Can we be honest about this, please?

Aaron Swartz went into a secure networking closet and left a computer there to covertly pull data from the server over many days without permission from anyone, which is absolutely not the same thing as scraping public data from the internet.

He was a hero that didn’t deserve what happened, but it’s patently dishonest to ignore that he was effectively breaking and entering, plus installing a data harvesting device in the server room, which any organization in the world would rightfully identity as hostile behavior. Even your local library would call the cops if you tried to do that.

I was banned from /r/grindr for suggesting it’s ok for trans people to use it. It’s legitimately one of the most blatantly, unapologetically terrible mods I’ve ever seen, and it’s just him.

Cat drama in particular seems to always hit maximum outrage really fast.

Because what you consider a fact is based on studies that don’t provide as compelling evidence as you want to believe they do.

Generally speaking, it’s probably best to not do it, but calling it outright abuse requires evidence that it is causing actual harm, and the scientific consensus on it is not as solid as you think it is.

Recent academic review of many past studies have found that it’s inconclusive.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9860667/

Basically, we need more studies before we can start deleting shit on accusations of animal abuse.