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This Industry is Fucked

blog.jessfraz.com

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Re: This Industry is Fucked

#181

Post by Nimitz14 »

MarkPNeyer wrote: post #38
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

That was an awesome read. Cool idea.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#182

Post by rdrake98 »

knowtheory wrote: post #143
shoeluckpotland wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harassment is not okay. Never said it was. Nobody thinks it is. But "calling someone out" means nothing. Tim Hunt was "called out", and mobbed out of his career on the basis of personal accusation alone, with zero actual wrongdoing. Mob violence is bad, no matter who does it. I asked for thoughts, because I want so see the evidence that contradicts this theory. Please, please, PLEASE show me some evidence that I am w…

Tim Hunt is a nobel prize winner. He already made his career. And the thing he was asked to resign from as an honorary position so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ > Please, please, PLEASE show me some evidence that I am wrong. I already did. Your theory doesn't make any sense because of how insanely labor intensive it is. Revenge porn sites, 4Chan, GamerGate, the Fappening, all of it is too involved and complex for even a determined group…

I think shoeluckpotland's original post was wrong to to call those involved in the posited conspiracy, faking both sides, SJWs. The giveaway there being 'faking both sides'. That's how I would see it. It doesn't make it any less horrible for a woman like Jessie being verbally attacked of course.

I thought the post was otherwise great, floating what I feel is an important idea to consider. I've never tried to write on HN before and I've never seen a post replaced with [flagged] before. How does that arise? Is it ever reversed?

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#183

Post by bato »

TTPrograms wrote: post #99
alaroldai wrote: post #80

Every time I see posts like this, I see people commenting on it with varying statement to the effect of "that's a shame, but most people in tech aren't like that", or "I'm so tired of seeing posts like this, quit making a fuss." And that makes me so angry. Sure, maybe not everyone in the industry is an arsehole. But enough people are, and those people are vocal enough, that a significant number of people feel disgust…

>That should be enough to tell you that even if the majority are lovely people, the industry as a whole still has a problem. Is that really the case, though? If there's a violent criminal in a town, does the town as a whole have problem? Is the whole town to blame for the acts of that individual? We should do what we can to stop this sort of abuse and make things better, but why do we have to spend so much time alloc…

To continue along your analogy, that would be akin to the local population saying "there's need to involve police forces, it's only the one guy" "Just because there's a violent criminal in town doesn't mean we have to do anything about it, we're on the whole nice people"

Instead of you know, assisting the police with their enquiries, teaching their kids it's not ok to slice open people, volunteering for search parties to find the victims, organising groups to walk kids to and from school, etc.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#184

Post by plorg »

shykes wrote: post #159
plorg wrote: post #123

Given the responses I see here, it seems pretty obvious that this is a 'problem with the industry' regardless of whether it's a problem with or that sprouts from the internet. It seems evident that Jess has experienced terrible things in the process of performing her job. That she would post so adamantly to her blog suggests that the problem is not going away, and she is probably not receiving much of a helpful respo…

Hi, I'm a colleague of Jess. I entirely agree with everything you said about the industry as a whole. My thoughts in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9836573 But you should know that her colleagues (me included) take this super seriously, and so does our employer. We are doing everything we can to support her, and to make the attacks stop. We also want to contribute to fixing the problem beyond this…

My apologies for suggesting that you would be callous and unsupportive of a colleague in such a stressful situation. It's easier to understand how this connects the industry to such abuses by bringing one's company into the discussion, but you are right that it is unfair to you and her other colleagues who I know no better than Jess herself.

But I'm glad to hear that you would take this seriously. And Jess sounds like a hell of a person. I know it would be difficult for me to handle the kind of abuse she describes.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#185

Post by Jweb_Guru »

astrocyte wrote: post #95
yoshuaw wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put it bluntly Astrocyte is telling Jessie to shut up. They aren't saying harassment is OK, it just shouldn't be talked about.

Agreed mholt. I never said this harassment was ok. It is not ok and threats can be followed up by police if she really wanted to get even... I am saying that it looks like modern day internet trolling to me. Sign on Xbox live or a modern gaming network .. People are threatening and calling each other vile names all day long. No one cares if you're a female/male or what your ethnicity is. However, if you provide that…

> The majority who are running to her defense and ready to fight each other to the death to prove they are worthy of women?

Do you honestly think people on HN--where the majority of users are anonymous--are saying things in order to "prove themselves worthy" of women? Like, is that actually something you believe, or just a reflexive thing you say? It's dumb enough that you have to go mansplain 4chan to people (because "for the lulz" is just so complex that I'm sure no one here could figure it out on his or her own), presume to understand how you would react to emails like those Jessie has received when you've never had to, and posit vague conspiracy theories without further explanation ("you're likely being manipulated towards some further end-goal that is more harmful").

Sorry, I realize this isn't exactly the worst post here, but it's frustrating to me because I think your attitude is highly typical of software engineers and is a large part of the reason why shit like this keeps happening. Women do not feel comfortable talking about the things they have to deal with because of posts like this, and it helps normalize harassment.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#186

Post by pikachu_is_cool »

> I’ve gotten hundreds of private messages on IRC and emails about sex, rape, and death threats.

Is this actually true, or are you over-exaggerating? I know of other girls in tech that are pretty decently well-known and don't get nearly that much harassment.

But then again, they don't post their faces, so idk.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#187

Post by antod »

deelowe wrote: post #14

This is terrible. Are scenarios like this really common? I work with several women in the office, but have not heard of them dealing with such harassment. Is our situation unique? Either way, I hope this changes soon. There's no reason for acting like that.

I think it's a different thing for women who are publicly visible and eg talk at conferences, or have popular blogs or have some level of leadership etc.

The women coders, designers and testers I've worked with and known well personally have never mentioned experiencing any online abuse either. But they have all been private nine to fivers* who don't have any visibility or online presence beyond their immediate family, friends and colleagues.

It would probably be a completely different story if any of them felt like sticking their heads up above the parapet and identifiably participating in online tech 'culture'. Especially if they dared to state an opinion on anything.

I think there's a difference in exposure between being a tech worker and being a public geek/hacker etc. Colleagues or bosses are more accountable for their actions than semi anonymous bullies on the net.

* No disrespect intended by that label at all (for men or women). Just that they weren't geeky hobbyists and didn't indulge in tech stuff outside work. In fact I kinda envy that these days, but I still can't let it go.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#188

Post by zallen »

ropable wrote: post #180

Reading posts like this leaves me feeling angry (that it happens at all, this day and age), bewildered (what kind of callous jerkwad sends death/rape threats to a stranger over editorial content) and helpless (what can I do to help or prevent this from happening further?) I give credit that there is a problem. I genuinely want to help improve things (my daughter might want to follow her old man into this field one da…

That is a very good start.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#189

Post by BrainInAJar »

obstacle1 wrote: post #75
qmalxp wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone sent you an email every day from different email addresses with the same text saying they were going to rape and murder you, and included your home address, pictures of your family and pictures of weapons, that wouldn't bother you? How do you know there are no real-world consequences? You're just gonna assume it's some 14-year-old kid trolling you and not one of the many insane people in this world who mig…

>You're just gonna assume it's some 14-year-old kid trolling you and not one of the many insane people in this world who might actually do something? Based on a hunch? Based on evidence and reasoning through probability. Thousands of Internet trolls send tens of thousands of death threats every day. On a given day, the probability that even one of those death threats is acted upon is a sliver greater than zero. As in…

And your house "probably" won't get broken in to. But you still lock the door.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#190

Post by zallen »

JesperRavn wrote: post #29
deelowe wrote: post #14

This is terrible. Are scenarios like this really common? I work with several women in the office, but have not heard of them dealing with such harassment. Is our situation unique? Either way, I hope this changes soon. There's no reason for acting like that.

I asked my only female coworker about this, and she said she had never experienced sexual harassment, and found tech culture tame compared with finance, where people would shout at programmers over the phone if things went wrong. Just one data point.

You do realize that finance is one of the worst places for representation of women and is recognized as a cesspit? (http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0316/072_terminated_women....). It's wonderful that your friend has had positive experiences throughout her career.
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