Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life • Hacker News Board

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#391

Post by JibberMeTimbers » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 4:12 PM UTC

JimmyM wrote: post #205

interpol_p wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See I don't get hatred at Hank, I mean, I did initially read it like that. But when I took a step back I started to see it as hatred of being excluded in a field you love. Hatred at the obliviousness of Hank — his inability to realise how vulnerable she felt simply attending a conference because she was in the minority. I think her view of Hank is to disregard him — kind of "Oh he'll be okay, the system's on his side…

> Oh he'll be okay, the system's on his side. I think Ronson strongly suggests that this is in fact the case. Ronson's a great journalist for acknowledging the complexity of a situation without attempting to offer answers he's unqualified to give, imho. > “So you’re in your new workplace…” (Hank was offered another job right away) “…and you’re talking to a female developer. In what way do you act differently towards…

You're right but it's still vague. It wasn't made clear on how or if they went about getting new jobs. How many resumes sent out? How many interviews? We don't know what their experience level is...etc...etc. Those questions miss the point of what you are getting at (gender/minority bias) but there is still a technical angle in getting a job.

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#392

Post by ceejayoz » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 4:14 PM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #364

ceejayoz wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter isn't a professional setting like a conference session, and anyone joining in a game of CAH is deliberately opting-in to a situation where offensively funny combinations are the entire point of the game.

On the other hand they can't go around claiming to have a deep seating sensitivity to offenses -- the image she was trying to portray. That she was just shaking in fear of being murdered because of a dongle joke. She is misrepresenting her character and manipulates the public image of herself to stir controversy, drama, and in turns she actually hurting the cause she claims to champion. If anything that is the thing…

> On the other hand they can't go around claiming to have a deep seating sensitivity to offenses.

Why not? I can be scared of ax-wielding murderers while still enjoying a haunted house where people in an ax-murderer costume jump out at me.

You expect offensive stuff in a CAH game. You don't expect it being mumbled behind you during a keynote.

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#393

Post by fuligo » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 4:14 PM UTC

moomin wrote: post #11

Let's be clear here, Jon Ronson spent a fair bit of time lying to Adria Richards to put together his book, his portrayal of the timeline is inaccurate and even if this wasn't the case it'd be a phenomenal amount of false equivalence: http://www.shakesville.com/2015/02/the-falsest-of-false-equi... TL;DR; Yeah he got fired, but he didn't get fired because of an internet backlash.

This is why the incident and all reports of it is so hard to navigate, there don't seem to be enough facts - just the differing perspectives of three people, which we have to judge on the merits of their plausibility.

In the linked article, I got curious about this paragraph:

"Everything was seemingly resolved, and there was no public reaction on Twitter. It was only once the man "posted about losing his job on Hacker News" that the pushback started, and then escalated exponentially, with even ostensible allies abetting the abuse by tone and choice policing."

If I recall, and I might well be wrong, the discussion was already underway when that guy posted. I'm also having trouble with identifying anything in the content of his post that would put him at fault for what happened afterwards (which was deplorable).

Can anyone with a better recollection than me weigh in on this? The article doesn't sound particularly unbiased, and neither does it have to be, but are the facts right here or not?

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#394

Post by adekok » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 4:15 PM UTC

law_of_the_hobo wrote: post #360

adekok wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would never attempt to deny that there is a systemic patriarchy in place I would. There are a couple of counter-arguments. One, claiming that there is a "patriarchy" sounds a whole lot like a conspiracy theory. Replace "patriarchy" with "zionism" in typical statements to see what I mean. This makes me very wary of any hand-waving claims of "patriarchy". The second is this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15491…

> claiming that there is a "patriarchy" sounds a whole lot like a conspiracy theory. Replace "patriarchy" with "zionism" in typical statements to see what I mean. That's a false analogy. Zionism and similar conspiracy theories are predicated upon the notion that there organizations and people consciously manipulating things behind the scenes. When most people discuss the patriarchy, they're not referring to conscious…

> When most people discuss the patriarchy, they're not referring to conscious, willful agents. They're talking about systemic sexism.

In my experience, that's the minority view.

I've had a number of people tell me out-right that they're "opposed to the patriarchy, which is a system where grey-haired white men rule the world".

Great. Are they "opposed to zionism, which is a system where jews rule the world"?

They label the second statement as bat-shit insane. So do I.

They label the first statement as reasonable and above board. I don't.

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#395

Post by Torgo » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 4:16 PM UTC

akuchling wrote: post #273

imjoshholloway wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes me laugh is where she says she's not to blame for what happened to Hank yet she then blames HIM for what happened to her. If she didn't send the tweet, he wouldn't have got fired. If he didn't get fired, he wouldn't have posted on HN about being fired. If he didn't post on HN then none of this would've happened. Basically it all stems from her original tweet.. I'm not condoning any of the behaviour but it…

That is in fact what happened. PyCon posted a statement afterwards ( http://pycon.blogspot.ca/2013/03/pycon-response-to-inappropr... ) that said "Both parties were met with, in private. The comments that were made were in poor taste, and individuals involved agreed, apologized and no further actions were taken by the staff of PyCon 2013. No individuals were removed from the conference, no sanctions were levied." The…

That is exactly why tweetshaming is so bad. Because you're basically throwing chum in the ocean and disclaiming that you're responsible for the shark frenzy.

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#396

Post by Torgo » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 4:20 PM UTC

throwawayaway wrote: post #13

maxerickson wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This guy is doing a great job promoting his book. I guess the discussion here won't be real different than this recent one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9085680 It will certainly be interesting to watch the mechanics of internet mobs evolve as people get a better idea of the potential consequences of them.

People who have been through the wringer on these subjects fight pretty hard in "nymwars". I personally try very hard to keep my real name off the internet. I don't think there's an easy solution to the downsides of viral publishing. About Jon Ronson's writing, I pretty much detested "Them" because of how he ridicules the conspiracy theorists at the start of the book. He goes on to spy on the Bilderburg group and the…

Ronson did an interview with Alex Jones where they both talked about what they saw when they infiltrated Bohemian Grove. It was fascinating to see a complete conspiracy denialist debate with a complete conspiracy true-believer. It was a serious Rashomon moment.

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#397

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 4:20 PM UTC

seabee wrote: post #337

chongli wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't we granting too much power to minorities? Why should we be the ones who have the ability to grant power?

Parent is wrong though. Nobody is granting anybody power. Hank's employer had the power to shrug off the episode and keep employing him. Instead, they ceded their power to a minority/controversial view. Adria's employer, on the other hand, was actually being attacked over the situation. Maybe they could have withstood it, maybe they bucked early. Still, it's not like anyone granted 4chan users power - they already ha…

> Hank's employer had the power to shrug off the episode and keep employing him. Instead, they ceded their power to a minority/controversial view.

To cede your power to a minority is exactly to grant that power to them. That's exactly what I'm talking about.

> Adria's employer, on the other hand, was actually being attacked over the situation. Maybe they could have withstood it, maybe they bucked early. Still, it's not like anyone granted 4chan users power - they already had it and decided to use it against SendGrid.

SendGrid didn't grant 4chan the power to DDoS them. But they surely granted the trolls power to get someone from the company fired over a stupid Twitter dispute. The next time they'll be considering whether or not to launch another attack to get someone fired, they will be more eager to go through with it.

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#398

Post by TuringTest » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 4:23 PM UTC

BSousa wrote: post #324

TuringTest wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sorry, Hank got more than he deserved, but not Adria. From the article: > Someone sent Adria a photograph of a beheaded woman with tape over her mouth. Adria’s face was superimposed onto the bodies of porn actors. Websites were created to teach people how to make the superimposing look seamless — by matching skin-tones. On Facebook someone wrote, “I hope I can find Adria, kidnap her, put a torture bag over her…

Sorry, I meant in relation to being fired, not the harassment. My apologies for not making that more specific (I've edited the post)

I thought so :-) But young people could see your post and take it at face value, thinking that such harassment is justified.

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#399

Post by quadlock » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 4:23 PM UTC

near wrote: post #44

The 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…

"if I had kids, I wouldn't tell jokes" is clearly taken out of context, so to your 'Seriously?' comment: Seriously? nice way to read it to support your own bias.

Hank's life wasn't ruined. Adria's life has been most damaged, no employment for a long time, death threats, and this article will probably cause her a lot more grief. How many people in this thread have taken it upon themselves to send more abuse her way?

Why is this article even on hacker news? To support the down-trodden software developers?

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#400

Post by hga » Thu, Mar 05, 2015, 4:24 PM UTC

byuu wrote: post #139

eloisant wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are differences between Hank in Adria. * Hank did a private joke while Adria took the issue to the public (tweeted to her 10,000 followers) * Hank was a developer while Adria was a developer evangelist, so she officially represents the company publicly. It's important to note that a lof of her Twitter followers probably followed her because of her position at Sendgrid. Which is why I can understand Sendgrid's d…

Ah, thanks for the clarification. Still, the article made it sound like the public firing was a direct response to the DDoS blackmail (corporate expediency) rather than about her actions. Of course, it is possible that it's like you said, and was in the works already.

I would assume it was both. Assuming they were already thinking about the problem, that forced a decision. Either way, when the whole thing came to their attention, they had to have realized that her action, as noted "speaking in her capacity as a SendGrid spokesperson" had made her utterly toxic to the vast majority of developers who are not "black Jewish females". If she displayed any of the attitudes WRT responsibility evident from the Guardian article if and when they talked to her, the decision would not have even been very difficult.