Editor's Note Today, The Verge is publishing an interim edition of Sarah Jeong’s The Internet of Garbage, a book she first published in 2015 that has since gone out of print. It is a thorough and...
Editor's Note
Today, The Verge is publishing an interim edition of Sarah Jeong’s The Internet of Garbage, a book she first published in 2015 that has since gone out of print. It is a thorough and important look at the intractable problem of online harassment.
After a year on The Verge’s staff as a senior writer, Sarah recently joined The New York Times Editorial Board to write about technology issues. The move kicked off a wave of outrage and controversy as a group of trolls selectively took Sarah’s old tweets out of context to inaccurately claim that she is a racist. This prompted a further wave of unrelenting racist harassment directed at Sarah, a wave of coverage examining her tweets, and a final wave of coverage about the state of outrage generally. This is all deeply ironic because Sarah laid out exactly how these bad-faith tactics work in The Internet of Garbage.
Lost in all of this noise was the fact that Sarah Jeong is an actual person — a person who was an integral and beloved part of The Verge’s team and a deeply respected journalist for years before that. Her extensive reporting on online communities, norms, and harassment is rigorous and insightful in a way that few others have ever matched. Discussing Sarah’s tweets in a vacuum without contending with her life’s actual work in the very field of online communities and harassment is, quite frankly, ridiculous.
The Internet of Garbage provides an immediate and accessible look at how online harassment works, how it might be categorized and distinguished, and why the structure of the internet and the policies surrounding it are overwhelmed in fighting it. Sarah has long planned to publish an updated and expanded second edition, but in this particular moment, I am pleased that she’s allowed us to publish this interim edition with a new preface.
In that new preface, Sarah stresses that her original text was written from a place of optimism. But the years since have not been kind to internet culture. She writes that the tactics of Gamergate, so clearly on display during the harassment campaign waged against her over the last few weeks, have “overtaken our national political and cultural conversations.” That new culture is driven by the shape of the internet and the interactions it fosters. “We are all victims of fraud in the marketplace of ideas,” she writes.
I hope everyone with a true and sincere interest in improving our online communities reads The Internet of Garbage and contends with the scope of the problem Sarah lays out in its pages. We are making the entire text of The Internet of Garbage 1.5 available for free as a PDF, ePub, and .mobi ebook file, and for the minimum allowed price of $.99 in the Amazon Kindle store. Below, we have excerpted Chapter 3, “Lessons from Copyright Law.”
I'm sorry, but it isn't a few old tweets taken out of context. It is years of tweets showing a pattern of behavior. See: https://twitter.com/i/moments/1025792822467801088 Sarah Jeong is a racist...
The move kicked off a wave of outrage and controversy as a group of trolls selectively took Sarah’s old tweets out of context to inaccurately claim that she is a racist.
This is pretty damning evidence. While I don't have time to go through all the context in these tweets, there's so many of them one has to wonder if it's a recurring theme for a reason. It seems...
This is pretty damning evidence. While I don't have time to go through all the context in these tweets, there's so many of them one has to wonder if it's a recurring theme for a reason. It seems pretty unlikely for a list this long to exist and for all of them to be out of context.
I think the context and recurring theme here is that Twitter is full of white dudes who are the sort of thin-skinned bullies who can't stand the taste of their own medicine. Then again, Sarah...
I think the context and recurring theme here is that Twitter is full of white dudes who are the sort of thin-skinned bullies who can't stand the taste of their own medicine.
Just skimming the tweets it didn't seem like all of the tweets were jabs at racists. However, twitter is full of racist stuff, so it'd require a bit more digging. Honestly I don't care enough...
Just skimming the tweets it didn't seem like all of the tweets were jabs at racists. However, twitter is full of racist stuff, so it'd require a bit more digging. Honestly I don't care enough about Sarah or this particular fight to spend the time analyzing it. I'm glad someone else I respect for their critical thinking skills had a response though, as it gives me some perspective on the issue.
Thanks. It doesn't really merit much analysis. Also, I had read Ms. Jeong's book back when it first came out. She wasn't telling me much that I didn't already know. Basically, the internet is shit...
I'm glad someone else I respect for their critical thinking skills had a response though
Thanks.
Honestly I don't care enough about Sarah or this particular fight to spend the time analyzing it.
It doesn't really merit much analysis. Also, I had read Ms. Jeong's book back when it first came out. She wasn't telling me much that I didn't already know. Basically, the internet is shit because of capitalism, corporate neglect, shitty public policy, and white dudes being assholes.
Fixed that for you. There are assholes of every color, shape, size, sex, gender, etc... let's not fall victim to the same mentality that Ms. Jeong holds. How about, instead of blaming white dudes,...
people being assholes
Fixed that for you. There are assholes of every color, shape, size, sex, gender, etc... let's not fall victim to the same mentality that Ms. Jeong holds. How about, instead of blaming white dudes, we blame assholes in general.
How about you sit down and ask yourself why you find criticism of white people by white people so objectionable, instead of presuming to correct me? 'Cause you're this close to proving my point.
How about, instead of blaming white dudes, we blame assholes in general.
How about you sit down and ask yourself why you find criticism of white people by white people so objectionable, instead of presuming to correct me?
To be clear, are you saying that both the Stuff White People Like blog and the "Jews will not replace us" chant from Charlottesville marchers can both be described by the same term, "racism"?
I find criticism of anyone based on race objectionable.
To be clear, are you saying that both the Stuff White People Like blog and the "Jews will not replace us" chant from Charlottesville marchers can both be described by the same term, "racism"?
When people say 'white dudes' in the context of these conversations, what they mean is white dudes who are the product of (broadly) Western culture. I truly believe nobody would suggest that white...
I find criticism of anyone based on race objectionable
When people say 'white dudes' in the context of these conversations, what they mean is white dudes who are the product of (broadly) Western culture. I truly believe nobody would suggest that white dudes are the way they are because of the genetic traits related to their white skin. So to call these statements racist is just off the mark. It's a misunderstanding of nuance in the conversation. Pluck a shepherd from some remote corner of the Alps, nobody would suggest that he is disproportionately an asshole because of traits related to the color of his skin.
I care less than not at all about people of color taking jabs at white people, but I had no idea she'd treated SexyCyborg like that. What a trash person. (And Vice is a trash publication.)
I care less than not at all about people of color taking jabs at white people, but I had no idea she'd treated SexyCyborg like that. What a trash person. (And Vice is a trash publication.)
Editor's Note
Today, The Verge is publishing an interim edition of Sarah Jeong’s The Internet of Garbage, a book she first published in 2015 that has since gone out of print. It is a thorough and important look at the intractable problem of online harassment.
After a year on The Verge’s staff as a senior writer, Sarah recently joined The New York Times Editorial Board to write about technology issues. The move kicked off a wave of outrage and controversy as a group of trolls selectively took Sarah’s old tweets out of context to inaccurately claim that she is a racist. This prompted a further wave of unrelenting racist harassment directed at Sarah, a wave of coverage examining her tweets, and a final wave of coverage about the state of outrage generally. This is all deeply ironic because Sarah laid out exactly how these bad-faith tactics work in The Internet of Garbage.
Lost in all of this noise was the fact that Sarah Jeong is an actual person — a person who was an integral and beloved part of The Verge’s team and a deeply respected journalist for years before that. Her extensive reporting on online communities, norms, and harassment is rigorous and insightful in a way that few others have ever matched. Discussing Sarah’s tweets in a vacuum without contending with her life’s actual work in the very field of online communities and harassment is, quite frankly, ridiculous.
The Internet of Garbage provides an immediate and accessible look at how online harassment works, how it might be categorized and distinguished, and why the structure of the internet and the policies surrounding it are overwhelmed in fighting it. Sarah has long planned to publish an updated and expanded second edition, but in this particular moment, I am pleased that she’s allowed us to publish this interim edition with a new preface.
In that new preface, Sarah stresses that her original text was written from a place of optimism. But the years since have not been kind to internet culture. She writes that the tactics of Gamergate, so clearly on display during the harassment campaign waged against her over the last few weeks, have “overtaken our national political and cultural conversations.” That new culture is driven by the shape of the internet and the interactions it fosters. “We are all victims of fraud in the marketplace of ideas,” she writes.
I hope everyone with a true and sincere interest in improving our online communities reads The Internet of Garbage and contends with the scope of the problem Sarah lays out in its pages. We are making the entire text of The Internet of Garbage 1.5 available for free as a PDF, ePub, and .mobi ebook file, and for the minimum allowed price of $.99 in the Amazon Kindle store. Below, we have excerpted Chapter 3, “Lessons from Copyright Law.”
—Nilay Patel, editor-in-chief, The Verge
I'm sorry, but it isn't a few old tweets taken out of context. It is years of tweets showing a pattern of behavior. See: https://twitter.com/i/moments/1025792822467801088
Sarah Jeong is a racist and I will not support her or her works.
This is pretty damning evidence. While I don't have time to go through all the context in these tweets, there's so many of them one has to wonder if it's a recurring theme for a reason. It seems pretty unlikely for a list this long to exist and for all of them to be out of context.
I think the context and recurring theme here is that Twitter is full of white dudes who are the sort of thin-skinned bullies who can't stand the taste of their own medicine.
Then again, Sarah Jeong threw Naomi Wu under a bus to help one of her buddies at Vice, so she might just be a selfish asshole who cares about little beyond her own advancement.
Just skimming the tweets it didn't seem like all of the tweets were jabs at racists. However, twitter is full of racist stuff, so it'd require a bit more digging. Honestly I don't care enough about Sarah or this particular fight to spend the time analyzing it. I'm glad someone else I respect for their critical thinking skills had a response though, as it gives me some perspective on the issue.
Thanks.
It doesn't really merit much analysis. Also, I had read Ms. Jeong's book back when it first came out. She wasn't telling me much that I didn't already know. Basically, the internet is shit because of capitalism, corporate neglect, shitty public policy, and white dudes being assholes.
Fixed that for you. There are assholes of every color, shape, size, sex, gender, etc... let's not fall victim to the same mentality that Ms. Jeong holds. How about, instead of blaming white dudes, we blame assholes in general.
How about you sit down and ask yourself why you find criticism of white people by white people so objectionable, instead of presuming to correct me?
'Cause you're this close to proving my point.
I find criticism of anyone based on race objectionable.
Assholes/racists are the problem, not white dudes or any other race, sex, gender specifically.
To be clear, are you saying that both the Stuff White People Like blog and the "Jews will not replace us" chant from Charlottesville marchers can both be described by the same term, "racism"?
Today on Tildes: white dudes willfully conflate institutional racism and simple prejudice.
Again!
When people say 'white dudes' in the context of these conversations, what they mean is white dudes who are the product of (broadly) Western culture. I truly believe nobody would suggest that white dudes are the way they are because of the genetic traits related to their white skin. So to call these statements racist is just off the mark. It's a misunderstanding of nuance in the conversation. Pluck a shepherd from some remote corner of the Alps, nobody would suggest that he is disproportionately an asshole because of traits related to the color of his skin.
I care less than not at all about people of color taking jabs at white people, but I had no idea she'd treated SexyCyborg like that. What a trash person. (And Vice is a trash publication.)