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Speaker 1: This is Bridget Todd, and you're listening to Internet Hate Machines,

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Speaker 1: and I am here with my lovely producer, Sophie. Sophie,

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Speaker 1: how are you. I'm doing well, Bridget, How are you?

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Speaker 1: I'm doing good? And I am so excited for the

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Speaker 1: first official episode of Internet Hate Machine because we're talking

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Speaker 1: about a topic that I've kind of think about a lot,

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Speaker 1: and that is the saga of Adria Richards. And I

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Speaker 1: know that you know a little bit about this story

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Speaker 1: one of my favorite named topics on the internet, dongle gate,

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Speaker 1: but you know, I only really know the surface level.

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Speaker 1: So I'm really looking forward to hearing more about this

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Speaker 1: from you and more about Adria as a person. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna be using the word dongle a lot in

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Speaker 1: this episode. Just two level set love that. One of

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Speaker 1: the reasons I wanted to start with Adria Richards is

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Speaker 1: because I think that she really represents an early situation

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Speaker 1: where bad actors were able to completely hijack a sensitive,

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Speaker 1: complicated situation in ways that they're still doing to this

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Speaker 1: very day. And I think it's a really great early

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Speaker 1: example of how when a black woman is being harassed

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Speaker 1: and attacked online, people watching will essentially fit back and

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Speaker 1: say she probably deserved it. So let's get into it.

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Speaker 1: That started the beginning. Who is Adrian Richards Well, Adrian

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Speaker 1: Richards is a black woman who has been working as

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Speaker 1: an engineer since about She first got her start in

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Speaker 1: technology as a network administrator and started volunteering teaching tech

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Speaker 1: skills in her spare time. And while she started working

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Speaker 1: her way up in these like successful tech startups, she

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Speaker 1: also kind of became this visible black woman in tech.

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Speaker 1: You know, she was doing a lot of media. She

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Speaker 1: had a pretty big YouTube channel with a healthy number

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Speaker 1: of subscribers. She celebrated ten thousand subscribers where she does

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Speaker 1: these accessible tech tutorials mixed with kind of every day

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Speaker 1: I guess lifestyle content like dating advice, And she does

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Speaker 1: a lot of content where she is calling out examples

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Speaker 1: of sexism in tech. Um, that's kind of I guess

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Speaker 1: her brand or her thing is these explorations of gender

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Speaker 1: and technology and the way that they intersect. Like her

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Speaker 1: personal website where she has her blog is called but

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Speaker 1: You're a Girl dot com, so you can sort of

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Speaker 1: get a sense of she's someone who is really interested

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Speaker 1: in shaking up the status quo in technology. She travels

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Speaker 1: to speak at these pretty big deal tech conferences where

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Speaker 1: she often is talking about things like diversity in tech

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Speaker 1: and inclusion in tech. Here's a little clip of her

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Speaker 1: speaking at one of those conferences. Any startup you're gonna

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Speaker 1: work at, it's not going to be all one gender.

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Speaker 1: If you're a woman, it's very unlikely. So you're gonna

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Speaker 1: need to work with guys. So you should be going

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Speaker 1: to events that have guys. And it's not that guys

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Speaker 1: don't want to help, but we have to give them

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Speaker 1: opportunities for them to be allies. So that was it,

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Speaker 1: Just a quick little clip that I think speaks to

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Speaker 1: um a little bit about what happened with her side.

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Speaker 1: Now somebody we would totally be friends with. Oh, absolutely, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: no question. So what I was doing research for this episode,

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Speaker 1: I really kind of enjoyed going back in time and

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Speaker 1: looking at Adria's digital life before what went down went down,

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Speaker 1: because honestly, she kind of just gives off vibes of

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Speaker 1: a black woman who is killing it, like she's really

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Speaker 1: hit her stride. Watching her talk about technology, she comes

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Speaker 1: off as really confident and happy and like she's in

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Speaker 1: like really walking in her power and It was exciting

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Speaker 1: to watch, but it kind of made me sad. Knowing

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Speaker 1: a little bit about what happens next, you might be

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Speaker 1: asking what happened to Adrea Richards. Adrea starts working as

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Speaker 1: a developer evangelist, which is basically, if you don't know

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Speaker 1: what that is, it's someone whose role is to work

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Speaker 1: with developers, help them solve problems, help them level up

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Speaker 1: in their career. She gets the job as a developer

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Speaker 1: evangelists for the email vendor sind Grid, and then she

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Speaker 1: goes to Peicon, a conference for Python users, and while

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Speaker 1: she's there, she is sitting in the main conference room

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Speaker 1: during a keynote talk, and she turns around to have

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Speaker 1: a conversation with some attendees behind her, having a normal

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Speaker 1: talk about some of the presentations they've seen, when she

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Speaker 1: overhears a pair of male attendees who are also developers,

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Speaker 1: making a crass joke while seated behind her. Now, the

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Speaker 1: actual nature of the joke is somewhat in dispute. A

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Speaker 1: little bit more on that later, but essentially, the crux

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Speaker 1: of the joke is that they're talking about dongles because

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Speaker 1: they work in tech, and the crux of the joke

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Speaker 1: is that dongle is a funny sounding word that kind

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Speaker 1: of sounds like dog, wow, brave such as just transferred

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Speaker 1: me back to you know, the seventh grade cool cool, cool. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean it's it's crass and it's immature, and it's

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Speaker 1: like it's like, like I said, it's like very middle school.

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Speaker 1: It is very middle school. It takes me back to

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Speaker 1: a lot of text bases I've been in where that

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Speaker 1: is the love that it just it is the level

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Speaker 1: of humor that you kind of are asked to smile

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Speaker 1: through and be like ha ha, this is one percent bridging.

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Speaker 1: I actually don't know if you know that, like one

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Speaker 1: of my first jobs out of college, I worked in

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Speaker 1: tech for several years, and I don't think on microoff

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Speaker 1: Mike we've talked about this at all. But yeah, I

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Speaker 1: definitely know exactly what you're talking about. In those In

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Speaker 1: those scenes, especially when there's very few women around the

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Speaker 1: the nature of the jokes can sometimes be a little

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Speaker 1: bit off putting to say the least. Yes, exactly, and

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Speaker 1: I think that's exactly where Adrian was at as well.

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Speaker 1: So she didn't say anything in the moment, She didn't

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Speaker 1: say that this bothered her, and she explains that choice

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Speaker 1: in her blog. She writes, I didn't want to be

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Speaker 1: heckled or have my experience denied, which I also really,

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Speaker 1: I'm sure you do. Having worked in tech, I know

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Speaker 1: what she's talking about. I did it. She probably didn't

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Speaker 1: want to have that vibe of, oh, she's crazy, she's

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Speaker 1: over sensitive. You know you, you know you can you

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Speaker 1: kind of have a sense of maybe it's not going

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Speaker 1: to go that well if you take the route of saying, hey, guys,

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Speaker 1: knock it off. Oh my god, she's so emotional, she's

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Speaker 1: in her feelings. Why can't we just can't we just

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Speaker 1: be our souls? It's like, all right, exactly. So, rather

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Speaker 1: than saying something to them in the moment, she takes

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Speaker 1: out her phone, takes their picture, and tweets it, tweeting

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Speaker 1: quote not cool jokes about forking repose in a sexual

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Speaker 1: way and big dongles right behind me hashtag picon. She

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Speaker 1: goes on to tweet, can someone talk to these guys

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Speaker 1: about their conduct? I'm in lightning talks top right near stage,

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Speaker 1: Tin roseback hashtag picon, and then she tweets the code

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Speaker 1: of conduct for the conference, which in part says, quote

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Speaker 1: offensive jokes are not appropriate for Peicon. So initially, Adrian

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Speaker 1: said that she was wanted to ignore this, but in

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Speaker 1: her blog but I'm a Girl, Adria explained what triggered

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Speaker 1: her to send that tweet. She writes, I was gonna

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Speaker 1: let it go. It has been a long week, a

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Speaker 1: long month. I've been on the road since mid February

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Speaker 1: attending and speaking at conferences. Icon was my fifth and

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Speaker 1: final conference before heading home. I know it's important to

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Speaker 1: pick my battles and I don't have to be a

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Speaker 1: hero and in every situation, but sometimes I want to

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Speaker 1: go to a conference and be a geek. But like Popeye,

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Speaker 1: I couldn't stands it no more because of what happened.

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Speaker 1: She talks about how her company was a sponsor for

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Speaker 1: this event and when she heard them talking about dongles,

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Speaker 1: she felt blustered. Then, she writes, then it happened the trigger.

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Speaker 1: She's watching somebody on the main stage and he's talking

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Speaker 1: about this young Hooder's workshop that Adrian volunteered at. He

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Speaker 1: was mentioning that the Pie Ladies auction had raised ten

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars in a single night for funds that we're

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Speaker 1: going to be used to support this young Coder's Workshop initiative.

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Speaker 1: I saw a photo on the main stage of a

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Speaker 1: little girl who had been in the Young Coder's Workshop.

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Speaker 1: I realized I had to do something because she would

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Speaker 1: never have the chance to learn and love programming because

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Speaker 1: the ask clowns behind me would make it impossible for

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Speaker 1: her to do so. So I I remember reading this

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Speaker 1: when the whole situation was going down, and I was

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Speaker 1: very moved by what she had written. Um, I think

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Speaker 1: it's if you're if you're listening to this and thinking

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Speaker 1: that seems a little overdone. Fine, sure, but I guess

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Speaker 1: I'm saying that I understand what where she sort of

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Speaker 1: coming from when she wrote that. Yeah, I mean like,

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Speaker 1: I definitely have empathy for for the way that she's

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Speaker 1: feeling here. I feel like that happens to a lot

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Speaker 1: of people in the business world, and specifically within the

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Speaker 1: tech space, where you're in a situation where you're like, well,

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Speaker 1: I could say nothing, but you know that would be

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Speaker 1: very disappointing to child me, or to my niece, to

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Speaker 1: my nephew, to my daughter, to my son, the inner

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Speaker 1: child in me where where I'm like, okay, you know,

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Speaker 1: I couldn't. While this might seem small to some who's

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Speaker 1: to say that many small things. If you let it

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Speaker 1: go this time, you might let it go the next

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Speaker 1: ten times, and then it's just a habit, and then

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Speaker 1: it's a pattern, and then you're enabling. So that's exactly

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Speaker 1: what she says. In her blog, she writes about how

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Speaker 1: this incident was actually not the first time that she

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Speaker 1: had heard a sexualizing joke at that particular conference. She

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Speaker 1: describes how earlier during that event, in a hallway, a

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Speaker 1: guy had made a crass joke about looking under the

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Speaker 1: skirt of the table and you know, make he made

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Speaker 1: some crass long and about it, not like so it

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Speaker 1: doesn't have pubic hair, just like I like it. But

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Speaker 1: because this happened in a way, I know, really not great.

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Speaker 1: She says that because this happened in a hallway and

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Speaker 1: not like at a seated, you know, main stage event

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Speaker 1: while somebody's on stage talking, she actually did feel comfortable

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Speaker 1: speaking up to whoever made that joke. And I think

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Speaker 1: it's exactly what you were saying, Sophie. It sounds like

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Speaker 1: this was death by a thousand cuts for her, where

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Speaker 1: it was laugh it off, laugh it off, say something,

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Speaker 1: say something, and eventually she just couldn't anymore. Like I've

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Speaker 1: been there where you just hit your limit of ship

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Speaker 1: that you are willing to smile through or giggle through

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Speaker 1: or brush off to the point where you just can't anymore.

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Speaker 1: The conference staff talk to the guys who end up

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Speaker 1: being developers who made the joke. For their part, it

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Speaker 1: sounds like these guys handled it very well. Ticon put

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Speaker 1: out a state meant saying quote. An incident occurred involving

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Speaker 1: some inappropriate comments made during a crowded plenary session her

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Speaker 1: the state of guidelines for the attendees and staff. The

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Speaker 1: issue was reported to PIKE staff and resolved privately. Both

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Speaker 1: parties were met with in private. The comments that were

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Speaker 1: made were in poor taste, and the individuals involved agreed, apologized,

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Speaker 1: and no further action were taken by the staff of Pike.

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Speaker 1: No individuals were removed from a conference, no sanctions were levied,

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Speaker 1: and so honestly, it sounds like it truly could have

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Speaker 1: ended there. You know, these developers who were making this

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Speaker 1: crass joke, they they seem like they legitimately felt bad.

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Speaker 1: They apologized. Picon staff it sounds like they acted quickly

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Speaker 1: and it was resolved. It truly could have been there,

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Speaker 1: and honestly, throughout the entire situation, Adrian is clear both

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Speaker 1: in her writing and in her actions that she does

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Speaker 1: not want these men fired. You know, she is not

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Speaker 1: calling for any consequences were them beyond just being talked

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Speaker 1: to about appropriate conduct by the Picon staff, which they were,

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Speaker 1: So this truly could have just been the end of it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it sounds like all she really wanted to do was

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Speaker 1: come on, guys, not a time or place, do better?

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Speaker 1: Does it? It's easy for me to have a lot

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Speaker 1: of empathy for all of the individuals involved in the situation,

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Speaker 1: Like those guys shouldn't have been making that joke. It

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Speaker 1: does sound like it was crass and stupid. It does

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Speaker 1: sound like it was against the rules of what happened.

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Speaker 1: It's easy for me to just because I'm someone who

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Speaker 1: says things without thinking a lot, it's easy for me

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Speaker 1: to put myself in their shoes of like, oh, yes,

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Speaker 1: certainly I've said things where it comes out of my

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Speaker 1: mouth and boy I wish it hadn't. You know? For

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Speaker 1: sure somebody who's on a lot of podcasts can relate,

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Speaker 1: can relate. Yeah, I'm not saying that these guys are

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Speaker 1: like the worst guys ever, and they handled it very well.

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Speaker 1: Both men worked for a company called play Haven, which

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Speaker 1: was a sponsor for picon the event, and this incident

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Speaker 1: led to one, but not both of the men being fired.

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Speaker 1: Play Haven CEO Andy Yang acknowledge the firing, writing quote,

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Speaker 1: play Haven had an employee who was identified as making

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Speaker 1: inappropriate comments at picon, and as a company that is

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Speaker 1: dedicated to gender equality and values honorable behavior, we conducted

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Speaker 1: a throw investigation. The results of this investigation led to

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Speaker 1: the unfortunate outcome of having to let this employee go.

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Speaker 1: We believe in the importance of discussing sensitive topics such

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Speaker 1: as gender and conduct, and we hope to move forward

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Speaker 1: with a civil dialogue based on the facts, which unfortunately

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Speaker 1: does not happen. But you know, and you might be

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Speaker 1: asking yourself, Well, HbF photographed and pointed out two men

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Speaker 1: who worked at play Haven who were having this inappropriate conversation,

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Speaker 1: So you might be asking why was only one man

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Speaker 1: fired and not the other. Play Haven went on to

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Speaker 1: say in their statement that they would not comment on

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Speaker 1: all the factors that contributed to our parting ways with

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Speaker 1: the one developer, So it's totally clear, you know what

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Speaker 1: is actually happening if the decision was entirely about what

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Speaker 1: happened at picon, or if something else contributed to it, Right,

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Speaker 1: this could have been a a noted behavior from this

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Speaker 1: person or some other reason. Yeah, that's interesting and and

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Speaker 1: kind of um, I would say, CEO and Yang actually

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Speaker 1: taking action is kind of rare, I would say, especially

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Speaker 1: at that time. So that's that's interesting to know here

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Speaker 1: as well. But yeah, I totally see what you're saying,

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Speaker 1: Like there could have been other things there that we

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Speaker 1: just don't know and we'll never know. But yeah, what happened, Oh,

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Speaker 1: I know what I good to what happened. I'm bombed.

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Speaker 1: It's not great. And honestly, like I I mean, I

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Speaker 1: don't know, I don't have any kind of special insight,

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Speaker 1: but I would be willing to bet just from what

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Speaker 1: I know about how tech companies work that play Haven

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Speaker 1: that there was some sort of information that maybe we're

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Speaker 1: not privy to that play Haven like maybe this was

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Speaker 1: a pattern, maybe there were other factors at play, and

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Speaker 1: play Haven was like, well, you know, let's just part

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Speaker 1: ways with this person and this is just another just

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Speaker 1: just one more reason why we should take that action.

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Speaker 1: So after Adria's tweet, everyone kind of starts responding to

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Speaker 1: what happened. Now. I absolutely do not think that Adria

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Speaker 1: thought that this was going to blow up the way

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Speaker 1: that it did, with so many people beyond the tech

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Speaker 1: conference weighing in. You know, some people are supportive of Adria,

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Speaker 1: others are supportive of the developers. And I have to say,

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Speaker 1: this is to be really clear, not all the people

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Speaker 1: who were not on adria side are men. There were.

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Speaker 1: I saw a lot of women weighing in and saying

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Speaker 1: that they felt like Adria was making it harder for

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Speaker 1: them as women in tech by being so are sensitive

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Speaker 1: or not just talking directly to the men, right, So

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Speaker 1: it's not it's certainly not a clear cut men on

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Speaker 1: one side, women on the other side issue. When people

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Speaker 1: were just sort of talking about it, expressing their their

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Speaker 1: take on it. The fire developer posted on Hacker News,

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Speaker 1: and I have to say his post, which is still up,

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Speaker 1: it's actually pretty civil. Uh. In my opinion, I do

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Speaker 1: not think that the fired developer was interested or intended

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Speaker 1: to whip up a hate mob around Adrian. I think

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Speaker 1: that that was not a consequence that he was expecting

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Speaker 1: or was welcoming in any way. He apologized, saying, quote, first,

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Speaker 1: I'd like to say I'm sorry. I really did not

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Speaker 1: mean to offend anyone, and I really do regret the

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Speaker 1: comment and how it made Adria feel she had every

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Speaker 1: right to report me to staff, and I defend her position,

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Speaker 1: which I think is like pretty recent. Yeah. He also

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Speaker 1: clarified her characterization of part of his comments. He says,

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Speaker 1: while I did make big dongle joke about a fictional

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Speaker 1: piece of hardware that identified as a male, no sexual

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Speaker 1: jokes were made about working. My friends and I had

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Speaker 1: decided that forking someone's repo is a new form of flattery,

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Speaker 1: and we were excited about one of the presenter's projects.

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Speaker 1: A friend said I would fork that guy's repo. The

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Speaker 1: sexual context was applied by Adria, not us, and I,

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Speaker 1: you know, I wasn't there, so I can't speak to

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Speaker 1: whether or not the forking part of that joke was

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Speaker 1: sextual or not. I will say that with jokes, oftentimes,

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Speaker 1: you know there's nuance and context between friends that maybe

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Speaker 1: can be easily missed when you're overhearing it. I have

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Speaker 1: no idea. I don't know. I whether I don't know

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Speaker 1: what he says. I can't read into what he's saying. Sure, yeah,

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Speaker 1: what do you think I'm like forking dongle if the

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Speaker 1: shoe fits um? But but sure, sir. Yeah, It's like

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Speaker 1: it's hard. It's hard. And what's what's funny is that

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Speaker 1: after what I'm sure it was like a well intentioned clarification.

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Speaker 1: Of course, people on the internet ran with that and

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Speaker 1: they were like, totally Andrea lied about what he said.

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Speaker 1: And it's like, well, I could even if even if

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Speaker 1: he is correct and she misrepresented or like misunderstood it,

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Speaker 1: it's not really a lie like that nuance is completely

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Speaker 1: stripped from the conversation when bad actors on the internet

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Speaker 1: get involved. Absolutely, I mean, we're out here analyzing somebody's

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Speaker 1: really bad middle school joke about gongles. Yeah, and it's

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Speaker 1: like I know what happens next, and it's like, don't

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Speaker 1: just like, don't defend your bad joke. I don't know,

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Speaker 1: like if you meant it that way or not putting

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Speaker 1: the blame on Adria. Just I don't think that was cool.

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Speaker 1: Like I'm not, I'm not, I'm not thrilled with that.

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Speaker 1: So this is something that I do have to take

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Speaker 1: issue with. In his post on Hacker News, he kind

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Speaker 1: of implies that Adria personally taking his photo and tweeting

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Speaker 1: it is the reason why he got fired. He it's

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Speaker 1: Adria has an audience and is a successful person of

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Speaker 1: the media. Just check out her web page linked in

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Speaker 1: her Twitter account or hard work and social activism speaks

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Speaker 1: for itself. With that great power and reach comes responsibility.

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Speaker 1: As a result of the picture she took, I was

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Speaker 1: let go from my job today, which sucks because I

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Speaker 1: have three kids and I really liked that job. She

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Speaker 1: gave me no warning. She smiled while she snapped my

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Speaker 1: picture and sealed my fate. Let this serve as a

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Speaker 1: message to everyone. Our actions and words, big or small,

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Speaker 1: can have serious impact. I have a question. Sure, I

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Speaker 1: looked up Adria again on Twitter before we started doing

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Speaker 1: this episode, and I'm sure it's changed since then. But

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Speaker 1: you know, at the time, do we know what her

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Speaker 1: bio was, Do we know how many followers she had?

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Speaker 1: Anything like that? Just as like a side note, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't. It's not super clear. I think that when

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Speaker 1: he said media, I don't think that he was saying

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Speaker 1: and it does actually relate. I was gonna put this in,

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Speaker 1: but I didn't know how to say it. I think

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Speaker 1: that he was saying not that she is a member

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Speaker 1: of the media, which god, we know members of the

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Speaker 1: media are always attacked in the line. I think that

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Speaker 1: he was saying that she is a successful person of

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Speaker 1: the media, like she gets glowing media attention, because at

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Speaker 1: the time that was kind of her thing. I think

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Speaker 1: that basically, I guess, if I'm gonna keep it real,

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Speaker 1: this is just my opinion. I think he was trying

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Speaker 1: to sort of imply that she is someone who is

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Speaker 1: good at using the media and good at getting her

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Speaker 1: perspective and her name in the media for her causes.

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Speaker 1: And I think that he was kind of trying to

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Speaker 1: imply that in tweeting about his joke at this conference,

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Speaker 1: that she was perhaps intending to get media on her

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Speaker 1: side because she has a uh skilled that using media.

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Speaker 1: She's you know, she's a YouTuber. She's someone who like

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Speaker 1: has a name for herself and it's very visible. So

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Speaker 1: I think that he's making a nod toward her visibility,

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Speaker 1: which is sort of incumbent on media and her ability

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Speaker 1: to to be a person in media. That's what I think.

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Speaker 1: This is my opinion. Yeah, it just comes off as

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Speaker 1: like weird, weird, jealous vibes. It's just the phrasing and

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Speaker 1: what he said, it just comes off very well, she's

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Speaker 1: fake news, and um, why would you believe her when

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Speaker 1: she knows, like clearly she knows what she's doing here.

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Speaker 1: It just reads very Oh god, it just reads witch hunt.

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Speaker 1: I hate it. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And I really

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Speaker 1: struggled with how to deal with this nuance in the

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Speaker 1: episode because I do genuinely think the Spire developer is

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Speaker 1: trying to his best to be civil through a tough situation.

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Speaker 1: But I also think that he is using a couple

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Speaker 1: of key phrases that the audience definitely picked up on

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Speaker 1: as Oh, she was trying to like use him and

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Speaker 1: what he said to bolster her own career and to

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Speaker 1: boost her own profile. And the conversation around how Adrian

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Speaker 1: Richards handled this was very much steeped in. She was

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Speaker 1: really calculated, and she was doing this because she thought

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Speaker 1: it was going to, you know, empower her and boost

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Speaker 1: her own profile, and it was very like self motivated.

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Speaker 1: I honestly think she just tweeted it and didn't think

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Speaker 1: much of it and it blew up on her face.

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Speaker 1: If I'm being honest, just my perspective. But the way

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Speaker 1: that he writes his statement, people, what you're calling out

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Speaker 1: people definitely picked up on and ran with it. That

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Speaker 1: she is untrustworthy, that she is calculating and conniving, and

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Speaker 1: that she did this in a calculated, intentional move to

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Speaker 1: to cloud Chase and they're going to punish her for it.

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Speaker 1: How did she respond to his post? So that is

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Speaker 1: a great question. So she writes to his post on Hackernew,

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Speaker 1: she replies, I'm sorry to hear your employer decided not

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Speaker 1: to work with you on this, and I hope they

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Speaker 1: reconsider bring you back and deal with it constructively. So again,

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Speaker 1: she wasn't calling for him to be fired. If she was,

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Speaker 1: she could have easily, you know, said like this was

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Speaker 1: on you. You did this, you agree that you did it,

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Speaker 1: you should be fired. She didn't say any of that.

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Speaker 1: She was like, oh, sorry to hear, not what I

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Speaker 1: had in mind. I hope they reconsider. That's not that.

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Speaker 1: In my book, those are not the words of somebody

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Speaker 1: who is gleefully watching the takedown of somebody they're hoping

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Speaker 1: to clout build by tearing down, not at all. And

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Speaker 1: I think this is one of those as part of

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Speaker 1: the nuance of the conversation, because I think you could

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Speaker 1: argue that the men should not have been making these

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Speaker 1: kinds of jokes at the conference. And I also think

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Speaker 1: that it's within the realm of possibility that you could

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Speaker 1: take issue with the fact that Adria took a picture

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Speaker 1: of these guys and tweeted it. I'm I am a

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Speaker 1: big I think that taking pictures of people unless they're

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Speaker 1: committing an act of violence against you. I think taking

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Speaker 1: and tweeting pictures of people without their consent is like

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Speaker 1: a no no in my book. Just personally, I think

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Speaker 1: you could argue that she shouldn't have done that. Side note.

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Speaker 1: After the incident, ICON updated its attendee procedure for handling

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Speaker 1: harassment to encourage conference attendees to report behavior privately and

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Speaker 1: not to tweet about them publicly like Adria did, and

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Speaker 1: so their new procedures say public shaming can be counterproductive

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Speaker 1: to building a strong community. ICON does not condone nor

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Speaker 1: participate in such actions out of respect. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: think the word public shaming is such a loaded term,

429
00:24:33,440 --> 00:24:36,200
Speaker 1: and it is interesting to me that that is the

430
00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:39,640
Speaker 1: language that they chose to update their procedures. They said,

431
00:24:39,760 --> 00:24:43,640
Speaker 1: we don't want bad pr so let's keep these things quiet.

432
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:46,240
Speaker 1: They didn't say they didn't. What they didn't say is

433
00:24:46,800 --> 00:24:48,440
Speaker 1: I mean, like I guess they said it prior where

434
00:24:48,440 --> 00:24:50,560
Speaker 1: they're like, we don't condone this type of thing. But

435
00:24:50,760 --> 00:24:57,520
Speaker 1: they made a public policy change that points the finger

436
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:05,480
Speaker 1: again at Adria. She's consistently getting the finger pointed at her. Yeah.

437
00:25:05,560 --> 00:25:08,880
Speaker 1: Public And dare I say public shaming by POCON Maybe

438
00:25:08,920 --> 00:25:11,320
Speaker 1: a little bit, I mean I want to get into that,

439
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:13,639
Speaker 1: but absolutely. And it's it's so funny that you bring

440
00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:18,159
Speaker 1: up this idea of how people attending a conference should

441
00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 1: handle conflict. I am a longtime political organizer. I go

442
00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:26,000
Speaker 1: to a lot of like lefty progressive political conferences. At

443
00:25:26,080 --> 00:25:29,680
Speaker 1: the conferences that I go to, they will call your

444
00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:33,400
Speaker 1: ass out. Almost every single time I go to a conference,

445
00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:36,160
Speaker 1: like a net Roots or something, there is some elected

446
00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:40,280
Speaker 1: official who's being booed or bird dogged or tweeted at.

447
00:25:40,359 --> 00:25:42,760
Speaker 1: You know, I think Biden spoke there a couple of

448
00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:45,439
Speaker 1: years ago, and everybody was tweeting at the conference and

449
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:47,600
Speaker 1: using the conference hashtag like oh why don't you go?

450
00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:50,920
Speaker 1: The ports of people are like like, like I came

451
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:55,679
Speaker 1: up in a conference scene where it was expect I

452
00:25:55,760 --> 00:25:59,440
Speaker 1: totally expected that you were going to handle whatever conflicts

453
00:25:59,480 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 1: you had entirely publicly. So it is a little telling

454
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:05,200
Speaker 1: to me that they're like, oh, no, part of our

455
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 1: quote of conduct is if you have a problem with somebody,

456
00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:09,879
Speaker 1: keep it on the hush hush, because it's like, well,

457
00:26:10,840 --> 00:26:12,800
Speaker 1: I don't know, I guess I feel like it shouldn't

458
00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:15,800
Speaker 1: be up to the conference to decide how I feel

459
00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:17,720
Speaker 1: it's best to handle my conflict. Like, I feel like

460
00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:21,120
Speaker 1: that's almost like a personal choice. That's it's a weird

461
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:27,560
Speaker 1: micromanagement by the conference. I don't know. Yeah, you've definitely

462
00:26:27,760 --> 00:26:30,959
Speaker 1: are are somebody who spends more time at conferences than

463
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:34,080
Speaker 1: I do. But unfortunately I was like, I was like,

464
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:36,960
Speaker 1: I follow you on social media, um, and if you

465
00:26:36,960 --> 00:26:41,200
Speaker 1: don't follow Bridge of Fall Bridger, But yeah, that's weird.

466
00:26:41,359 --> 00:26:45,600
Speaker 1: It's anytime somebody's like, let's do this behind closed doors,

467
00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:49,320
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, red flag. Yeah. I just feel like

468
00:26:49,520 --> 00:26:52,320
Speaker 1: having that as a rule that you have to agree

469
00:26:52,359 --> 00:26:55,520
Speaker 1: to in the code of conduct. Just in general, I

470
00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:58,439
Speaker 1: am not a big fan of a power structure telling

471
00:26:58,480 --> 00:27:00,880
Speaker 1: me that I can't be public about something that i've experienced.

472
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:03,600
Speaker 1: I guess, let's put it that way totally. And so

473
00:27:03,720 --> 00:27:06,920
Speaker 1: even if you think that Adria should not have taken

474
00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:09,959
Speaker 1: the picture of these guys and tweeted it, Adria Richards

475
00:27:10,359 --> 00:27:14,119
Speaker 1: does not handle hr decisions at play Haven, right, and

476
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:16,439
Speaker 1: they are the ones who decided to part ways with

477
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:19,080
Speaker 1: this developer. Again, I have no evidence for this, but

478
00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 1: I suspect that there might have been other reasons why

479
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:25,040
Speaker 1: this developer was let go, particularly because that they only

480
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:28,120
Speaker 1: fired the one developer and not the other, even when

481
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:30,919
Speaker 1: two men were photographed. And it is really interesting to

482
00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:34,680
Speaker 1: meet how play Haven just allowed Adria to become this

483
00:27:35,080 --> 00:27:39,800
Speaker 1: very public scapegoat or their hiring and firing decisions. They

484
00:27:39,800 --> 00:27:43,760
Speaker 1: didn't speak up and say, hey, Adria doesn't work at

485
00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:47,440
Speaker 1: play Haven and had no you know, did not force

486
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:50,159
Speaker 1: our hand. We made this decision. It is interesting to

487
00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:54,160
Speaker 1: me how they didn't take the flak publicly. This visible

488
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:57,000
Speaker 1: black woman in technology was the one who got all

489
00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:00,960
Speaker 1: of the negative attention for their decision. And I guess

490
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:05,920
Speaker 1: I think you know, companies just back then certainly did

491
00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:09,200
Speaker 1: not and I would argue still do not know how

492
00:28:09,200 --> 00:28:11,879
Speaker 1: to handle it when there is a big public outcry

493
00:28:11,960 --> 00:28:15,600
Speaker 1: happening around one of their employees. Had play Haven said

494
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:18,879
Speaker 1: we're aware of the issue and we're taking the appropriate action.

495
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:21,800
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah. You know, release some statement that's just like,

496
00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:23,800
Speaker 1: we know what's going on and we're gonna handle it.

497
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:26,200
Speaker 1: None of this would have happened. You know, if people

498
00:28:26,240 --> 00:28:29,439
Speaker 1: are mad that this developer was fired, they should be

499
00:28:29,480 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 1: mad at play Haven, not Adria. But Adria as a

500
00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:35,960
Speaker 1: black woman, she's very visible and she represents all of

501
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:39,280
Speaker 1: the different trigger points that make people mad. She's black,

502
00:28:39,360 --> 00:28:43,120
Speaker 1: she's outspoken, she's a woman, and she's very actively trying

503
00:28:43,160 --> 00:28:46,320
Speaker 1: to shake up the status quo in technology as being

504
00:28:46,360 --> 00:28:49,840
Speaker 1: this white male bros. Club, all of which makes her

505
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 1: an easy target when the actual decision makers are play Haven.

506
00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:57,280
Speaker 1: And it seems like people were not just angry about

507
00:28:57,320 --> 00:29:00,120
Speaker 1: the firing of this one developer, but they were angry

508
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:04,600
Speaker 1: about is Age R. Richards and what she represents in technology.

509
00:29:04,800 --> 00:29:08,880
Speaker 1: She represents technology and technology spaces becoming more accommodating to

510
00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:12,480
Speaker 1: women and marginalized people. She represents women and marginalized people

511
00:29:12,760 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 1: having meaningful power in those spaces and feeling like they

512
00:29:16,120 --> 00:29:19,200
Speaker 1: can actually take up space in those spaces and with

513
00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:23,320
Speaker 1: that comes all the people who currently had power in

514
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:27,320
Speaker 1: those spaces feeling threatened, feeling like the order that they

515
00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 1: are used to where there on the top and have

516
00:29:29,280 --> 00:29:32,880
Speaker 1: the power, might actually be upset, and that they might

517
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:35,400
Speaker 1: actually have to make room for people who traditionally have

518
00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:39,320
Speaker 1: not had a lot of institutional power in technology spaces.

519
00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:42,240
Speaker 1: That's what she represents. A good example of what I

520
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:44,640
Speaker 1: mean is the fact that when this all was going down,

521
00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:48,800
Speaker 1: three redditors launched what they called the Feminist Defense Fund,

522
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:52,960
Speaker 1: where they took donations in bitcoin for the fire developer,

523
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:56,240
Speaker 1: and in their plea for donations, they write, feminism has

524
00:29:56,240 --> 00:29:59,080
Speaker 1: call us some serious changes to our culture, to our society,

525
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:01,840
Speaker 1: into our lives. We focus on some that are effected

526
00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:04,600
Speaker 1: more than others, and we give back. Our goal is

527
00:30:04,640 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 1: to encourage men to speak out, to be men, to

528
00:30:07,640 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 1: not fear oppression, and enjoy their freedom of speech. Unfortunately,

529
00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:15,520
Speaker 1: in today's climate, being a man has become a financial liability.

530
00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:18,080
Speaker 1: Say the wrong thing in the wrong place, and you

531
00:30:18,120 --> 00:30:23,320
Speaker 1: can find your entire life ruined, destroyed. Feminists fought for equality,

532
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:27,080
Speaker 1: but now they're out for our rights. They're destroying us financially.

533
00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:29,920
Speaker 1: They're trying to tear apart our families. We're saying that

534
00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:33,320
Speaker 1: enough is enough. No longer should men fear masculinity, No

535
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:37,040
Speaker 1: longer should speaking up risk that man a job, a career,

536
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:39,200
Speaker 1: or a family. It is time to rise up against

537
00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:41,000
Speaker 1: the tyranny. It is time to tell men it is

538
00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:43,920
Speaker 1: okay to speak up. We're here for you. This is

539
00:30:43,920 --> 00:30:49,120
Speaker 1: the Feminist Victims Fund. So it's so obvious, like what

540
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:54,560
Speaker 1: they're pissed about. Oh god, crime, crime, crime, Oh god,

541
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:59,400
Speaker 1: that was great. Man, read the room, my guy. Yeah,

542
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:03,200
Speaker 1: it is like, it's so clear that they are using

543
00:31:03,240 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 1: this as a proxy to fight these larger kind of

544
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:10,520
Speaker 1: culture wars issue. They don't care about this developer. They

545
00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:14,120
Speaker 1: don't care that even he agrees that joke that he

546
00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:16,840
Speaker 1: made was stupid and inappropriate for the setting. That's not

547
00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:20,400
Speaker 1: what they care about. They care about women, and in

548
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:23,920
Speaker 1: this case, specifically a black woman shaking up the status

549
00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:27,360
Speaker 1: quo and technology and threatening what they see as the

550
00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:36,920
Speaker 1: way that the world in society should work. Let's get

551
00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:39,960
Speaker 1: into the fallout of what happened with all of this. So,

552
00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:44,280
Speaker 1: speaking of companies being really cowardly and caving to a mob,

553
00:31:44,760 --> 00:31:47,520
Speaker 1: that is pretty much what happened to Adria Richards. So

554
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:51,480
Speaker 1: after the developer gets fired, the internet, or more specifically, fortune,

555
00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 1: really turned on Adria and her employer sent Grid. Adria,

556
00:31:56,040 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 1: I have to say, is horribly, horribly harassed her website.

557
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:01,840
Speaker 1: It gets a d O s attacked, which is, if

558
00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:03,200
Speaker 1: you don't know what that is, it's a denial of

559
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:07,840
Speaker 1: service attack where essentially attackers blood a website with more

560
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:10,280
Speaker 1: traffic than it can handle to shut it down. What

561
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:13,280
Speaker 1: happened to Adria wasn't just people tweeting that they disagreed

562
00:32:13,320 --> 00:32:15,920
Speaker 1: with her, Nor was it just a few mean tweets

563
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:19,200
Speaker 1: or mean comments online, which side note, Funnily enough, a

564
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 1: lot of the garden variety mean tweets directed at Adria

565
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:26,600
Speaker 1: are still up as we speak. You know, tweets like quote,

566
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:29,800
Speaker 1: horror cost two men their jobs in this economy, you

567
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:32,240
Speaker 1: just made two families poor. I hope you feel good,

568
00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:35,840
Speaker 1: hypocritical bitch, or little did they know they were sitting

569
00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:38,920
Speaker 1: behind some count, or good job at being a picture

570
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:41,560
Speaker 1: book feminist bitch? Or why are you such a count?

571
00:32:42,280 --> 00:32:45,600
Speaker 1: You know? So definitely not nice stuff. But those are

572
00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:47,840
Speaker 1: not even the tweets and messages and comments that I'm

573
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:51,440
Speaker 1: talking about the harassment that Adria Richard Scott was heinous

574
00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:56,240
Speaker 1: and worse, it was coordinated. I personally witnessed many, many,

575
00:32:56,280 --> 00:32:58,960
Speaker 1: many death and rape threats that she got some of

576
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:01,480
Speaker 1: the worst people on the internet. We're telling her in

577
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:05,760
Speaker 1: mass that she deserved to die by suicide. They docked

578
00:33:05,840 --> 00:33:08,760
Speaker 1: and publicized her home address and phone number to the

579
00:33:08,800 --> 00:33:11,120
Speaker 1: point where she had to flee from her own home

580
00:33:11,360 --> 00:33:17,600
Speaker 1: for her own safety. Oh cool, they're dosing her. Yeah,

581
00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:23,640
Speaker 1: that's really scary. Fortune circulates a change dot org petition

582
00:33:23,720 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 1: calling for Adrian to be fired from sin grid. Meanwhile,

583
00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:30,280
Speaker 1: a pastebind document claims that anonymous has sin Grid's client

584
00:33:30,360 --> 00:33:33,400
Speaker 1: list and that they're harassing their customers and will continue

585
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:35,520
Speaker 1: to do so if they don't fire her. Um here's

586
00:33:35,560 --> 00:33:38,560
Speaker 1: a bit from that post. They say ad R Richards

587
00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:42,800
Speaker 1: engaged in malicious conduct to destroy another individual's professional career

588
00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:45,200
Speaker 1: due to what she perceived as an affront to her

589
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 1: own extremist views from a comment that was not directed

590
00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:50,400
Speaker 1: at her, not meant for her to hear, and certainly

591
00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:53,680
Speaker 1: not for her to provide unwarranted input on. As such,

592
00:33:54,040 --> 00:33:57,960
Speaker 1: she should have her professional career destroyed just like her victim,

593
00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:00,520
Speaker 1: and ordered for justice to be rendered and for balance

594
00:34:00,600 --> 00:34:03,440
Speaker 1: to be restored in the universe. The Hive Minds judgment

595
00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 1: is final. There is no appeal, no forgiveness, no forgetting. Remember,

596
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:12,440
Speaker 1: real life harassment is an escalation that comes into play

597
00:34:12,480 --> 00:34:14,879
Speaker 1: based on how long the situation is allowed to play out.

598
00:34:15,719 --> 00:34:18,480
Speaker 1: It is not affected by the effectiveness of previous forms

599
00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:21,719
Speaker 1: of harassment. Even if your customers and financial backers are

600
00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:25,640
Speaker 1: dropping like flies, this will still happen if Anonymous maintains

601
00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:28,520
Speaker 1: an interest in the situation. Boxing is a term used

602
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:32,320
Speaker 1: to define the discovery and dissemination of all personal information, included,

603
00:34:32,360 --> 00:34:35,680
Speaker 1: but not limited to, home address, phone numbers, credit card numbers,

604
00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:38,560
Speaker 1: your medical records, what brand of toothpaste you buy, etcetera.

605
00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:41,640
Speaker 1: If some of the more talented members of Anonymous take

606
00:34:41,680 --> 00:34:45,360
Speaker 1: interest into this, every employee of sent grid becomes a target,

607
00:34:45,640 --> 00:34:48,720
Speaker 1: starting at the top. For your reference. This is already

608
00:34:48,719 --> 00:34:53,680
Speaker 1: happening to miss Richards as per standard protocol. So basically

609
00:34:53,920 --> 00:34:56,920
Speaker 1: that's like a clear threat, like this is you know

610
00:34:57,000 --> 00:35:00,719
Speaker 1: whether this is legit or not. This is someone basically

611
00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:06,680
Speaker 1: trying to scare this this major tech company. So the

612
00:35:06,680 --> 00:35:10,840
Speaker 1: attacks on send grid worsen um sin Grid acknowledge that

613
00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:14,120
Speaker 1: they had suffered a denial of service attack, and so

614
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:16,880
Speaker 1: you know, this is a major company and their website

615
00:35:16,880 --> 00:35:19,480
Speaker 1: traffic is essentially shut down. They're not able to have

616
00:35:20,120 --> 00:35:21,880
Speaker 1: have people go to their website, which is a pretty

617
00:35:21,920 --> 00:35:25,000
Speaker 1: big deal. And so I guess I feel like if

618
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 1: I was running a big company, I would not cave

619
00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:33,120
Speaker 1: to a mob that is outright threatening me. But that's

620
00:35:33,160 --> 00:35:36,680
Speaker 1: exactly what sin Grid did. Sin Grid eventually cave to

621
00:35:36,719 --> 00:35:42,359
Speaker 1: this mob and fired Adria, and they fired her publicly.

622
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:48,600
Speaker 1: Cowards fucking coward ship. It's so cowardly, and so they

623
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:52,319
Speaker 1: write on Facebook. Effective immediately, sin Grid has terminated the

624
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:55,520
Speaker 1: employment of Adria Richards. While we are generally sensitive and

625
00:35:55,560 --> 00:35:58,840
Speaker 1: confidential with respect to employee matters, the situation has taken

626
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:01,360
Speaker 1: on a public nature, and we have taken action that

627
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:04,319
Speaker 1: we believe is in the overall best interests of sin Grid,

628
00:36:04,360 --> 00:36:07,520
Speaker 1: its employees, and our customers. A few hours later, sent

629
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:11,480
Speaker 1: Grid CEO Jim Franklin expanded on the company's reasons for

630
00:36:11,560 --> 00:36:16,040
Speaker 1: firing Adria, writing, sin Grid supports the right to report

631
00:36:16,080 --> 00:36:20,239
Speaker 1: and appropriate behavior whenever and wherever it occurs. What we

632
00:36:20,320 --> 00:36:23,759
Speaker 1: do not support was how she reported the conduct. Her

633
00:36:23,800 --> 00:36:26,359
Speaker 1: decision to tweet the comments and photographs of the people

634
00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:29,719
Speaker 1: who made the comments cross the line. Publicly shaming the

635
00:36:29,760 --> 00:36:34,120
Speaker 1: offenders and bystanders was not the appropriate way to handle

636
00:36:34,160 --> 00:36:38,400
Speaker 1: the situation. And the aftermath of all of this was

637
00:36:38,480 --> 00:36:42,920
Speaker 1: that Adria had to literally go into hiding. And she

638
00:36:43,080 --> 00:36:46,799
Speaker 1: was someone who had this big voice online and this

639
00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:51,800
Speaker 1: big online footprint, and she essentially stopped tweeting and stopped

640
00:36:51,840 --> 00:36:54,600
Speaker 1: making videos and stopped putting our perspective out into the

641
00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:58,040
Speaker 1: world after this happened. And so, you know, I feel

642
00:36:58,040 --> 00:37:02,080
Speaker 1: like so many people, for example, the men's rights activists

643
00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:05,520
Speaker 1: who were raising money for the fired engineer, we'll talk

644
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 1: so much about things like free speech, free speech, but

645
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:13,000
Speaker 1: they almost never talked about the fact that somebody like Adria,

646
00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:16,000
Speaker 1: who was someone who really did a lot of putting

647
00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:19,959
Speaker 1: her voice out into the world, was effectively silenced when

648
00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:23,320
Speaker 1: this harassment campaign against her began. So she she wasn't

649
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:26,600
Speaker 1: continuing to, you know, speak up. And so when we

650
00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:30,440
Speaker 1: talk about whose free speech is being threatened, it's almost

651
00:37:30,520 --> 00:37:34,600
Speaker 1: never the marginalized people who have to stop speaking and

652
00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:37,840
Speaker 1: our silence when they become the targets of harassment campaigns

653
00:37:37,840 --> 00:37:43,000
Speaker 1: like Adria was. So that's basically what happened with Advia Richards.

654
00:37:43,040 --> 00:37:46,279
Speaker 1: And so there are so many takeaways here and so

655
00:37:46,360 --> 00:37:49,480
Speaker 1: many things I think that we can learn from this situation.

656
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:54,920
Speaker 1: One is that I believe that Adrivia Richards situation really

657
00:37:55,040 --> 00:37:59,560
Speaker 1: ushered in this new understanding of situations that are complicated

658
00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:03,760
Speaker 1: and involve being real people being treated like tit for tat,

659
00:38:03,800 --> 00:38:07,040
Speaker 1: you know, these culture wars and identity wars, point scoring

660
00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:10,440
Speaker 1: where our guy got fired, so their guy has to

661
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:14,400
Speaker 1: get fired, or this happened, so that happened. You know,

662
00:38:14,600 --> 00:38:17,560
Speaker 1: they made a black aerial in The Little Mermaid, so

663
00:38:17,640 --> 00:38:19,799
Speaker 1: now they need to make a Malcolm X movie where

664
00:38:19,840 --> 00:38:22,640
Speaker 1: Malcolm X is white. Yeah, go ahead, go ahead, bro,

665
00:38:22,840 --> 00:38:28,359
Speaker 1: try that one. Go ahead. Yeah. It's a completely reductive

666
00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:33,040
Speaker 1: and unhelpful thing that I think that dongle Gate really

667
00:38:33,120 --> 00:38:36,280
Speaker 1: ushered in. You know, the big rallying cry in dongle

668
00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:40,240
Speaker 1: Gate was that because the play Haven developer was fired,

669
00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:43,400
Speaker 1: that Adrian needed to be fired just like he was.

670
00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:45,600
Speaker 1: You know, as that poster put it, she should have

671
00:38:45,640 --> 00:38:48,760
Speaker 1: to have her professional career destroyed just like her victim

672
00:38:49,120 --> 00:38:51,600
Speaker 1: in order for justice to be rendered and for balance

673
00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:54,759
Speaker 1: to be restored to the universe. But in the real

674
00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:59,200
Speaker 1: world of complexity and nuance and adults. It's really just

675
00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:03,400
Speaker 1: not help to have these situations be viewed through this

676
00:39:03,560 --> 00:39:08,000
Speaker 1: incredibly simple, black and white binary lens. And when you do,

677
00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 1: you are creating the conditions that are prime for bad

678
00:39:12,200 --> 00:39:15,760
Speaker 1: actors to exploit. And that brings me to my next takeaway,

679
00:39:15,760 --> 00:39:21,080
Speaker 1: which is bad actors. Those fuckers ruin everything. And I

680
00:39:21,120 --> 00:39:24,279
Speaker 1: feel like the situation is a great example because even

681
00:39:24,320 --> 00:39:27,640
Speaker 1: though dongle gate was obviously very gendered, I don't want

682
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:30,080
Speaker 1: to give the impression that it was that all of

683
00:39:30,120 --> 00:39:32,960
Speaker 1: the men who did not agree with Adria taking a

684
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:35,879
Speaker 1: picture of these guys. It's not like all of them

685
00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:40,480
Speaker 1: had joined in on this harassment campaign against Adria. And

686
00:39:40,600 --> 00:39:43,000
Speaker 1: there were certainly women in tech who did not agree

687
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:46,160
Speaker 1: with Adria's actions. One of them Amanda Blum, who was

688
00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:49,480
Speaker 1: a developer who worked with Adria I r L when

689
00:39:49,520 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 1: she invited Adria to speak at a conference that she organized.

690
00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:54,400
Speaker 1: Um she writes in her blog post about how she

691
00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:56,920
Speaker 1: did not have a great interaction with Adria. She was like, Oh,

692
00:39:56,920 --> 00:39:59,839
Speaker 1: I don't really like her, but that doesn't mean that

693
00:40:00,400 --> 00:40:03,799
Speaker 1: this kind of harassment campaign against her is good. You know,

694
00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:05,839
Speaker 1: her her piece, which will link to in the show notes,

695
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:09,120
Speaker 1: is this very measured piece about what went down, and

696
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:12,480
Speaker 1: basically pointed out that she felt like everyone lost here.

697
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:14,840
Speaker 1: It was just a loss for everyone, And so I

698
00:40:14,880 --> 00:40:19,279
Speaker 1: think that reasonable people could agree or disagree with what

699
00:40:19,360 --> 00:40:23,320
Speaker 1: Adria did, and they did agree or disagree. There was

700
00:40:23,360 --> 00:40:27,200
Speaker 1: a lot of substantive conversation online about what it means

701
00:40:27,239 --> 00:40:30,400
Speaker 1: to be a woman in tech, how men can be

702
00:40:30,480 --> 00:40:33,399
Speaker 1: allies to women in tech? Are men going to be,

703
00:40:33,800 --> 00:40:37,120
Speaker 1: you know, afraid of making whatever joke or speaking up

704
00:40:37,120 --> 00:40:39,560
Speaker 1: that they're working with women? How can women and men

705
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:42,080
Speaker 1: and everybody all work together in these spaces. There was

706
00:40:42,120 --> 00:40:47,120
Speaker 1: a lot of really meaty, meaningful conversation that I think

707
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:51,640
Speaker 1: was sparked from dongle Gate. But what people remember was

708
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:55,840
Speaker 1: not the meaningful conversation or people like Amanda writing measured

709
00:40:55,880 --> 00:40:59,279
Speaker 1: takes about the situation. They remember the hateful mob, right,

710
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:02,520
Speaker 1: They don't remember any of that meaningful conversation. So I

711
00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:06,080
Speaker 1: believe that the kind of behavior like these coordinated attacks

712
00:41:06,080 --> 00:41:10,600
Speaker 1: that we saw from Fortune actually drown out debate and discourse.

713
00:41:10,719 --> 00:41:13,319
Speaker 1: They don't make us more thoughtful, They don't push us

714
00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:15,799
Speaker 1: forward on all of the issues that we need to

715
00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:20,000
Speaker 1: make progress on They keep us all polarized and enraged

716
00:41:20,200 --> 00:41:24,640
Speaker 1: and frankly stuck having these silly circular debates about well

717
00:41:24,760 --> 00:41:27,360
Speaker 1: he got fired, so she should get fired. That don't

718
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:30,640
Speaker 1: help our serve anybody. You know, an online mob like

719
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:34,320
Speaker 1: Fortune getting involved in this situation didn't make it more clear.

720
00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:37,880
Speaker 1: It just inflamed it and polarized it. And these situations

721
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:41,880
Speaker 1: already exist at tension points between things like race and

722
00:41:41,960 --> 00:41:45,680
Speaker 1: gender and conversations around inclusion in tech that we know

723
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:48,680
Speaker 1: are kind of heated. You know, it's predated that Google

724
00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:51,799
Speaker 1: employee who kind of became an right murder after he

725
00:41:51,840 --> 00:41:55,359
Speaker 1: wrote that memo blasting diversity in tech. You know, so like,

726
00:41:55,680 --> 00:41:59,080
Speaker 1: these are conversations that are hot, that are that are

727
00:41:59,520 --> 00:42:03,799
Speaker 1: hense and you know, as someone who works in combating

728
00:42:03,920 --> 00:42:08,000
Speaker 1: miss and disinformation, this is a textbook tactic of bad

729
00:42:08,040 --> 00:42:11,959
Speaker 1: actors to purposely inflame conversations that are rooted in these

730
00:42:11,960 --> 00:42:15,799
Speaker 1: things that are legitimate tension and pressure points, and to

731
00:42:15,960 --> 00:42:19,600
Speaker 1: hijack those conversations and to weaponize them so that pretty

732
00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:22,759
Speaker 1: much it ensures we can never get anywhere on them.

733
00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:25,279
Speaker 1: And I think the sad part about all of this

734
00:42:25,440 --> 00:42:28,480
Speaker 1: is that it sounds like from all public accounts that

735
00:42:28,640 --> 00:42:32,359
Speaker 1: Adrian and the Fire Developer seems like people who were

736
00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:35,759
Speaker 1: being used as proxies in a larger kind of identity

737
00:42:35,920 --> 00:42:39,399
Speaker 1: culture war fight. In that hacker news back and forth

738
00:42:39,440 --> 00:42:42,200
Speaker 1: that they had, they seemed like two people who were

739
00:42:42,239 --> 00:42:45,080
Speaker 1: genuinely interested in coming to some kind of a conclusion

740
00:42:45,080 --> 00:42:48,040
Speaker 1: with one another. But that is simply not possible when

741
00:42:48,080 --> 00:42:52,279
Speaker 1: bad actors with an ax to grind hijack conversations and

742
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:56,960
Speaker 1: are really invested in making those conversations as polarized as possible. Yeah,

743
00:42:57,000 --> 00:42:59,960
Speaker 1: I was gonna say the comments section definitely wasn't looking

744
00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:03,120
Speaker 1: to find a solution here. They were just looking to

745
00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:09,200
Speaker 1: cause more chaos and uh, make things worse for everybody.

746
00:43:09,239 --> 00:43:12,759
Speaker 1: In the Fire Developers post, there are people who are like,

747
00:43:13,320 --> 00:43:16,520
Speaker 1: when he apologizes for his comments, don't apologize? How is

748
00:43:16,560 --> 00:43:19,000
Speaker 1: that helpful if somebody has taken a look inward at

749
00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:21,600
Speaker 1: their own behavior and feels the need to apologize. And

750
00:43:21,640 --> 00:43:25,279
Speaker 1: this goes for pretty much all conversations. If a celebrity

751
00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:27,480
Speaker 1: is saying something on the Internet, there's always and they

752
00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:29,919
Speaker 1: apologize for something, It's always going to be that one

753
00:43:30,080 --> 00:43:33,640
Speaker 1: stand in the comments who's like Queen don't apologize like

754
00:43:33,880 --> 00:43:37,040
Speaker 1: we love you, you you know what I mean, I certainly do.

755
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:44,600
Speaker 1: Another takeaway from this is that companies and institutions just

756
00:43:44,840 --> 00:43:48,120
Speaker 1: didn't know how to deal with mobs back then, and frankly,

757
00:43:48,320 --> 00:43:51,359
Speaker 1: I don't think they've gotten much better today. You know,

758
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:54,680
Speaker 1: as fucked up as four Chune ship heads were here,

759
00:43:55,160 --> 00:43:58,120
Speaker 1: my real beef is actually with play Haven and sent Grid.

760
00:43:58,640 --> 00:44:01,920
Speaker 1: This was happening back in teen and maybe none of us,

761
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:04,920
Speaker 1: and by extension, the people who run companies didn't know

762
00:44:04,960 --> 00:44:07,279
Speaker 1: how to handle it when a mob swarmed around one

763
00:44:07,280 --> 00:44:10,120
Speaker 1: of their employees. You know, play Haven was ultimately the

764
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:14,600
Speaker 1: decider when deciding to fire that developer that Adria photographed.

765
00:44:14,840 --> 00:44:16,960
Speaker 1: They didn't have to do that, and they certainly did

766
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:19,560
Speaker 1: not have to let Adria take the fall for what

767
00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:23,719
Speaker 1: was entirely their decision and no one else's. And to

768
00:44:23,800 --> 00:44:26,920
Speaker 1: that point, they didn't even if this was somebody that

769
00:44:26,920 --> 00:44:29,799
Speaker 1: that deserved to be fired for reasons we don't know about,

770
00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:36,000
Speaker 1: they didn't need to make it public and therefore point

771
00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:40,399
Speaker 1: that mob towards Adria and then just sit back and

772
00:44:40,440 --> 00:44:43,880
Speaker 1: say nothing as this mob pour her apart and she

773
00:44:43,920 --> 00:44:47,080
Speaker 1: had to flee her home and locked down her entire

774
00:44:47,160 --> 00:44:49,440
Speaker 1: online presence that she had been building forever, you know,

775
00:44:50,040 --> 00:44:54,359
Speaker 1: totally completely Yeah, and looking at sin Grid, I'm sure

776
00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:58,040
Speaker 1: that sin Grid, as a big tech company, loved having

777
00:44:58,080 --> 00:45:01,200
Speaker 1: a visible black woman in tech when Adrian was making

778
00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:04,480
Speaker 1: their company look very inclusive and forward looking. But when

779
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:08,440
Speaker 1: that same employee was facing racialized harassment, they did not

780
00:45:08,600 --> 00:45:11,279
Speaker 1: support her. And this is sort of a side note,

781
00:45:11,280 --> 00:45:14,880
Speaker 1: pet peeve of mine. People are so fond of saying

782
00:45:14,920 --> 00:45:18,759
Speaker 1: things like, oh, support black women, champion black women, you know,

783
00:45:18,800 --> 00:45:23,840
Speaker 1: support their leadership, without acknowledging that part of supporting the

784
00:45:24,040 --> 00:45:27,520
Speaker 1: leadership of black women is also being honest about the

785
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:29,840
Speaker 1: climate that a lot of black women will be coming into.

786
00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:32,840
Speaker 1: You know, if you're a visible black woman coming into

787
00:45:32,880 --> 00:45:36,239
Speaker 1: a pretty white, pretty male field, you might have a

788
00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:39,239
Speaker 1: little bit of a tougher time. And ignoring it and

789
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:42,360
Speaker 1: pretending that is not the case is not actually supporting

790
00:45:42,360 --> 00:45:44,960
Speaker 1: black women. And so I always say, don't just support

791
00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:47,799
Speaker 1: black women, also work to create the conditions where black

792
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:50,759
Speaker 1: women can actually have an equal playing field and and

793
00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:53,200
Speaker 1: thrive in the work that you want to support them in.

794
00:45:54,120 --> 00:45:57,000
Speaker 1: Um sen Grid also did not have to cave to

795
00:45:57,160 --> 00:46:01,040
Speaker 1: these coordinated four chan mob attacks that were threatening their

796
00:46:01,080 --> 00:46:04,000
Speaker 1: business via harassment and denial of service attacks, you know,

797
00:46:04,520 --> 00:46:06,320
Speaker 1: fin Grid. If I had been running sin Grid, I

798
00:46:06,320 --> 00:46:09,520
Speaker 1: would have said, you know, hey, people who are angry,

799
00:46:09,920 --> 00:46:12,800
Speaker 1: we hear you, but our personnel decisions are our private

800
00:46:12,840 --> 00:46:16,120
Speaker 1: business and we will handle this privately, even if they

801
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:19,600
Speaker 1: felt like Adria deserved to be reprimanded. I think it's

802
00:46:19,680 --> 00:46:22,800
Speaker 1: pretty rich that in their statement public statement on Facebook

803
00:46:22,840 --> 00:46:26,400
Speaker 1: about her firing, that they say that, oh, we're against

804
00:46:26,719 --> 00:46:30,279
Speaker 1: public shaming, and Adria publicly shamed these men and then

805
00:46:30,320 --> 00:46:34,640
Speaker 1: said nothing as Adria was harassed publicly with rape and

806
00:46:34,760 --> 00:46:38,280
Speaker 1: death threats and racial slurs, and then fire her in public,

807
00:46:38,440 --> 00:46:42,879
Speaker 1: completely inflaming the very public shaming that she was going through.

808
00:46:43,200 --> 00:46:46,440
Speaker 1: It's just cowardly. And these are the exact same kind

809
00:46:46,480 --> 00:46:49,080
Speaker 1: of tactics that would go on to fuel gamer Gate,

810
00:46:49,120 --> 00:46:52,280
Speaker 1: you know, coordinating on message boards like Fortune to avenge

811
00:46:52,280 --> 00:46:56,000
Speaker 1: some perceived grievance around women and feminists and marginalized people

812
00:46:56,400 --> 00:46:58,360
Speaker 1: claiming power in a tech space. You know, in the

813
00:46:58,400 --> 00:47:01,120
Speaker 1: case of gamer Gate video games, I would argue that

814
00:47:01,120 --> 00:47:04,919
Speaker 1: if we had done some real collective analysis after dongle Gate,

815
00:47:05,400 --> 00:47:08,360
Speaker 1: we might not then have allowed bad actors have basically

816
00:47:08,400 --> 00:47:11,680
Speaker 1: do the exact same thing a year later with gaybor Gate.

817
00:47:11,800 --> 00:47:14,279
Speaker 1: I think things would have gone very differently had we

818
00:47:14,320 --> 00:47:17,600
Speaker 1: had some kind of public accounting for what actually happened,

819
00:47:17,800 --> 00:47:20,600
Speaker 1: who were the major players, and what decisions allowed those

820
00:47:20,640 --> 00:47:23,279
Speaker 1: tactics to be weaponized in that way. And I feel

821
00:47:23,320 --> 00:47:25,840
Speaker 1: like today, you know, the targets may have changed, but

822
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:28,719
Speaker 1: the tactics are pretty much the same. You know, we

823
00:47:28,840 --> 00:47:31,480
Speaker 1: still see the same kind of thing play out. A

824
00:47:31,560 --> 00:47:35,000
Speaker 1: small handful of bad actors have pretty much used this

825
00:47:35,080 --> 00:47:37,080
Speaker 1: playbook to get their way, and I think they're going

826
00:47:37,120 --> 00:47:40,840
Speaker 1: to continue doing it until we do something. For example,

827
00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:43,520
Speaker 1: by now, I think that most folks listening know that

828
00:47:43,600 --> 00:47:46,239
Speaker 1: just this last week, there was a violent attack on

829
00:47:46,320 --> 00:47:49,640
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi, who was attacked with a

830
00:47:49,760 --> 00:47:52,400
Speaker 1: hammer to the head while he was sleeping by an

831
00:47:52,400 --> 00:47:55,600
Speaker 1: assailant who claimed that he wanted to break Nancy Pelosi's

832
00:47:55,640 --> 00:47:58,839
Speaker 1: knees to send a message of fear to other Democrats,

833
00:47:59,640 --> 00:48:02,200
Speaker 1: and per of the writings of the accused attacker online,

834
00:48:02,560 --> 00:48:04,960
Speaker 1: it was gamer Gate that, you know, for lack of

835
00:48:04,960 --> 00:48:08,560
Speaker 1: a better word, radicalized him, and that he described gamer

836
00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:12,600
Speaker 1: Gate as the turning point in his own trajectory politically. Now.

837
00:48:12,640 --> 00:48:15,080
Speaker 1: I have a ton to say about this. We're gonna

838
00:48:15,080 --> 00:48:18,319
Speaker 1: do a whole other episode later this week all about this,

839
00:48:18,680 --> 00:48:21,520
Speaker 1: but I'll just say right now that gamer Gate provided

840
00:48:21,520 --> 00:48:24,640
Speaker 1: this connection between the cultural and the political. You know,

841
00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:27,960
Speaker 1: you're angry about women taking up space and technology and gaming,

842
00:48:28,200 --> 00:48:30,919
Speaker 1: so you use these tactics to harass and attack them

843
00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:33,560
Speaker 1: and take away their power. And it really created a

844
00:48:33,560 --> 00:48:37,320
Speaker 1: blueprint for how those same tactics could be weaponized politically

845
00:48:37,360 --> 00:48:40,120
Speaker 1: as well, which I think is exactly what we're seeing

846
00:48:40,200 --> 00:48:43,120
Speaker 1: right now. And maybe if when all of this was

847
00:48:43,160 --> 00:48:46,160
Speaker 1: happening with Adria Richards, if the takeaway hadn't been to

848
00:48:46,239 --> 00:48:48,879
Speaker 1: just blame her for her own harassment and to think

849
00:48:48,920 --> 00:48:51,920
Speaker 1: a little bit more clearly about how these same tactics

850
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:55,759
Speaker 1: might be perfected and abused and weaponized on larger and

851
00:48:55,840 --> 00:48:59,320
Speaker 1: larger scales, targeting more and more people, maybe these gamer

852
00:48:59,360 --> 00:49:02,120
Speaker 1: Gate tact would not be happening as part and parcel

853
00:49:02,239 --> 00:49:05,239
Speaker 1: of our current political and social landscape now. You know,

854
00:49:05,400 --> 00:49:09,480
Speaker 1: things like people coordinating on Facebook pages to flood schools

855
00:49:09,480 --> 00:49:12,840
Speaker 1: with calls about teachers who they suspect of being lgbt Q,

856
00:49:13,239 --> 00:49:16,200
Speaker 1: or you know, they suspect of teaching something that they

857
00:49:16,239 --> 00:49:19,720
Speaker 1: don't like in schools, which happened to a Georgia school teacher,

858
00:49:20,160 --> 00:49:22,520
Speaker 1: Cecilia Lewis, who will talk about in a later episode

859
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Speaker 1: of this podcast. You know, that's definitely a tactic that

860
00:49:25,280 --> 00:49:30,160
Speaker 1: I see that was really refined in dongle Gate and

861
00:49:30,239 --> 00:49:33,040
Speaker 1: gamer Gate, and rather than taking some kind of action

862
00:49:33,520 --> 00:49:36,279
Speaker 1: to have that not be a tactic that is so

863
00:49:36,360 --> 00:49:40,560
Speaker 1: easily weaponized against people who are marginalized, now it's just

864
00:49:40,560 --> 00:49:42,279
Speaker 1: a tactic that we all have to live with, whether

865
00:49:42,320 --> 00:49:44,600
Speaker 1: you're marginalized or not. Now it's a Now, it's just

866
00:49:44,760 --> 00:49:49,400
Speaker 1: part of our political and social landscape that unfortunately, I

867
00:49:49,480 --> 00:49:51,640
Speaker 1: worry is not going to go away. In fact, is

868
00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:55,319
Speaker 1: going to become worse. It also happened recently to a

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00:49:55,320 --> 00:49:57,920
Speaker 1: woman named Nina janko Witz, who was the former head

870
00:49:57,920 --> 00:50:01,440
Speaker 1: of the Biden administration's Disinformation When It's board, who eventually

871
00:50:01,560 --> 00:50:04,000
Speaker 1: had to resign and go into hiding after a right

872
00:50:04,040 --> 00:50:07,560
Speaker 1: wing smear campaign against her. You know, I think it

873
00:50:07,600 --> 00:50:11,800
Speaker 1: doesn't take that many people to really disrupt and shut

874
00:50:11,840 --> 00:50:16,080
Speaker 1: down institutions if those institutions do not know how to

875
00:50:16,160 --> 00:50:19,920
Speaker 1: handle it when one of their employees is being attacked

876
00:50:20,080 --> 00:50:23,799
Speaker 1: in this coordinated way like these women have been. And

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00:50:23,840 --> 00:50:26,319
Speaker 1: it also is one of the reasons why, and I

878
00:50:26,360 --> 00:50:29,400
Speaker 1: know this is perhaps a bit of an unpopular opinion

879
00:50:30,360 --> 00:50:35,040
Speaker 1: why I think that it's not great when the internet

880
00:50:35,239 --> 00:50:39,080
Speaker 1: rallies together to like call someone's boss to get them fired,

881
00:50:39,440 --> 00:50:43,359
Speaker 1: even if I ostensibly agree with like, that person needs

882
00:50:43,360 --> 00:50:46,680
Speaker 1: to be fired, right, I definitely have seen situations on

883
00:50:46,680 --> 00:50:49,240
Speaker 1: the Internet where I'm like, oh, well, that person should

884
00:50:49,280 --> 00:50:51,440
Speaker 1: not hold the office that they hold. But I just

885
00:50:51,520 --> 00:50:56,200
Speaker 1: don't think that the tactic of coordinating people to call

886
00:50:56,320 --> 00:50:58,839
Speaker 1: someone's an employer or to disrupt their work for their

887
00:50:58,880 --> 00:51:03,040
Speaker 1: life is a good one because companies are cowardly and

888
00:51:03,080 --> 00:51:05,440
Speaker 1: we know that they will cave to mobs, and I

889
00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:09,439
Speaker 1: just think it turns into an easily gamified numbers game

890
00:51:09,760 --> 00:51:12,400
Speaker 1: that I know, the worst people on the Internet can

891
00:51:12,440 --> 00:51:15,560
Speaker 1: definitely coordinate to get a blood of angry emails or

892
00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:18,080
Speaker 1: tweets to give the impression that there is a broad

893
00:51:18,160 --> 00:51:21,279
Speaker 1: consensus where really there is none, you know, And I'm

894
00:51:21,280 --> 00:51:23,680
Speaker 1: certainly not going to act like I don't find it

895
00:51:23,760 --> 00:51:27,520
Speaker 1: cathartic when I'm being a video of a racist in

896
00:51:27,600 --> 00:51:30,880
Speaker 1: public lose their jobs. I fucking love that ship. Who doesn't. Right,

897
00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:33,320
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say that, I I it's a good time.

898
00:51:34,000 --> 00:51:35,560
Speaker 1: It's a good time. I'm not going to say that

899
00:51:35,640 --> 00:51:39,200
Speaker 1: I'm like above that. But I just know that that

900
00:51:39,280 --> 00:51:44,759
Speaker 1: tactic is so easily weaponized by bad actors coordinating for

901
00:51:44,920 --> 00:51:47,799
Speaker 1: bad and so I just think it's something that as

902
00:51:47,920 --> 00:51:50,239
Speaker 1: good stewards of the Internet, we have to really be

903
00:51:50,360 --> 00:51:55,000
Speaker 1: careful when we traffic and tactics like that, because it

904
00:51:55,120 --> 00:51:57,920
Speaker 1: is a tactic that is well worn by bad actors,

905
00:51:58,120 --> 00:51:59,720
Speaker 1: and I don't think it's getting us to a place

906
00:51:59,760 --> 00:52:06,279
Speaker 1: that is better on the Internet. Internet Hate Machine is

907
00:52:06,280 --> 00:52:09,040
Speaker 1: a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from

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00:52:09,040 --> 00:52:11,600
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media, check out our website cool zone media

909
00:52:11,640 --> 00:52:14,000
Speaker 1: dot com, or find us on the I Heart Radio app,

910
00:52:14,040 --> 00:52:16,640
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.