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>Their leadership is mainly white and mainly men. I don't believe they really care about abuse in a meaningful way.

I don't like the implication here (i.e. white men don't care about harassment/abuse and they are also stupid.) I would wager that most anyone of any color or gender or religion in any high position of authority at any company cares first and foremost about the financial viability of the company they have been charged with running.

Many (most) "white men" do in fact care about this stuff and aren't bigots/sexists/racists. You're naive and part of the problem if you think this is a "white male" issue and not a much more complex problem. In fact, you're exhibiting the bias you attribute to these managers.

I think it's fair to say that people who are not white males (such as myself) are more likely to be targeted by a wide variety of harassment, and that without their views it may be much easier to miss the issue. As a white male I don't get targeted by misogyny or racism (at least not anywhere near the scale that others have). Having people who have experienced that around to help guide the decisions for how to deal with it- and how many resources to devote to it, since most business decisions come down to money.

Also, we can all have biases without it meaning people are being racist. My parents like rock music, so I'm biased towards listening to that over country. I went to certain schools and that colored my world view. I once heard bias described as a heuristic the brain uses to make quick decisions- something that was extremely useful for primitive humans but which needs to be actively balanced in our complex society. A huge part of that for decision makers is exposing themselves to other viewpoints as a way to collect information they themselves wouldn't have gotten. There's a reason why companies have used things like focus groups and surveys to understand their customers- having more people who understand those customers in leadership at companies is an even better way to do it.

Yea me neither. Generalizations like this aren't helpful, or least bit fair.

The abuse is disproportionately targeted at people who aren't white men, and is is disproportionately performed by white men.

This is nothing particularly new. It's the history of America, which was founded by and for white men, and whose story can be told as white men slowly and reluctantly giving up their power.

If "many (most) 'white men' do in fact care", history doesn't really demonstrate that. Not, at least, in terms of doing anything about it. This is not particularly shocking; people care more about problems they experience, and less about problems that happen to benefit them.

We need only look at how the majority of white men supported a blatant racist and sexist for president. And who continue to support him despite (or because) that has only become more clear.

Their leadership is mainly white and mainly men. I don't believe they really care about abuse in a meaningful way.

To the folks inclined to keep piling on to this comment, I think a more charitable reading is that "The leadership consists of very privileged people who likely haven't dealt firsthand with the kind of harassment to which some demographics are routinely subjected. They appear to just not really get it at times."

I think that's a very realistic assessment of how some things remain intractable. People in power have blind spots because it isn't something they have to personally deal with. So they end up doing things that are counterproductive or seriously problematic without really meaning to.

That doesn't make it okay. That's just reality.

>The leadership consists of very privileged people

Same problem. Who's to say they are "privileged" as opposed to being hard working / talented people? You're pushing the same narrative; white men in positions of power are privileged and don't really deserve what they have. Nonsense. Sometimes that's true, sometimes it's not. Either way it's a useless, tribal way of thinking that does more harm than good.

It's completely fair to comment on this because it is the basis of the GP's argument.

I don't read the parent comment as claiming that the people in power are not hard-working or talented, nor that they don't care. Rather, I read it as asserting that many white men have had the privilege of not having to deal with discrimination and harassment, and that it doesn't come to mind as easily as it does for underrepresented individuals.

Just like a developer is going to spot defects in applications more than a non-technical user because they are exposed to defects more often and understand where things will fail, people who have lived discrimination will be more likely to see it where it happens, and understand where to look to find it.

I think it's asserting specifically that the management of Twitter has had the privilege of not having to deal with discrimination and harassment.

I imagine the leadership of a company like Twitter make really good money, have substantial power and don't have the problems of your average working stiff, regardless of skin color, gender etc.

It's sort of tautalogical to say "People in power don't live like the rest of the world." And this fact has been a problem in terms of creating policies that work well for the masses since time immemorial.

It's one thing to say that people in positions of power, on average, have not directly experienced the harassment or abuse that minorities or people belonging to marginalized groups have. That's fair and may account for some level of ignorance on their part. It is another to say that they _do not care about these things_ specifically because they are a member of a certain class/race/gender/whatever.

It's an important distinction as it sets the parameters by which we engage in conversation and debate. If you begin the conversation by accusing the other side of being inherently bigoted then there is no civil or useful exchange of ideas to be had. It puts the other side in a defensive posture from the get go and only leads to more tribal group-think.

And you refusing to accept my reframing as valid intentionally digs this hole deeper. This is a perpetual problem where one group feels unheard, unserved, left out, etc and then they complain about that and then are told their complaints aren't valid because they said them in a not nice enough fashion or something.

Both sides need to give a little here if we aren't going to remain stuck on such topics. And expecting all that giving to come from women, people of color, and other underprivileged groups is merely entrenching white male privilege in a really ugly, toxic manner.

>And you refusing to accept my reframing as valid intentionally digs this hole deeper.

Because I don't believe it is valid. Class/color/gender are not the only influencers on someone's decision making process, yet you two seem to think that's all we need to consider.

Where is the evidence that these people don't care about abuse and harassment because of their class and color? I see a pretty damning statement which includes zero evidence, just what someone believes to be true for <reasons>.

So no, I won't accept your premise or the GP's until I see evidence. If there is no evidence then fine, you and anyone else are free to believe whatever you like, but don't pretend it's a logically defensible position.

>This is a perpetual problem where one group feels unheard, unserved, left out, etc and then they complain about that and then are told their complaints aren't valid because they said them in a not nice enough fashion or something. Both sides need to give a little here if we aren't going to remain stuck on such topics.

Not every complaint _is_ valid, and we have no idea what the GP's motivations were. I'm not going to give any ground. You and the GP are taking a complex issue and boiling it down to something absurdly simple. All that I'm saying is that it's not simple and, if we're ever to have a reasoned debate, it needs to be predicated on facts, not "feelings". If you're going to attribute someone's actions to their gender and race then you had better be able to back it up.

It's telling that you believe _I'm_ the one doing harm when I have made no accusations at all and the GP was inarguably expressing a racist view.

It was not in fact a racist view. It's a view about power dynamics in a system that is racist and sexist.

If you really can't get over your feelings of personal insult and your need to defend white men, then please go back and substitute "part of the socially dominant racial group" for "white" and "part of the socially dominant gender group" for "men". In US history, those terms are equivalent. If you don't like that, talk to the founding fathers who set it up that way.

The reason it's material here is that a large portion of Twitter abuse is related to this. You can look at famous incidents, for example. Leslie Jones received a giant wave of racist, sexist abuse: https://www.thecut.com/2016/08/a-timeline-of-leslie-joness-h...

And the company admitted they had failed massively: https://people.com/movies/twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-speaks-out...

You could also look at the differential experience of white men versus others on Twitter. E.g.: https://www.theroot.com/twitter-has-a-serious-harassment-and...

Note also your standard here. You, a white man, refuse to accept that race or gender could be relevant to a social problem until other people take the time to spoon-feed you. Why isn't it your job to know something about American history? Why isn't it your job to learn about the problem of online abuse before deciding that the privilege afforded to white men couldn't possibly be the relevant? Answer: because you were raised to believe that whiteness and maleness were the default and were good. So you choose that as your supposedly neutral stance, and require others to prove you wrong.

The true neutral stance would either be "I don't know about this problem and would like to learn" or "let's assume that online culture has some relationship to the existing offline social dynamic".

Wealth is very nice to have, but it does not insulate someone from suffering racism and sexism.

it's not either or. privileged AND hardworking is a possibility.

> Who's to say they are "privileged"

The employee who is familiar with them.

Yes, exactly.

The problem is not the genetic characteristics of whiteness or maleness. It's that they grew up in a society that favors whiteness and maleness, and is much more accepting of the abuse of people who aren't so favored. If Twitter had started in China, where the Han are favored over ethnic minority groups like Tibetans and the Uyghur, it would be the same dynamic but with different ethnic groups.

Of course, tech is disproportionately white and male, so it's entirely unsurprising that HN readers have risen up en masse to defend the honor of white men. It exactly proves the point. White men will say that fighting abuse is important. But when they have to show their real priorities by how they allocate time and effort, actually understanding the abuse problem and how it disproportionately effects minorities comes well after defending their own interests.

(And: Yes yes, not all white men. Generalizations are general statements that may or may not apply to an individual.)

It's late. I'm tired. I left a couple of replies earlier, then deleted them. This seems like a just no win situation to me.

I'm not a feminist. I'm a former homemaker that self proclaimed feminists routinely crap on. I come to Hacker News because I need a place where I can engage in meaty intellectual discussion so I don't lose my marbles. That is my only agenda for being here. However, dealing with sexual politics is not something I can entirely avoid what with posting as openly female.

Suffice it to say that I don't really want to be associated with this toxic attitude and I am kind of wishing I had not said anything at all. I am starting to feel like "The only winning move is not to play" and I failed to make that move.

While that's true, you could at least tip your hat to Jack Dorsey's $3bn net worth, the insanely high executive and engineering salaries in San Francisco, and the effect that being so insanely rich must have on the complacency and sheltered lives of everyone at Twitter. It's a little bit worrying that you think race and sex are greater assets than class (= "network" and "culture fit") and money.

There is also an interesting 'get off my property' aspect to this acquisition. It may indicate that there is a desire within Twitter the company for complete control over Twitter the social media platform. Because they can, Twitter will always reign over the mirage of an ecosystem built on their social media platform.

I think to a great extent that can be (just about) assumed about anyone in a leadership role at a company the size of Twitter. Regardless of anything else.

Implying that white males don't care is not helpful and is both racist and sexist. I'm a white male and I care about abuse and all kinds of other things. Maybe you should do some reading on unconscious bias.

White males who don't show compassion move up ranks very fast in this society.

Not judging the individuals, but the history of this culture is very well covered.

I don't think Hanlon's Razor is an acceptable excuse above a certain pay-grade.

100% agreed. And I definitely don't mean it as an excuse. Just an explanation for why conspiracy is unnecessary.

>mainly white and mainly men. I don't believe they really care about abuse in a meaningful way.

That's an awfully biased viewpoint you've got there, good grief.

> Their leadership is mainly white and mainly men.

Wow. Racist much?