No, of that I'm innocent | Hacker News Reader

No, of that I'm innocent

scobleizer.blog

105 pointswellboy161 comments

I'll preface this with, I don't know who this guy is and this is the first time I heard anything about this, I am unfamiliar with the allegations.

I am just absolutely shocked by this

>I don’t have employees, I don’t cut checks for investment. None of the women who came forward were ever in a position where I could make or break their careers. Sexual Harassment requires that I have such power.

JFC, does anyone actually believe this? This is absolutely... Shocking. Disturbing... I have no words...

Shouldn't he have consulted with the EEOC before making such a bold statement?

https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm

>The harasser can be the victim's supervisor, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker, or someone who is not an employee of the employer, such as a client or customer.

It just makes it seem like he has no idea what appropriate behavior is at all. Really takes away from his credibility. Makes me think he's a total creep but thinks it's other people who are the problem.

Also, it stood out to me it seems odd that he used "sexual harassment" as a proper noun.

Yeah, I'm in pretty much the same place, with no idea who this guy is or what he's accused of, but I feel like this statement is having the opposite of the intended effect on me.

I think the implication is that victims would have gone to law enforcement if he has no power over them, i.e no consequences for going to law enforcement.

I don't understand why they cant report harassment to law enforcement if its ' unlawful to harass a person '. Thats the only way to get justice in our society.

In my experience, most women have done this a couple of times and found it both painful and useless. This leads to apathy.

Yesterday my partner was harassed by a doctor. I asked if she wanted to file a complaint or report it to somebody. She simply looked disappointed and said that no it would be a pain and almost certainly accomplish nothing. Better to not see this doctor again and try to schedule appointments with female doctors when possible. This is because this sort of thing has happened to her dozens of times in her lifetime, reporting it has never worked, and she already has enough on her plate. She didn't want this to be the state of things, but was resigned to it.

Yes, this person will likely continue to be an asshole. But after people try so many times to do the right thing and are rebuffed we cannot keep expecting them to do the same thing over and over. It becomes one more thing to feel guilty about in these sorts of scenarios.

>, most women have done this a couple of times and found it both painful and useless. This leads to apathy.

Whats the alternative though. How do we fix this.

If I'm reading it right, is he saying he is not a "sexual harasser" as opposed to just a simple "sexual assaulter"!?

He should have taken his lawyers advice.

Don’t worry about not having heard of Robert Scoble. After this, you almost certainly never will. Going forward, anyone who supports him, finances him, gives him a platform, or even acknowledges his existence positively is themselves culpable for unleashing such a horrific, unapologetic person upon our industry.

I almost vomited reading this abhorrent statement in its entirety. I’m still stunned, and very little about sexual impropriety in SV stuns me any more. This is a whole new level that I didn’t even think possible, and one of the sibling comments correctly points out that we will be talking about this for years, and years, and years.

The problem is, he is one of the MOST influential people in the tech ecosystem. Yes, he is a "blogger", but in many cases he could make or break a product, a startup or a career. A friend of mine startup was noticed (and acquired) by Facebook because Scoble started blogging about it and that came to the attention of Zuckerberg.

This guy leaves and breathes in tech conferences, as he is a regular invited speaker/guest. I'm sure he had to see, read a million of "code of conducts". The fact he claims "I have no employees... I have no power" is...disgusting.

I think you overstate his influence even back in the day. But absolutely to the rest of your comment. One of the more cringeworthy parts of a rather cringeworthy post.

Scoble himself has always overstated and self-aggrandized his own influence, as have so many others in the press, the industry, blogs and twitter (many of them actually trying to suck up to him and flatter him, in order to get a good mention in return -- see "Lesson 5: Reciprocate" below), which contradicts his current ploy of desperately trying to downplay his own influence so he can justify his behavior as "almost but not quite entirely unlike sexual harassment".

https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/25/16547332/robert-scoble-s...

Scoble has been called “one of the most influential players in the [tech] industry,” and one of the “top ten people to know in Silicon Valley.”

https://venturebeat.com/2015/01/28/5-things-silicon-valley-c...

The amount of love the tech community has for Robert Scoble is overwhelming. If the tech community were a country, Scoble would be its ambassador. Not only because we would want him to be, but because he truly knows more about the state of the global tech community than anyone else on planet Earth. I’ve known Scoble for seven years, and I’ve always been in awe of how much knowledge this man possesses about so many startups.

[...]

Lesson 5: Reciprocate

Due to his influential status, Scoble gets many perks from entrepreneurs around the world, just like most influencers do: Free gadgets, access to apps, invitations to visit conferences and stay in nice hotel rooms, and so on. These are usually forgotten by most influential figures in the Valley. However, Scoble never forgets these gestures and always acknowledges them — either through a Facebook post, tweet, or a reciprocal gesture. He doesn’t just take these benefits for granted like other folks of his caliber might.

Entrepreneurs, of course, appreciate this and remember him for it. Many of the activities throughout Scoble’s birthday for example, were contributed by individuals, due to their admiration for Scoble and appreciation of him.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-lorenzen/the-top-10-p...

3. Robert Scoble

Many people know Robert Scoble for his blog Scobleizer, which he wrote when he was working with Microsoft. Today, Scoble working for Rackspace and their sponsored community site Building 43, which focuses on highlighting and promoting cutting-edge startups and breakthrough technology. If you want to be featured in Silicon Valley, he is the individual to turn to. After all, his influence in the area is long-standing as Scoble grew up in Silicon Valley, just blocks away from Apple’s head office.

Where does this line of thinking lead? I mean it's one thing to limit any attempts at intimacy in the workplace, but if you're just 'influential enough' then you expand this definition to include anyone in the entire tech sector? This seems clearly illogical.

Again, if there was assault it's a totally different matter. But sexual harassment is a lower bar specifically because of the idea no one should have to work in a hostile work environment. You can't create a hostile work environment if you're not actually working with someone or exerting direct influence over their career?

> You can't create a hostile work environment if you're not actually working with someone or exerting direct influence over their career?

Quinn's story was not at a 'work environment' so does it have any less impact? Why are you letting him adjust the narrative to define what he feels is harassment?

Let's also not forget that it was a conference. A very laid back-camping kind of conference, but a conference. In today's standards - where you can't join a project or visit/talk to a conference without accepting a CoC - this would still be considered an extension of the workplace, or at least be classified as a "professional setting". We are not talking rocket science: if you are in a professional setting, getting overly drunk, make out in public and then proceeding to random groping - is NOT ok. You can have him redefine the narrative however he wants, he still a serial sexual offender.

Read back to the context of my question. Two drunk people coming together to "make out" at a camp out -- this is a "conference" like Burning Man is a conference -- if this is in and of itself is creating a "hostile work environment" I think that words are losing their meaning.

I don't really care what kind of narrative Scoble is trying to make. I have no knowledge of the specifics of his situation or his encounters, and couldn't care less about passing judgement on him.

But I was very curious about this idea that, which seems to be stated throughout this thread, someone can become so influential in an industry that any non-professional contact they have industry-wide could be sexual harassment.

And again, and again, I have to say, if there was assault that is just a completely different issue entirely.

I don't know where you're getting the idea it's not a conference. Here's a link to a photo set from Foo Camp 2010, where the incident occurred:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/deanputney/sets/72157624362235...

Burning Man it ain't.

Quinn's story sounds like assault and has nothing to do with sexual harassment. To me that just muddies the waters.

Surely he doesn't intend to say "I'm not guilty of sexual harassment but rather sexual assault."

Not at all. Sexual harassment describes different behavior than assault, and is not a crime. The same behavior which may be sexual harassment in one context could be entirely appropriate in another context. And all that is to say, there is a necessary context to sexual harassment.

Scoble claims that any sexual advances he made lacked the necessary context to be considered sexual harassment. He may not even be wrong.

I referenced the UN fact sheet on "What is Sexual Harassment" in another comment but perhaps I should quote it directly;

Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature _when_ (emphasis added):

· Submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual's employment, or

· Submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as a basis for employment decisions affecting such individual, or

· Such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.

To me, hairsplitting about whether the conduct technically counts as sexual harassment is more or less beside the point and even getting into it makes the allegations sound more, rather than less, credible.

Maybe I misunderstood the purpose of this thread. I didn't think this was about assessing the specific allegations at all, but precisely about understanding the definition of sexual harassment.

It's the willingness of so many men to split hairs in order to defend a pig that is so offensive and threatening to women.

If you are the keynote speaker of a conference, DO NOT flirt with other attendees or other coworkers, regardless of the line of report. There are code of conduct left and right for a reason. Saying "they were not my employees" does not excuse you from using your influence, in a work-related setting, to approach someone else for sex matters.

Even simpler than that, really: treat a conference and the outside social stuff that rides along as a work environment regardless of your status or role. You’re not at a knitting convention. You’re meeting professional peers. I had to fuck up to learn this, and I think it’s extremely important.

Q: Would I do $thing if this were at my office?

A: No.

Done.

Let's go even more simple: Just be a decent human being

What you do and don't do should not be tied entirely to work relation situations.

Decent human beings make unwanted sexual advances all the fucking time. We can't read each other's minds after all.

This is why we go to the trouble of defining a "sexual harassment" standard in the workplace, which holds coworkers to a higher standard of care than what is expected outside of the workplace.

Obviously we are not supposed to live our lives interacting with every other human purely professionally.

Wow. Mind reading is not required. You've watched too many movies that go from strangers to married with children in 90 minutes. How about spending weeks, months, and even years building a relationship? Talking->dating->holding hands->... Spend more than 5 minutes on each stage. I know it seems old-fashioned, but it can really reduce the degree of offense when you misjudge the stage of a relationship.

Very condescending reply and ad hominem isn't necessary, but I think is reflective of the strength of the argument.

Dating is messy, complicated business. People get hurt. There is no magic ritual or length of time that will prevent that.

But I think the ivory tower condescension that if only men would follow this or that prescriptive approach is extremely damaging and even perpetuates the problem.

Harassment is a pattern of undesired behavior. One advance is OK, but if you're turned down you DO NOT MAKE ANOTHER to that person. Just accept it and move on.

Really that's it. It applies everywhere. It applies to non-sexual harassment as well.

I think I might be misunderstanding you. People absolutely should not be expected to live their whole lives like they are at the office. What defines outside social stuff that rides along as a work environment?

How far outside your social sphere are you supposed to be meeting or getting introduced to actual people who are interesting to you as a peer and potential romantic partner?

So it sounds like it's back to what I said earlier -- there's basically no social environment related to the tech industry where you think it would be alright for someone who happens to be influential in the tech sector to flirt with someone? But this seems to absolutely not be the definition of sexual harassment under the EEOC.

To try to remove some of the moral righteousness from it, lets assume we're talking about a single male, no wife or girlfriend, who is a well-known tech executive and blogger.

I don't think anyone here is talking about "flirting." Although I think it's also fair to say that the closer you get to being "in the office" the more caution is probably called for.

> I don't think anyone here is talking about "flirting."

Literally three comments up from your own comment:

> If you are the keynote speaker of a conference, DO NOT flirt with other attendees or other coworkers, regardless of the line of report.

Fair enough. I did not see that and would actually disagree with it for appropriately non aggressive values of flirting. (If you’re a high profile keynote speaker specifically though, caution is increasingly called for.)

Greer's account of Scoble flirting with her at a hotel bar (drinks in both hands, touched her leg) is quite the counter-point.

It appears like that moment had a lasting and significant impact on Michelle. [1] The repercussions as Michelle tells them are certainly terrible. I feel badly for Michelle and want to understand better what she experienced from her perspective.

That was certainly unwanted sexual contact. Was it sexual assault? Possibly. Was is sexual harassment? Possibly! All unwanted sexual contact is not actually automatically sexual harassment. [2]

[1] - https://www.buzzfeed.com/doree/woman-accuses-robert-scoble-o...

[2] - http://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/pdf/whatissh.pdf

I think that goes way beyond casual "flirting" in most people's book. Obviously people differ, signals get misread, and tolerances vary. I'm aware of one "code of conduct violation" report based on a Tshirt that made me roll my eyes--as well as the eyes of quite a few women I know. But that doesn't seem like a particular edge case as reported.

Touching someone's leg is considered flirting, is it not? Honestly, I did not mean to mis-characterize it.

No. I would not have said so Clearly it varies based on how well you know and your relationship with a person. But randomly in a semi-professional context?

It was clearly inappropriate, that's not what I'm asking. Inappropriate flirting is a thing. If I read in a book, "she touched his leg" I would call that flirting.

I feel like there's something I'm missing because, as recounted, his actions had such a strong and lasting impact to Greer.

Maybe this Scoble dude is just a nuclear style creep and just having to sit next to him is torturous. But that seems highly unlikely. I've never met the guy! I don't recall ever hearing him speak or watching a video of him even. So...

If I'm understanding the story, 4 people at a hotel bar drinking, one touching someone's leg. And what that led to, or possibly even caused -- I think it's fair to describe it as incredibly damaging? Obviously we want to avoid people being hurt like that. So, we construct social mores and civil law to try to prevent it from happening, and punish a small subset of offenders very harshly.

I'm a little stunned by all of it.

Does your office serve alcohol? Does your rule of thumb extend to what you eat and drink? What kind of clothes you wear? Whether you stay or leave?

I think it would be great if it did. But then you would have to significantly restructure conferences to conform. Many of the official events of a conference are blatant violations of workplace behavior.

Since drinking an unspecified amount of alcohol can render a woman (but not a man) incapable of consenting while possibly also giving the outward appearance of consenting, no absolutely don't serve alcohol at the workplace when women are present.

Now of course this is an absurd statement, but are their elements of truth in it? Quinn's account is Scoble and another woman were "making out" and that both were drunk. There was no question at all of Scoble's capacity to consent but Quinn felt she or her friend was able to determine the woman (who she doesn't know and apparently didn't talk to) was not able to consent, and claim that Scoble was minutes from raping her.

So, in short, a dumpster fire.

Three other witnesses have come forward and said that they were concerned the woman was too drunk to consent. Artur Bergman's account: "Me and my friend realized we had seen Scoble appear next to her repeatedly during the evening. Pouring more and more alcohol for her. After seeing this for a while we felt we had to intervene and help her get away."

https://twitter.com/crucially/status/921317876169977857

Focusing on the conference aspect is not particularly helpful in understanding the expected framework here...

I assume there's nothing magical about a conference environment. In some cases the alleged harassment is occurring at bars where everyone is drinking alcohol. In another case it's a long-standing online chat relationship.

Where is the Harvey-esque influence peddling? I mean in that case is was more like straight-up blackmail.

Sometimes a guy will flirt with a girl and the feeling is not mutual. This happens quite frequently and it's not illegal or even wrong. Being an influential or powerful man (or woman!) doesn't make this wrong or illegal unless there is something more to it...

I believe you are looking at this problem the wrong way. Part of that is the fault of the media and all of us on social media that focus on the heinousness of Harvey Weinstein's actions and our immediate move to dehumanize and vilify him. Weinstein was so far past the line that it might cloud were the line actually is. It is only natural for men to look at him and go "I'm not that bad, I didn't threaten anyone, I didn't rape anyone, I didn't proposition anyone I have direct control over, I didn't do any of this at work, etc.".

However the line isn't people being sexually harassed at work, it is people being sexually harassed at all. This isn't limited to drunkenly groping women at tech conferences or asking women you might potentially hire to shower with you. The problem is that your first romantic move with someone shouldn't be a grope or an offer to get naked. Simply don't behave in that manor until you know your actions will be received positively by the other person. It really isn't that difficult to simply treat people with empathy and think of their responses to your actions before you make them. If you do that you will never even get to the point of unwantedly groping someone.

In a perfect world, no one's feelings get hurt in love, and there is no war. We do not live in that world, and as mere mortals we are incapable of creating such a utopia.

It's a strawman that "your first romantic move with someone shouldn't be a grope or an offer to get naked." The reality is that ham-fisted proposals and hurtful rejection are rampant 'out there on the dance floor' and the purpose of sexual harassment policy is not, in fact, a idealized manual on how to behave in love and romance, but rules which apply exclusively in the workplace in order to ensure equality in the workplace.

If you're talking about sexual harassment outside of the workplace, then you're Doing It Wrong. If you're conflating poorly executed romantic endeavor with what is actually assault, that's even worse.

Please understand I'm engaging in the debate not to defend some asshole who I don't know and couldn't care two shits about, but I think there's a deeper meaning & understanding to be had here...

It seems to me, only from what little I've read about the man, that Scoble quite clearly is a jerk and an ass, and he owes quite a few people quite a few apologies. That much I most certainly am not debating!

I feel like we're on the cusp of a great wave of progress in the area. But I think if mere jerks and assholes are the new target, the inevitable backlash could set the whole movement back a decade.

I was not referring to sexual harassment in the legal sense. I was referring to it in the literal sense of harassment of a sexual nature. For example cat calling a woman on the street might be legal, but that is still literally sexual harassment and shouldn't be acceptable. If you use empathy as your guideline for your own personal behavior, the actual code of conduct for your employer or whatever professional environment you are in is irrelevant because you will already be abiding by a higher standard.

This is what entirely missing the point of sexual harassment policy looks like. Sexual harassment policy is a workplace equalizer. It's literally not about men acting like gentleman or having a higher standard.

If you're talking about harassment in general, umm... people are obnoxious to each other constantly and perpetually. Kumbaya let's make it all better? I don't think so!

Agree to disagree then. I think this is a symptom of a larger issue and I think it is a disservice to only try to remedy the symptom rather than looking for larger change.

It leads to professionals treating their work as if it was a profession.

I challenge "one of the MOST influential people" as vigorously as is posthumanly possible.

Off the top, how many people here who are both under 30 and hack on something (hardware, wetware, anything) know who scoble is? I only vaguely remembered his name with effort, and even that may have been by analogy to somebody else.

In fact: the more I look into him, the more the expression "never-was" (as a more extreme form of "has-been") comes to mind. Just step through his wikipedia entry⁽¹⁾ and it'll be hard to disagree with the assessment:

    > 4 Appearances
    >
    > In November, 2013, Scoble was co-keynote speaker with
    > Shel Israel at the 2013 Telstra Australian Digital
    > Summit. Scoble and Israel talked to their book titled
    > "Age of Context: Mobile, Sensors, Data and the Future of
    > Privacy".

read: noise.

    > On April 1, 2008, The Register ran an April fool’s spoof
    > claiming Robert Scoble was actually an IBM bot.

read: a stumbling, college newspaper-esque exercise⁽²⁾ in retrofitting a disposable assignment (april 1) to trash-talk scoble openly. unambiguously dripping with disdain, really.

    > On November 14, 2007, he was a contestant on a game show
    > at NewTeeVee Live […]

at what now?

    > [f]eaturing other internet celebrities such as Veronica
    > Belmont, Casey McKinnon, Cali Lewis, Kevin Rose, Justin
    > Kan, and others.

who? there are two tech names here, and zero celebrities.

    > On November 6, 2006, Scoble appeared as a panelist on a
    > Chinese Software Professionals Association event called
    > "The New Age of Influence: The Impact of Social Computing
    > on Media and Marketing".

read: noise.

    > 5 Milliscoble
    >
    > In September 2008, Follow cost, a website which
    > calculated how annoying it would be to follow anyone on
    > Twitter, invented the milliscoble unit of measurement
    > defined as: "1/1000 of the average daily Twitter status
    > updates by Robert Scoble as of 10:09 CST September 25,
    > 2008." At that time, Scoble was averaging 21.21 tweets
    > per day, so a milliscoble is 0.02121 tweets per day. A
    > person with a milliscoble rating of 1000 will be as
    > annoying to follow as Scoble.

read: further open contempt of scoble as shitposter incarnate.

So what do we have? A guy who had some kind of readership as a microsoft evangelist 13+ years ago, then circled the drain of ~web tv~ for a decade, then landed an Entrepreneur in Residence gig — read: unpaid internship⁽³⁾ — ultimately just circling a slightly newer, slightly shinier drain (VR).

One who, along the way, consciously uncoupled⁽⁴⁾ from all the content streams and personal branding whose maintenance constitute the entirety of an independent writing career. The blogger's own site, at .blog no less, is a contentless placeholder now.

We're left with some sorta phantasm of a now-defunct, still-not-tech personality: a never-was.

If the Ghostblogger of Milliscobles Past can kill your startup, your startup almost certainly didn't need to exist.

____________________

¹ http://enwp.org/Robert_Scoble

² https://theregister.co.uk/2008/04/01/ibm_scoble_nano

³ https://scobleizer.blog/2016/05/17/mental-blocks-resource-co...

⁴ https://scobleizer.blog/2012/07/02/scalable-livin

It can be any of those people, true. But EEOC also says;

harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such as the victim being fired or demoted).

So I think he is responding to the second half of that definition, meaning it's not totally irrelevant.

For a client or customer's harassment to be illegal it would have to be "so frequent or severe it creates a hostile or offensive work environment".

Note that "offensive work environment" certainly doesn't mean someone was offended once.

Let me caveat this with I have read absolutely none of the accusations levied.

I do think that sexual harassment should be defined carefully. In some cases what people are describing as sexual harassment is actually assault and I think the two should be carefully distinguished.

If someone is your co-worker and you flirt with them and engage in a voluntary affair with them, is it sexual harassment?

What about when you are their boss, and in a position to fire them or affect their career if they don't engage or flirt back?

One of these can definitely be interpreted as sexual harassment (the situation where the person feels they have to accept the proposition or fear losing their job).

On the other hand, the situation where the two co-workers are on equal footing would only be considered sexual harassment if the flirting is unwelcome and continues even after it has been made clear that it is unwelcome.

The key difference is the fact that it is impossible to retrospectively prove or disprove whether or not the relationship was actually consensual, when one person is in a superior position and can making hiring/firing decisions or affect the other person's career.

Or at least that's my interpretation of the point that I believe Scoble was making.

He wasn't in a hiring/firing position or superior position to affect the careers any of the women when they engaged in the illicit behavior with him. It was consensual behavior between peers, and as such, does not automatically count as sexual harassment (even if he was being an unethical slimeball and cheating on his wife).

> I don’t have employees, I don’t cut checks for investment. None of the women who came forward were ever in a position where I could make or break their careers. Sexual Harassment requires that I have such power.

This is an incredibly disgusting and miss-guided view of sexual harassment.

This paragraph clearly relates the allegations against him to those against Weinstein et al, who used their power of "making or breaking careers" to coerce women. If you do not possess such a power, as he argues, you cannot possibly commit this kind of sexual harassment.

And that some how makes his statement better? Sexual harassment is sexual harassment.

Eh. I think everyone agrees power imbalance is a crucial part of capital letters Sexual Harassment. We know people can be assholes to each other at any point, but we pay particular attention to people in positions of power over others.

Setting aside power imbalances of physical nature (i.e. alone in an elevator), I think he's mostly accurate? Unwelcome advances in a situation where there is little possibility of harm to the woman should she reject you are just unwelcome advances. Maybe creepy, maybe rude, maybe disgusting. But they're not abuse, and they're not sexual harassment.

I think that's clearly the goalpost he's comparing his behaviour to.

> I think everyone agrees power imbalance is a crucial part of capital letters Sexual Harassment.

No.

here's the EU definition:

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CONSLE...

> harassment: where an unwanted conduct related to the sex of a person occurs with the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of a person, and of creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment,

> sexual harassment: where any form of unwanted verbal, non-verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature occurs, with the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of a person, in particular when creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.

Here's the English law:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/26

> 1)A person (A) harasses another (B) if—

> (a)A engages in unwanted conduct related to a relevant protected characteristic, and

> (b)the conduct has the purpose or effect of—

> (i)violating B's dignity, or

> (ii)creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for B.

> (2)A also harasses B if—

> (a)A engages in unwanted conduct of a sexual nature, and

> (b)the conduct has the purpose or effect referred to in subsection (1)(b)

There's nothing in there about power imbalance.

From other posts in this thread I gather he's accused, among other things, of groping women without their consent, which, if true, goes a bit beyond making an "unwelcome advance," in my opinion. Whether it's true I don't claim to know, but responding to it by talking about how it technically does not constitute sexual harassment seems ill advised either way.

If you're hoping for substantive discussion it would be good if you could say more.

Just like on HN the guidelines are to take the most charitable interpretation possible of what someone wrote when responding, I think it's best to apply the same process when critiquing TFA.

I don't know how charitable we can be... this definition of sexual harassment seems plainly wrong. It colors the entire statement because it's a definition that excludes huge amounts of what most of us would understand to be sexual harassment.

Ok, since you say so: charitable it is.

Once you get past all that sexual harassment stuff, there's some really exciting news in that article we're discussing, that I think most people have overlooked!

What did you think of his new business and new career that Robert Scoble announced?

Have you signed up for his mailing list yet?

Are you looking forward to reading his sagely words of advice about how to best benefit from his experience?

Is your company working on something that would benefit from Robert Scoble evangelizing and representing you to the press?

Do you have any stories about hard-to-express passions for your product or customers that you need to announce to the world?

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Not really. I'm not an expert on Sexual Harassment law, but it is my understanding there are 2 general kinds of sexual harassment. One is where there is such pervasive harassment of a sexual nature that it constitutes a "hostile work environment". For instance if firefighters put up centerfolds throughout the firehouse. This does not seem to be alleged here.

The other is where a person in a superior position uses that position in order to gain sexual favors from a subordinate. This is like the Weinstein allegations where he demanded they shower with him or they would never work in Hollywood again. That seems to be the type of harassment he is defending against. After reading the article, I didn't find anything in there that fit either of these definitions.

That's new to me that it has to be in a work environment. What about parties, clubs, outdoors anywhere?

> That seems to be what he is defending against. After reading the article, I didn't find anything in there that constituted sexual harassment.

Yeah, because this is him trying to change the story and narrative. Go actually read the stories on his accusations and you'll see they are forms of sexual harassment.

None of the women who came forward were ever in a position where I could make or break their careers. Sexual Harassment requires that I have such power.

This is not true and it does not look good for him to say it:

The legal and social understanding of sexual harassment, however, varies by culture.

In the context of US employment, the harasser can be the victim's supervisor, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker, or someone who is not an employee of the employer, such as a client or customer, and harassers or victims can be of any gender.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_harassment

But, I do generally agree that two wrongs don't make a right. I am pretty appalled to hear that he had an online text-based affair with a woman who outed him to his wife for apparently vindictive reasons.

I don't know how we move this discussion forward into constructive territory. I see this at least partly through the lens of massive social changes disrupting the rules and neither side having a good play book. I challenge commenters here to find something constructive to say and avoid just wallowing in the mud here.

It's incredibly difficult to talk about this specific post in a constructive way without wallowing in the mud.

The content makes child-like arguments[0] and contradictory statements[1] to the point where it feels like an unstable foundation to have a conversation. It's like trying to have a debate where neither side agrees with the foundational logic of the other sides arguments.

[0] - "None of the women who came forward were ever in a position where I could make or break their careers. Sexual Harassment requires that I have such power"

[1] - "Perhaps because they felt peer pressure to join the #MeToo bandwagon, perhaps because they felt slighted for other reasons. I won’t speculate on their motives."

True. That's why I issued a challenge. I realize it is a difficult thing I am asking of people.

I am sorry that so many women feel wronged by me...

This whole thing opens with the classic of all scumbag apologies, “I’m sorry for how you feel.” I’m not sure that this is much of a jumping off point for good discussion, as much as it is just another one biting the dust in the messiest way possible. Where does a constructive conversation begin here? With someone covering their ass in a blog post against their lawyers advice? With a bunch of people on HN opining about something that has been an open fact of life for many people, especially women, for longer than any of us of been alive?

The solutions aren’t that difficult, they just take time and consistent desire and willingness by legislature and business leaders to follow through. So far that desire has been largely absent, and with recent revelations it’s not hard to see why.

So, enlighten me: Point me to a list of not difficult solutions with proven track records of success, if only we get off our lazy butts and bother to do them.

Actually vote, as a group, in your own best self interest... not for people like Trump. Hold representatives to account, and put money and votes where the mouths are.

That doesn't really answer the question. I am interested in seeing a list of policies and practices that actually work to do the following:

1) Include women equally in the work force.

2) Protect all parties from both sexual impropriety and scandal without simply presuming women are victims, men are predators.

I am not aware of well developed policies for preventing such dramas. And I have read quite a lot on human sexuality, sex abuse, rape and illicit affairs. As much as possible, I sought out reliable sources that involved serious studies.

Telling me to vote (but not for Trump) is utterly unrelated to my question.

Does anyone else find it bizarre that he writes "Quinn Norton, by her own account, physically accosted me[...] While it is admirable that Quinn wanted to defend the honor of another woman and the sanctity of marriage, perhaps she should have done so using the resources of the conference, or at a minimum in a manner that didn’t lead to her assaulting me," given that Norton's actual account is that he struck him because he put he grabbed her and put his arm around her?

"Most telling however is that she makes it clear that her assault of me was premeditated."

There's nothing about her account that suggests this.

Yes, that he totally glossed over that part really stood out. Doesn't even said he didn't grab her, just acts like that wasn't even a thing, and makes up claims about her account that just don't make sense. Not even about what happened, about what she wrote about it, which everyone can just go re-read and see that it's not true. How can he expect that to be taken seriously.

> given that Norton's actual account is that she struck him because he grabbed her and put his arm around her?

Nope. According to Quinn, on her medium post, Scoble put one hand on her breast, then a reach around, ending in a butt grab.

> And then, without any more warning, Scoble was on me. I felt one hand on my breast and his arm reaching around and grabbing my butt. Scoble is considerably bigger than I am, and I realized quickly I wasn’t going to be able to push him away. Meanwhile, the people around just watched, in what I can only imagine was stunned shock. I got a hand free and used a palm strike to the base of his chin to knock him back. It worked, he flew back and struggled to get his feet under him. I watched his feet carefully for that moment. He was unbalanced from the alcohol and I realized if he reached for me again I could pull him forward, bounce his face off my knee, then drive it into the ground. (I knew this move because it had been done to me, then the martial arts expert who did it picked me up and apologetically showed me how to do it.)

Source: Robert Scoble and Me ( @quinnnorton on medium.com ) => https://medium.com/@quinnnorton/robert-scoble-and-me-9b14ee9...

I think this can be best described as "sinking the boat just to kill the captain."

In the interest of being the devil's advocate: if he is telling the truth, this looks very bad for several of the women that accused him of sexual harassment, and tried to inflate his cheating on his wife into something much worse.

I mean, this sounds a lot like how some women accuse guys of rape just to cause harm to them, instead of a rape actually having occurred. Such actions are harmful to women, harmful to society as a whole, and actively work against the ideals of feminism and make it harder for feminists to have a meaningful dialog with both men and women alike.

If his version of events is even remotely true, merely saying "two wrongs don't make a right" isn't even scratching the surface, and indicates a very large problem in the tech industry community.

I have no clue if they are true, or how true they are, but I believe that because he disregarded his lawyer's advice and made a statement, there is at least a little bit of truth here.

Lots of people commit crimes and deny them. To me, the idea that an apparently disconnected set of women would all come forward with similar stories set off serious alarm bells. Why would a series of women all accuse the same man?

Of course, we can still wait for this to make it's way through court, but I feel your defensiveness is too strong in the other direction, going straight to accusing all the women of being liars.

> I have no clue if they are true, or how true they are, but I believe that because he disregarded his lawyer's advice and made a statement, there is at least a little bit of truth here.

Quinn Norton’s account of her interactions with Scoble has been corroborated by multiple witnesses and it drastically disagrees with Scoble’s account: https://twitter.com/willoremus/status/923257035742781440

Layers advise clients to remain silent even if they are 100% innocent because talking almost always makes things worse.

That is a link to a screen grab of a Norton quote alongside a screen grab of a Scoble quote. It doesn’t seem to include any corroboration by anyone. Wrong link?

That screengrab was to highlight the differences; for corroboration, see the comments section in Norton’s article itself: https://medium.com/@quinnnorton/robert-scoble-and-me-9b14ee9...

It was corroborated by Tim O’Reilly, who went further and said that Scoble’s behavior got him banned from future O’Reilly conferences: https://mobile.twitter.com/timoreilly/status/921124414418182...

> I mean, this sounds a lot like how some women accuse guys of rape just to cause harm to them, instead of a rape actually having occurred.

It was deliberately crafted to be so. So if we want to apply some science to our guessing: what is the fraction of real harrassment incidents to fraudulently reported ones in our society?

You can "some women" and "because he disgregarded" your way around the disembling, but the truth is that if you really want to guess based on the evidence at hand, the guy is probably guilty.

Hell, studies have said anywhere between 2% to 90%[0] of rape reports are false, but telling that a rape is false / true is _incredibly_ hard due to it basically being "he says" vs. "she says".

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape#Rumne...

For clarity: the larger more rigorous studies put it much closer to the 2% end.

The 90% figure from that list is described by the study which listed it as from an unreliable/untested research methodology with a small sample size (18 cases). It looks more like ~20% is a more common upper bound for the figures listed.

> what is the fraction of real harrassment incidents to fraudulently reported ones in our society?

If I were to believe the personal experiences of all the women I know, most women have, at some point in their lives been harassed. I've had 20 #mee_toos on my relatively small Facebook feed.

Not a single one of them ever mentioned reporting the harassment they experienced to authorities, filing a lawsuit, writing a blog post on Medium, calling out the harasser on social media, or anything of that nature.

For another anecdote:

Two months ago, though, one friend has been tip-toeing around how to deal with a serial rapist in their friend circle. They didn't go to the police, because nothing would get done, and they didn't call that person out in public. They weren't looking for attention, or to ruin the rapist's life. They were practically tip-toeing around the issue of how to warn other women about him.

Unsurprisingly, of the many responses to that thread, three people knew exactly who she was talking about.

This is not a dupe of his previous apology (which has been deleted). This is something else entirely that will be talked about years later.

To give you an idea of what it’s about, it starts with “I have rejected my lawyer’s advice to not make a statement”

> This is something else entirely that will be talked about years later.

I don't think he's nearly famous enough for anything he says to be talked about years later. He'll most likely be forgotten, there are plenty of other pitchmen in the Valley to take his role.

Hopefully some pitchwomen too.

> I don't think he's nearly famous enough for anything he says to be talked about years later.

I would put money on this being used in future education as an example of why you should listen to your lawyers when they say "don't make a statement". Because it is a classic.

> There are a great many things in Seitz’s conversations I would prefer never be public, not because I did wrong by Seitz, but because where I have said I don’t really care about privacy online, I don’t feel that exposing my sexual fantasies or desires online as a text based “sex tape” is something anyone needs to see.

This part caught my eye as contradictory. Privacy doesn't matter unless it's <something I care about>? I think that's precisely why privacy matters, and everyone has a different list of things that matter to them.

I interpreted that as meaning he generally doesn't care about his own privacy online, not privacy in general

Everything about this reeks of nastiness. I'm sure it hurts to have your past wrongs put under a microscope publicly. I remember the days after my divorce, and the pain and shame were excruciating. The only thing that would have been worse would have been if I'd denied the obvious truths, minimized my own misbehaviors, and relied on self-righteousness to assuage pangs of guilt.

Sadly, Scoble has not (yet?) come to that realization. I hope he stops talking long enough to realize his own pain, as excruciating as it is, isn't the story here. It's the pain he caused to others, and is continuing to cause with his self-righteousness.

This isn't he-said/she-said. It's he-said/they-said, where many witness corroborate the other side of stories he tries to reframe. When even his own false reframing of stories makes him sound like a troubled terrible actor, that ought to have been a sign to him to not hit publish.

> I hope he stops talking long enough to realize his own pain, as excruciating as it is, isn't the story here.

To be fair, if he had that amount of empathy and self-reflection, he wouldn't be in this situation.

Let's be fair and hopeful that he may be able to come to such.

> Every act of infidelity, every time I have watched an adult video online,

How watching porn equates to cheat on your wife? Very weird moral compass.

I believe you're misreading that part of the post, as it goes on to list these as actions which wrong women in general. The writer is equating his viewing of porn to wronging women.

It's kind of a strange mea culpa, to be honest, as even in the most socially progressive of circles, pornography is a very divisive topic, with many finding it degrading and many finding it liberating.

edit: added a comma after "circles"

I don't think I've misread. I think his moral compass is broken and he doesn't know the difference between evil and harmless browsing.

Just because you mention two things together doesn't mean you equate them.

Yeah I've never understood that kind of thinking.

He's a man down right now and probably very emotional. Just a guess, but should have listened to his lawyer.

Also, U.S seem to have strange views on what is sexual assault. I don't know who is quilt or who is lying, but reading some of them are things I would avoid women over the ocean all together.

What do you mean exactly as "strange views on what is sexual assult?"

Are you getting it confused with sexual harassment? which we are also talking about in this thread.

I meant the whole idea that regret can be rape. Also the fact that if you have power, everything can be seen as a sexual assault

Regret is not ever rape. I question from what sources you are getting your information if you believe so. What can happen is that someone who was too intoxicated/incapacitated to give consent to sexual activity can make a complaint because sexual activity occurred without voluntary, freely given consent.

If you have power, many things can be considered harassment, which is different than assault. It's similar to the reasoning behind prohibiting psychological therapists from engaging in sexual acts with their patients.

Really, it's pretty simple. Make sure a person can give consent. Don't abuse your status to obtain sex. Don't rape.

You're very mistaken, regret is certainly not rape. I have absolutely no idea where you could have gotten that information from.

For the second point, you're confusing sexual harassment and sexual assault.

Not in the USA, it can't. Some darker corners of the internet say that's the case in Sweden, but even then they're mis-stating the case.

In the USA, even rape is often questioned as rape. We've had national politicians make false claims about "legitimate rape," and how rare that was.

In no case whatsoever is there any idea that "regret = rape," and if you've been led to believe that about the USA, you've been in some very disturbing places on the internet.

I have rejected my lawyer’s advice to not make a statement

Oh this always works out well.

It feels like it would have been smart to have at least asked his lawyer to review his statement.

If he wanted to give a statement he should have hired a PR firm to help him write it.

> in a spirit of healing

It's kind of interesting that his focus is still to "heal" himself. So self centered in this fake apology.

Not a great sign to open your defense by arguing about definitions rather than factual claims.

You're right, it's not a great sign. Given the nature of the topic, while unfortunate, I think it's useful to have a set of definitions to be working from to ensure readers understand what he means when he uses certain words or phrases. One can disagree with the definitions and disagree that the rest of what he says follows from his definitions, but I understand where he's coming from in trying to make clear what he's saying. Above anything else, people do generally have a desire to be understood, and at the very least not be misunderstood.

Please do not read this as justifying any particular behavior. I just think it's really important to at least try to understand each other even when we may vehemently disagree. We can't do that if don't know what each other means when using the language we do. Looking through the comments on this topic, I see at least some of the disagreement coming from people talking past each other or not using words in the same way.

This person needs to get immediate professional help on several levels (mental, legal, family counseling). He is a train wreck for his family.

On his Facebook page, Robert Scoble wrote:

https://i.imgur.com/kH6DsGA.png

"Robert Scoble: Andrew Brackin I have NOT deleted ANY comments. They may have deleted them. I did not."

That was a bald faced lie. He's deleted a whole hell of a lot of comments, along with his original non-apology-apology.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/20/robert-scoble-has-allegedl...

"Update: Scoble has since deleted his original apology and now posted a lengthy rebuttal to the reporting done by TechCrunch and other publications on his personal site."

tl;dr:

“[…] I have rejected my lawyer’s advice to not make a statement […] None of the women who came forward were ever in a position where I could make or break their careers. Sexual Harassment requires that I have such power. […] Each of the women who have come forward used grains of truth to sell false narrative. Perhaps because they felt peer pressure to join the #MeToo bandwagon, perhaps because they felt slighted for other reasons. I won’t [sic] speculate on their motives. […] And to some extent [I] did take advantage of [her]; […] ”

scobles refutation of quins allegation is a motte and bailey argument. quinn has accused him of grabbing her breast but instead of addressing this allegation he instead has redirected the argument to him making out with the other woman.

It's incredibly telling when someone makes a defense and comes off significantly worse as a result.

He should have listened to his lawyer, but I'm glad he didn't.

I wonder if he asked any women to watch him shower...while wearing Google glasses.

And of course he has to plug his new business at the end.

This issue isn't just plaguing the tech industry. This is an issue affecting the entire Western society, from Tech and Entertainment industries to even religious institutions. Its time at last for society to realign itself. But lets keep in mind that while such matters should be brought to public attention, lets also let the jury be the ones to deliver the verdicts.

Why is it relevant to HN? Who is this? Were the original accusations posted here?

It's also rather pointless to nitpick legal definitions of sexual harassment when the guy starts by mentioning he rejected his lawyer's advice.

It's Robert Scoble. From Wikipedia:

> Robert Scoble … is an American blogger, technical evangelist, and author. Scoble is best known for his blog, Scobleizer, which came to prominence during his tenure as a technology evangelist at Microsoft. He later worked for Fast Company as a video blogger, and then Rackspace and the Rackspace-sponsored community site Building 43 promoting breakthrough technology and startups. He is a partner at Transformation Group and a noted evangelist in the immersive media industries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Scoble

There have been discussions related to this here recently. One is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15519902

Other comments can be found using the search: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=scoble&sort=byDate&prefix&page...

As a non s-valley person, this whole issue seems very strange to me. Work and family/kids takes a lot of time. And tech people are always saying they work these grueling 100 hour work weeks. Not sure how these folks have the time to be out drinking and flirting so much. :-)

With the massive amount of prostitution in Silicon Valley I am constantly shocked that people of prominence have such little self control that they seek extra-marital affairs in such obviously stupid places. The behavior he describes here sounds less like harassment and more like chronic self destruction and purposeful career suicide. Hell, writing this article at all is self flagellation. Baffling.

Ouch, this might very well have been drafted by a PR team. He even manages to pitch in his new company in there. Such non-apology apologies have sadly become the norm in the valley.

All it takes is to understand that everyone's idea of what constitutes "harassment" is different, and to behave (or at least try) at a global minima. It's sad that he realizes that his moral compass is broken, yet seems to relish making the same "mistake" over and over again.

If it was drafted by a PR team it was not a good one.

Without making any moral judgments here, the guy has a valid point in that it's important to make a distinction between cheating in a relationship and sexual harassment. The former is a non-illegal, personal matter, and the latter is a criminal matter. I think most people probably aren't interested in making this distinction and would prefer to indiscriminately shun either kind of person, but this the importance of this lies in the #MeToo thing becoming a witchhunt. Sexual harassment/assault/rape is different that many other crimes in that mere accusations, convictions be damned, can completely ruin an otherwise innocent person's life. I could definitely imagine the #MeToo tag being used to shame someone, because it has reached witchhunt proportions. See the recent claims about H.W. Bush.

I claim to know nothing about what actually happened between this guy and these women, and all of the armchair judges here that are jumping to conclusions ought to realize that they, too, know nothing.

edit: replied to wrong comment

I don't know how you conclude from my comment, maybe you should reread it. I don't believe in social justice adjudicated by uninformed internet commenters, and caution against jumping to conclusions when you don't really know the facts. You're only reinforcing my point that sexual misconduct allegations are especially damaging, by misrepresenting my words and automatically assigning Scoble a guilty verdict.

Replied to the wrong comment, sorry

Lots of sexual harassment is not criminal. (It's still, obviously, no acceptable).

My problem now, what makes me irate, is that the #metoo tag embodies this idea that, because so many women have been silent victims of harassment and assault, that any claim to harassment or assault somehow must be trustworthy because it is being openly stated.

I was listening to a program on NPR the other day, and the guest was somehow bemoaning the fact that when individuals make claims of being victimized, they are met with a reserved skepticism rather than accepting support.

What was totally missing from this discussion--what the host failed to challenge on--was that what this guest was proposing in fact was abandoning an innocent until proven guilty assumption in favor of a guilty until proven innocent assumption, which is dangerous and immoral. It is appropriate to be skeptical, because such a claim is very serious and potentially damaging. And such claims should be held up to rigorous scrutiny. I say this not without empathy for victims, being a victim of sexual assault myself, but as someone who has also seen how vicious and destructive these witchhunts can be.

I have a colleague who was wrongly accused of sexual assault (I know because I was essentially there and saw what actually transpired), and I've seen how completely destructive it can be personally and career-wise.

I also have been accused, through not-so-veiled insinuations (of course, not being explicit allowed her to sidestep any challenges, because there's nothing to actually challenge), of harassment by a vindictive ex who was jealous of my new relationship, and have seen what happens when colleagues, who you thought were friends, blindly accept these sorts of claims without looking into both sides of the story.

It's horrifying to watch this happen, and to me only undermines real victims by casting a shadow of doubt over their claims from others.

My experience is that this issue is far darker than anyone wants to acknowledge, and as much as there is problems with sexual assault, there are also problems with vindictive slander capitalizing on people's prejudices, to avoid personal responsibility. The horrific stories of Harvey Weinstein have turned into a witch-hunt against men that is equally horrifying en masse.

this.

> it's important to make a distinction between cheating in a relationship and sexual harassment

I know nothing other than what I've read online, but it seems that his accusers are not complaining about him cheating, but rather that he sexually harassed them:

https://medium.com/@quinnnorton/robert-scoble-and-me-9b14ee9...

Specifically:

I am not saying I know who is or isn't telling the truth, but this definitely isn't just about someone conflating cheating with sexual harrassment.

I have no knowledge of this issue specifically, but more generally, if you're even a somewhat public figure, I think the best course of action is to have a discreet 24/7 bodycam rolling to record all of your interactions. We're at a point where your career and social network can be torpedoed by anyone merely making a claim on social media. No police, no day in court, just allegations are enough.

Just people finding out you have a bodycam is likely enough to get a harassment bandwagon going against you. It's creepy.

You don't need to tell anyone.

In twelve US states, not telling people is a crime. California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Washington require all parties being recorded to consent.

That's for audio recordings I believe, and oh_sigh did say in another comment where legal in your jurisdiction

Yes, and then if you ever try to use those recordings it gets even creepier.

"I was afraid that people would make false claims against me, so I recorded my presence at some events. Check it out and you be the judge if accuser us telling the truth or not"

'sexual abuser records creepy video of his unknowing victims using a hidden body camera'

So you're take away from this is that he, Robert Scoble, is in more need of protection via body cam than any of the women who came out against him?

No, my take away is that mere accusations, regardless of legitimacy, can destroy your career and reputation.

Assuming you didn't do these evil deeds, having video or audio proof(if legal in your jurisdiction) is really the only way to counter them.

Otherwise, what do you say? "No, I didn't rape/sexually assault this person". The accusation alone is salacious enough that a mere denial isn't going to change anyone's mind.

And I would say that the women's accusations, if true, would be bolstered if they had video/audio evidence of it.

> Assuming you didn't do these evil deeds, having video or audio proof(if legal in your jurisdiction) is really the only way to counter them.

Well, the traditional solution to this is to just cross-examine the accusers about the cut of their skirt, whether or not they had any idea what they were doing when you invited them to the hotel room, how many casual sexual partners they had, and all sorts of other bullshit that's completely irrelevant to whether or not they were raped or harassed.

It tends to work pretty well for people who are actually guilty, it should work even better for the innocent.

Do you have an actual point relating to what I said? Yes, courts were and continue to be sexist. I never argued against that, and I don't see how it is at all relevant to this conversation at this point.

If you are a public figure, and you never sexually assaulted anyone, yet multiple people were accusing you in public of doing so, how (if at all) would you defend yourself?

Sue them for libel. As a public figure, I am almost certainly able to bear the burdens of protracted litigation then they are.

(It's one of the reasons why people think twice about accusing the guilty.)

From "Elements of Libel and Slander"[1]

> First, the plaintiff must prove that the defendant made a false and defamatory statement concerning the plaintiff.

How do you prove that you didn't sexually assault someone 5 years ago? Gee, a recording of all of your interactions would come in handy here.

[1] http://injury.findlaw.com/torts-and-personal-injuries/elemen...

Well, you could always ask Woody Allen.

https://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/01/an-open-letter-...

Again, not sure what your point is

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