Friday News: Twitter security, immersive reading, Stanford rape case, and a grandmother covers Drake
Publishing Newsfunny videos / internet security / rape culture / reading experiences / sexual-assault / Twitter7 Comments
Keeping your account safe – Twitter responds to reports that millions of passwords and emails are for sale on the “dark web.” Regardless of their reassurances, maybe a good idea to change your password:
We’ve investigated claims of Twitter @names and passwords available on the “dark web,” and we’re confident the information was not obtained from a hack of Twitter’s servers.
The purported Twitter @names and passwords may have been amassed from combining information from other recent breaches, malware on victim machines that are stealing passwords for all sites, or a combination of both. Regardless of origin, we’re acting swiftly to protect your Twitter account.
In each of the recent password disclosures, we cross-checked the data with our records. As a result, a number of Twitter accounts were identified for extra protection. Accounts with direct password exposure were locked and require a password reset by the account owner. – Twitter
Is It Harder to Be Transported By a Book As You Get Older? – Benjamin Moser talks about the difficulty of being a writer and reading other writers’ prose, noting that it’s much more difficult for him to read uncritically and immersively. I know this is the case for some writers, but certainly not all. Francine Prose, on the other hand, lays out several obstacles to getting lost in a book, but still says that it happens:
A neurologist friend says that adults are likelier than children to cross-reference when they read, to compare people and things in a book with people and things they know, which is why an adult reading experience may be a “dip” compared with the child’s “soak.” I enjoy reading a book written centuries ago and discovering a character almost exactly like someone I know. And so I am cross-referencing: My attention is divided between the fictional character and the real-life counterpart. . . .
Something about Turner’s father’s letter that really stood out for me was the suggestion that raping an unconscious woman wasn’t a violent act (near the end, when he’s talking about how his son has never been a violent person). That, I think, really shows the extent to which rape culture is embedded; the idea that rape is only violent if you have to physically assault the victim to make them submit. That somehow being unconscious makes it better for her and less worse for him. Violence is so much part of the narrative that if a victim doesn’t have bruises to prove they fought back they’re seen as culpable, because the actual act of sex against someone’s will apparently isn’t violent in and of itself.
The disgust at the 20 minutes remark is so dominating the discussion of the letter that in some places it’s hard to gauge whether people understand that rape culture underlies every sentiment Turner’s father expresses, and all of those sentiments need challenging, not just the worst one.
Twitter locked my account due to unusual/suspicious activity three days ago and after following the prompts to reset my password, I’ve yet to receive the email link to do so. Also, no response from their customer support after reporting the fact that I can’t reset my password. I don’t know if they’re inundated with complaints and can’t respond quickly, or it’s just poor customer service but it’s annoying.
That letter from Pastor Pavlovitz is awesome. It should be read to everyone accused of rape and posted prominently in every courtroom where rape cases are heard.
@Alison: I had that happen too, and was never told why. Eventually my account was unlocked, but it took a long, long time. I still don’t know what triggered it–my account wasn’t hacked, and I was clicking the “follow” button on Lin-Manuel Miranda’s account when I was blocked. Which is totally suspicious behavior that no one else on dog’s green earth is engaged in right now. /sarcasm
@MinaKelly: I’m not disagreeing with your overall comment, but I just want to add that Brock Turner alleged as part of his defense that the sex was consensual (which is one reason the grad student witness has been so vocal about insisting that she was unconscious the whole time he was on scene), and that may be shaping the father’s comment about violence. Some of his character references highlighted the same argument, and it may be that Turner’s lawyers asked letter writers to include that ridiculous argument in support of his defense. Although you are entirely correct about how women are judged, because even rape law has historically and overtly disfavored assaults that are not marked by physical marks and signs that the victim physically resisted/fought back.
@Floating Lush: My mother had a similar thing happen, a couple of hours after I convinced her to join Twitter. All she’d had a chance to do was start looking for accounts to follow.
She might have got it unblocked faster, but when asked for a phone number, she gave them her’s, which she wasn’t going to be anywhere near for a couple of weeks.
I’m a big fan of John Pavlovitz. In a day and age when Christians are behaving so, so badly both in politics and society at large, he’s an example of one Christian who takes the essence of his faith seriously. Let’s have more like him, please.