Hacker News Reader

Comment by alaroldai | Hacker News Reader

Every time I see posts like this, I see people commenting on it with varying statement to the effect of "that's a shame, but most people in tech aren't like that", or "I'm so tired of seeing posts like this, quit making a fuss."

And that makes me so angry.

Sure, maybe not everyone in the industry is an arsehole. But enough people are, and those people are vocal enough, that a significant number of people feel disgusted and threatened. That should be enough to tell you that even if the majority are lovely people, the industry as a whole still has a problem.

(also, for anyone wondering whether the number of people affected really is "significant", I would consider even one person to be a significant number)

I also get really angry at posts like "This has never happened to me, so I'm sure it's all ok". This may come as a surprise, but individual experiences are not universal. That something has never happened to you doesn't mean it's never happened to anyone else.

And if you're getting tired of seeing posts like this, don't complain about the people making the posts. Complain about the people harassing them. It may seem counterintuitive, but the fastest and most effective way to stop posts like this turning up is actually to make more of them, until the harassment and abuse stop.

"This happens all the time" is never a valid excuse.

View on HN

The problem is, just one person like this is "enough" to really mess people up. You can have hundreds of normal, positive interactions in a week and it just takes one a$$hat to make you forget all that. Thanks to the internet, one guy can ruin hundreds of other people's days. He (or she) can do it anonymously and safely from a great distance. For the overwhelming majority of us, there simply are no barriers to prevent this. We routinely filter out nuisance emails from Nigerian princes but very few people try to filter out the crazies.

Most of us, if given the chance to have our messages filtered, would choose not to do so. Most people are eager to please and want to know when somebody is unhappy so they can fix it. Only people in the most visible positions are faced with such a deluge of crap that they're forced to do something about it. For the average person, the aberrant attention that comes from a small amount of exposure, such as a conference talk, is just big enough to throw us for a loop but not so big that we'd think about taking steps to never see that stuff. This isn't only a problem for women. Men face it too.

Perhaps the time has come to approach harassment the way we approach spam. Namely, make it easy to report personal attacks so that we can start using the same techniques that block spam to block harassment.

IDK, she's talking about hundreds of vile personal messages. Sounds like more than one a$$hat to me.

And I can't help but notice that as a man I don't get this kind of abuse at all. Literally 0 rape threats. I think when this kind of thing happens it should be called out. Sunlight is a great disinfectant.

>And I can't help but notice that as a man I don't get this kind of abuse at all. Literally 0 rape threats.

Men rarely send men rape threats. A woman threatening a man with rape usually isn't seen as threatening due to power dynamics between the sexes (good luck overpowering the man to rape him?) So that doesn't come as a large surprise to anyone.

But a large number of men do receive death threats and threats to their family. "I'll kill your kids" and "I'll kill your wife" are still threats against that person. They are meant to intimidate and control that individual, fearing for the people he cares about. He'll receive a picture of his girlfriend with another man's semen plastered on it.

You learn to ignore it - because there isn't another way to deal with it. Blaming a specific community for it is a joke. What do you want the community to do about it? Say it's not okay?

Well it's not okay. We say that, but it falls on deaf ears. You want us to do something about it. But there isn't anything to do about it. Simply saying it's not okay isn't enough. It won't stop what happens. If you think it will, I'd love to hear your reasoning for how you came to that conclusion and what alternative universe you've wished yourself into.

Telling people that theft is not okay doesn't prevent all theft. Telling people that killing people is not okay doesn't prevent all murders. Telling people that [this] is not okay does not prevent all [this]. That's simply a fact of life.

What people are saying is: "No, this isn't okay. It's still going to happen. What do you want us to do about it, we can't do shit. You're going to have to deal with it."

Somehow that gets interpreted as "This is okay, we endorse it. We aren't going to do anything about it."

Actually I've done a good number of talks at tech conferences, and while I've gotten a few choice Youtube comments, I've never gotten any of the kind of shit thrown at me that female colleagues in a similar position have. The same kind of stuff described in this post.

And it's not exactly clear from your post why we should throw up our hands at a threat to someone's children, either.

> Somehow that gets interpreted as "This is okay, we endorse it. We aren't going to do anything about it."

Yes, telling someone that they shouldn't talk about the bad thing happening to them, that they should just get over it, is condoning it. Oh, no need for them to get into the particulars! I can just assume I've already experienced exactly whatever they're going to say and just tell them, "well, that's the internet for you".

Ever heard of the expression "Don't feed the trolls"? Most of the threats people get are non-serious. Two decades of internet experience tells me that very, very, very, very, very few individually targeted threats ever actually get enacted. So yes, you pretend they don't happen and don't give them the attention they desire.

In fact - the police will tell you not to talk about the threat after you report it to them. Discussing the threat gives them an audience, which is what many legitimate psychopaths desire. Someone to "watch their work" after it's been done. It's better to stay silent and let police investigate (and if they don't investigate, chances are they don't think it's a serious threat or there isn't anything they can do besides put you under police protection).

Also what do you expect individuals to do against an anonymous threat? Console you? Flame a throwaway account? When you talk about it and everyone tells you "Yeah, it happens to me too. Just ignore it." What's their to talk about? That it happens? Yes. We know it happens. There's nothing you can actually do about it.

To steal an example someone else used: spam email.

There's little you can do to prevent spam emails (only try and intelligently filter them). Spam email is going to happen whether you like it or not, whether you talk about it or not, and everyone gets spam email and everyone hates spam email. We aren't supporting spam by not wanting to talk about spam. We just don't talk about it because there is nothing to talk about. You ignore it. It's a part of the world we live in and openly talking about "I get spam email all the time this sucks!" isn't helping to stop the spam problem. After a point, people would prefer you would just shut up about spam emails. Us not caring to discuss something we have no control over doesn't mean we agree with it. It means it's pointless to discuss. Perhaps pick an issue that people have some control over that could be solved.

The problem is you're assuming that only carried-through threats are the problem here (that sheer volume of fucked up comments don't make eventually make it unpleasant to work in an industry), and that everyone reacts to threats the same way you do ("very few rape threats come to pass, therefore I feel fine walking to my car alone right now").

> In fact - the police will tell you not to talk about the threat after you report it to them.

No, they don't. They may tell you to not say anything if there's an ongoing investigation, but that's about it.

> Discussing the threat gives them an audience, which is what many legitimate psychopaths desire.

Not usually, but most people making these comments are not psychopaths anyways, and are part of the same industry as the rest of us (why else are they watching tech talks?), and do not stand well with their comments in the light of day.

> and if they don't investigate, chances are they don't think it's a serious threat or there isn't anything they can do besides put you under police protection

Go to a major city and get mugged, at gunpoint even, then report your missing wallet and/or phone to the police. Then let me know as soon as they catch the crook and you get your stuff back. I won't wait up.

It's beyond me why people see this sort of thing all the time from police, then presuppose that same force, with little technical training, will get right on those online death threats and catch the person behind them. Unless you attract major attention (and retain it), little is going to be done for you.

>and are part of the same industry as the rest of us (why else are they watching tech talks?

You act like this only happens in the tech industry. That's your problem. You seem to live in this little bubble of the world where you're blissfully unaware that this happens to anyone famous. Even marginally so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4G2EsQbaDg

>Go to a major city and get mugged, at gunpoint even, then report your missing wallet and/or phone to the police. Then let me know as soon as they catch the crook and you get your stuff back. I won't wait up.

What do you expect them to do in such a scenario? You seem to live in a novel where every crime can be solved by the most trace amount of evidence. This is the real world. A lot of crimes go uncaught and unpunished. Most home burglars don't get caught. Notice how my comment didn't stop at "don't think it's a serious threat" but includes "there isn't anything they can do".

How many threats do you think Justin Beiber (Bieber?) gets a day? He's still alive. He's still singing. Nothing has happened.

>It's beyond me why people see this sort of thing all the time from police, then presuppose that same force, with little technical training, will get right on those online death threats and catch the person behind them.

It's beyond me why people think that lesser trained, lesser resourceful people online who suffer the same treatment in many scenarios would be able to do anything about it either. But I guess getting attention and pointing people to your Patreon solves a lot of life's problems.

> You act like this only happens in the tech industry. That's your problem.

Read more carefully. I was addressing this particular case.

> This is the real world. A lot of crimes go uncaught and unpunished

Uh, yeah, exactly. Which is why your earlier "It's better to stay silent and let police investigate" is not sufficient.

> But I guess getting attention and pointing people to your Patreon solves a lot of life's problems.

In which you reveal yourself:

1) Those rape threats aren't real threats.

2) Everyone wants to stop hearing about the threats you get.

3) You're obviously just bringing up the threats because you're attention seeking.

I mean...seriously?

> Ever heard of the expression "Don't feed the trolls"?

Whoops. Should have listened.

>That should be enough to tell you that even if the majority are lovely people, the industry as a whole still has a problem.

Is that really the case, though? If there's a violent criminal in a town, does the town as a whole have problem? Is the whole town to blame for the acts of that individual?

We should do what we can to stop this sort of abuse and make things better, but why do we have to spend so much time allocating blame to everyone in same field of work?

If we're doing what we can to stop this sort of abuse, there's nothing to blame us for.

If we're spending our time trying to sweep these issues under the rug, maybe there is.

I don't think refusing to take blame for the acts of others is sweeping anything under the rug.

Nobody is blaming you. They are asking you to take responsibility for your professional community. Will you?

>Nobody is blaming you.

>The Industry Is Fucked.

That's my industry that's fucked. Not some random people on the internet, not some assholes in a convention. The statement is that the entire industry that I participate in, interact with and identify with is fucked.

Nobody is blaming you. They are asking you to take responsibility for your professional community. Will you?

You really need to rephrase, because the way I read this statement is contradictory:

Responsibility: the state of being the person who caused something to happen.

Blame: to say or think that a person or thing is responsible for something bad that has happened.

I think what you want to say is that we're asking people to stand against this sort of abuse, which seems to be happening to the extent possible. If you have suggestions for further steps to stop this sort of thing I think everyone is all ears, but the language you're using suggests random programmers and sysadmins should write long blog posts taking responsibility for negative acts of which they had no part and are against. That seems both pointless and somewhat insulting.

One meaning of "responsible" is basically synonymous with blame, but that's not the only meaning, or even the primary one.

If some random litters on my lawn and then walks away, they are to blame for the mess, but I am responsible for cleaning it up because it's my lawn.

As another example, there are plenty of American citizens who argued fervently against the Iraq war, so they aren't to blame for it, but they are responsible for paying the debts that result from it.

You and I are not necessarily to blame for the sexism and misogyny in the tech industry. But personally, I want the industry to be a welcoming place for everybody with technical skill, not just dude with thick skins. So I am taking my share of responsibility for my professional community. Would you like to help?

Here's the thing: accountability/responsibility must match control.

Can I stop all this? No. I'd like to, but I can't. Then there is no realistic way that I can take responsibility for it.

Can I call out whatever I see? Sure can. That I'm responsible for.

It is optimal when responsibility and control match, but they rarely do. E.g., parents have much more responsibility for children than they have control. Citizens and city governments have a responsibility to keep garbage off the streets, but they don't have perfect control of who can put garbage on the streets.

If you are doing what you can to solve the problem, then you have already taken your share responsibility for the state of the industry.

But is it really my community? The 'tech industry' is very broad - a software engineer at Google, a computer engineer at IBM, a Sysadmin at AT&T, a computer scientist at Volvo - they're all considered members of the tech industry.

Half of the industry has probably never attended a conference of any sort. 3/4 of the industry probably don't have personal blogs, or a GitHub.

There's no bar association or union or anything. You don't even need a degree to get hired. Grouping, say, an embedded systems specialist and a PHP dev into the 'tech community' is like grouping a welder and an auto mechanic into the 'construction community'. There are similarities, sure, but very little influence between groups.

It may not be your community, but it's definitely mine. Any community has subcommunities, just like any city has neighborhoods.

To continue along your analogy, that would be akin to the local population saying "there's need to involve police forces, it's only the one guy" "Just because there's a violent criminal in town doesn't mean we have to do anything about it, we're on the whole nice people"

Instead of you know, assisting the police with their enquiries, teaching their kids it's not ok to slice open people, volunteering for search parties to find the victims, organising groups to walk kids to and from school, etc.

You kind of missed the analogy - we should do all of those things. The problem is that the acts of the violent criminal are being treated as the acts of the whole town.

Except, if we are going to make the analogy faithful to the real life scenario, the blame is not transferring the guilt of the criminal, but the separate crime of not doing anything about the criminal.

No, they aren't. That may be what you're hearing, but I promise you that's not what the intended message is.

When someone says "This town has a crime problem," they're not saying "The town itself is committing lots crimes" or even "This town contains nothing but criminals." What they are saying is that it doesn't matter how many good people there are in the town, it's still that town's responsibility to do something about it. The town can't just wait around for some other town to come and fix things for them. Or go on letting people get robbed and killed as long as it doesn't happen to anyone that "matters".

Women say "This industry is fucked" because they want things to get better. Some people hear this and seem to think that if they personally didn't cause it, then it's not their job to fix things or even acknowledge the issue. But news flash, the only way things get better if the people who aren't causing the problem drive the change. Because the people who are causing the problem aren't going to. They're entirely happy with the shitty status quo.

If there are violent criminals in a town running rampant and unaccountable, then yes, the whole town has a problem. How could you think otherwise? Every municipal election I've seen or read about touches on crime and response to crime.

> why do we have to spend so much time allocating blame to everyone in same field of work?

We only spend a lot of time on this because every time somebody talks about their actual experience, eight zillion dudes pop up to shout, "#notallmen"! Or to demand that the problem be proven to them right this instant with detailed studies in top journals. Or to say, "why are we allocating blame" when nobody was in fact blamed.

The tech industry has a problem. Do others? Possibly, but I don't care. Other people can worry about fixing their own industries. I'm going to worry about fixing mine. But it's not going to start getting better until people admit that there's a problem.

It makes you angry to think? Is this the modern day internet in which lots of individuals say stupid things to get a rise out of people (troll for the lulz)? or is it a tech industry problem

Turn your base emotions off for a second and try to use your higher level brain facilities to target the actual root of this.

I'm an african-american in tech. Lots has happened to me. What has ever happened to you such that you can relate?

So, you're emotional.. angry about someone trolling a woman. So, you're going to go on an irrational rampage and fight any man to death who tries to bring clarity to the issue beyond your emotional white knighting?

Cheers man.. you're no better than the trolls who function on the same base instinct. Rise above it. This isn't the stone-age.

> So, you're emotional.. angry about someone trolling a woman. So, you're going to go on an irrational rampage and fight any man to death who tries to bring clarity to the issue beyond your emotional white knighting? Cheers man.. you're no better than the trolls who function on the same base instinct

Yes, we call this sort of thing a straw man.

I do enjoy, however, that the OP is blogging "because she feels she's the center of the world"[1], alaroldai is an irrational, rampaging white knight, but you're just bringing clarity to the issue. No, you don't seem irrationally invested in the issue in the slightest.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9836257

> It may seem counterintuitive, but the fastest and most effective way to stop posts like this turning up is actually to make more of them, until the harassment and abuse stop.

You have evidence to back this up? Honest question.

Actually, no. But I can't believe that ignoring the issue is going to be more helpful than bringing attention to it.

Have you heard the phrase "don't feed the trolls?" Generally, if someone is saying hurtful things because they didn't know better, raising awareness is likely to help. If they're saying hurtful things to get attention, saying that they're hurting people and should stop is likely to be counterproductive.

I don't know enough to be positive in this case, but I'm guessing this is a case of "trolls", not a case of "ignorant people" (at least not ignorant in the sense of not knowing that they're causing someone distress).

Turns out the trolls have found impossible to ignore ways to interact now: they'll SWAT, Dox, and DoS you right out of your life.

Actually, yes. There's ample evidence of the effects of under reporting crimes:

http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/more-than-3-million-v... http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/vnrp0610.pdf

From the article:

"Bullying remains a big problem, according to the study data. About 76% of violent crimes that occurred at school were not reported to police, which is consistent with the findings that from 2006 to 2010, crimes against youth age 12 to 17 were more likely to go unreported than crimes against persons in other age categories."

Now, here's my question for you, mholt (and others), meant in a kind but very direct tone: why should someone need to prove that reporting more of these crimes is justifiable? Why quibble with that question versus addressing the question of, "is there a wrong being done and can I help stop it?"

There is a wrong being done. You can help stop it.

So let's fix it.

>>> That should be enough to tell you that even if the majority are lovely people, the industry as a whole still has a problem.

I'm not disagreeing with you. But...

Isn't that true with everything? Is the medical industry fucked because some doctors are getting sued for malpractice? Is accountancy fucked because some accountants embezzle money? Are teachers fucked because some guy fails students who look like his ex?

I mean come on. These attitudes are in no way productive and the only reason the above post exists is to attract attention, not to fix anything.

Your examples all have something in common which is that the harm is caused indiscriminately by which I mean that there is I reason to think that any one group of people is affected more than any other. In other words they are like car accidents. Everybody has a roughly equal chance of being affected and therefore everybody has the same incentives to fix or not fix the problem. But when some problem affects a particular group of people disproportionately and when that group is itself powerless to fix the problem, well then the situation is fucked. Especially if those who do have the power to fix the problem instead choose to wash their hands of it.

> Every time I see posts like this, I see people commenting on it with varying statement to the effect of "that's a shame, but most people in tech aren't like that", or "I'm so tired of seeing posts like this, quit making a fuss."

I'm tired of people whining in a blog post instead of calling the police.

Death threats and violence threats like this are unacceptable. CALL THE POLICE. After a couple of high-profile cases put these kinds of assholes in jail it will stop.

> Death threats and violence threats like this are unacceptable. CALL THE POLICE. After a couple of high-profile cases put these kinds of assholes in jail it will stop.

What evidence do you have that the police will do something? We could look at people like Brianna Wu and Anita Sarkeesian, who I feel confident we'll agree have experienced massive and credible death threats. They report the threats they get to the police and FBI. Who's in jail as a result?

Also, from what I can tell posts like this are a lot more high-profile than court cases. I haven't seen or heard of many court cases dealing with this, and when I have it's been via a blog post. Calling the police might be helpful in the specific case, but unless it really is high profile, it's not going to help change the culture.

> Also, from what I can tell posts like this are a lot more high-profile than court cases.

High profile blog posts don't make it stop. In fact, it likely adds fuel to the fire.

A video of a perp walk will drive home to the anonymous cowards that this isn't acceptable.

Maybe the fact that nobody went to jail for those threats means they weren't as credible as you seem to think.

Since when do the police care about online harassment?

Police care about death threats. Really.

Now, if the harasser is 2 continents away, it's going to get circular filed. If the harasser is two continents away, though, you can just ignore the message.

However, if the harasser turns out to be in the same state or even the same county, the police will care a lot. And someone in the same state qualifies as an imminent threat. And has likely done it to other people.

What makes you think she didn't call the police?

http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/women-arent-welcome...

"Two hours later, a Palm Springs police officer lumbered up the steps to my hotel room, paused on the outdoor threshold, and began questioning me in a steady clip. I wheeled through the relevant background information: I am a journalist; I live in Los Angeles; sometimes, people don’t like what I write about women, relationships, or sexuality; this was not the first time that someone had responded to my work by threatening to rape and kill me. The cop anchored his hands on his belt, looked me in the eye, and said, “What is Twitter?”"

Glad you posted this. They mentioned this incident in a segment they did on Last Week Tonight. The police are completely ill-equipped to deal with online harassment, even if they could determine the identity of the attacker, which they likely rarely can.

Most harassers really aren't that clever at hiding their tracks. Someone that smart is probably doing something more productive with their life.

It's likely a simple request from the police for identity is probably going to cough up the idiot.

Um... Twitter isn't nearly as prevalent as people in the tech industry think it is.

One, demanding that the victims do extra work to solve the problem is problematic in that it shifts the burden onto people who are already having a hard time. (If you think this can be easily solved, volunteer to deal with the police for someone. Or just pay for someone to act as an advocate.)

Two, if you were paying attention to previous victims of online harassment, you'd know that police generally don't give a shit, and when they do, it's an extremely hard case to pursue.

Three, if you're tired of people talking about their lives on their blogs, don't read their blogs. You coming on here to whine about other people supposedly whining is ridiculous. There are plenty of us who actually want to solve these problems and are glad when people post.

So if I was mugged or being robbed, I have no friends around when this is happening, and I am not paying a security service, I shouldn't call 911?

If you think calling 911 will benefit you, by all means do it. There are plenty of people for whom it is either not a benefit or an active danger. For them, I can understand why they don't call.

>Sure, maybe not everyone in the industry is an arsehole. But enough people are, and those people are vocal enough, that a significant number of people feel disgusted and threatened. That should be enough to tell you that even if the majority are lovely people, the industry as a whole still has a problem.

There is not one "person in this industry" that was named or identified here. To project that anonymous internet trolls are "the tech industry" says more about how you view the tech industry then the industry itself or the people in it. What needs to stop is blanked condemnations of an industry, any industry because someone gets nasty tweets or emails. I got nasty email therefore the tech industry is responsible is not credible. Anyone regardless of who you are or what you do can end up with a mailbox full of nasty emails for innumerable reasons.

This is a strongly gendered phenomenon. Prominent women in tech have an entirely different experience than prominent men in tech. (This is mostly true for non-prominent people as well.) This comes up over and over and over.

But by all means keep clouding the issue in hopes of not having to talk about it.

The conversation that can be had is about slander and false accusations leveled against the tech industry as a whole. And the motivations of those who propagate such narratives. There has been no connection established between said emails and the "tech industry".

The implication that only girls get nasty emails on the internet and they obviously come from the "Assholes in the tech industry" is childish, not credible.

I meant to upvote you but accidentally downvoted,sorry! I strongly agree that this is a gendered phenomenon.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com