Thread by @asymmetricinfo

I've had exactly one interaction with Glenn Greenwald online--we quarreled--and pretty sure Matt Taibbi still thinks of me as an avatar of political evil, but they're both exceptionally talented and on this issue, correct: stop equating criticism with harassment.

https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1370041894831546369

Obviously, don't harass people! Mobbing people online is horrible and I oppose it, as I'm sure Messrs Taibbi and Greenwald also do. But no reputable journalist accepts the idea that they shouldn't criticize someone because some jerk might read the criticism and harass the target

I mean, *maybe* this is an argument against picking out randos from the middle of nowhere and "exposing" their horrible views to an audience that wouldn't know who they were but for your exposure.

But if you are an adult professional in media or academia, it is inappropriate to complain that folks are criticizing your public, professional remarks in their newsletter, or to equate that criticism to online abuse. Robust, even pungent criticism is part of the job.

(And yes, I've had it all--the violent fantasies about how I or someone close to me might be raped at gunpoint or horribly dismembered, the pictures of my house with a gunsight superimposed on them, the demands for my firing, the long dissection of my physical attractiveness ...)

All of which is to say: I've been on the receiving end of broadsides from Greenwald, Taibbi, Yglesias, and virtually everyone else now being named in the rapidly emerging "Cancel Substack" genre.

I've also suffered online abuse.

There's a big difference between those two things

I have also been the target of attempted cancellations.

Yet again, I can tell the difference between this, and Matt Taibbi writing that I am "an Ayn Rand acolyte" (false) and "a complete sociopath" (debatable at the very least.)

Not even that hard, really.