Andy.scicluna@hotmail.com

Greta: “…And for anyone who thinks, “Oh, she’s just banning people who disagree with her”; There are plenty of people who comment on this blog, and indeed who are commenting in this thread, who express opinions that disagree with mine and that I even find reprehensible. I do not ban them. I ban people who are sucking the air out of the room. And I am entirely within my rights to do so. Hell, if I wanted to ban everyone whose name ended in the letter Z and who posted at 6:32 pm on a Tuesday, I would be within my rights to do so. What with this being my blog and all. I don’t do that — but I will ban people who are sucking the air out of the room…”

“sucking the air out of the room” can mean absolutely anything. It’s completely arbitrary and not the defense of a supporter of the free exchange of ideas and viewpoints. At what point is it not disagreement but instead “sucking the air out of the room”? It’s not established. It’s not even hinted at.
There’s a point to her pieces, and in those 2 it is to keep focus aimed at DJ Grothe. Anything else is “trolling.”

Greta says that she does not ban people who disagree with her who hold opinions that are “reprehensible,” but there is no evidence of this.

Here, we have her blocking some guy for responding in opposition to Rebecca Watson having been voted most influential female atheist of the year. He made one comment and noted the tribalism.
https://www.facebook.com/gretachristina/posts/343817898962246

https://www.facebook.com/gretachristina/posts/343817898962246

These are all particularly drafted arguments to dismiss the concerns of others and group them as quickly as possible with apologists for hatred and abuse of women.

As far as Greta’s commenting policy, it’s one that is arbitrarily enforced. Someone who the group has labeled as an agitator calls into attention the treatment that he or she has experienced to which Greta will say that she appreciates their wonderful contributions but attacks are not allowed. Members of the group tell Greta that the dissident is a “troll” and she then justices the blocking of dissent.
I know there’s a lot there and would take hours to read over, but in her first or second missive against Grothe, at the bottom, she declares that she reserves the right to ban anyone for any reason she wishes (including a matter as arbitrary as having one’s name start with the letter Z). Not on a computer now where I can easily pull up the permalink. Will link to it later.

Does Greta have a right to ban people for arbitrary reasons? As it is her blog, certainly. But, should she be banning people for arbitrary reasons when the threads follow posts calling attention against fellow leaders for missteps perceived or real with calls to boycott and accusations that these leaders somehow put women’s safety at risk? No. That’s inexcusable behavior for a leader of a skeptic community.

Greta’s rule of acceptable commentary is superficially no ad homs and that’s a good start (except for she and her supporters calling people trolls that disagree with any declaration made and given in bad faith), but the reason that we hold the ad hom fallacy problematic is presented in these personal posts about DJ and and misogyny-in-our-midst. We’re not talking about his responses. We turn to talk about the individual as a person who justifies misogyny. All of his contributions then become but a footnote. His other opinions on any matter called into question.
If you take a look at the comments in the various conversations about this, people are saying they will never support him again. We’re seeing the Dawkins thing repeat.
And Greta is NOT advising anyone not to act in haste. It’s the obvious intention of a post where she says she won’t attend TAM for her safety is at risk because of this Ryan character, of whom I read somewhere, perhaps from DJ in his responses to Greta, deleted his posts, feels he overreacted and is now ashamed of himself.
We don’t have Ryan sending her messages or harassing her. I have seen no group of Ryan supporters talking about wanting vengeance against Greta. No one is saying “Yes, but Ryan was right” about the outbursts. But people are saying that the guy has a point about the way things have been played by some, and for that this continues on that TAM is a dangerous place for DJ will be there and he must call into question his devotion to the safety of women.

2 things: Yes, you permalink by clicking on the date of a status for anyone who wants to know, but screenshots are a wise idea as well. Secondly, in your second part of this, you don’t have the screenshots of Ryan saying he will kick Greta and her fans in the c***. This was in response to Ophelia saying that someone wanted to kick her in the c*** and it somehow being attributed to Ryan or some matter in which he thought he was accused of it and later posted a status that he would kick she and her fans in the c***, along with kicking the men in their scrotums and the transgendered people in the apparently smaller genitalia.
This is childish and although I don’t think it’s funny, I can’t take it seriously.
The thought of this man attending some place and going around kicking people in their privates is a YouTube skit. Greta leaves off from this reporting that this kid has shown remorse for the statuses, and she also leaves out that he said he would kick men in their scrotums because this doesn’t play into the narrative that specifically women are under attack. I’m by no stretch of the imagination a men’s rights advocate, however I can see what Greta is doing here by selectively focusing on one part of his status and leaving out the other part. Additionally, as a man, I have absolutely no fear that Ryan will be a TAM and attempting to kick me in my gonads.
The people leading these charges of misogynists in our midst

On an unrelated note, now I know how to permalink to Facebook posts. Who else can see that post? Can everyone see it, or does Greta have her privacy set so that only her friends can see it?

https://www.facebook.com/gretachristina/posts/295848487132808

[Name redacted] (3rd comment down): “That was a good poisoning of the well there. We can’t just happen to agree, no, I’m a “ditto head” adding to the excoriation of whatever the heck that nonsense was… Sigh. “there there dear, you’re just overreacting, try to be quieter next time and not so histrionic and then maybe we can get somewhere”. No, DJ, you didn’t literally say that, but that’s how it comes across to those of us told to shut p about this all our lives and called sluts, whores, bitches, cunts, etc for daring to exist on the Internet with a vagina.”

Chris, I think you’re just hitting the tip of the iceberg with these attempts to shut down debate, especially in a *skeptical community* by a) saying that misogyny is the worst of all crimes, and b) the speaker gets to define what misogyny is.

I’ve seen too many places where disagreement with actions or arguments made by our nice little skeptical talliban is “misogyny”, “excusing misogynistic behavior”, “rape apology”, “women hating”, “privilege” and even “gender traitor.”

I don’t know where she went to school, but these are some fundamentals.

You quote the person exactly and then paraphrase to the best of your ability in good faith what you understand the person to be writing and what you believe the implications to be. Then, you can confirm with the person if they feel you really understand and see their POV correctly. From there, the process continues.

Instead, she flips his words around in a more fanatical light and quotes them. I actually think for all his instability that he showed some restraint and I give her more credit than her as you can see that this guy is very troubled by it and is in some typo of agony for it to move on and leave the community, while Greta calmly brings it up and jabs for entertainment.
Think I was wrong and exaggerate the entertainment for her?
“bathtub of chocolate, a pony”, “The magic works!”, “It’s like magic!”

This is PZ Myerseque behavior, and although I’m not of the same emotional state as this Ryan fellow, I concede some of the shared concerns when even our so-called leaders are egging on the conflict.