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Comment by stabbles | Hacker News Reader

It's possible to interpret your comment as a direct response addressing the mother who put out the tweet, which seems very inappropriate. The point you're making might be true, but maybe it's better to rephrase it.

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I also read it as a direct response to the mother who put out the tweet and it seems pretty appropriate to me? What part of the parent comment is inaccurate?

Whether or not it's accurate matters a lot less than whether or not it's kind.

She put out a public letter on the internet. We're here discussing it. If she stumbles across this thread, I'm sure she'd be aware that I'm discussing the letter. Not responding directly to her.

If I posted this point to her twitter feed, I would soften the language. But I would do my best not to change my point.

I would soften the language because I have a moral imperative- unlike twitter and instagram.

Kind doesn't really make for healthy discussions when your definition of kind includes leaving out pertinent information and points of view.

Kindness and empathy, or lack thereof, are the point of this open letter. She's asking for more empathy from tech companies. The comment we're discussing lacks empathy altogether.

If you publish an open letter you invite open responses. Doubly so if you do it on the Internet. Triply so if you work in the media.

It'd be real nice if people stopped using the public aspect of discourse (and especially virtual discourse) as some sort of general-purpose excuse for acting like an asshole. While such behavior is often framed as telling hard truths or suchlike, more often than not it turns out to be trite cliche deployed for sadistic effect.

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