> First let us pause to consider our terms: Was Schlissel’s narc a “snitch” or a “whistle-blower”? Whistle-blowers are generally attempting to topple or thwart the powerful, and Schlissel was certainly powerful. But the reported offense was, in the words of a lawyer I spoke with, “a nothingburger.” Let us provisionally define snitching as turning someone in anonymously, for either minor or nonexistent offenses, or pretextually. Also: using institutional mechanisms to kneecap rivals, harass enemies, settle scores and grudges, or advantage oneself. Not to mention squealing on someone for social-media posts and joining online mobs to protest exercises of academic and intellectual freedom.

For those who bravely make it to the 3rd paragraph.

So if it's a "nothingburger", then why is the administration not just ignoring it?

You can't have that kind of harassment without the assistance of those you are reporting to. Being how I'm not there, I'm going to defer to the administrators to decide what's important and what's not.

I'm just quoting the article which attempts to address the issues of terminology you raised. Without discussing his terms your original comment lacked relevance.

Blacklists are bad things. Whisper campaigns where people can't defend themselves are bad things. #metoo is a bad thing. The creeping realization that you're being surveilled by potentially any and certainly some of your peers is a bad thing. The incentive to snitch on others is a bad thing.

All of those exhibit cowardice because snitching is attacking someone without allowing that person confront the attacker.

The whole premise of #metoo was that if victims had individually attempted to directly confront their abuser they'd have faced serious and potentially career ending retaliation. I have a hard time labeling someone cowardly for preferring an option that didn't have that consequence!

Read the article. This isn't about breaking the law, it is about filing frivolous complaints about expressing opinions you disagree with or reporting people for things which aren't even against the rules. General harassment.

It's a bad thing in this world where we've created so much bureaucracy, so many rules and so much enforcement discretion spread across so many levels that everyone is always doing something against the rules or could be considered to be at someone's discretion and processes of sorting these things out "fairly" is so onerous as to be something that can be used as a weapon (either by a snitch or by various parties in the enforcement processes) by itself.

It's complicated. Obviously nobody likes a tattle-tale in childhood, even the teachers/authorities are annoyed. Part of participating in a healthy society is building strong connections and a surprising amount of that occurs surrounding shared shenanigans, keeping little secrets, not betraying your friends.

I'm not sure where to draw the line, perhaps it's never really clear.