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Comment by cyberpunk | Hacker News Reader

What was your motivation for doing this?

As soon as someone doesn't want to be associated with a story critical of anything, the salt is implicit isn't it?

Considering the last few stories that have come out about how women are being treated in tech, what I've observed (and been enraged by) I'm pretty sure this happened/is happening still.

Are you just trying to verify the legitimacy of the post? If someone finds the courage to speak out, why would you then try to out them for doing so?

Does it even matter if it's faked if most of us could totally believe it's not? There are bigger problems being highlighted here than this individual incident...

But what do I know... Do you work there? Is someone trying to fsck with uber's valuation or something?

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Are you just trying to verify the legitimacy of the post? If someone finds the courage to speak out, why would you then try to out them for doing so?

Because if it's not legitimate then it's worth knowing that? To me, this story seems far more suspicious than Fowler.

Does it even matter if it's faked if most of us could totally believe it's not?

Perhaps a variety of fake incidents have caused you to believe things that aren't true. Maybe the bigger problem being highlighted is also fake.

I recently had a conversation with someone telling me about a rape on a college campus. I told her I was skeptical. She said it was so common, why am I skeptical, and supported her case that it was common by citing Duke, Mattress Girl and UVA as examples. She was shocked when I suggested she google those incidents. Repeated fake incidents can cause people to change their priors.

So yes, the reason why "most of us could totally believe it's not" actually matters quite a lot.

What would be the motivation behind creating a 'false' rhetoric such as the experiences of women in tech?

I've certainly seen this happening / had to deal with it, I do feel that this is still an issue and something we need to improve. While it's not an across the board problem, I suspect most women working in tech would agree with me; the story, which I don't stand behind as as legitimate, is very similar to the sorts of things I've seen going on.

I wish we could just make it very hard for either false (I've seen this case happen, demonstrably, too) or true claims such as these to occur.

In most cases, talking to leads/mgt BEFORE these things get really bad would have helped and that's something we should be making easier..

I don't know the motivation. Perhaps someone feels harassment is a real problem, but can't find any real examples of it, so feels the need to tell lies for a good cause? Perhaps someone merely wants to harm Uber? They certainly have no shortage of people who hate them.

But regardless of motivation, the facts show that many people are willing to fake stories just to support their "team". Sometimes they do this at great personal risk and cost, e.g. lighting their own truck on fire or making false police reports. As an example of one category, there have been many such incidents since Nov 7:

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2016/12/23/denton-man-s... http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/12/14/hate-hoax-nyc-musl... http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/real-time/S-Jersey-man-ar... http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/ann-arbor-police-womans-s... http://patch.com/new-york/gardencity/man-who-drew-swastikas-...

So it's hardly beyond the realm of possibility that such a person took an hour to write a medium post in an incognito window for such purposes.

Sure; I can't fault any of that. Even if this was a link to a chapter of a fictional book though, I'd be saying the same thing.

I don't accept this as truth, I assume it's fiction as no one is standing behind it. My only point was, that in general, none of us are terribly shocked by stories such as these, and that's what I wanted to talk about.

I really do hope that less of this goes on than is reported, I sadly feel that the opposite is true -- and that's from personal experiences not unverifiable stories on the internetz.

Real or not, no one's shocked because we just had a major eye-opener (Fowler) so recently.

I normally disagree with everything 'yummyfajitas posts, and I personally dislike Uber due to the number of well documented unethical actions they've taken. Additionally, I think this type of story has played out so many times that no one thinks the story is truly unbelievable.

In light of all of that I still think this is the kind of story that needs to be verified before action is taken. Just off the top of my head I could think of a number of reasons for someone to create a false story in this situation ranging from semi-believable, a competitor like Lyft adding more fuel to Uber's current PR fire, to conspiracy theory level, China trying to hurt a foreign company so that Didi Chuxing has an easier time growing.

Its unfortunate, but the internet allows unethical actors to craft and spread unverifiable stories with little effort but a high payoff due to the emotions of everyone who reads them. The same feeling that leads us to want to take action after reading this, because it would be genuinely terrible if true and we want to believe people, is the same feeling that leads anti vaxxers to believe fake science they find on the internet.

It absolutely does (need verification).

As for the false news/polarisation thing... Am I the only one starting to panic just a teeny little bit?

I am trying to verify its legitimacy, how can you silently accept such a critical post on face-value, no I don't work there. Giving voice to false claims intensifies their illegitimate power and in societies that this prevails that same power can be used by propagandists to advance their goal, so it's not about Uber it's about giving homage to truth, as every person's responsibility should be.

I've not accepted it as genuine at all; I'm saying that regardless of if it's real or not, the point here is that if it was it wouldn't surprise us..

I'd really really like it if we could get to the point where if stories like this came out for any company, we would be more surprised by them..

As for the illegitimate power (I'm not even sure what that is...) and propagandists comments; I don't really see how this fits into twist of those..

It's a story about some bad behaviour at a big tech company.. Is it a big deal? Individually; nah. As a general trend in tech that I've certainly experienced; yeah. Is it part of a propagandists plot to turn your country into a communist superstate and increase their "illegitimate power" -- I doubt it..

> As a general trend in tech that I've certainly experienced

What do you mean by that? Do you mean you've experienced an upswing in these incidents, or an upswing in the number of news stories about these sorts of incidents?

There are numerous incidents where broad media coverage of unsubstantiated claims cause public outrage over exaggerated incidents. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_controver... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-care_sex-abuse_hysteria for examples.

Perhaps trend was the wrong word. I simply meant that for all the female employees and coworkers I've had over the last few years, almost all of them have confided a story such as this to me when we discuss women in tech.

Now, maybe that's part of life. I'm sure most of the males I've worked with have a story about being bullied or getting into a horrible fight with a coworker at least once, and perhaps by putting women experiencing these things into a certain category we're also part of the problem..

shrug -- I just don't like seeing people I like or am responsible for in some way getting a hard time; hopefully I won't see much more of it.

> I'm saying that regardless of if it's real or not, the point here is that if it was it wouldn't surprise us …

It would certainly surprise me. I simply cannot imagine working with the sort of folks Amy describes. I'm not saying that such folks don't exist — it's a big world — but that I have never in my almost two decades of work in our field run into them.

Now, maybe that means I haven't run into them. I can accept that. And maybe it means that Uber is particularly bad in this regard. I can also accept that.

I don't know if this story is true or false: I honestly don't. It's probably worth investigating; certainly, after Susan Fowler put her name on some allegations of despicable behaviour it probably is.

If there are pockets of our field where this is considered normal, they need to be eliminated. But it does not accord at all with my experience of trends in our field.

>Does it even matter if it's faked if most of us could totally believe it's not?

With the popularity of people crying "fake news" and the study recently hitting the front page of HN/Reddit that if you repeat a lie enough, people are more inclined to believe it [0], it bothers me to see a sentence like this. Yes, it matters a lot whether or not it is legitimate. "Fake news" never seems to matter to individuals if it supports their point of view.

Do you "totally believe it" because you've heard similar stories that are equally unverifiable or because you've had similar experiences? If it's because you've heard similar stories, how credible are those stories? Do you believe it because it has been repeated again and again? The last credible story along the "identity politics" line that I can remember offhand is "Donglegate" which I don't even take seriously, because it made a huge mess out of an immature joke that was overheard.

This whole "Even though it was a lie, I was trying to start a conversation!" is such a common tactic it's become a meme at this point and the fake victims "trying to start a conversation" are beginning to hurt the credibility of actual victims.

I pass no judgement on the credibility of the article - as I haven't read it. I came across this comment from /newcomments

[0] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022537177...

No. I don't.

I meant that in the context of the overall experiences in women in tech, not women at uber or anything more specific than that.

Let me try to rephrase.. Would you be shocked that this sort of thing goes on? I would not. My only point was that the bigger problem is exactly THAT lack of surprise, and not the legitimacy of the post; and that's what we should be talking about.

I don't trust anything about the post, even if it was intentionally labelled as fiction; I'd feel the same way.

I would be shocked that a bunch of high-IQ, high-conscientiousness individuals would repeatedly engage in dangerous activities with a high probability of getting caught, and in such easily provable ways.

Putting on my evil villain hat for a moment, if I want to harass women it won't be at my workplace. It won't be at my favorite bar in Pune where I get laid regularly. I'll take the bus to Mumbai, head to some bar in Andheri where no one knows my face, and do it there. That's just a sign of my rational self interest (and evil villain hat) combined with a demonstrated ability to rub two brain cells together and think a step or two ahead.

>I would be shocked that a bunch of high-IQ, high-conscientiousness individuals would repeatedly engage in dangerous activities with a high probability of getting caught

There's a long history of precisely such individuals doing precisely this sort of thing.

And in any case, there is not a high probability of getting caught, for reasons that your comment illustrates. Women who make these claims are not believed.

I understand your reasoning but I don't think it takes into account the motivations of those that harass. Harassment is about control. Taking the bus to Mumbai to harass some random woman you don't know and are unlikely to ever see again isn't as powerful as harassing/controlling women in your every day life.

I can't work it out either. I've had staff who I really liked and knew for years, who were TOTALLY normal be reported to me by other males on the team for harassing female staff..

He admitted his behaviour and he couldn't explain why he did it; was a pretty rough experience for everyone..

"listen and believe"

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