Major Hacker Conference Organizers Accused of Ignoring Harassment | Hacker News Reader

Major Hacker Conference Organizers Accused of Ignoring Harassment

gizmodo.com

10 pointsTomte6 comments

The title is intentionally misleading; ignoring harassment is not the same as choosing not to mainstage the discussion through already limited presentation blocks. At the end of the day, someone’s job is to schedule topics that interest the segment of their target market. Why? So that they can sell tickets, so they can pay for the venue, etc. etc. If you force topics that don’t interest the HackerCon market, they don’t come back, even if the discussion is ‘for their own good’.

>Appelbaum denied the allegations at the time, calling the accusations “a calculated and targeted attack.”

I think it's worth noting that no proof has been presented publicly, and to the contrary, 2 of the alleged victims have denied there being any sexual assault. So at least to a certain degree these are targeted attacks. Whether he was targeted because he sexually assaulted someone else is an open question, but there were some false claims.

To be clear I'm not trying to vilify anyone or deny the allegations. It's possible that they occurred and it's possible that the people who reported these claims did not intend to misconstrue the situation. Sometimes observing a situation from the outside may seem like something other than what it is, and it is possible that they misinterpreted situations that they saw as non consensual or misheard what was said etc. I just feel like the article should make this clear because the way it is written makes it seem like these claims have been proven.

I like the article of the zeit.

http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2016-08/jacob-appelbaum-rape-sexua...

I always found this Code-of-conduct stuff ridiculous. Can you just go to the organizers, finger-point at somebody else and yell "muh feelingz are hurt" and the accused person will be kicked out? Does it really work that way?

Germany has laws on harassment, and so does probably every other western country. If you've been harassed, it is your right to go to the police and press charges.

And ffs, don't do fingerpointing on Twitter. We don't live in the dark ages, we don't burn witches anymore.

In the US, one can fill out a police report, but that doesn't mean that the police will opt to press charges. If one contacts the police to report a crime, they still need probable cause to press charges.

As for witch hunts, folks do get burned in the digital age, whether as result of posts on a public twitter feed, or worse yet in some cases, privately via other social media channels or other (digital) communication mechanisms. Publicly outing someone or a group is perhaps a last resort, but necessary in some cases.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com