She asked his employer to take down his hacker news post? Did she think they would have his account's password?
and that's why she's not a tech anymore.
Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life
191–200 of 528 posts
Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life
#192““Maybe it was [Hank] who started all of this,” Adria told me in the cafe at San Francisco Airport. “No one would have known he got fired until he complained. Maybe he’s to blame for complaining that he got fired. Maybe he secretly seeded the hate groups. Right?” This paragraph really gave me chills... A lot of insight about her thought process, and a bit terrifying in my opinion.
It goes on: > “Danger,” she said. “Clearly my body was telling me, ‘You are unsafe.’” > “Have you ever heard that thing, men are afraid that women will laugh at them and women are afraid that men will kill them?” she said. Remind me when someone was last killed at a tech conference like she says? Very rarely, if ever. Did she feel bad about him being fired? Nope. > “He’s a white male. I’m a black Jewish female. He wa…
I think asking for the removal of the line in his apology about him losing his job because of her actions is also a significant tell about her motivations. It's one thing to pull genuinely bad behavior (this was not) into the light and expose it, but it's quite another to want to control your opponents responses to your accusations.
Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is threatening about that joke?
That's exactly it. We find it so hard to understand how that joke is threatening. It's almost impossible to imagine. It just sounds like a dumb joke. But look at how Adria describes her feelings in the article: “Have you ever had an altercation at school and you could feel the hairs rise up on your back?” she asked me. “You felt fear?” I asked. “Danger,” she said. “Clearly my body was telling me, ‘You are unsafe.’” I…
> But we are oblivious to it, we can't even imagine how it feels.
Nobody can imagine how would a random nerd from a 800-people conference would feel over a joke. Shall we ban joking? Fine people that use "dirty" words? "Your tone of voice makes me feel deeply offended, thus I have all the right to sue you" ? Where does this road end?
What makes me feel extremely annoyed is the whole political correctitude and feeling-catering that slowly turns normal human communication into bland, tasteless pulp.
Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life
#194Similar case is happening to the two tormentors of Curt Schilling (a former baseball player)'s daughter.
He tweeted congrats to his daughter for going to college. Predictably some of the replies were nasty.
He went after two and doxxed them. Now these two will bear the result of what went down.
https://38pitches.wordpress.com/2015/03/03/is-it-twitters-fa...
I suspect this will happen more and more.
Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's exactly it. We find it so hard to understand how that joke is threatening. It's almost impossible to imagine. It just sounds like a dumb joke. But look at how Adria describes her feelings in the article: “Have you ever had an altercation at school and you could feel the hairs rise up on your back?” she asked me. “You felt fear?” I asked. “Danger,” she said. “Clearly my body was telling me, ‘You are unsafe.’” I…
Of course it's possible for women to feel this way. It's possible for men to feel this way as well. That doesn't make it reasonable, or something an emotionally mature person would feel and act upon.
Bingo! Her feeling of 'danger' was irrational unless there have been a wave of sexual assaults at developer conferences that I'm unaware of. She has no control over being offended or not, but she does have the ability to control her reactions to such offense. If it really bothered her why not just tell the guys, hey can you please not use that sort of humor around me?
Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life
#196The world is replete with examples of why you should never use your real name with your online identity in any way (although in this case, the guy's employer found out over a photograph; which is even more troubling.) If there's anyone worse than Adria in this story, it's both Hank's and Adria's former employers. You don't destroy a person's life over a comment or a blackmail threat. But as they say, if corporations…
why you should never use your real name with your online identity in any way I believe exactly the opposite. People say horrible things hiding behind anonymity. Those of us who freely identify ourselves actually attempt (albeit sometimes feebly) to talk to others as if we were in person. If we just treated each other on-line like we did in person, most of this shit would never happen. - Proud self-identified member o…
I have to agree. Tying yourself to your on-line identity shows that you're willing to take responsibility for your actions. There are places where you might not want to be recognized for some reason, just as there are such places in real-life (I would feel as uncomfortable browsing Silk Road for nootropics as I would feel visiting a sex shop in the shadier parts of te city) - but in general, I try to stand by what I do, including mistakes, as any responsible adult should.
But really this isn't even relevant in this case. They guy got fired because he was on the photo, and the girl was a developer evangelist, which by the very job description requires you to tie your face to your on-line presence and company. If either of them was otherwise anonymous on-line, it wouldn't help them anyway.
Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's exactly it. We find it so hard to understand how that joke is threatening. It's almost impossible to imagine. It just sounds like a dumb joke. But look at how Adria describes her feelings in the article: “Have you ever had an altercation at school and you could feel the hairs rise up on your back?” she asked me. “You felt fear?” I asked. “Danger,” she said. “Clearly my body was telling me, ‘You are unsafe.’” I…
The usual response to danger is flee or fight. She didn't flee. She didn't confront them. She shamed them publicly instead (which made it considerably more likely that they would take revenge physically instead). What is more likely, that she did this because she felt threatened, or because she felt like she could use her status to get back at the system? Not to mention the part where she herself tweets dick jokes.
I would consider shaming them to be "fight," in this instance.
I feel really bad for Hank, he totally did not deserve it. I also feel really bad that Adria felt so uncomfortable that she did something so rash.
Both of their actions and reactions seem so natural to me. The upsetting thing is that our lack of diversity makes these situations so unavoidable.
Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life
#198And to think all she had to do was to turn round, frown and go "Guys, there's a time and a place ...".
The golden rule is that, if you disagree with someone, speak to them face-to-face, privately first, then in front of others if that doesn't work.
Public tweeting is the absolute last recourse. She's as susceptible to individuation (behind her keyboard) as he was.
Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's exactly it. We find it so hard to understand how that joke is threatening. It's almost impossible to imagine. It just sounds like a dumb joke. But look at how Adria describes her feelings in the article: “Have you ever had an altercation at school and you could feel the hairs rise up on your back?” she asked me. “You felt fear?” I asked. “Danger,” she said. “Clearly my body was telling me, ‘You are unsafe.’” I…
> “Danger,” she said. “Clearly my body was telling me, ‘You are unsafe.’” I believe she genuinely felt the way she describes, but I don't think she felt it because of her gender. I would take a guess that this kind of feeling isn't present for the vast majority of women -- indeed, there was no danger. I find it more likely that the feeling had something to do with the trauma associated with her father knocking out he…
> I would take a guess that this kind of feeling isn't present for the vast majority of women -- indeed, there was no danger.
I can attest to this. My friends in computer science - both male and female - make bad sex jokes all the time. We all laugh at them.
I don't think it's fair to assume that only men can enjoy dumb jokes.
Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life
#200The world is replete with examples of why you should never use your real name with your online identity in any way (although in this case, the guy's employer found out over a photograph; which is even more troubling.) If there's anyone worse than Adria in this story, it's both Hank's and Adria's former employers. You don't destroy a person's life over a comment or a blackmail threat. But as they say, if corporations…
why you should never use your real name with your online identity in any way I believe exactly the opposite. People say horrible things hiding behind anonymity. Those of us who freely identify ourselves actually attempt (albeit sometimes feebly) to talk to others as if we were in person. If we just treated each other on-line like we did in person, most of this shit would never happen. - Proud self-identified member o…
This works up until the point when some belief you expressed years ago becomes outmoded. Look at Brendan Eich; a political donation from 7 years prior, of which he made no public note and was only attached to him because of legal reporting requirements, was trudged up and used against him. I know this isn't an example of an online anonymity issue, but it shows the very dark path of intolerance we're going down, and that if you can't even safely have normal, mainstream, registered political donations attached to your name in the internet age, you definitely can't have an account that expresses political perspectives with any meaningful verbosity attached to your name.
Unless you're totally, totally vanilla, and can guarantee that you will never express a controversial thought or opinion, there is little reason to take the risk of attaching your Real World identity to your comments and leaving an opening for the online mobs.