She was met with comments that explained how this AMA would be used against Manning and that she's doing something very unethical and harmful to the defense. She doesn't seem to care, as her response on twitter was something about having learned how many times redditors can call her "fucking cunt" and "bitch."
Her commentariat takes the cake, one user saying that there can't be that many lawyers on reddit because he works with lawyers who don't know what reddit is. Just so you know I'm not misrepresenting their comment:
The only thing I can hope is that Manning's defense is all over this and they don't use her. Even if the prosecution isn't permitted to use anything in the AMA itself, they will still have enough to eat her up with.
She should be working with the attorneys she's testifying for. They should able to tell her what behavior is appropriate under the circumstances.
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely correct. Her responses to criticisms as far as I've seen have been, "Well, they didn't tell me I couldn't," which seems to imply she didn't ask them first. If she did and they said go ahead, then I'll post a correction. Just as a fun side note, since you're a lawyer: have you heard of reddit? ;)
ReplyDeleteYeah, and I use it to generate blog hits. (Shameless, I know.)
ReplyDeleteOh, could you change the link to my blog to "skeptically left" and the new URL? I'd greatly appreciate that. xoxo
ReplyDeleteOh yes! Of course! I remembered to do it on my RSS reader, but not the blog roll! Thanks for letting me know!
ReplyDeleteBefore posting an AMA, the moderators required rather extensive proof that I was who I said I was. No such requirement is placed on random reddit commenters who simply declare themselves to be lawyers, and I'm not particularly inclined to believe that without any kind of proof. Saying you're a lawyer on the internet is more trivial than actually being a lawyer. And saying someone was told something by "countless lawyers" would first require establishing that they're, well, actually lawyers. Even if we do take that at face value, it also discounts all the other self-proclaimed lawyers who saw no issue with it.
ReplyDeletetl;dr not impressed by internet "lawyers" who, in their professional capacity, decide to call people dumb bitches on reddit
Do you realise reddit isn't their professional capacity?
DeleteIn any event, notwithstanding that I am a lawyer but am not inclined to prove that to you, I think not speaking about your testimony in public before the trial / judgment (if you want this guy to have his best possible chance) is common sense.
(And as someone below said how about responding to the people who didn't call you names?)
But the horse has already bolted. Have fun during cross-examination.
Zinnia, this gets a lot easier for all if you are honest and admit you've no interest in any opinions that disagree with your decision, regardless of reason. You've probably poisoned yourself as a defense witness anyway.
DeleteAlso, good job on only requiring bona fides from those disagreeing with you. I guess anyone agreeing with you and claiming to be a lawyer MUST be honest.
It would also be much more straightforward if people were to admit that they're capriciously objecting to this only now for some inscrutable reason, when I've been speaking publicly about this in countless venues since 2010 without issue or objection.
DeleteIf this is just about "here is a person from FTB, and a vaguely plausible reason to criticize them if you squint hard enough, internets GO!", then I understand.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Deletewrong. objection was raised in july 2011. its the first result on youtube for a search of 'ZJ' & 'Manning' - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CADJZ974Q2E
DeleteThank you for bringing that to my attention.
DeleteOh yes, let's turn this around into a conversation about how many times you got called names, rather than defend your actions. I did a quick search for "lawyer," and while there are many comment threads and some of them so long they needed to be hidden, none of the people I saw that called themselves lawyers called you a bitch. The most upvoted ones were civil and clearly laid out. How about addressing those instead of making the whole thing a red-herring for the FtB "feminism" cause?
ReplyDeleteForgive me for thinking that this was actually about whether what you said was accurate, and not about our feelings about some blog network. You seemed interested in, you know... defending actions.
ReplyDeleteWhat did I say that was inaccurate? Did you or did you not Do the AMA without consulting the defense? Did your commenter not mean what he said in the image I provided above?
DeleteAs to accuracy, sure, some of those redditors might not actually be lawyers, but it's a positive claim to say they are all lying. After all, innocent until proven guilty, right? Should I peruse the comments to find the "lawyers" who actually called you names? I'll do that if you promise to address the lawyers who had valid criticism of what you did. Better yet, prove the defense told you beforehand that this was okay and I'll go ahead and post a retraction with an apology. I'm willing to bend, are you?
Zinnia couldn't give two shits about accuracy. S/h/it came here to spout a spiel and found out that you were impervious to bullshit. So S/h/it went home
ReplyDeleteNot sure if the use of pronouns here is a slam against Zinnia being trans, but if it is, I think we can do this without resorting to it. Zinnia's behavior speaks for itself.
DeleteHere's a typical comment questioning Zinnia's judgement:
ReplyDelete"I don't think it's ever a good thing when the witness for a guy who could be facing life in prison or a death sentence is saying things like "I think he knew he was committing a crime"... I sure as hell wouldn't want you testifying if you were stupid enough to talk to the media in mass and answer anything you could before even stepping in court (just giving the opposition more ammo and more firepower by opening your mouth).
I have no remorse for Manning but I wouldn't even want a person like you to have any involvement - must talk to everyone and anyone instead of staying silent.
I hope you've broken some laws with information you give out so you pay for being an idiot.
Edit*-tldr You're an attention whore."
I guess that's the sort of comment she dismisses as calling her a whore.
Pro-Tip Zinnia: If you are going to spout easily refuted horseshit, keep it on Free-thought Blogs. Your low horseshit dissemination success rate in venues you don't control will make you sad.
:popcorn:
ReplyDeleteZinnia, it's not just the anti-FtB crowd that was worried by your AMA. In fact, most of the skeptic movement doesn't spend as much time online and don't even know what FtB is. Your little network is a drop in the bucket, and you are hardly the biggest name over there. If you've been speaking candidly about it and answering questions the same way you've been on the reddit, then yeah, that is stupid, too. You're giving the prosecution a lot of things to work with. Instead of admitting you fucked up, you turn this around and play the victim. That in itself makes you an unreachable, self-important jerk, but the fact that this may actually harm someone a lot of people care about makes you a terrible person.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with you Ryan. That term is used sometimes on the slymepit, but because the point of the slymepit is to foster discussion through unhindered, free speech, I've tried to make my feelings about transphobia clear without telling people what they can and can't say. On my blog, though, I'd prefer it if those particular slurs that attack a person for who they are (which can't be helped) and that have a long history of oppression weren't used.
ReplyDeleteI won't block anyone of ban anyone, but I'm just going to ask that we stay away from those things, out of respect for me and the trans friends I have IRL.
If you don't actually delete transphobic comments like Daniel Waddell's above, that contributes to making this an unsafe space for trans people.
Delete-- David-Sarah Hopwood
I can't reply directly to comments on the mobile site, so I'll just comment here. David-Sarah Hopwood, I can't agree with you. I think the best way to educate people who write comments such as Daniel's above is to keep discourse open and not censor what people say. In my comment, I've laid out how I feel about it and what I expect from commenters on the blog and I trust that the commenters will respect me enough to follow those boundaries or they will comment elsewhere. I also don't know why you would assume to speak for all transfolk and deem the blog "unsafe." I think transfolk can speak for themselves and if you are trans and don't feel "safe" here to have an open discussion that might bring up emotions but can be potentially constructive and educational, please say so referring to yourself rather than the entire community.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a pretty sensible policy. We should call out inappropriate comments, of course focusing on why they are inappropriate rather than making ad-hominem attacks on the commenter. If we just make comments disappear FTB style, nobody learns anything. And bloggers who rewrite comments are cowardly dishonest scum.
DeleteAlso I don't think "safe" is the right word here. It's not (yet) possible to wreak physical violence on someone over the internet. Sure, people can abuse you, but there's nothing to stop you from giving as good as you get or just ignoring and rising above. In this sense the internet levels the playing field. I'm not defending the abuse, but people tend to lose perspective and imagine it's the most awful thing that ever happened in the history of history.
Attitude is everything. You can choose to be hurt by someone else's words or you can take the attitude that their abusive words just show how nasty and immature they are.