Reply to How to handle this difficult situation with a friend

Forum Index » Off-Topic

Reply to "How to handle this difficult situation with a friend"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]No one who publicly signed their name to a letter is getting doxxed. [/quote]

It's not accurate to say the students were merely doxxed. What happened is that 20 students who had signed these statements from Palestinian student groups were targeted by a "doxxing truck" which drove around campus displaying their names, photos, a URL linked to their name, and the statement "Columbia's Leading Antisemites."

It is honestly insane to me that people don't see that as a threatening behavior that endangers those students. They signed their names to the statements willingly, they obviously are comfortable having their names associated with those statements. But what the doxxing truck did went FAR beyond calling out the statements or the groups that signed them. It placed targets on these students, described them as "leading antisemites" and harassed them on campus, while associating a URL with their names with the intention of making it a top or high Google result associated with their names. These are Palestinian students on a campus that is over 22% Jewish and comparatively small Arab student population.

Oh, and guess who paid for the doxxing truck? Far right media watchdog "Accuracy in Media."

It was harassment and the faculty statement OP's friend signed was released to address this specific behavior and to ask the university to take action to protect the safety of students on campus from this kind of OUTSIDE harassment.

I get why some folks might be bothered by some of what was in those student statements (I personally am not bothered by it, but I have enough close friends who are Jewish to have heard a wide variety of opinions on Israel and this conflict and to understand the argument for why those statements would be considered problematic or antisemitic by some). But this is not an acceptable or productive response and I'm grateful to the Columbia faculty for standing up to it. [/quote]

And yet, the Columbia faculty letter didn’t say any of what you said, which was that the truck and the response placed targets on the students and harassed them. A letter with that message would have been something I think everyone could have come together to agree upon. The faculty letter missed a huge opportunity to unify and instead came off as divisive. [/quote]

Literally the first paragraph of the faculty letter:

[i]The most recent devastating violence in Israel and Gaza that began on October 7, 2023 has had very disturbing reverberations on our campus – for all of us, students, faculty, staff, and the larger Columbia community.  [b]We write now to express grave concerns about how some of our students are being viciously targeted with doxing, public shaming, surveillance by members of our community, including other students, and reprisals from employers.[/b]  These egregious forms of harassment and efforts to chill otherwise protected speech on campus are unacceptable, and we implore every person in the Columbia University community - faculty, administrators, students, alums, public safety - to do more to protect all of our students while preserving Columbia University as a beacon for “fostering critical thinking and opening minds to different points of view,” as President Shafik wrote to the community in her October 18th message about upholding our collective values.[/i][/quote]

Should note emphasis is mine -- I bolded it because PP said most people would agree with a letter that said the doxing truck placed targets on students and harassed them. Which is exactly what the letter says. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics