TechyDad

I was the victim of a cyberstalker about a decade ago. This person was convinced that I was really someone else that she had a beef with. Her reasoning? We both like taking photos. (Apparently, I’m the only one posting photos online. All those pictures you see online? That’s all me. No wonder I have no free time!)

I couldn’t argue with her to let her know that she was mistaken because she had it on “very good authority” that I was lying about who I was. Namely, “God told her.” And I’m not exaggerating here. She literally thought that God talked to her and told her stuff like who was committing crimes.

Oh and I was guilty of those crimes according to “God.” I won’t name those crimes because they’re heinous, but suffice it to say she thought I was doing unspeakable things to kids. She was threatening to call my employer, the police, and everyone who knew me to tell them about what I was doing.

Luckily for me, all she had to go on was “TechyDad.” I blogged at the time, but didn’t post my exact whereabouts or my real name. The guy that she thought I was wasn’t as lucky. She contacted his employer (a school in New Zealand) and everyone with the same last name as him that was on Facebook and near him. All to tell them what he did to kids. (Again, her source was “God.” He didn’t really do anything and he had to have quite a few awkward conversations to clear things up.)

I finally got rid of the stalker by grabbing her IP address (from one of her comments) and modifying my htaccess file to report 404 Page Not Found for only that IP. She crowed on Twitter about how she singlehandedly took me down and then moved on. (I and her other targets would report her to Twitter, but she’d constantly have dozens of other handles ready and waiting and would switch to them the second her main one was banned.)

To my knowledge, she’s still out there stalking people.

Now, how would this have been different had she had my real name? Well, with a little work she would have been able to look up my location. (My name’s pretty common, but she’d find me eventually.) Then, she’d locate my employer, my address, and other information. She could send me packages or mail harassing me. She could contact my local police to swat me or just to report my “crimes.” She could contact my employer to report me and try to get me fired.

Now, I eventually did tie my real name to “TechyDad.” I wrote a book and didn’t want to publish under “TechyDad” so I used my two name. That being said, it was my choice. I definitely wouldn’t want it to be required for me to use my real name everywhere.

The only reason that he seemed like a “Genius CEO” with SpaceX and Tesla was because those companies had layers of management dedicated to protecting the company from Musk.

If Musk marched into Tesla and decided that all Tesla cars should have eyeball shaped headlights, managers would tell him what a genius idea that was and that they’d get right on it. Then, they’d distract him with something else while the idea went in the trash can.

Twitter has no such management layer so every Elon Epiphany becomes Twitter policy no matter how bad or destructive it is. SpaceX and Tesla were successes despite Musk and Musk gained his “genius” reputation because those companies were able to filter out his idiocy.

Great to hear! Sync was my first third party Reddit app. I eventually switched to Boost (IIRC, Sync was having some problems with image uploads and so I moved clients), but Sync was still a great Reddit app.

Even though I’m liking Jerboa, I can’t wait to see what the “third party Reddit developers” can do. The more Lemmy apps, the better!

Apparently, those subreddits are now not only open, but completely unmoderated. Reddit’s solution was to remove the mods and put nobody else in charge. I’m sure that won’t backfire in any way whatsoever! /s

Email: “Hi, this is IT. It looks like your password is expired. Please change your password by clicking this link. Ignore the weird from address and the fact that the link obviously goes to a noncompany website. We’re really from your IT department. Promise!”

Way too many users: “Yup. This looks legit. Better coick that link and enter all of my information right now!”

Thanks for posting this. It will help me replace a few more of the subreddits I loved going to with Lemmy alternatives. I might still need to go to Reddit for a couple of subreddits (one local one and one hobby one), but my goal is to reduce my Reddit usage as much as possible.

I don’t usually fault companies for messing up if they own up to their mistakes and make it right. Everyone is going to make mistakes and things will go wrong at times. It’s how a company handles events when everything goes sideways that shows whether they are good or bad.

In Reddit’s case, they could have acknowledged that their API plans were too aggressive and overpriced. They could have paused any API pricing changes and worked with third party developers to come to a solution where Reddit is paid, but third party developers don’t have to shut down due to immediate and insanely high costs being demanded. Everyone could have walked away benefiting and Reddit’s reputation (in my eyes) would have been intact. I’d likely be posting there right now instead of here on Lemmy.

Instead, Reddit decided to double and triple down. Their CEO decided to accuse the developer of Apollo of threatening Reddit and, when phone call audio proved this was a lie, blamed the developer for “leaking personal phone calls.” Then, that same CEO claimed that the API was never meant for third party apps (ignoring and trying to rewrite history) and said that any moderators who kept their subreddits blacked out would be replaced. All while claiming that the moderators should rest easy because Reddit would definitely provide tool themselves to replace lost third party tools despite no sign of this happening and trust being totally shattered. (And so much more that I’m not including because this comment is too long already.)

So Reddit messing up? That could have been forgiven had they done the right thing afterwards. But now, after completely botching the response? I hope Reddit withers away to nothing and the CEO’s IPO dreams die on the vine.

They could have even gotten third party apps to pay for API access. They just needed to set a fair rate and a workable timeline for the change.

Instead, they said “we’re charging $20 million starting next month. Good luck trying to stay afloat with those sudden costs!”

Reddit could have increased their profits and kept users/moderators happy, but they chose Burn It All Down instead.

I went back on briefly today for the first time to:

• Make sure I had read all my replies.

• Check the Boost subreddit to confirm it was going dark at the end of the month. (There was an update so I was wondering if there was some hope of it saying online.)

• Check is the two subreddits I actually still care about are closed. (One is. Another isn’t.)

I didn’t read any posts (except in the Boost subreddit to confirm that it was being shut down) and definitely didn’t comment or post anything. After that brief check in, I’m not going back for some time.