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This Industry is Fucked

blog.jessfraz.com

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Re: This Industry is Fucked

#201

Post by rjbwork »

shykes wrote: post #149

I am a colleague of Jess, and have witnessed her dealing with this ordeal. She is a badass and doesn't need anyone to speak on her behalf. But some aspects of her experience are relevant to all of us and we have to talk about it. 1. If this is happening to you and you haven't spoken to anyone about it - please do. There is a specialized support group at https://www.crashoverridenetwork.net . Even if you feel you can…

I don't really get what is going on here. Why are people spamming her with death/rape threats? There doesn't really seem to be any context given. Is it literally that someone decided that she was a good harassment target for completely unknown reasons? Why is she a notable figure?

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#202

Post by icu »

jessaustin wrote: post #66
icu wrote: post #34

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…

You have a good attitude about insults aimed at you. However, many people have lived lives that make such a healthy attitude impossible for them. I don't think progress is served by saying, "well it sucks that little girls are taught to stay 'safe' by taking the opinions of fuckwits seriously but I didn't teach them that so tough shit!" I doubt there's a magic bullet, but it would be better if we could build communic…

Hi, well firstly it saddens me somewhat that you think I was suggesting that, as you put it, "well it sucks that little girls are taught to stay 'safe' by taking the opinions of fuckwits seriously but I didn't teach them that so tough shit!"

Honestly for me it's not about sex. I believe men and women are in fact equal and anything less than that is ignorance.

As for a 'silver bullet', there won't ever be one. Best I can do is teach my son gender equality.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#203

Post by [deleted] »

jessaustin wrote: post #66
icu wrote: post #34

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…

You have a good attitude about insults aimed at you. However, many people have lived lives that make such a healthy attitude impossible for them. I don't think progress is served by saying, "well it sucks that little girls are taught to stay 'safe' by taking the opinions of fuckwits seriously but I didn't teach them that so tough shit!" I doubt there's a magic bullet, but it would be better if we could build communic…

[deleted]

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#204

Post by [deleted] »

jessaustin wrote: post #66
icu wrote: post #34

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…

You have a good attitude about insults aimed at you. However, many people have lived lives that make such a healthy attitude impossible for them. I don't think progress is served by saying, "well it sucks that little girls are taught to stay 'safe' by taking the opinions of fuckwits seriously but I didn't teach them that so tough shit!" I doubt there's a magic bullet, but it would be better if we could build communic…

[deleted]

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#205

Post by prawn »

obstacle1 wrote: post #101
prawn wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you tell the difference?

You don't worry about the difference because in practice you are more likely to die in an airplane crash over the course of your life than to die at the hands of an Internet death threat-giver.

I imagine that risk varies for those saying something other than the status quo. Often those people are keys to progression of society. Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, etc.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#206

Post by shykes »

rjbwork wrote: post #201
shykes wrote: post #149

I am a colleague of Jess, and have witnessed her dealing with this ordeal. She is a badass and doesn't need anyone to speak on her behalf. But some aspects of her experience are relevant to all of us and we have to talk about it. 1. If this is happening to you and you haven't spoken to anyone about it - please do. There is a specialized support group at https://www.crashoverridenetwork.net . Even if you feel you can…

I don't really get what is going on here. Why are people spamming her with death/rape threats? There doesn't really seem to be any context given. Is it literally that someone decided that she was a good harassment target for completely unknown reasons? Why is she a notable figure?

Obviously it's hard to know for sure. But most likely this is the work of "harassment hobbyists" who have no particular agenda other than the moronic thrill of messing with people from the safety of their keyboards. There is a great explanation elsewhere in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9836242

Most likely, Jess appeared on their radar because she is a very active and popular maintainer of Docker, a high-profile (and occasionally controversial) open-source project. She is known for impressive and sometimes hilarious hacks using Docker, witty and informative technical articles, and for contributing a great deal to the friendly and welcoming atmosphere of the Docker community. In short: she is awesome.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#207

Post by ajsharp »

__z wrote: post #140
bsder wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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." I'm tired of people whining in a blog post instead of calling the police. Death threats and violence threats like this are unacceptable. CALL THE POLICE. After a couple of high-profile case…

What makes you think she didn't call the police? http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/women-arent-welcome... "Two hours later, a Palm Springs police officer lumbered up the steps to my hotel room, paused on the outdoor threshold, and began questioning me in a steady clip. I wheeled through the relevant background information: I am a journalist; I live in Los Angeles; sometimes, people don’t like what I write abou…

Glad you posted this. They mentioned this incident in a segment they did on Last Week Tonight. The police are completely ill-equipped to deal with online harassment, even if they could determine the identity of the attacker, which they likely rarely can.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#208

Post by JoshuaDavid »

alaroldai wrote: post #116
mholt wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It may seem counterintuitive, but the fastest and most effective way to stop posts like this turning up is actually to make more of them, until the harassment and abuse stop. You have evidence to back this up? Honest question.

Actually, no. But I can't believe that ignoring the issue is going to be more helpful than bringing attention to it.

Have you heard the phrase "don't feed the trolls?" Generally, if someone is saying hurtful things because they didn't know better, raising awareness is likely to help. If they're saying hurtful things to get attention, saying that they're hurting people and should stop is likely to be counterproductive.

I don't know enough to be positive in this case, but I'm guessing this is a case of "trolls", not a case of "ignorant people" (at least not ignorant in the sense of not knowing that they're causing someone distress).

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#209

Post by knowtheory »

rdrake98 wrote: post #179
knowtheory wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skepticism is disbelieving something. Putting forward a conspiracy theory with literally no evidence (and evidence to the contrary) is not skepticism.

You didn't answer a key question: The thing is, the harassment that Jessie is facing could literally be one person, right? Do you deny that?

I'm sorry, why is that question a relevant one?

Would it matter to the author whether it was one person or many in her specific case? Would it make the harassment any less troubling or alarming?

Would it matter to the general case, since the author's story of harassment is certainly not a unique one in our industry?

So what point would the answer to your question prove one way or the other? Not much. Which is also why OP's post is horseshit both from a rhetorical perspective and from a human perspective.

OP's theory is a minimization tactic. Oh, well the harassment is probably only one person. Oh, the harassment is probably by a troll or troublemaker who's trying to cause a gender war.

The author's case is not unique. In trying to minimize the source of harassment you are attempting to undermine the author's point.

She is being harassed for participating in our industry, and that is really fucked up. There are people in our industry who either believe this behavior to be acceptable, or they think they can get away with it.

So, once again, how about we dispense with the crack-pottery, either do something helpful or maybe just lay off the "add comment" button.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#210

Post by forgottenpass »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #198
TTPrograms wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>we as an industry troll our women and minorities Is one person enough to blame the entire industry? Or two? Perhaps 10% of the industry is trolling women and minorities. Is there any evidence of that level of participation? >In order to "un-fuck" this industry, we do need to accept that we do this. This sort of ultimatum is exactly the thing that promotes hostility against confronting these issues. If somebody wants…

OK, fair point. So you don't like taking blame for other people's bad actions, even if those others are part of your community. I get that. We're also having that discussion around Islam too. But to my mind, this is what makes a community a community. If good things happen we all share credit, so when bad things happen we all share blame. We, collectively, respond to events together. And we police ourselves, which is…

Your post has inadvertently cemented how little sense of community I get from being a "tech" person. Tech doesn't feel like a town hall meeting in a new home I just haven't integrated with yet, it feels like commuting into NYC for work and looking around on a subway car.

I don't know what shared credit or shame I take part in sharing that is specific enough to identify with. Do we really respond to events together? A decade ago I may have said yes, but now all the opinions I see getting play are bog standard points plucked from the American political spectrum. Nothing wrong with that pre se, it just indicates to me whatever tech was, it's too large and/or too assimilated to have unique perspectives anymore.

The "voices" of tech are more and more often tech-adjacent rabble rousers or wanna-be standard-bearers. I don't identify with them any more than I do the corporate speech of big brands trying to play up the fact their core product is software in an attempt to use the cachet of tech and make their corporatism more palatable.

Over a decade ago I did have a sense of community in tech, but even then it was a community defined by unreasonable passion in a corner of a subfeild. Now that the headcount has exploded across the board, I'm supposed to own a non-programmer troll on twitter, or micro-aggressions at an office more degrees of separation away from myself than Kevin Bacon?

The only time I felt any sense of community in the last few years, is when someone is telling me I belong to one and online harassment is my responsibility.

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