Hacker News Reader

Comment by DarkShikari | Hacker News Reader

he probably thinks that she in some way caused the stalker to spam her project.

No matter what happened here, this entire concept is horribly, horribly wrong. It's blaming the victim -- saying that it's somehow her fault for "causing" the stalker to do something... as opposed to the stalker's fault, for stalking.

View on HN

Except that Forrest's point is that they probably didn't know the spammer was a stalker. This is kind of relevant. If a random person walks up to you and asks if you've seen this person and shows you a picture, you'd probably help them out, completely unaware they're a serial killer. That doesn't make you a bad person.

If Kickstarter does respond to this by maintaining their stance, then there's a huge problem. Until then, it's more a case of an incompetent employee.

I don't think that changes anything? Again, replace the word "stalk" with "spam": it's the spammer's fault for spamming, not her fault for hypothetically "causing" the spammer to make the decision to spam her.

I agree there.

I was in no way saying that it was the victim's fault. I just don't think that Kickstarter should be on the receiving end of a lot of criticism until we get the full story from them. It may very well be that they are under the impression that that it is her fault, although I am not saying it is, it is just plausible and would account for their reaction to her ban.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com