[chihuahua]

I find it unlikely that taking away someone's Ph.D. would accomplish anything positive.

How do you envision this would work in general - an angry Twitter mob demands that academic degrees are revoked, and when the mob gets sufficiently large and angry, the university who awarded the degree buckles under the pressure?

If not a Twitter mob, then who makes these decisions? The Central Committee of the Party? The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice?

[skeaker]

I'd imagine it would be similar to how the (former) doctor who kicked off the anti-vaccine thing had his Ph.D. revoked, which involved a whole board of his peers reviewing his claims and actions and determining that he caused irredeemable harm. The problem in this case is how CS is such a new field that we don't really have boards and such that will scrutinize to that extent in an academic context, at least as far as I know.

[blue039]

The ACM has a strict code of conduct. If an engineer commits an atrocious error their PE will be stripped. Violating the computing rights of literally the entire planet should be similarly egregious.

It is not twitter mobs. Its about holding people to a standard and not allowing them to corrupt the meaning of computing for financial, or tyrannical, gain. In recent history we have done almost nothing to hold anyone accountable for their actions. Academia being the most impervious to such punishments.

The ACM and ABET would make the decision. The same people who issue the certifications to the schools who award the degrees. Yes, these organizations are generally spineless cowards, but in a perfect world it would be them. Iron-fisted responses to tyrants is the only way you can insure the purity of a field and freedom from their destruction. I assume you will take this to it's natural conclusion and say any CS degree holder working for the NSA/Military/FBI/etc should also be similarly stripped of their title. To that I say, yes, if they are violating the computing rights of others willfully we as a society cannot allow such people to hold the credential. Otherwise a code of conduct is simply a list of suggestions. In which case it should not exist at all.