Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What it's like to be cancelled

noahbradley.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 613 posts

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#291

Post by koheripbal »

FemmeAndroid wrote: post #271
tester756 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but where does this quote comes from?

His full apology on twitter: > I’m sorry. > l was terrible to women. > I preyed on them. I ceaselessly hit on them. I pressured them into sex. I got too drunk and did all manner of dumb things. Yes, I was one of those shitty, creepy sexual predators you hear about. > I was fucking awful. > I am deeply sorry for everything I did. I apologize for the selfish, cruel, insensitive way I acted. It's no way for anyone to ac…

Unfortunately, he overstated his crime for the sake of the impact of the apology. He called himself a "sexual predator".

Being horny and trying to convince people of the opposite sex to have sex with you isn't being a predator. Being a predator is drugging women, or pressuring underage women.

...but I don't think him overstating his crime is grounds for people firing him - especially given that this had happened over a decade earlier.

To me the lesson here is that you should never apologize publicly. The people that demand it, do so for the wrong reasons, and the people that benefit from an apology, probably prefer something personal and direct - not some public show.

Public apologies are just porn.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#292

Post by tw04 »

throwaway111999 wrote: post #270
tw04 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you know, just don't be a creep and treat women like human beings and you'll be fine? If you're giving negative feedback because they did something wrong/substandard work, you document it and move on. If there are questions later, you refer back. I've literally never had this be a problem. I'm not sure why talking about your personal life would be grounds for issues unless you decided to talk about your bedroom, p…

> Or you know, just don't be a creep and treat women like human beings and you'll be fine? You don't understand. When I interact with people, I don't see race/color/age/sex. I'm just focused on the problem at hand. I also have a deep compassion for people in general. What I'm worried about is saying or doing the wrong thing due to a lapse in judgement in the moment. I'll give you an example. I love fashion. At a prev…

>When I interact with people, I don't see race/color/age/sex.

No offense but this is such a silly thing to say. EVERYONE sees race/age/sex. Most people also change how they interact with others based on their age/sex and that's perfectly fine (if you're basing it on race that's an issue unless you're literally in a foreign country with a different culture). I don't talk to a 2 year old girl in the same tone of voice and vocabulary that I talk to a 40 year old man. If you're treating a 2 year old and a 40 year old the same, we've probably discovered one of many problems with your interpersonal skills.

>Making any comments about female coworker fashion terrifies me.

Why? Again this is all pretty straightforward. Couple simple rules: don't stop by the same persons desk every day and compliment their fashion, that gets creepy.

"I like those earrings, they look great" - no problem.

"Hey I really like the way that shirt fits your body" - problem

>Maybe I wasn't clear in my post, but my point is that I have an irrational fear.

And my point is that you're saying you are knowingly and intentionally treating your female coworkers significantly different than your male coworkers, and that's kind of weird, and will likely lead to more issues than if you just treat them the same...

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#293

Post by tester756 »

PenTest1928 wrote: post #277
tester756 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but where does this quote comes from?

It's literally from Noah Bradley's public apology/announcement; he tried to get in front of the growing rumor network by publicly admitting things.

Fair, I've read only this post

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#294

Post by [deleted] »

happytoexplain wrote: post #256
xupybd wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah Twitter is very toxic. I got on a few lists as well. I tried to talk to the NZ civil liberties association about freedom of speech. As it turns out they are against free speech and pro hate speech laws. I didn't know that going in. Then some people put me on a hate speech list. After that I was blocked by a large group of people I'd never encountered. It's a weird place and I'm glad to be off the platform.

I completely believe that whatever happened to you was totally unreasonable, but try to understand that from another person's point of view, the broad "you must be against freedom of speech" thing is "toxic", just as you have experienced "toxic" behavior from the opposite side of the issue.

[deleted]

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#295

Post by dang »

saul_goodman wrote: post #216
prepend wrote: post #11

I think the biggest problem with Twitter is that we can’t determine a denominator. Twitter knows, but we don’t know. 100 people tweeting about how this guy is bad might be indicative of a general consensus or might just be 100 people out of a billion Twitter users. People then interpret it as general consensus and pile on. We know the numerator but since we don’t know the denominator of people who didn’t comment, or…

[flagged]

Please don't post ideological flamewar comments to HN. This thread is mostly, though not entirely, managing to stay on the substantive side. Jumping straight into the flames is not a good idea and is destructive, if not outright vandalism. HN isn't for this so please don't do it here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#296

Post by throwaway111999 »

tw04 wrote: post #247
throwaway111999 wrote: post #225

I'm terrified of interacting with female coworkers. I don't have a "-ist" bone in my body. When I review code, I only see the code and not the person that wrote it. When I pick a team, I look at engineering ability and nothing else. I abhor discriminatory behavior and would be the first to put my career on the line to defend someone getting discriminated against. And of course I keep anything sexual FAR FAR FAAAR out…

Or you know, just don't be a creep and treat women like human beings and you'll be fine? If you're giving negative feedback because they did something wrong/substandard work, you document it and move on. If there are questions later, you refer back. I've literally never had this be a problem. I'm not sure why talking about your personal life would be grounds for issues unless you decided to talk about your bedroom, p…

BTW, if you're wondering "how did this person get into this mindset in the first place?" then that would be a good question.

I've never been personally accused of anything like this.

But... I've looked at past incidents both in the public light and privately among friends and worried that I might have inadvertently screwed up.

For example, the whole PyCon dongle joke incident. This is a case where a couple of guys were being immature and made some sexual joke about dongles. A woman in front of them overheard it, snapped their picture, posted it on Twitter, and they got fired (at least one posted an apology IIRC). Could I have made a dongle joke at a social event in my early 20s? You bet I could have! Esp. because, as an introvert programmer, these kind of events were a great place for me to socialize (vs bars, clubs, etc).

I've witnessed people get called out for much much less. I just don't ever want to be on that side of the table.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#297

Post by broberts01 »

noahbradley wrote: post #215
defaultname wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original complaint claimed that he was a groper. That's sexual harassment. It's illegal. It's incredibly toxic and creepy , and people who do it are out of touch cretins who make everything worse. Citing that no one officially lodged a criminal complaint isn't a counterpoint. Most sexual assault isn't pursued. Serial creeps are plying their trade right now. But yeah, if he's associated with a brand and he's going…

I never groped anyone.

I don't think anyone is inclined to believe one way or the other. It is a gray area and with the way you described what you did, it certainly seems plausible.

You even say you were drunk and did stupid things. It is plausible that you wouldn't even remember doing it.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#298

Post by wvenable »

fration wrote: post #58

You did not get cancelled for questionable comments online, or wrongthink, or whatever. You got burned for being a sexual predator. Stop making posts about it online, stop downplaying what you did by saying "I was a different person". Learn to live with the consequences of your actions.

> You got burned for being a sexual predator.

Except he did not. He got burned for a blog post apology -- where he called himself a sexual predactor. No apology, no burning.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#299

Post by meinfuhrer »

throwaway34017 wrote: post #56

I recently gave a test lecture about a topic in statistics, where I showed a meme that a statistics professor I follow shared on her Twitter feed [1]. I thought it would be safe to include as it didn't get any negative reactions on Twitter and was already being used by a professor in her university class in the US. After the talk I immediately got called out by the women's representative on the hiring commission, who…

I remember posting this exact meme in an article on my blog and then cross-posted to a different site. Was asked to remove it from the site due to "how it objectifies women and perpetuates shallow stereotypes". I didn't give a fuck, but I removed it because they make their rules. Of course, I left it on my blog.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#300

Post by koheripbal »

steveBK123 wrote: post #38
MattGaiser wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of it is that journalists will amplify it as well if they are one of the 100 who sees it. Seen journalist job postings where checking Twitter for stories is part of it.

Journalists participate in Twitter at a rate probably 10-100x the overall population. Most people don't ever log into Twitter, most journalists do daily. I think you can look at it this way: * For normal people, Twitter is not real life. * For journalists, Twitter is real life. Journalists then become the vector by which BS Twitter drama becomes mainstreamed.

Teenagers as well.

Teenagers spend 1000x the amount of time on Twitter - their "voice" is amplified.

Post reply on HN