Thanks for providing this information. I find censorship unethical and would have looked forward to Violet's talk. Also to assume that rape only happens to women is myopic.

Although I'm not very impressed with the Ada Initiative, that talk should have never been accepted because it had nothing to do with the focus of the conference. It was not about security. It was also at B-Sides, not Defcon.

Thanks for responding. Fortunately women don't have a single Leader so while Valerie may be doing good work through certain initiatives she should find that other women who disagree with censorship will not support these actions.

The talk that they censored WAS TO BE GIVEN BY A WOMAN.

That doesn't really hold up their argument of sexualized environments in tech being inherently hostile to women participating, does it?

Anyone who examines this can see that this is simply a personal censorship crusade by Ms. Aurora, presumably as a result of her own sex-related trauma(s) and/or upbringing. (Google her and her father for her own account of it— it's not ad hominem.)[1]

Just because her psyche has been damaged does not mean she has the right to attempt to censor others who are not participating in discriminatory behavior. The whole thing about "exploit" in the title being a synonym for rape (as in exploiting a system without the owner's consent) illustrates how ridiculous her flimsy argument against it was and is.

This sort of concern-trolling makes women in tech appear to be hard to work with or require special handling/censorship considerations, and is actively harmful to the struggle for gender equality. It has absolutely no place whatsoever at a tech conference.

[1] http://valerieaurora.org/keith.html