on Heart’s website and the websites of several people associated with Heart, and some people with an axe to grind over this incident have also sent Heart and commentors on Heart’s blog hate-mail and comments threatening rape and murder.
- The “justification” for the attack on Heart’s websites is that a blogger named Biting Beaver (BB), who acts as moderator on one of the discussion boards on Womensspace, posted about her distress regarding a parenting issue. She used some statements that others found offensive. [I fell into the trap of discussing BB's words in detail here. What she did and didn't say is not the real issue.] The DOSsers
andand/or their defenders are judging such statements as child abuse, and thus they defend their attacks: BB must be exposed. They see themselves as vigilantes fighting the good fight, and that threats of rape and murder are apparently no big deal. The attacks have also led to BB making her own blog private, open to being read by invitees only. - Many of the people defending the attacks on Heart’s website seem to be confusing Heart with BB, as well as confusing comments made by other posters in response to BB’s remarks as if BB wrote them. This sloppy reading is demonstrated in various other confusions of fact.
- Many of the people defending the attacks on Heart and BB seem to also be outraged by BB’s notoriety from last year, when she became a feminist cause-celebre after an unplanned pregnancy following contraceptive failure, and subsequently being denied Emergency Birth Control by so-called pro-life doctors, mainly because she was cohabiting with her lover but not married to him. Fundraising was done so that she could afford an abortion, as she felt the children she had already were enough for her. ETA: She was viciously attacked online, threatened and stalked then as well.
- These same people, either carelessly or maliciously, get all the facts of that (now terminated) pregnancy confused with BB’s posts about her previous marital/reproductive history. [I went into too much irrelevant detail here as well.]
- Because both Heart and BB are controversial, nay notorious, radical feminists, these attacks aren’t getting anything like the coverage that the threats against tech-blogger Kathy Sierra did earlier this year. She wasn’t asking for it, see? Both have also been involved in their fair share of interblog spats with other feminists, so that in some ways the pool of sympathy for either of them is limited within the femblog community.
For the record [edited]: BB’s parenting can not be adequately evaluated from online rants that she had no reason to believe her child would ever read. The harassers, bashers and stalkers are merely using her words as an excuse to attack an entire feminist community. The DOS attacks alone are mere vandalism and annoyance: the death/rape threats and stalking to find out where she lives so that she can be reported as a dangerous parent are pure intimidation meant to silence radical feminist voices.
Some people, not just the DOSsers, are rushing to the conclusion that this emotional outburst and a few others that they’ve found from BB are signs of severe emotional instability that means she should have her kids taken away. I have to say: how many of you are experts in family psychology who have conducted a thorough clinical examination? I’m certainly not, but one thing I do know: if venting pseudonymously on blogs about how parenting is not always a beautiful thing means that one is mentally ill and an abusive parent, there’s going to be an awful lot of kids taken into care.
Are those slagging BB absolutely sure that pseudonymous rants on the internet are a well supported clinical sign of child abuse? How many conservative bloggers and MRA bloggers will fall into that net if you spread it that wide? Surely posting threats of rape and murder in comments and in email would be considered just as much a sign of an abusive personality? Have the DOSsers thought their principlies “principles” through here? Or is this just another case of grasping at anything to attack the radfems?
Nothing posted by BB justifies threats of rape and murder, intimidation by stalking or attempting to break up a family. These are acts of violent misogyny, pure and simple.
*Not posting my real screen name or URL because I’ve been targeted by ED, and I don’t want to drive up traffic to my blog or to this one*
“she was cohabiting with her lover but not married to him.”
Though I can’t verify as her blog is locked, I believe that BB was going through a divorce with her abusive husband, so she couldn’t remarry even if she had wanted to (and I have no idea whether she did or not).
“Because both Heart and BB are controversial, nay notorious, radical feminists, these attacks aren’t getting anything like the coverage that the threats against tech-blogger Kathy Sierra did earlier this year … Both have also been involved in their fair share of interblog spats with other feminists, so that in some ways the pool of sympathy for either of them is limited within the femblog community.”
I agree with you 100% about this, though I’ve been glad to see the posts at feministe and of course the one here.
“The DOSsers and their defenders are judging such statements as child abuse.”
I call bullshit on that. Tell me, who besides those who are actually perpetrating the attack, are defending it? Are you saying anybody who called BBs actions abusive is also actively or tacitly endorsing this series of DoS attacks? That is so goddamn wrong, I don’t even know where to begin.
BTW, because you’ve unthinkingly hotlinked to Heart’s blog and even trackbacked to it, its probably only a matter or time before this blog is payed a visit by “An0nym0us”. (Thereby helping spread the “An0nym0us” meme.) Just though you should know this.
I agree with what you are saying here, but I believe that this is a good lesson for all people who post things on the internet. You should never, ever put into writing anything that you do not want to come back to potentially hurt you. I’ve had this done to myself on a much smaller scale, but I learned my lesson. Putting yourself “out there” means you have no control over who is reading it and copying it. You have no control whatsoever after it is published for anyone to see. I’m all for free speech, but it’s not really practical in the blogging world where a lot of small fish get harassed and stalked mercilessly. A lot of people post pictures and hand out information that is not safe to be handed out when you have no control over who is accessing it while you’re snuggled beneath your blankets at night. Hoping that other people will respect you and your boundaries is naive, especially when you are dealing with whack jobs who find joy in seeing other people suffer. When I was attacked, do you know what I got told by my attackers? If you didn’t want your personal information used against you, you shouldn’t have put it out there. I always protected my children when I wrote and didn’t give out names but they knew where I lived and knew my name and so they tracked down my children to get back at me. This is the type of crap that happens to unsuspecting bloggers who feel that they are safe. That’s the lesson I learned and why I stopped blogging.
Great post. This is pretty much how I see the whole thing.
“Have the DOSsers thought their principlies through here? Or is this just another case of grasping at anything to attack the radfems?”
These stalkers don’t have any principles. Why is this even a question?
In blackmail cases the victim is allowed to remain anonymous because it is quite clear that whatever they are being blackmailed for is in no way equal to the crime of blackmail. What Biting Beaver is being blamed for is in no way equal to being stalked (they are trying to track down her real name and address and harass her and the people she knows in real life, they also plan to report her to children’s services in order to have her son removed from her) harassed (she, Heart and others have been subject to death threats and rape threats) and driven off the internet (her blog and others have had to shut down because of the attacks).
If even feminists are unable to address a situation like this one whithout focusing on the *victim’s* behaviour, how can any female victim of male aggression expect to receive a fair hearing and support from our community.
This is how the stalkers talk:
[Moderator note: the potentially PTSD triggering material quoted below has been text-transformed using ROT-13. If you want to read it please cut and paste the text in the blockquote to the input box here and press the cypher button to convert it back to plain text]
I’m at a loss to understand why you think they might be doing this because of their principles. When did stalking, harassing and hacking ever become principled actions?
Can someone explain to me what “DOS attacks” actually means, specifically? I know it’s results have been womensspace being shut down, and that it’s used as a form of harrassment– I’m just not sure of the specifics.
Aside from that, great post. I don’t always agree with Heart and BB, but that’s a valuable thing– they challenge me to think in new ways. They certainly do not deserve attacks like this, and I feel horrible for them both. I’m sure that these people would accuse Heart and BB of attacking freedom of speech– yet they are the ones trying to silence them.
This you Jen?
“I applied to be a member of Heart’s forums just so that I could lurk and read the stuff they write there (they are more trainwrecky than the mommyblogs). I am a woman. I read that post by biting beaver when it was posted and the responses, too, and nothing has been altered. I remember reading that shit and thinking how completely insane those women are, how delusional they are. It’s like a cult of some sort. They scare me.
Jen | 08.09.07 – 9:23 pm | # “
Iamcuriousblue at #2:
That should read “and/or their defenders” (which I shall now correct) as all I meant to imply was that I had no way of knowing whether those defending the DOSsers were actually involved in the DOS attacks themselves.
I wrote in the post that if BB’s son was going to find all the other shit then I wanted him to find this post too. [ETA: that part of the post has now been redacted in response to valid criticism in comments.] So perhaps neither of those acts were unthinking at all. The DOSser crowd will do whatever they like with that as they usually do, depending on how many lulz they think they’ll get.
Beppie, the wikipedia article is a reasonable introduction.
stayinganontoo at #5:
You seem to be unable/unwilling to understand the purpose of rhetoric. The DOSsers are arguing that they are taking a principled stance to “save her son” and I am asking questions to cast doubt on that so-called principled stance.
I understand rhetoric. I also understand the methods of abusers, one of which is to blame the victim. What is sad is when people go along with the abuser’s framing and focus on the actions of the victim, either defending or condemning her behaviour, whilst ignoring the actions of those actually committing the aggression. It’s why rape victims’ behavour becomes the topic in court whilst the rapist never has his actions or motives examined.
I’m sorry I didn’t put a trigger warning on those words but I would ask you to reinstate them into this discussion together with a warning. Biting Beaver’s words and actions are being picked over whilst anonymous is yet again being safely shoved to one side. What anonymous is saying about and doing to feminists is central here and those words demonstrate exactly who and what we are dealing with. BB’s feelings about her son are merely a smokescreen they are using to distract people from their actions.
The people who are engaging in the debate over whether BB was right or wrong are basically (as someone said elsewhere) having a polite debate with a lynch mob.
stayinganontoo,
I certainly agree that nothing BB has been accused of justifies what is being done to her or to Heart.
My post was in part an attempt to point out a double standard in what parents are expected to tolerate from teens and the cultural expectation that mothers never even for a moment regret choosing parenthood, never even for a moment resent or fear or hate their children. I call bullshit on that, and I think it’s important to call bullshit on that.
That said, I totally agree that
However, I’m not going to reinstate the quoted text in clear. It’s not only triggering, it’s also attractive to search engine spiders. No thanks. People who want to can read it with minor effort.
I don’t want this thread to just become a back and forth between you and me. You’ve made your stance clear: I will approve one comment now in reply to this comment of mine and then I ask you to refrain from commenting until there’s at least another five comments on the thread from other posters than me, please.
“The DOSser crowd will do whatever they like with that as they usually do, depending on how many lulz they think they’ll get.”
OK, perhaps I stated that too strongly, however, I’ve actually been watching the attacks and trolling unfold, and I guarantee you, hotlinks (as opposed to text URLs) linking to either attacked sites (especially, it seems, to Heart’s blog) or to perpetrating sites are the vehicle through which this attack is spreading.
I know a lot of people in the feminist blogosphere want to show solidarity and make a defiant statement against this attack. However, I would also remind folks that they should think strategically ““ 1) how much attention do you want to give these idiots (attention is what they want, after all), and more importantly, 2) do you really want be providing the infrastructure (hotlinks and trackbacks) by which the “An0nym0us” meme is spreading? Its worth some thought.
I’m not sure how far this is going to go or where we’ll end up, but to a certain extent it’s possible that the attacks can be spread out among multiple blogs, instead of trained on one or two bloggers. Also, if the ED crowd are just bullies who like to pick on people with less power, then if bigger blogs start calling BS, then they might be intimidated.
(That is of course IF they are bullies and IF they will be intimidated. However, taking on large, popular, more mainstream blogs like feministe is a completely different matter than taking on smaller, less well-read blogs like Biting Beaver and some of the other radfem blogs on the target list.)
There’s nothing I can do to intimidate the DOSsers, I don’t have any big netguns. Certainly I’ve knowingly taken a risk that they might decide to pile on me for posting this and linking to Heart’s blog. But should that intimidate me?
If they choose to be vandals and bullies, that’s entirely their choice to make. They think they’re justified, I disagree. The hatespeech and rape/murder threats are vile, and need to be called for what they are. The DOS attacks are annoyances which can be coped with, irritating though they are.
No-one is making them be vandals and bullies, no matter how much they are offended by what someone else has written.
tigtog ““
I don’t think you quite understand what I’m saying, it least in point #2 that I made above. Its one thing to decide that its better to call them out about it, even if that means giving them publicity. But by using hotlinks and trackbacks, one provides a pathway by which the attacks spread. One doesn’t need to be silent or silenced to simply avoid hotlinks and trackbacks (text URLs aren’t a problem).
I do understand you, actually.
I think you’re partially missing the point on the abuse question. The comments I’ve seen from the blogosphere criticising BB for this had far less to do with the “I wish you hadn’t been born” comments than her descriptions of her past creepy, abusive behaviour towards her son. Where Heart comes into this is that her and her commenters openly encouraged that behaviour on The Margins.
However, none of this justifies in the slightest the deeply misogynist attacks currently underway against that site and others (I’ve read that Blame The Patriarchy is also being hit, and that has nothing to do with this affair). These kiddies are just scum trying to get a rise out of people, and using BB’s creepiness as an excuse.
Your first paragraph: I don’t know BB personally, or her family. Even if I did, I’m not qualified to determine whether their family dynamic is abusive or not, and I suggest that neither is anyone else who has just read her writings on the web.
Second paragraph: totally agree.
I agree with tigtog that we can’t determine if someone’s abusive via what they write on their blog (which is also their viewpoint and interpretation of events, that may be very different from the viewpoints of others involved).
This reminds me of US Senator Bill Frist trying to diagnose Terri Schiavo via videotape.
Well there’s two parts to it:
1. the cyberbullying. Apparently they’re a complusive bunch, they’ve targetted various groups in the usa, so it isn’t limited to women or feminists.
At least there’s more discussion going on about resisting cyberbullying now; when to report them and if that isn’t possible how we can make their identities and tactics known to starve the troll.
2. That said, troll bullies target their slander to maximise the impact, which in this case is victim blaming sexist troll threats.
Feminists can be allies by debunking it, moderating it, anything to starve the trolls without “just ignoring” the sexist material being dumped on individual women.
So, re: this “OMG BUT SHE’S A BAD MOTHER!” line.
The motive isn’t a discussion of feminist motherhood or concern for her son. Trolling people who address feminist parenting while spreading hostililty and private material about that son all over the net is evidence enough of that.
Feminist anti-violence 101:
Threats to mothers are serious in themselves.
Threats to mothers are also often a threat to their children by extension of the interconnected relationship.
While there are disagreements in feminism about parenting, this is not about parenting, but cyberbullying.
Discussing feminist motherhood is great; but victim blaming language in a case of bullying feeds that troll, lets not.
“My post was in part an attempt to point out a double standard in what parents are expected to tolerate from teens and the cultural expectation that mothers never even for a moment regret choosing parenthood, never even for a moment resent or fear or hate their children. I call bullshit on that, and I think it’s important to call bullshit on that.”
I don’t know how I can make this any clearer (and I won’t post again because I don’t feel welcome here), you are accepting the framing of the criminals. They try and put the focus on their victim and by defending her you are accepting that their claim against her is in some way legitimate or worthy of debate.
Double standards aren’t the issue here, the issue is that women are being stalked, threatened and harassed by men (and they are mainly men whatever their rah-rah girl cheerleaders say) who issue rape and death threats and try and track people down in real life in order to destroy their family. Do you really think these scumbags’ main problem is that they have double standards? Does it help BB that to prove your point it requires a debate about her (the victim’s) behaviour?
By setting up your post as a debate on BB’s behaviour you have opened the door to her attackers who have happily stepped through it as Rebecca has done. It is shameful for anybody to be attacking BB at this point given what she and others are facing from these misogynistic psychopaths.
stayinganontoo,
There are two separate arguments being conflated generally here (not by you), and I accept your criticism that I’ve contributed to muddling them.
The first argument is about BB and her sentiments regarding her son, where, as I said above, nobody who doesn’t know them personally AND has professional qualifications in family psychology is in any position to judge (even though I do have an opinion which I expressed in my post, I freely acknowledge that I have no special expertise, and my opinion is worth what you pay for it).
The second is about the cyberbullying on other websites/blogs tenuously related to BB through expressing support for either her or for Heart, or websites/blogs simply criticising the cyberbullying while not taking a position on BB at all.
Now, I think that both those arguments are worth making, but they do need to be kept separate, and I didn’t manage to do that as well as I would have liked in my post. For where I haven’t adequately kept them separate, I regret not being clearer.
I do however think it was important to point out that a lot of the anger against BB is related to the notoriety over her recent denial of emergency contraceptives, subsequent unplanned pregnancy and consequent abortion, which has nothing at all to do with sentiments she expressed about parenting issues. To do that I needed to mention quite a few other things: maybe I was wrong to do so, but I’m not entirely convinced.
I agree completely. Diverting the conversation to what BB said or didn’t say or what she meant, etc., is exactly what the trolls, bashers and stalkers want us to do right now. It’s what turned the Shakes thread into such a train wreck.
I understand where you’re coming from, Tigtog. Someday I’d be happy to exchange tales of how Moms vent with their friends when their children aren’t around. We can even discuss that old, infamous Dear Abby column where an unprecedented number of women wrote in to say if given the choice, they would never have had their kids.
But now is not the time.
Where do you get off thinking you have any right to voice an opinion, in the midst of clear and purposeful threats of violence against women and their families. There’s no either or here, except for psychopaths and their defenders.
If harm or violence comes to anyone of us, your weasley worded sanction of vigilantism is here on record. Just step right up and say what you mean and quit trying to hide behind “rhetoric”. You coward.
I’m going to break my promise but one last time:
The main issue here is the death threats, rape threats, attempts at real-life stalking that BB and Heart are facing from vicious misogynists whose words I posted here but you refused to publish because they provide a direct insight into the motives the people who are attacking BB and Heart.
The secondary issue is the attempt to silence a whole community of feminists through attacks on their websites, threats and porn spamming.
The issue of what BB said about her son is are not an issue at all. Her words were stolen from a PRIVATE forum which was then hacked and destroyed by the people who you think might possibly be acting on principle. Anybody who appoints themselves as a judge over what BB said or decides to comment on it is giving tacit approval to the actions of the thieves, hackers and male misogynists who have set out to destroy BB (if you are unaware their latest trick is to call all the authorities in the area they think she lives in, call people they think are her neighbours and contact all the media outlets around where they think she lives).
I’m definitely gone this time.
This was the last three sentences of my post, with the first one bolded for emphasis now:
I accept the criticism that I bought into discussing BB’s behaviour, even though my intent was to be supportive there for reasons previously explained.
But how on earth does anyone read a “weasley worded sanction of vigilantism is here on record” out of my post? I devoted the first few paragraphs of this post to the DOS attacks and to the threats, with links to Heart’s post discussing them. I put “justification” in quote marks when discussing the reasons the DOSsers gave for the attacks, and now I’m being hammered for not doing the same in my concluding paragraph with “principles”, even though in conjunction with the sentence before and after my rejection of those “principles” is clear?
Calling an axiom/opinion/rationale a principle doesn’t imply approval. Many people accept the principle that women are inherently inferior to men: that we feminists reject that principle as obviously immoral and unjust doesn’t mean that the principle doesn’t exist. I REJECT THE ATTACKERS’ PRINCIPLES.
I agree that the death/rape threats and stalking are the main issue, and that those doing this are vicious misogynists attempting to silence a whole community of online feminists.
I did not “refuse to publish” the words, I rendered them invisible from search engines to avoid randomly attracting exactly those vicious misogynists to my blog. (Some of them are already monitoring this thread, I know, but I don’t have to advertise the thread to more of them.) Anyone can read the words you quoted using the instructions I provided.
So what do we do now about the trolls, bashers and stalkers? How do we work to ensure that they don’t succeed in destroying radical feminists online and in real life? Radfems are always the front line in any backlash against feminism, always the lightning rod. Radfems deserve defending here against the concerted effort to silence their voices.
Do us a favor and put your and Rebecca’s posts behind the same code.
“So what do we do now about the trolls, bashers and stalkers? How do we work to ensure that they don’t succeed in destroying radical feminists online and in real life? Radfems are always the front line in any backlash against feminism, always the lightning rod. Radfems deserve defending here against the concerted effort to silence their voices.”
I think we are in agreement about what we want to achieve but differ on tactics. This is what their next plan, to try and go after BB with their “reasonable” attacks on what she said about her son in order to distance her and Heart from the rest of the feminist community.
You don’t need to publish this. I just want to let you know how they are operating.
There were no triggers in that one, so I’ve let it through. Thanks, stayinganontoo.
I’ve also edited my original post in response to the valid criticism from you and others. I don’t necessarily accept every point you’ve made, but I certainly do accept some of them.
“I accept the criticism that I bought into discussing BB’s behaviour, even though my intent was to be supportive there for reasons previously explained.”
I’ve seen too many posts that trash BB even while still deploring the harassment, as if to say, well, BB is an abusive parent but even so, they’ve gone too far. I don’t see why it’s wrong to call bullshit on that meme, that while nothing anybody could ever say justifies this type of harassment, in general it’s also bullshit to dissect someone’s parenting and label her abusive based on some venting on a blog. What’s wrong with that?
I was going to comment here yesterday, but seem I’m a bit late in on the discussion.
I do think there are two seperate things going on here:
1) the attacks by the scum sociopaths
and totally seperate
2) an ongoing longer-standing problem from within the feminist community of people who watch and wait for BB, Heart, radfems to say something which can then be lied about/twisted/misrepresented. And those same people are now popping up in the discussion about 1) above with the same old shite about BB etc being unhinged/abusive.
That is totally unacceptable to me and I don’t want to see that ignored – in fact it needs to be constantly challenged, but the context is that it is an argument with other feminists not with the trollers.
beeandflower.livejournal.com is a new information kiosk posted to keep anyone and everyone affected by Anonymous as safe as possible. Since Anonymous has found it, best to get the word out quickly :D
Cammy,
I did originally have a few more paragraphs discussing BB’s family. I deleted them as I felt the arguments that they detracted from the hate actions of the attackers were valid. I left only the point that online venting shouldn’t be used to evaluate parenting because I too think it’s a crucial point, and I’m glad that you feel the same.
therealuk,
Yep, the trolls/harassers/stalkers and their threats are the prime issue.
Your second issue plays into it: they’ve chosen BB/Heart as their target largely because of the wedge that already exists there, as you note. Their goal is to get feminists fighting with each other for their amusement as much as it is to just intimidate individual voices.
Good! You had me worried there for a moment!
Thank you for writing about this. I wrote about it too on my blog, which is also being attacked. They are attacking me with harassing comments and image raep. They’ve even gone further and found a new security breach in WordPress. They’re talking about sending massive quantities of religious books to my PO Box, too.
[...] reduced to the individual. “But I don’t do that!” cry men on feminist blogs (when “they’ aren’t threatening rape, murder and so on), and other forms of discrimination are responded to with “some of my bestest friends in the [...]
Hey, tigtog, I am making the rounds right now to thank those who supported me in the recent internet attacks on Women’s Space. Thanks for putting yourself out there, it meant a lot to me.
And thanks for what you say here, therealUK, which are the truest words I’ve seen in a long time:
an ongoing longer-standing problem from within the feminist community of people who watch and wait for BB, Heart, radfems to say something which can then be lied about/twisted/misrepresented. And those same people are now popping up in the discussion about 1) above with the same old shite about BB etc being unhinged/abusive.
That is totally unacceptable to me and I don’t want to see that ignored – in fact it needs to be constantly challenged, but the context is that it is an argument with other feminists not with the trollers.
Thanks again, tigtog,
Heart
You’re welcome, Heart. It’s important to not allow differences in issues and emphasis in feminisms to come between us when others attempt to silence our voices.