Max Ogden steps down as Dat project lead over sex abuse allegations | Hacker News Reader

Max Ogden steps down as Dat project lead over sex abuse allegations

blog.datproject.org

61 pointsrmason15 comments

Hey everyone. I’m part of the Beaker browser team (we use the Dat protocol). As Max’s colleague, it’s been extremely disappointing to learn about his behavior, but I’m proud of how the Dat team/community has stepped up in the last week.

Here’s my statement on the situation and how the Dat community is moving forward:

https://taravancil.com/blog/dat-leadership-changes/

Hacker News is meant to be a sort of non-political oasis, which I apppreciate and which helps to greatly improve the quality of discussion and the content. Their moderation does a wonderful job killing stories where the discussion devolves into sewer.

Unfortunately, increasingly, politics are bleeding into tech in a way that is unavoidable and very, very questionable and upsetting.

What deeply concerns me about this particular story is it really looks a case of a consensual relationship ending under the standard circumstances that consensual relationships end.

People don’t want to have sex with each other, they start being less civil to one another. People get angry and break up after personal disputes. Someone doesn’t do the laundry and dishes as much as they should. Then people fight.

Are those people now “victims” and “abusers?” I am very not ok with this terminology being used this way.

This is not a good precedent. In the last three months, a friend of mine who I deeply love was falsely accused of sexist behavior because he nearly had a nervous breakdown from working with a member of the opposite sex and asked that she be removed from his project. She then turned around and filed a harassment complaint with HR when SHE was harassing HIM!

You are not a victim if your relationship ends under standard circumstances. I am sorry, you are not. That is an expected part of being in a relationship: People do not get along sometimes.

People should not get thrown out of their projects for this. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I read Max’s statement, the tweets sent by his accuser and the community statement and didn’t see anything to the contrary.

Did he hit her? No. Did he rape her? No. Did he call her names? Didn’t see a mention of it. Where the police called? No. Restraining order? No. Racism? no. Sexism? no. Death threats? no.

So where is the beef here?

Just a vague accusation of “sexual controlling.” What the hell does that mean? He wanted to have sex with his girlfriend more than she felt comfortable with? That isn’t abuse, sorry. It’s grounds for ending a relationship, sure.

What this is doing is setting a precedent for hyper sensitivity and the weaponization of #MeToo in tech.

From the available evidence it looks like a standard relationship that didn’t work out.

Happy to change my opinion if more evidence comes out, right now this looks like a drive by reputation shooting.

Not knowing the details, I would say that if both parties agree that behavior was abusive, it was abusive. There's no reason for anyone else to second guess at that point.

I don't understand why can't we leave crimes to the police. It's like people don't see that this is mob justice, which we deemed a horrible practice a long time ago, seems though that we are getting back to it.

Here is the Twitter thread that started this: https://twitter.com/jllord/status/941033391750819845

And here's Max's statement: https://medium.com/@maxogden/statement-to-the-community-c835.... The first version, which did not include any specific actions, and to a certain degree engaged in victim blaming, is here: https://imgur.com/zbiz1Hi

Note how "pressure and expectations [that were] not sensitive to her needs and experiences" turned into "sexual abuse, coercion, and controlling behavior".

But, ultimately, Max Ogden seems to have found his way to dealing with these accusations with something not entirely unlike integrity. Without knowing any specifics, I can only hope his ex-partner can find some degree of healing in it, and find a community that will support her.

And, while I feel somewhat dirty including this in such proximity to wishing his victim well, it is worthy to remember that human lives, and especially relationships, are often messy. We have all made our fair share of mistakes, and their magnitude may often have been limited more by circumstances: good friends stepping in, or sheer luck. It must, and should, be painful to suddenly be woken up and realise the pain you've caused. But Max seems to be a rather young guy. And, contrary to popular opinion, it is in no ones' interest to see his life ruined.

We have created an internet that doesn't forget. Let's see if we can handle its results. Not by forgetting. But, within reason, by forgiving.

Why do people keep apologizing publicly? Do they actually think that helps?

For all you guys that are interested in a key insight: once dealing w accusations of abuse the worse response you can have (regarding your personal career) is to apologize publicly.

Fight or stay silent.

Maybe people are optimizing for considerations other than their career?

The corollary is that integrity is bad for your career.

So you're advising people who have (admittedly, in this case) engaged in sexual abuse for multiple years to compound the hurt by "fighting", i. e. continuing the emotional abuse, only in public?

How about owning up to your mistakes? Personally, I'd have less of a problem with working with this guy in the near future given his admission, than with someone in a similar situation engaging in public mudslinging or pleading the 5th.

You also have to consider that such behaviour usually follows a pattern, and one accusation is usually not the end of it. Plus, in small, tight-knit communities, you often know the people socially. And its incredibly difficult to completely hide such relationship dynamics. The people you'd need to believe you will be the ones best-positioned to know the truth anyway.

I'm actually glad Robert Scoble made such a self-destructive public non-apology-apology, because now we all know exactly what kind of unrepentant victim blaming monster he is, since it's all on the record (including screen captures of stuff he eventually deleted).

Max's apology was at the opposite end of the spectrum from Scoble's series of attacks on the victim and non-apologies. It may have taken Max two tries, but at least the second was better than the first (as opposed to Scoble, whose non-apology-apologies just kept getting exponentially worse each time, including an asinine plug for his own disreputable company, and he tried to white-wash the record by deleting the previous non-apology apologies on Facebook and the awkward discussions attached to them).

And do you also have a 'key insight' about what is the right thing to do?

Maybe you are just talking about false accusations, but what you said sounded like the words of a sociopath.

Even ignoring the moral failings of your suggested course of action, it may be advisable in such cases to consider the actions celebrities in similar circumstances have taken. They do, after all, act on the advise of layers, PR-, and crisis communications experts paid in the 6-figures or more to handle such cases.

There is at least one celebrity whose name I don't have to mention, whose response to numerous well substantiated accusations of moral failings should definitely not be emulated.

I don't get why this type of comment gets down-voted. It's just hypothetical and maybe it's an interesting point of discussion.

The situation is probably much more complex than anyone can imagine. We don't actually know any of the details of what happened.

(It's getting down voted because that comment is adovcating for a culture where men never hold themselves publicly accountable for bad actions, thus perpetuating the same old screwed up power dynamic. It is not an interesting perspective.)

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