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| ▲ | jackb4040 a minute ago | parent | next [-] |
| This. Based on the headline I was expecting a physical threat on the owner, instead we get a screenshot of them treating it as a learning opportunity and the owner responding in an incredibly condescending way. |
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| ▲ | F3nd0 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It’s more about the way it was phrased and presented. Just sharing publicly available facts with your community (or anyone really) is not a problem in itself, but the message does rub me the wrong way. The message’s author is trying to present themselves as someone helpful and compassionate (‘I understand’, ‘I’m trying to help’), but at the same time, they’re one-sidedly setting a firm and short deadline (‘I’ll give you a day’) unprompted and suggesting the café owner strike a deal with one of the people they’re going to recommend. They might have written this with good intentions at heart, but it also wouldn’t feel out of place in a mafia setting (as in ‘do business with us, or else’), so it’s a hard sell. If they really were compassionate and wanted to help, they easily could have suggested to get the owner in touch with some affordable artists and left her with time to mentally deal with the backlash and all. They didn’t need to emphasise how they were going to tell on her like they were about to launch a vendetta smear campaign or something. |
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| ▲ | sippingabonedry 30 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | HN needing an explanation of how protection rackets work is like looking up money laundering in the dictionary in Office Space. | |
| ▲ | fakedang an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | There are no good intentions here. This is the mafia playbook through and through - "It would be a pity if something were to happen to your <insert valuable property or reputation here>". | | |
| ▲ | F3nd0 34 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Well, the basic idea of it is not so bad. A business generally wants to keep their customers happy and care for their reputation, so telling a business when we’re unhappy and influencing their reputation is the feedback mechanism we have at our disposal. The important thing is how we go about it, and whether their reputation remains reflective of their actions, or we try and make it worse than it ought to be. We can’t say for certain the author of the message was going to do the latter, but it does not inspire good faith. |
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| ▲ | Footkerchief 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| "Threat" is a correct term for an attempt to compel action via potential negative consequences. |
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| ▲ | free_bip an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | By that definition all laws are threats. And indeed, the fallacy here seems to be assuming that threat = bad. | |
| ▲ | brandon272 an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | "Nice business you've got here, shame if something happened to it" |
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| ▲ | catapart 35 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It's an implied threat, which you can infer from the presentation of the information. For example: You really should listen to me. If you need some time to think it over, I understand. It's a lot to consider and you've got a lot in your plate. I'll check in soon - would tomorrow be okay? If you need more time, just tell me when. vs You really should listen to me. I'll give you a day to think it over before I take further action. Same information, but the latter assumes a position of authority (I, the person in charge, will be the provider of the time you will receive), and then uses that position to provide an ostensible benevolence as a way to mitigate the implied follow up of non-benevolence. The threat is introduced as the power disparity. The person in power has leverage over the less powerful and the threat is that they will use it. Remove the power disparity, and the implication of threat is also removed. |
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| ▲ | free_bip 31 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Unions also use the threat of striking as a leverage point against corporations. As I noted elsewhere in this thread, there seems to be a common fallacy in this thread of "threat = bad". Laws are threats too. You need a more convincing argument than this. |
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| ▲ | chucksta an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Its implied the talk is to rally the troops not gather general opinion |
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| ▲ | jrflowers an hour ago | parent | prev [-] |
| It literally is not. You can maybe phrase it to sort of sound like a threat but “I’m going to share your public ad” is never a threat. It’s like if you angrily yell “I’m going to come to a complete stop at this upcoming stop sign!” in a threatening voice and then do that, it wasn’t a threat. Great. That’s what the sign is for. That’s what everyone wants you to do. |
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| ▲ | orangedog an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | In the context of how it was done, saying that they would give them a list of people and a day to think it over, it really is a threat, it's a kind of extortion. | | |
| ▲ | free_bip 34 minutes ago | parent [-] | | You seem to fundamentally misunderstand what extortion is. It's only extortion if the one extorting is the one receiving the benefit. Hiring a random artist on Fiverr would still make them happy (since the poster is not AI) but would not benefit them in any way. | | |
| ▲ | orangedog 31 minutes ago | parent [-] | | That's not what the "threat" said. It said that they would give them a list of people, it isn't obvious that hiring some random would have made them happy. It's not even obvious whether this wasn't just a convenient way to make some money for a friend. | | |
| ▲ | free_bip 23 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I understand if you don't like how the person phrased it, but the goal of the DM was obviously to get the store owner to replace the AI poster. Assuming that they would have gone on a crusade because they didn't pick a "preferred artist" is pure unsupported speculation on your part. | | |
| ▲ | orangedog 20 minutes ago | parent [-] | | It comes across as spiteful, I don't think it is at all obvious and it isn't obvious to the store owner either. We just disagree, and that's why this is the wrong approach to enacting whatever kind of change they wanted. |
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| ▲ | F3nd0 an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Saying you’ll do something that’ll harm someone (or, more precisely in this instance, their business) can reasonably be called a threat (in the broad sense of the word), though not necessarily the unfair kind of threat most people imagine when they say ‘threat’. You can threaten someone with ceasing to be a customer if they don’t change their business practices, and that’s perfectly fine. Sharing publicly available information is generally not a problem, either. But in this case, the author of the message is coming off as very insincere, setting deadlines, and trying to strike up deals, which comes off as unreasonable and makes one wonder if they really are simply going to share publicly available information, or if they’re going to give undue focus over them being ‘uncooperative’. If they did not want their message to come off as a threat, this was very far from an ideal way to write it. |
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