Ask HN: Startup CTO using big Twitter following to harass me, what should I do? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Startup CTO using big Twitter following to harass me, what should I do?

58 pointsFDSGSG23 comments

I recently noticed that hey.com started offering disposable email addresses. I made a couple pull requests to add hey.com to lists of disposable email providers. In response to this, the CTO of basecamp has been tweeting out all kinds of allegations about supposed harassment.Ask HN: Startup CTO using his Twitter following to harass me, what should I do?

He tweeted a link to my github account to his 426k followers, resulting in several harassing messages and doxing attempts https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1277805249147752449

He also appears to be trying to solicit information about me on twitter https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1277825366149591041

What should I do about this?

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I don't know how Basecamp is doing, but when I see leaders freaking out and getting way too deep into online discussions about their products and organizations, I tend to think that there are two things going on - poor leadership skills combined with internal problems that are causing sufficient stress to break down their ability to make good personal judgments. That doesn't condone the behavior, but I'd recommend that you not take it too personally.

On a practical note, if they are truly harming you or your business, have a lawyer send a cease and desist letter, and find out whether you have any actual legal course to pursue. On the other hand, if it is not harming you, but just frustrating... let it go. Just because someone has a C-level position does not invalidate the advice of "Don't feed the trolls."

Ouch, what a terrible response. I feel like the proper way would be to comment on those issues and say "hey, we offer disposable emails to our paying customers, we're not a burner email service".

Although, seeing this behavior doesn't surprise me - hey's product is built around status signaling and it's marketing is "we're cool tiny hero vs big evil giants" act with layer of better-than-thou arrogance.

Suspect he's trying to leverage some of that Elon Musk style self generating outrage publicity.

https://github.com/wesbos/burner-email-providers/pull/226 more informations there.

In case anyone wasn't aware, @tuptuptuu is a throwaway account seemingly created solely for the purpose of adding the hey.com domain to disposable email lists. See similar pull requests this person has filed:

andreis/disposable#50

martenson/disposable-email-domains#244

wesbos/burner-email-providers#226

micke/valid_email2#153

so you are a liar.

Wow. I actually agree with dhh on this one, but the way he responded to this, freaked out, and made childish accusations and Bitcoin jokes does not speak well for him. This really changed my image of dhh and his companies. This is beyond unprofessional for someone with such a large following.

first of all, if you think you are right, why not use your real github account, then discuss publicly what is your problem with disposable emails? (there are some problems definitely, but it really depends on how company is going to handle that issues, that's another topic)

it really feels you are trying to offend them by creating new github account and making commit to fight against Hey email.

secondly, he is a co-founder of company, so he is trying in anyway to keep their email reputation, why he should not? some companies might be fetching that lists automatically every week and marking as a spam every email coming from that providers, which hurts company.

regarding, disposable emails, I do think they might be used for spam or other purposes, but there could be a ways to prevent these issues, why not give a chance to company? maybe they will setup limits for disposable emails, you can create 100 for read-only (for signing up in some phishing web-sites), 10 for sending emails up to 10 per month? they will figure out. But as a community we should give them a chance.

Just show your public face, make open public discussion, so that people will decide at the end.

I always assumed someone like DHH would have better things to do with his time and a more level head, but looking through his responses on the GitHub PRs and Twitter has really changed my mind about him. To me it looks to me like you made a good faith effort at open-source contribution, and DHH weaponized his followers against it because it wouldn't be good for his business. It's certainly a weird situation. Unless you want to get into a Silicon Valley-esque David-and-Goliath fight I'd just call it a day and leave it alone. You tried.

Block everyone who is not kind to you. That's how I have been doing my internet use for 6 years now, and I have not missed out so far.

It seems like you're spamming and harassing him. What am I missing?

It's weird just how entitled people who want to send email are.

Use hey.com to create burner emails and start spamming DHH with them

How old are you?

He is protecting his business and stating his grounding. You were "used" by him for this, but he is not in the wrong.

You can always report the event to the FBI if you feel threatened. They often can't do much, but I had a GF who was being harassed. A llquick call from the FBI agent to inform him he was borderline illegal behavior stopped it in its tracks.

But if this is how their CEO operates, they won't last long. I've been hearing only negative reviews and news. Hey is a fad and will go away, probably like one of those startups that never quits their idea even though they lost from the get go.

From DHHs prospective you added his business to a list of spam email providers and then sent him 13k emails harassing him.

Since you have essentially threatened the existence of his business it’s understandable that he would respond this way.

Hey cannot afford to be associated with spam email providers.

What you should do is lay low and stop threatening to damage Heys reputation as a legitimate email provider.

So this isn't so much a "Startup CTO". This is DHH, CTO of Basecamp and created of Ruby on Rails. Not that that entirely matters. But that's why he has a large group of twitter followers and why he's well know.

You may not love this answer, have you thought of sending him a DM? Let him know what you were doing and why. Have a discussion with him. Tell him what his Tweets are doing to you. See what he says? He, and many of his employees, are pretty open and well known. You might even get a call with him and be able to have a real discussion about your concerns with hey.com and with his Tweets. I have spoken to him many times, he's a pretty reasonable guy (if a bit of an eccentric gent).

I agree, DHH sounds like a reasonable guy. Everyone makes mistakes in hindsight, which why this tweet from Benedict Evans puzzled me: https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/1273871395479568386

Is adding providers to these lists not a form of harrasment?

You are trying to degrade the quality of the email service so that either their customers leave them or they stop providing disposable email addresses?

You might not like to hear that, but as an outsider it seems like you are trying to harass DHH for personal reasons.

But also his reactions were slightly too emotional and unprofessional, why I've unfollowed him on Twitter as a consequence.

Delete the burner account and forget about it

Why did you use a burner account in the first place? DHH's reaction is not the best, you're not exactly helping clear things up here.

looks like DHH is taking the ebay approach

Hey FDSGSG, the situation is definitely not ideal. DHH should not have responded like this, but please consider from his point of view: he and his company just had a moment of existential threat with the Apple IAP rules enforcement, and the disposable addresses are the only way that they manage to be able to still put updates on the App Store. The way you approach this surely feels like another threat to his business. Especially done anonymously.

If I may recommend something that has been echoed in this thread, please try to communicate to him or the company directly and discuss your concerns calmly. Directly threatening to put their whole domain as a spam domain, even with solid concerns, is not a friendly way to do it.

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