What it's like to be cancelled • Hacker News Board

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#311

Post by throwaway111999 » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 7:57 PM UTC

tw04 wrote: post #292

throwaway111999 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> No offense but this is such a silly thing to say. EVERYONE sees race/age/sex.

I strongly disagree here. When I'm reviewing code, I look at the code. It could be written by ANYONE. I don't ever think "this woman" or "this " when reviewing code!

> "I like those earrings, they look great" - no problem. > "Hey I really like the way that shirt fits your body" - problem

You don't see how it can be easy to accidentally state the latter? If you don't... I just don't know what else to say. A major part of fashion is accentuating or hiding parts of someone's body...

In any case, as I said, I acknowledge that it's an irrational fear and I'd just rather not take the risk.

I think your main POV here is that if your heart is in the right place then everything will be fine. I just hard disagree with that.

> 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...

No, I treat them both equally but I avoid expressing any opinion whatsoever becomes I'm worried about being perceived otherwise.

I don't give female coworkers critical reviews, but I don't give male coworkers bad reviews either.

What I'm saying is that I very strategically avoid ANY situation where my I can express an opinion that MAY be perceived as "-ist".

In other words, think of any situation where intent is a major factor.

Example: A very veeerrrry nit picky code review. Some people are nit picky about every single thing to every single person. That's fine. But if someone is nit picky ONLY to female coworkers then that's a problem.

Intent is what matters there. My (again, irrational) fear is that my intent my get mis-read due to bad luck. My code reviews can be inconsistent sometimes. Some days I might point something out that I wouldn't on other days. Just human error. See what I mean?

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#312

Post by overgard » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 7:57 PM UTC

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 don't think you should have apologized. She was clearly being unreasonable.

In a situation like that it's fair to ask what in particular was a problem. If they can't give a reasonable response you should ignore them.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#313

Post by leesalminen » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 7:58 PM UTC

dfxm12 wrote: post #209

Animats wrote: post #143

What he's supposed to have done: “I 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.” None of which is illegal. It's not even a matter for civil litigation. He was not accused of doing this as a boss in an organization. Or in a workplace context. There were apparently no criminal charges. No EEOC complaints filed.[1] No a…

FYI, in most states, for most jobs, in most situations, you can be fired for pretty much any reason or no reason at all. If you are interested in workers' rights, please support collective action for labor and politicians that support workers' rights.

My brother-in-law is 24 years old, autistic and worked at the local grocery store. He was in the union. One time, he made a stupid joke about “juicy melons” he was physically holding to a female co-worker.

She claimed sexual harassment and he was immediately fired. No investigation, no support from the union.

There was no third party witness, just he said-she said. Don’t think unions are there to protect you.

His mother also works at the same store in a different department. Didn’t matter.

The mob had judged him expeditiously. The poor kid has never even kissed a girl.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#314

Post by agumonkey » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 7:58 PM UTC

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…

social network lack of structure is their main issue .. it's freeing until you start to see all the work to ensure sanity then you start to miss the slower / hierarchical layers that used to exist.. the natural brakes.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#315

Post by wffurr » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 7:59 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #279

"Be a super hero online. Do not use your real name. Do not show your face." -- Dad's Rule #1 of the internet

Actual opsec is a lot harder than that.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#316

Post by defaultname » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 7:59 PM UTC

overgard wrote: post #308

defaultname wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't there. I don't know you or any of the other players. I know nothing about this beyond basically the synopsis. Yet what is cited as the origin of the torch mob -- a twitter thread -- has a lot of pretty clear accusations by long time Twitter users, some of whom are fairly well known figures.

"Long time twitter user" is a pretty awful metric for credibility.

Someone with a chip on their shoulder didn't create a bunch of accounts to invent a narrative is the point. It's absolutely an input to consideration.

And FWIW, to use Animats' argument that lack of court proceedings is evidence, surely there's a lot of actionable libel in some of those twitter threads if they are invented. If there isn't such proceedings, is that proof that they're all true? I think we've hit a halting problem!

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#317

Post by Seattle3503 » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

legitster wrote: post #65

Honestly, the biggest mistake people make is issuing public apologies. So far, we have very few examples of them actually working. On the contrary, any amount of admission seems to show weakness. The "controversy" around Lin-Manuel Miranda seems to have come nearly entirely from his apology to a very small group of disappointed fans. There are even more examples of very publicly terrible people who have skirted worse…

> So far, we have very few examples of them actually working.

That's not the purpose of an apology. An apology is something you do to help the victims move forward, not something you do to minimize consequences.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#318

Post by fastball » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

overgard wrote: post #99

I've fortunately never been cancelled (I don't think I even have enough of a footprint or visibility for that to happen). From everything I've observed, the absolute worst thing you can do is apologize to the people attempting to cancel you. It's just pouring gasoline on the fire. These people will never say "oh, you learned from your mistakes, I guess I'll back off" . Most of them don't really care about the truth,…

The key is to not apologize and to have you career be semi-insulated from such a cancelling, in whatever form that takes (whether it's being self-employed in a way where a boycott doesn't hurt you too much, or working for someone that agrees with whatever it is you're saying and will stand by you, or just being independently wealthy).

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#319

Post by caddemon » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #289

caddemon wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that what Stallman said was misrepresented, and perhaps the later stages of the "cancelling" were more manufactured, but the initial anger that popped up on various MIT mailing lists felt very organic to me. A bit mob-like, definitely driven moreso by emotion than a good-faith reading of what Stallman said, and probably amplified by people who disagreed feeling afraid to speak out. But I wouldn't describe any…

Wasn’t one of the MIT students seeking to strip Stallman of his positions, claiming that she had only heard of him acting inappropriately (as she was too young to ever interact with him herself), yet when challenged on the matter, refused to provide any specifics?

Yes, IIRC the Medium post that made the situation go viral beyond MIT was written by a student that just compiled other peoples' stories about Stallman, not based on any of her own experiences. Personally I can't imagine initiating calls for someone's head without first hand knowledge, but I don't think she had any hidden incentive to make the post. My guess is she had her own negative experiences with someone else in the past and thought she was doing the right thing by speaking out for others here. I recall the post reading as very emotional, like a rant you might send to a private group chat of friends. So definitely not manufactured.

Re: What it's like to be cancelled

#320

Post by rvz » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 8:01 PM UTC

xwdv wrote: post #12

If you find yourself the target of a cancellation attempt, never give in. Never apologize. If you do, the problem isn’t going to go away, it will get worse. No apology is ever enough. No punishment is ever enough. There is no way to redeem yourself in the eyes of the public. Apologizing is making yourself humbled and vulnerable to a mob that does not deserve it. You will roll over to expose your belly in submission a…

Yes. The first step is to NEVER EVER apologise. With the mob, they will create libellous accusations and label you everything under the sun until they eventually spin your character into 'a Nazi'.

Perhaps they were playing too much Wolfenstein VR and they see Nazis in everything.

As you can see with the OP and the comments in this thread, it seems there is little to no redemption anyway. So apology is not an option. Especially on your own Twitter account.