My general observation is that none of these things (witch hunting, attacking, or deplatforming from the left) happen at any scale to merit their coverage other than perhaps "public figures get yelled at on twitter."

And, I dunno, I feel like the fact that my friends who aren't public figures but do research on climate change get weekly death threats just seems more important than the fact that people yell at JK Rowling online for being transphobic.

That's awful about your friends, and I agree there appears to be a huge general problem with that kind of thing. I hope the FBI are able to help, on at least a case-by case basis, if they can't solve the pipeline problem.

I still think there's a large problem with a dominant mode of interaction we're seeing by much of the left-leaning (it's pervasive online, and transparent pandering and manipulation in left-appealing news shows), and that it's hurting more than it's helping.

I agree that there are people on the left who are mean online and that they shouldn't generally act this way. I just think that

1. This largely ends here (there are exceptions, and it is definitely no fun to be yelled at online)

2. The right has consistently acted in all of the same ways (plus more bomb threats) to no similar criticism

3. The political strategy of the left cannot require "literally everybody online is on their best behavior all of the time."

And no, law enforcement is absolutely uninterested in dealing with death threats sent by people who think that doing research on climate change is evil. The idea that the FBI would help out is odd to me.

Understood, though I didn't have that idea about #2. My impression was that it was a well-known problem (going back to talk radio and Rupert Murdoch properties, and then growing and being more in our face with everything the Internet enabled).

Maybe one of the problems is that, online, a flood of dozens of angry tweets stomping on someone, by (for the sake of argument) a small minority of people who are having a bad day... has the effect that people are routinely (almost systematically) stomped, because there's always some dozens of people having a bad day? And they all sound the same, so maybe it's a rotating vocal minority that looks like a bigger problem than it is?

Regarding death threats...

I think we have different expectations about the possibility of gov't help (I'm still a bit Pollyanna on this). Local police might or might not have the resources to take the report and coordinate with federal resources, but it's likely inter-state, so the victim could go direct to the FBI.

I'm sure I've read news stories of the senders of death threats being tracked down by law enforcement.

And, I suppose the sender just might be linked to a domestic group/network (or foreign agitators) that the FBI is already tracking.

If the researchers are under a university or NGO, are they getting support from their organization, or do they need to confront the org's administration into interfacing better with law enforcement regarding death threats?

(I'm speaking of baseline situation in recent years; I have no idea what the situation at the FBI is this week, given the various gov't disruption going on, and the keyword "climate" being targeted by some. Even if the situation is complicated at the moment, maybe lead the reporting of a crime and request for assistance with the death threat part, and then the details relevant to the investigation/analysis include that the victim is a climate researcher?)

If all else fails, an org's lawyer (and investigator they hire) might also identify doxing and egging activity (especially online) that's traceable to death threats, and be able to do more with law enforcement and/or civil courts.

It is true that basically every public figure has people screaming at them on twitter or bluesky constantly. This is probably bad in general, and I think it is worth understanding how this sort of thing can affect the opinions and behaviors of public figures. I suspect that I wouldn't respond well to waking up every day to having people yell at me online.

But this effect isn't politically aligned with the left. So it becomes frustrating when this is used exclusively to criticize the left and to excuse the right.

I'm curious if you've ever interacted with law enforcement organizations for something like this. Remember, my friend gets regular death threats. Even if somehow magically the FBI acted on the first one, will they act on the 10th?

And no, public universities do not hire private investigators via their legal office to track down death threats their faculty receive.

I've never had to deal with this firsthand.

If it's a public university, and their personnel are getting death threats regarding university work, the university had better make an effort to help -- if not for decency, then for liability. Including working with law enforcement.

One easy thing the university can do themselves (under the direction of a lawyer or administrator) is to ask IT for the Web server logs (or analytics) for accesses to the person's pages. They don't have to subpoena ISPs to see that, right before the most recent threat, there was a burst of referrers from `https://webforum.example/bobs-basement-militia?post=1232767`.

Well let me tell you very clearly: this is not how any of this works.

The FBI won't care. The local cops won't care. The university won't pull logs for network traffic, nor would the existence of this information be meaningful to anybody to take any action.

Universities can grow some of the most arrogant and unaccountable people, even worse than a bad for-profit company. But two things that can get the attention of many of the bad apples are journalists and lawyers.