One of the minor annoyances of YouTube is their superficial algorithm for predicting your preferences, so they can help you with recommendations for what to watch next. Oh, you watched a scathing takedown of Thunderf00t? Here’s the whole Thunderf00t catalog of obsessive inanity, you’ll like that.

So I’m very happy to see a Google Chrome addon that kills all that crap, Hbomb’s YouTube Censorship Chrome Addon. It also wipes out a whole bunch of other assholes. Recommended.

^*By the way, it’s not actually censorship to voluntarily refuse to pay attention to someone; it would be censorship if the preferences of others were blocked against their will. It’s just fun to call it censorship because we’re refusing to watch the videos of precisely the kind of people who are unclear on that distinction.

I’m checked into the Doubletree in Bloomington for Convergence, and have a busy day ahead of me. In a quirk of scheduling, almost all of my panels are today: 5 of them, one after the other, that will completely tie me up all afternoon and early evening. Which leaves me with just one panel on Friday and one on Sunday, so after this I’ll have a light weekend and can enjoy just being here. Anyway, today I’m discussing invasive species, religion in the future, the cosmic perspective (all the things that make us inconsequential in the universe), apocalyptic plagues, and the state of science. Hmm. None of that is very cheerful or optimistic. Looking over my notes for the panels, I’m not bringing much levity, either. I’ll have to hit up some parties tonight.

The fine fellow who created the Trump/CNN wrestling video has been tracked down and identified (but not “doxxed”, as the wingnuts are trying to claim). CNN called him and confronted him with his inanity and his contemptible history of racism and sexism, and he scrambled to cover his butt with an apology.

I would like to apologize to the members of the Reddit community for getting this site and this sub embroiled in a controversy that should never have happened, HanAssholeSolo wrote in a Fourth of July post on Reddit.

…

On Tuesday, HanAssholeSolo said he was sorry for his remarks. I am not the person that the media portrays me to be in real life, HanAssholeSolo wrote. I was trolling and posting things to get a reaction from the subs on Reddit.

It became an addiction as to how far I could of with the posts that were made, the Reddit user wrote, calling the incident an extreme wake up call to always consider how others may thing or feel about what is being said before clicking the submit button.

Free speech is a right we all have, but it shouldn’t be used in the manner that it was in the posts that were put on this site, HanAssholeSolo said, before arguing he intended for the meme to be taken purely as satire.

I do not advocate violence against the press and the meme I posted was in no way advocating that in any way, shape or form, the user continued. Our First Amendment protect the press from things like violence, and we as American citizens should respect that even if the opinions of the press are not in line with our own.

I had no idea alone would take it and put sound to it and then have it put up on the President’s Twitter feed, HanAssholeSolo wrote. It was a prank, nothing more.

Apparently, we’re now expected to accept his apology and praise him for seeing the error of his ways. I don’t. I see the usual noise: Free speech! First amendment! It was satire! (said by someone who has no concept of satire). It was just a prank!

Worst of all, the denial implicit in I am not the person that the media portrays me to be in real life. Yes, HanAssholeSolo, you are exactly that person. We saw what you chose to be when you could skulk in cowardly anonymity, and that person is an ugly bigot who tries to curry favor with other ugly bigots. This was you before you learned that your anonymity was easily pierced.

HanAssholeSolo claimed he made the gif, writing on the pro-Trump subreddit r/the_Donald, Holy sh*t!! I wake up and have my morning coffee and who retweets my shitpost but the MAGA EMPORER [sic] himself!!! I am honored!!

Shortly thereafter, news organizations noticed a history of offensive posts, including casual use of highly offensive terms including n*****, goatf*cker and f****t.

500,000 dead Muslims is a good start, HanAssholeSolo wrote in one response. Kill the rest and I’ll be impressed. Good keep up the good work until the last Islamic piece of shit is wiped from the planet.

There are people who have to be anonymous on the internet, who express themselves as decent human beings…and they have to be anonymous to protect themselves from vicious petty bullies like HanAssholeSolo. I’ll be more amenable to accepting that apology when he admits to himself that the middle part of his nom de smear was exactly accurate and describes precisely what he is.

Right now, I have a suspicion that he has a couple of these shitposting account names and will be back seeking the approval of his fellow shitlords. Because that’s who he is.

That’s the moment when Piers Morgan realizes his co-host has twisted his own knife around and stabbed him with it. It’s beautiful.

Another hangout today? Yes! I’ll finding out what Dr Sarah of the Geeky Humanist is up to at 4pm Central time. Sarah is…

a 45-year-old GP living in England with one husband and two children. I’m a skeptic, a humanist, a feminist, and an atheist, and I love debunking myths when I can find the time to do so. I also love reading, and I’m a big fan of fantasy: Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series (most of his non-Discworld books actually aren’t all that), Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series, Diane Duane’s Young Wizard series, Mercedes Lackey’s 500 Kingdoms and most of her Valdemar books, and probably several others.

We might end up talking about fantasy novels. Leave questions here or on the youtube video if those subjects strike your interest. As usual, other freethoughtbloggers might drift in, too.

I’m going to be hanging out with Siggy of A Trivial Knot today at noon Central time. Here’s Siggy’s blurb:

Siggy is a physics grad student in the US. He writes about math, philosophy, social criticism, and origami. He is an ace activist best known for running The Asexual Agenda, and for analyzing ace community demographics.

If any of those topics interest you, show up at noon, leave questions here, or on the youtube chat board.

Also, I open up entry to the hangout to everyone on the FtB backchannel, so we might have a surprise guest or two. You never know.

Anita Sarkeesian was at a convention of youtubers this week, which sounds like a kind of hell. It’s not that I don’t think there is worthy content on youtube — this event was founded by Hank and John Green, who do good work — but that you just know it was also going to draw in the worst people on the internet. It’s an audience I would not want to hang with, and they wouldn’t want anything to do with me.

True to form, the worst people on the internet showed up to Sarkeesian’s panel, which was on the harassment women receive. They smugly took over the first couple of rows of seats, and even proudly posted videos of themselves filling the front row. Oh, boy, an opportunity for real-life harassment!

Sarkeesian fired back, and good for her.

If you google my name on YouTube you get shitheads like this dude who are making these dumbass videos that just say the same shit over and over again. And like I hate to give you attention because you’re a garbage human. Whatever dude.

But the fact that these dudes are making endless videos going after every feminist over and over and over again I think is a part of the issue. Why do we have these conversations? We don’t just get to be online. We don’t just get to participate like everyone else.

The dude she specifically pointed at in this criticism was Carl Benjamin, who goes by the pretentious pseudonym Sargon of Akkad, who actually is a garbage human, one of the army of the worst people on the internet who rants constantly against feminism, against the “regressive left”, and who thinks any of those women who complain about non-stop harassment are “professional victims”.

Which makes it particularly interesting now that if you follow Sarkeesian’s suggestion and google her name on YouTube you will find hundreds of videos proclaiming the martyrdom of Carl Benjamin. Why, he was just sitting there innocently to respectfully listen to Anita Sarkeesian, and she bullied and humiliated and harassed him, for no reason at all! He can’t be a garbage human, because he just popped into existence for that panel, and has no history of any kind, and no reason that Sarkeesian might have singled him out.

Now, suddenly, Benjamin has decided that he is a “victim of abuse”.

Absolutely no empathy shown towards a victim of abuse. This is exactly the kind of follower @femfreq attracts, @vidcon. https://t.co/BiYHDI0XV6

— 1337 Human (@Sargon_of_Akkad) June 23, 2017

And that he was publicly humiliated and harassed by Anita Sarkeesian, and that he is “triggered”.

Triggering is not a joking matter, @vidcon. The public humiliation Anita subjected me to is horrific harassment. https://t.co/UO0wAtJvcp

— 1337 Human (@Sargon_of_Akkad) June 23, 2017

Yeah, right, and now all of his followers are realizing that harassment is a real problem, so they’ll stop doing it themselves. The level of hypocritical bullshit from the worst people on the internet has suddenly jinked skyward. Benjamin has actually had the oblivious gall to ask the conference organizers to block her from sitting on another panel today because she called him a name. Who would have thought the man who wrote a petition to get universities to stop teaching courses on social justice could be so censorious?