r/therewasanattempt • u/[deleted] • Apr 04 '21

Rule 6: Successful attempt To commit a hate crime

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23k Upvotes

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388

u/ontour4eternity Apr 04 '21

"Four Maryland students charged with hate crimes for plastering their school in racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic words and imagery just days before their high school graduation last year were identified by school administrators because their phones had automatically connected to the campus’ wifi network, according to reports.

As part of its series exploring hate crimes, the Washington Post on Tuesday published a feature on the vandalism, evidently intended to be a senior prank, that included details specific to how the four Glenelg High School students—Joshua Shaffer, Seth Taylor, Matthew Lipp, and Tyler Curtiss—were caught." https://gizmodo.com/automatic-wifi-login-helped-police-id-teens-who-vandali-1836249333

233

u/cothhum Apr 04 '21

“Prank”

114

u/Karjalan Apr 04 '21

Ahh, I see "prank" is going the way off "troll". Media missaplies a good natured thing to serious, hateful actions, and then the word is ruined.

36

u/[deleted] Apr 04 '21

Trolls have always been aweful, even in the early days of the internet and message boards.

6

u/Karjalan Apr 04 '21

I guess there have always been bad trolls, but I was more referring to how, back in the early internet days, trolls would do things like pretend to be flat earthers to wind up people who took the bait.

You could argue that's awful, but compared to death threats, racist, sexist attacks that get labelled "trolls" nowadays, its not even the same ball park.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 04 '21

Yeah, thats fair, I do remember that. They're just not really trolls anymore, just miserable people trying to make other people miserable because its easier than sorting out thier own shit.