Tinder sued for sexual harassment by former co-founder
uk.reuters.com
uk.reuters.com
"Through that process, it has become clear that Mr. Mateen sent private messages to Ms. Wolfe containing inappropriate content." <http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/06/30/tinder-sexual-...
The rest of the allegations are unproven, but the allegation that Mr. Mateen harassed Ms. Wolfe is, for all intents and purposes, 100% factual. There's no reason to defend this guy.
Where do you draw the line when you work with and are dating the same person? The only fault I see here on IAC is hiring people who are dating.
Doesn't that vary by state? IIRC in some you can record anything you're involved in while in others everyone involved has to agree (or at least know?). Or maybe this was about getting sued under privacy laws rather than admissibility...
This is a ballpark guess, but probably about 99% of workplace harassment is done privately.
> Where do you draw the line when you work with and are dating the same person? The only fault I see here on IAC is hiring people who are dating.
If a manager has a relationship with a subordinate, the manager should be held accountable for that, not the subordinate.
That's a great rule for the company, and it would be awesome if it existed at more places.
And Tinder is any different.....how?
That said, Tinder and Snapchat are two peas in a pod, eh?
It also seems that some of his comments were made from work accounts, to work accounts, on work hardware, or face to face on work premises.
to misquote alice and wonderland "Trial first then the sentence"
* Put the worker on leave and conduct investigation.
Even if IAC has irrefutable evidence that it happened?
What does it mean to you?
Incompetence or deliberate mistake?
He sent her emails? Fact.
The nature was sexual? Fact.
They were "harassing"? The very conjecture that is to be investigated.
As an example, if I send a text to my girlfriend and co-worker that says "I'm gonna plow your fields tonight", it is a fact it was sent, was sexual but harassing? That is contextual.
So on top of "there's no reason to defend this guy", I don't think it is constructive to attack each other here in such negative ways.
Edit for clarification: Now that there are 80+ more comments it seems more constructive. There were quite a few in the first ~20 that were pretty sour.
1. They emphasize a culture of doubt about these accusations, which may discourage people in a situation like Ms. Wolfe's from stepping forward. On the other hand, the accused people in power really don't need our help to defend themselves.
2. They're formulaic, repetitive, and uninteresting. Most could probably have been written by a misandry chatbot. They don't bring any new ideas to the table.
And while I try hard to be diplomatic when I write critical replies to those comments...I can empathize with those who are a little harsher.
Apparently, this has spurned a conversation in the UK media whether the names of people accused of sex crimes should be kept confidential until they are found guilty, in order to avoid ruining innocent people's lives.
But it's important to keep in mind that the vast majority of rape accusations are true[1], and this likely carries over to accusations of sexual and gender-based harassment as well.
Statistically, it makes sense to give the accuser the benefit of the doubt. I'd rather unfairly tarnish the reputation of a small minority of the accused, than attack the reputation of the accusers (the vast majority of whom truly are victims of a terrible, heinous crime).
This doesn't mean that the accused shouldn't get a fair legal trial. But I think it does affect how they should be treated by the court of public opinion (until they are exonerated, in the rare cases where that actually happens).
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape#Estima...
It sickens me that you think people "should" be treated by the court of public opinion in any way.
EDIT It's said how comments here are flipping back and forth between black and grey like I was watching some sick checkerboard of humanity.
I think we're actually on the same page -- I don't think personal attacks help at all. The whole point of Hacker News is to have interesting discussions, but personal attacks are not really very interesting.
And, I think (and I think you'd agree) that we have to take the victim's claims seriously so that we can learn more about how this happened and how we can avoid empowering someone like Mr. Mateen to carry out such reprehensible behavior in our own workplaces. That's the discussion that's worth having.
EDIT: Just wanted to add...this case is somewhat unique in that IAC has literally confirmed that Mr. Mateen sent harassing messages to Ms. Wolfe. I posted my first comment not because I wanted to attack Mr. Mateen, but because I'm getting tired of the typical flood of "oh this is just yet another unfounded accusation against some poor founder" FUD comments on these stories.
Not really, at least not here in the UK. The Crown Prosecution Service generally doesn't consider it in the public interest unless it's a particularly serious case. For example the most recent case involved a barrister making the accusations and the guy she'd accused being jailed amongst prisoners who'd somehow gotten the idea he was a pedophile[1]. (Those kind of rumours tend to get people brutally mutilated or murdered by other prisoners - kind of a big deal.) Even then, women's rights campaigners protested against the conviction and accused the police of harming rape victims by bringing the case to court.
[1] http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jun/26/trainee-barri...
That said, I'm generally hesitant to express myself based on those assumptions, but I still question them (and those of others).
Do you have any links/research that shows that false allegations are 'fantastically uncommon'? Because I've heard too many accounts of people claiming false allegation to just assume you're right.
You also have to acknowledge that when you have a rape accusation, there isn't a boolean result(either the allegation is false, or it's true and this results in some penalty). It's a broad spectrum, with only around a third of the cases resulting in conviction.[1]
Of the 136 cases of sexual assault 8 (5.9%) were coded as false reports, 61 (44.9%) did not proceed to any prosecution or disciplinary action, 48 (35.3%) were referred for prosecution or disciplinary action, and 19 (13.9%) contained insufficient information to be coded (see Table 2).
[1]http://www.icdv.idaho.gov/conference/handouts/False-Allegati...
http://www.rezlaw.com/News-Events/06-30-14_Complaint_with_Ex...
It's bad.
> Mr. Mateen went on to say that he didn’t want boys trying to date Ms. Wolfe due to her co-founder status, and that being a female co-founder of Tinder was 'slutty' because it is an app people use 'to hook up.'
On a tangential note: it's interesting to see the very weak bargaining on her part on pages 64-65, where she's trying to talk to Sean Rad about her equity. Textbook wrong way to approach it for both parties. He should've been soft, to encourage her not to sue, and she should've been the one with a hard edge, seeing as how she was effectively being driven out of the company she helped co-found.
* Mateen did supervise Wolfe.
* Mateen did send some "inappropriate" messages to Wolfe (Tinder has, bafflingly, acknowledged this publicly).
* The text messages in the exhibits in the complaint actually occurred.
At this point, vice-grip mortal-lock "bad" seems to be just a "Tinder and/or IAC's management knew this was happening" showing away, right?
It is very unusual to see a company actually acknowledge an allegation like that. But do you think it was a bad idea to do so?
Obviously it has legal ramifications. They're literally admitting guilt.
But Tinder/IAC will have to work to do to demonstrate that they care about having a healthy workplace culture. And this seems like a good way to lend credibility to the fact that they take that responsibility seriously (instead of just FUD-ing the victim with a vaguely worded statement).
Wolfe might not even need to show that Tinder/IAC knew if she can show that Mateen invoked his supervisory authority to demote Wolfe from co-founder status. In such cases, where the harasser uses official authority to effect a tangible employment action, the company is vicariously liable for the conduct of the harasser, without any further showing by the plaintiff.
If she can't show a tangible employment action, the company can avoid liability by showing that it acted reasonably to prevent or correct the harassment, or that she acted unreasonably by e.g. not complaining to someone higher up. Showing lack of knowledge would be a good start, but they could also show they tried to take corrective measures when they found out. Of course if the text messages are true, some of those angles might be foreclosed...
Here's a short article on the subject that explains this pretty clearly: http://www.thompsoncoe.com/NewsEvents/Publications?find=2631....
EDIT TO ADD Anyone who feels treated unfairly: don't sign any offer without legal advice. A contract needs, among other things, to have consideration[1] to be binding. If they give you $100 if you agree not to sue for sexual harassment, you could be up a creek.
It's rare to see sexism in tech spelled out so blatantly. If the above is true, that's absolutely despicable.
Read some of the comments here; you won't be disappointed.
As an aside, I found it a little hard to take the texts seriously--such atrocious spelling and grammar! On an old candybar I've typed more clearly and at greater length. For shame.
It says right there that IAC confirmed he sent the messages. The rest of this honestly does not matter at all, it's just kindling on the fire. Those alone are enough to prove that he sexually harassed her. If you're honestly trying to argue that we 'don't know all that facts' and that 'we shouldn't jump to conclusions' then I feel bad for any women who have to interact with you because you're probably a fucking scumbag too.
Edit: Here are the messages: http://www.buzzfeed.com/sapna/tinder-sued-for-sexual-harassm...
As an apologist mechanism, I'll concede that it's lacking, but even in the face of evidence, we should be wary of indicting anything for which we don't have personal, inside involvement, but even for cases, like this, for which there appears to be evidence, predisposing ourselves to a cause makes it less likely that we'll adjust our opinions in the event that counter-evidence is provided, or the existing evidence is placed into a context which might make it otherwise reasonable.
Note, I'm not suggesting that any of the above applies here, but as a general practice, avoiding prejudgement in the absence of all the facts is a bad way to approach gossip.
This isn't gossip. The text messages in the complaint have been confirmed and condemned by Tinder. She was clearly sexually harassed by Mateen, who has been suspended. Tinder is disputing the allegations with respect to its management.
I would call it CYA. All they submitted to the court was screen captures of iMessage, so presumably the company saw the same thing. They felt compelled to comment on that, that's fine. But to me, sorry, screen captures of iMessage aren't good enough. That can easily be faked with you and a friend sending over-the-top messages to each other. I would want to see phone company records.
While it's certainly possible that the evidence included in the pleading is manufactured, her lawyers have staked their own reputation and careers on the evidence not being obviously fake.
[1] California Code of Civil Procedure Section 128.7
Now perhaps before signing anything Ms. Wolfe would have consulted a lawyer and so there would have been a lawsuit anyway. And as a disinterested observer, I would kind of hope so. But the pragmatic lesson for people who might be in a similar situation is that a little humility and understanding can go a long way. I'm reminded of the study finding that doctors who apologized for medical mistakes ended up being sued less often for medical malpractice.
Of course, by far the best thing is to avoid such situations altogether!
It's not fool-proof; sometimes people are treated so awfully that they want the feeling of justice from a trial. As you say, best to avoid these situations altogether.
I can see going into some kind of "legalistic lock down mode" if you suddenly are worried about a lawsuit, but in that case it might be prudent to get an actual lawyer's advice. I'm not a lawyer myself, but it seems unlikely that the CEO's actions here are something that the company's lawyer would've advised. It sounds like she was asking for honestly much less than she should've been asking for, and unless there's something I'm missing, I can't believe it was in the company's interests for him to refuse that offer. She was offering to resign in return for quite modest severance conditions, and my guess is that a corporate lawyer would've been happy to advise the CEO to accept the offer and close the affair.
What a steaming pile of useless crap Mr. Mateen is. Those texts are ruthless and unrelenting. I hope that she gets millions in compensation and this asshat gets fired immediately. Fucking prick.
It's good to keep the special-ness of this case in mind. For instance, sexism usually doesn't get this bad. On the other hand, an atmosphere that isn't as hostile as this can still be, well, bad.
Uh-huh.
I'm just a little skeptical because if you read the complaint, it's mostly about her trying to assert her co-founder status with sexual harassment as a bludgeon.
That's an important claim about the company as a whole, and not just about one person at that company.
IMHO...this has nothing to do with Tinder or the parent company. Because, guess what happens when you decide to enter the dating world? You may get burned, called bad names or become generally upset.
So don't shit where you eat and then blame the cafeteria for the bad taste left in your mouth.
Well, yeah. Only half of the efforts trampeled?
These sexual harassment cases do more to hurt women than help them IMHO. It reinforces the viewpoint that women are seen as a liability.
Let me translate what you just said: if someone harasses you at your workplace and elsewhere, and as such causes harm to you, and do so also by deploying systematically dissipated stereotypes (yes, they are social weapons), you shall not press charges, because if you do, you would be a petty little girl who is causing harm to your company.
...
If someone harms me I'm obviously going to press charges. The issue is whether those charges should actually have legal basis.
This bullshit should be put to an end.
Girl finds new man, guy gets angry and lashes out by calling her a whore.(Unfounded) Nothing to see here folks!
Unless you're into this sort of drama...
I am not endorsing his actions.
And this is why dating across workplace power differentials is a bad idea: it makes a bad breakup exponentially worse.
Also, keep in mind that it is in Tinder's interest to put all blame to the employee that sent the allegedly inappropriate private messages. We have no idea what the true nature of their relationship was, how it evolved, and if it ended on a bad note.
I'm not saying that he is innocent, but he should be treated as such until he is proved guilty.
I think your bias might be leaking but the case against Assange was never shown to be false. As far as I'm aware he's still in an embassy avoiding his trial.
I would like to comment on all the heat sexual discrimination cases are getting in the public eye lately. (I have no idea if the number of actual cases are increasing, decreasing, or staying the same). Big, public, messy scandals are no good for anybody, and they're not a new phenomenon.
We have various professions where lawsuits of a sexual nature can be especially damaging. A couple that come to mind right off the bat are politicians and religious leaders.
I've heard that in many cases, the threat of an unfounded lawsuit is so great, and it could cause so much harm, that folks are sticking with same-sex environments where there are always 3 or more people in a room together.
I wonder if we'll see such adaptations in the startup industry. It could be that the public outcry after so many of these things, to include more women, might actually drive out more highly segregated work environments. It bears watching.
It is not uncommon for people who work together, to get romantically involved in spite of advice against such relationships. But I don't see anything specifically 'tech' related that would make this more or less likely. Hence the question.
That didn't answer your question, I know. My point is that there are tons of tech companies. It can certainly appear to be a tremendous surge when in fact it's just a small extra effort made in reporting cases. Without a statistical survey we can't be sure.
We can be sure about the economics of creating content, though.
With this kind of visceral reaction, it's a publisher's dream. Not only can you report the allegation, then you can report the reply, then the comments from the community, then the play-by-play action in court, etc. Just gauge how much effort to put into it by how many pageviews you're pulling. Newspaper 101 stuff.
This is why I'm astonished to see such strenuous effort go into confecting explanations why there might not really be a problem in startup culture. You've got young, inexperienced founders and a tendency to dispense with formal HR practises in favour of "cultural fit" - the ingredients are all there for horrible abuses of power, and yet when said abuses inevitably surface, there's an almost desperate effort to hand-wave them away as isolated incidents. It's bewildering, it really is.
Model View Culture have been publishing some superb work in this area, most relevantly in this article:
http://modelviewculture.com/pieces/hr-antipatterns-at-startu...
Is there any correlation between long work-weeks and romantic relationships between employees? Have any studies been done of this?
I'm reminded of Philip Greenspun's "How To Make Your Software Engineers Work 80 Hours A Week" article [1] about ArsDigita where he got his employees to work crazy hours while he was dating one of his employees. That's the part that was most offensive to me when I first read it years ago ("girlfriend for me but not for thee"). Other parts offend me more these days, but I'm still wondering if a good policy against sexual harassment is to make sure your employees have time outside of work to find someone to copulate with.
[1] http://philip.greenspun.com/ancient-history/managing-softwar...
There is also a correlation between having an excuse to be close together and opportunity. This apparently got pretty bad for Microsoft employees on the road such that the company issued guidelines. But I don't know if corporate was any more or less affected.
Two possibilities come to mind.
One, the nerd/geek stereotype where those of us more interested in high tech are supposed to have worse social skills; this would lead to more defective attempts at starting relationships, and to more of the relationships that do happen going bad.
Two, the inherent necessary hubris of startup culture and the noise around "10x" or "rock-star" or "A-player" etc programmers, the apparent canonization of people like Jobs and Zuckerberg; the resulting pervasive sense of entitlement and superiority would also not make for healthy relationships.
Look at the numbers. There are still pay equity issues all over the place, but in terms of participation, every other white collar industry puts technology to shame. 66% of staff attorneys are women. ~40% of biglaw partners are. And in law, 40% is a problem. In technology, it would be a dream.
Ok. So what?
I would expect different people and different industries to respond differently. Maybe you don't. How various people in various industries react to external stimulus is beyond my knowledge. That's why I find it interesting.
ISTM we're considering two different problems here. The first, and more important from society's POV, is that there aren't enough women working in the industry. The second, and for some much more personally important, is to avoid being sued for harassment. The people who worry about the latter may be grossly overestimating the danger, but their reactions to that overestimate could still make the first problem worse. Reactions like "same-sex environments", for instance.
Participation not at parity = problem
Harassment suits not at parity = everything is fine?
The industries you cite are largely people businesses with restricted knowledge paths and require intense experience and with outcome of individual projects being much more vague and often predetermined by the inputs they received when taking on the project.
> In technology, it would be a dream.
My feeling is that females in tech are largely suffering from the outcome of some inherent risk analysis that we experience. Girls are more likely to take definite paths with known success ratios.
This brings the question, why don't we have significant outliers in female in tech given the low barrier to entry at the root level.
cause of shit like this at tinder
The problem is not the lawsuits. The problem is harassment, and further, the men who are so incapable of not harassing women that they segregate their workplaces.
We should recognize that the number of lawsuits pales in comparison to the incidence of actual harassment. We should be blaming the perpetrators of this harassment, and the men who would avoid working with women rather than change their behavior. We should not be blaming the women who raise these suits, or decrying their nature, as there is a very real and serious problem of sexual harassment in our industry.
Seriously, if you are the victim of a false allegation that is later proven to be false, then your reputation is not destroyed. If you are the victim of one instance of a false allegation that later reveals a pattern of bad behavior, then you should not have behaved badly in the first place.
If anything, this case is system-blaming. More importantly, it is looking at how the system works, and what unintended effects are attempts to improve have. Specifically, observing that the increase is lawsuits leads to the creating of single gender environments, harming other metrics of gender equality. There is no concept of blame in this observation. It is merely a conjecture about cause and effect which can be used to make more informed choices.
Having recognized this we may decide that sexual harrasment lawsuits are not worth it, in which case I may leave the country. Or we could look for ways to conduct these lawsuits in a way that is less damaging. Or we may decide to use/develop other responses to sexual harrasment before going to a lawsuit.
This is a discussion that needs to be had, and your response preculudes it.
The original post was very careful not to put either sex in either role. It even went so far as to not exclude homosexual relations by suggesting that you'd want three people in the room despite a segregated workplace.
Your post, in contrast, insists that harassment suits are always filed by woman against men. It goes so far as to suggest these hypothetical employers must be men and that their motivation is an inability to control themselves.
The implication was simply that as sexual harassment cases become more costly, it may be pragmatic to take more drastic measures to prevent them. I'm very disgusted by your post.
Edit: http://www.buzzfeed.com/sapna/tinder-sued-for-sexual-harassm... - If this is real the guy is a real piece of shit. -This- is the type of guy who should be removed from his company. If the guy in Github was forced to leave this is probably a sure-thing.
Documented by text messages in the complaint
It sounds like there is documentary evidence, so I'm wondering why you would characterize it like that.
EDIT on re-reading this was pretty obvious sarcasm that I missed.
Why do I get the feeling I'm going to see that in an XKCD strip sometime soon?
You could say that she egged him on and was not exactly the pinnacle of maturity, but harassment is illegal and egging someone on is not.
Isn't that the root issue ?
It's not that far-fetched to believe that. The texts are just screen captures of iMessage, not phone company records.
It's not that no one has ever done something really really stupid but it's not unreasonable to assume, for now, that the messages are not forged.
True, but apparently even with a court order you can only get text message records from so far back. Two years would definitely be stretching it.
The reason I'm skeptical here is because the complaint is very much focused on her being recognized (now) as a cofounder, and the sexual harassment stuff is a convenient bludgeon.
Edit: changing my opinion on this one. Originally I thought, reading those texts, it was a case of relationship drama at work, from what seemed to be the end of an existing consensual relationship. Relationships at work are dumb, but not illegal.
However, texting "you'll regret acting this way" to a subordinate is pretty damning.