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This Industry is Fucked

blog.jessfraz.com

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Re: This Industry is Fucked

#31

Post by corysama »

nightcracker wrote: post #8
pedalpete wrote: post #3

I'm currently working in a team that is 50% women, and I'm amazed at how many stories they have of previous work experiences and the culture of acceptance in medium sized companies. I hope Jessie doesn't give up. Not only for the sake of our industry, but also for the sake of girls who want to make it in this industry and not have to put up with what jessie has had to put up with. Her (or any person) having to leave…

This absolutely needs police action. Regardless of what your stance is on unwanted sexual attention, sending death threats is not acceptable.

Agreed. What Jessie is dealing with is classic internet trolls. They don't give a damn about "Women in Tech", her or anything else. All that interests them is finding a target to dig a reaction out of "for the lulz". They do it because it gives them little endorphin pops to think about how upset their victim must be and because it's very low risk. That's all there is to it. If there was any perception of risk in their activity, they wouldn't do it.

Making it clear that "this is simply unacceptable" will only encourage trolls. They aren't ignorant. They don't even have an agenda. They're simply selfish. The only way to discourage them is to introduce concrete risk to the unwanted activity.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#32

Post by yoshuaw »

shawnee_ wrote: post #11

I’ve gotten hundreds of private messages on IRC and emails about sex, rape, and death threats. Not sure what IRC channels she has been hanging out in, or what her spam filters are letting through, but this has not been my experience at all... in 10 years of contributing to OSS. However, attractive female posts videos (yep, even conference talk) on the Internet, and attention ensues? Maybe it's not an "industry" thing…

Wow, you just downplayed receiving death threats to "attention ensues".

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#33

Post by chuckcode »

The level of abuse the author has endured is ridiculous and she certainly has my sympathies. It reminds me of Louis CK's routine about why he doesn't give his kids cell phones (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbYScltf1c) which boils down to without seeing the other person they can't empathize about the effect their words will have on other people. I can't help but wonder how these pseudo-anonymous people will feel when they find out that they aren't all that anonymous in the long run. When gawker unmasked "Reddits biggest troll" Violentacrez he certainly had a change of feelings when he had to stand behind his words and actions[1]. Freedom of speech is one of our most important values and anonymity is an important source for social change and equality for all. Using these gifts to rain down insults on others rarely works out well though in person and likely won't work out well on the internet in the long run either.

[1] http://gawker.com/5950981/unmasking-reddits-violentacrez-the...

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#34

Post by icu »

I see a lot of comments here ranging from support to trolling... since this is HN there is more support and (at last check) only one troll.

And that's really my point. No matter what, if you put yourself and your two cents into the public domain this stuff is part of the territory.

Granted in a perfect world we wouldn't have such trolling or at the very least there would be some authority doing online moderation and sanctioning. However life isn't and will never be fair, let alone the fact that such policing of the net is just not sensible.

So what to do really? Well I subscribe to the belief that an insult is an agreement between two people, if I don't agree, it's nullified, it doesn't even exist and I'm really not bothered.

Clearly this stuff is getting to her and after reading her blog post it really seems like it's affecting her emotionally. At the risk of being blunt, I think this will just encourage the trolls.

IMHO she either goes forward with a belief structure that deals with the trolling or she (sadly) takes a break from being in the public eye.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#35

Post by obstacle1 »

aaa667 wrote: post #9

And people ask why more women don't speak at conferences or at meetup groups or contribute to open source software, or even publish blogs. It's because we are SCARED. We know what the consequences of making our voices heard can be, and it's terrifying, and we question whether it is worth the risk.

I think you're being a bit overbroad in speaking for all women (that's the kind of thinking which leads to sexism in the first place). Frankly the 'consequences' here are receiving a bunch of unsavoury PMs. i.e., there are no real-world, physical, dangerous consequences. So the fear of contributing to a community because of it is unfounded. It's just a side-effect of Internet culture, and it happens to men too.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#36

Post by MollyR »

88e282102ae2e5b wrote: post #6

I just want to understand why people do this. If some men were afraid of losing their jobs because of a big influx of women I'd at least comprehend (but definitely not agree with) that behavior, but it's a job free-for-all now and seems like it always will be, so I just can't see what the motivation could possibly be. If they're just pure sociopaths, why don't they harass men this way as well?

http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/online-harassment/

It looks like both genders are harassed quite a bit, younger people being harassed more. What surprised me in this article was men being physically threatened more than women.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#37

Post by obstacle1 »

yoshuaw wrote: post #32
shawnee_ wrote: post #11

I’ve gotten hundreds of private messages on IRC and emails about sex, rape, and death threats. Not sure what IRC channels she has been hanging out in, or what her spam filters are letting through, but this has not been my experience at all... in 10 years of contributing to OSS. However, attractive female posts videos (yep, even conference talk) on the Internet, and attention ensues? Maybe it's not an "industry" thing…

Wow, you just downplayed receiving death threats to "attention ensues".

If I had a nickel for every death threat I've received on the Internet I'd be rich. Death threats from Internet brigade squads are wildly different from actual death threats you need to worry about. Hence the downplaying.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#38

Post by MarkPNeyer »

vonklaus wrote: post #15

This is less about the tech industry and more about the culture of the internet. A loud minority enforce the culture of anonymity on the internet and having a public presence will open one up to getting caught in the crosshairs. Being a "public figure" has always opened one up to these sorts of things, the internet has made the barrier of entry very low for spamming and threatening someone. I don't see any solution t…

here is my solution : https://github.com/neyer/respect

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#39

Post by chipx86 »

thedudemabry wrote: post #30
chipx86 wrote: post #18

Kudos to her for standing up to it, but she should clearly never have to. This kind of thing just shouldn't be happening... I don't think I know anybody who does this to women. I really hope that's because I don't actually know anyone who does, and not that people I otherwise respect are secretly doing this. How would a person know, if it's anonymous? Well, maybe a few ways. The question is, are these all actually an…

I'm going to avoid addressing the community-created offender registry idea, because like you I'm not sure how to even begin evaluating its potential harms. But I think that law enforcement will inevitably create something of the sort. Like John Oliver's harrassment video from a few weeks ago described, these are real crimes being committed and the state has an interest in solving them. The current weak link in prosec…

Yeah, there is a lot of potential for abuse. Mostly hoping that it would spur on some additional thinking in this area.

John Oliver's segment was great. What I'm unsure of, though, is how much a cop can really do? The offenders are not necessarily going to be in the same general area. They may not be in the same country. This would need to be handled internationally, in some way, wouldn't it?

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#40

Post by Kapura »

astrocyte wrote: post #27

This is not common and, given her focus area in tech, it just happens to be more pronounced among those individuals. Ever heard of 4chan? All it takes is one post of your info and you'll get a swarm of people descending on you... Linux/open source is full of such individuals. They do it to get a rise out of people and the internet is a nice anonymous vehicle to do it under. Has nothing to do w/ the broader industry o…

"Not common?" Really? This SEEMS pretty common.

And while I believe it's true that not every woman in tech gets harassed, it's obvious that a much higher percentage of them get this sort of shit than men. And it only gets worse as they get more visible for the good work that they're doing.

You say you're tired of this shit. How do you think these women feel? It's not you writing the tweets and emails, but if you become complacent and say "that's just how it is some times" you are a part of the problem.

Never stop fighting for equal treatment. Never say it's OK.

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