WEBVTT - DongleGate: The Online Harassment Campaign Against Adria Richards 0:00:01.040 --> 0:00:03.720 This is Bridget Todd, and you're listening to Internet Hate Machines, 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.880 and I am here with my lovely producer, Sophie. Sophie, 0:00:06.880 --> 0:00:09.159 how are you. I'm doing well, Bridget, How are you? 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:13.200 I'm doing good? And I am so excited for the 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:17.560 first official episode of Internet Hate Machine because we're talking 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:21.200 about a topic that I've kind of think about a lot, 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:24.319 and that is the saga of Adria Richards. And I 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:26.120 know that you know a little bit about this story 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:31.440 one of my favorite named topics on the internet, dongle gate, 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:34.400 but you know, I only really know the surface level. 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:36.720 So I'm really looking forward to hearing more about this 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:41.680 from you and more about Adria as a person. Yeah, 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:44.120 we're gonna be using the word dongle a lot in 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:47.920 this episode. Just two level set love that. One of 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:50.320 the reasons I wanted to start with Adria Richards is 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:53.680 because I think that she really represents an early situation 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:58.240 where bad actors were able to completely hijack a sensitive, 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:01.720 complicated situation in ways that they're still doing to this 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:04.640 very day. And I think it's a really great early 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:08.080 example of how when a black woman is being harassed 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:12.520 and attacked online, people watching will essentially fit back and 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:17.200 say she probably deserved it. So let's get into it. 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:21.200 That started the beginning. Who is Adrian Richards Well, Adrian 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:23.360 Richards is a black woman who has been working as 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:26.880 an engineer since about She first got her start in 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:30.680 technology as a network administrator and started volunteering teaching tech 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:33.760 skills in her spare time. And while she started working 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:37.280 her way up in these like successful tech startups, she 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:40.800 also kind of became this visible black woman in tech. 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:43.280 You know, she was doing a lot of media. She 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:46.720 had a pretty big YouTube channel with a healthy number 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:51.920 of subscribers. She celebrated ten thousand subscribers where she does 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:56.320 these accessible tech tutorials mixed with kind of every day 0:01:56.560 --> 0:02:00.280 I guess lifestyle content like dating advice, And she does 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:03.920 a lot of content where she is calling out examples 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:08.200 of sexism in tech. Um, that's kind of I guess 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:12.280 her brand or her thing is these explorations of gender 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:15.520 and technology and the way that they intersect. Like her 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:18.720 personal website where she has her blog is called but 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:21.320 You're a Girl dot com, so you can sort of 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.320 get a sense of she's someone who is really interested 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:29.119 in shaking up the status quo in technology. She travels 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:33.280 to speak at these pretty big deal tech conferences where 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:36.040 she often is talking about things like diversity in tech 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:38.720 and inclusion in tech. Here's a little clip of her 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:42.200 speaking at one of those conferences. Any startup you're gonna 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:44.440 work at, it's not going to be all one gender. 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:47.320 If you're a woman, it's very unlikely. So you're gonna 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:49.200 need to work with guys. So you should be going 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:52.720 to events that have guys. And it's not that guys 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:54.880 don't want to help, but we have to give them 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:57.760 opportunities for them to be allies. So that was it, 0:02:57.880 --> 0:02:59.680 Just a quick little clip that I think speaks to 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:03.720 um a little bit about what happened with her side. 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:08.600 Now somebody we would totally be friends with. Oh, absolutely, absolutely, 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:13.120 no question. So what I was doing research for this episode, 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:16.720 I really kind of enjoyed going back in time and 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:21.120 looking at Adria's digital life before what went down went down, 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:24.320 because honestly, she kind of just gives off vibes of 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:27.679 a black woman who is killing it, like she's really 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:32.280 hit her stride. Watching her talk about technology, she comes 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:35.480 off as really confident and happy and like she's in 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:39.119 like really walking in her power and It was exciting 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:41.760 to watch, but it kind of made me sad. Knowing 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:44.760 a little bit about what happens next, you might be 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:49.120 asking what happened to Adrea Richards. Adrea starts working as 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:51.720 a developer evangelist, which is basically, if you don't know 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:54.600 what that is, it's someone whose role is to work 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:57.400 with developers, help them solve problems, help them level up 0:03:57.400 --> 0:03:59.960 in their career. She gets the job as a developer 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:04.000 evangelists for the email vendor sind Grid, and then she 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:08.160 goes to Peicon, a conference for Python users, and while 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:12.280 she's there, she is sitting in the main conference room 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:17.279 during a keynote talk, and she turns around to have 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:20.560 a conversation with some attendees behind her, having a normal 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:23.919 talk about some of the presentations they've seen, when she 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:27.640 overhears a pair of male attendees who are also developers, 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:32.400 making a crass joke while seated behind her. Now, the 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:36.160 actual nature of the joke is somewhat in dispute. A 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:38.560 little bit more on that later, but essentially, the crux 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:41.680 of the joke is that they're talking about dongles because 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:44.120 they work in tech, and the crux of the joke 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.159 is that dongle is a funny sounding word that kind 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:52.359 of sounds like dog, wow, brave such as just transferred 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:57.440 me back to you know, the seventh grade cool cool, cool. Yeah. 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:01.080 I mean it's it's crass and it's immature, and it's 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:04.400 like it's like, like I said, it's like very middle school. 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:08.760 It is very middle school. It takes me back to 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:11.960 a lot of text bases I've been in where that 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:14.640 is the love that it just it is the level 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:18.000 of humor that you kind of are asked to smile 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:21.599 through and be like ha ha, this is one percent bridging. 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:24.640 I actually don't know if you know that, like one 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:27.120 of my first jobs out of college, I worked in 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:30.880 tech for several years, and I don't think on microoff 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:32.800 Mike we've talked about this at all. But yeah, I 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:35.919 definitely know exactly what you're talking about. In those In 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:40.200 those scenes, especially when there's very few women around the 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:44.360 the nature of the jokes can sometimes be a little 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:48.960 bit off putting to say the least. Yes, exactly, and 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:52.480 I think that's exactly where Adrian was at as well. 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:55.719 So she didn't say anything in the moment, She didn't 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:59.400 say that this bothered her, and she explains that choice 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:01.719 in her blog. She writes, I didn't want to be 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:04.960 heckled or have my experience denied, which I also really, 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:07.840 I'm sure you do. Having worked in tech, I know 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:10.080 what she's talking about. I did it. She probably didn't 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:13.240 want to have that vibe of, oh, she's crazy, she's 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:17.000 over sensitive. You know you, you know you can you 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:18.520 kind of have a sense of maybe it's not going 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:22.200 to go that well if you take the route of saying, hey, guys, 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:25.120 knock it off. Oh my god, she's so emotional, she's 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:28.320 in her feelings. Why can't we just can't we just 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:34.120 be our souls? It's like, all right, exactly. So, rather 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:36.640 than saying something to them in the moment, she takes 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:40.560 out her phone, takes their picture, and tweets it, tweeting 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:45.560 quote not cool jokes about forking repose in a sexual 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:50.839 way and big dongles right behind me hashtag picon. She 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:53.760 goes on to tweet, can someone talk to these guys 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:57.000 about their conduct? I'm in lightning talks top right near stage, 0:06:57.040 --> 0:07:00.800 Tin roseback hashtag picon, and then she tweets the code 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:03.840 of conduct for the conference, which in part says, quote 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:09.000 offensive jokes are not appropriate for Peicon. So initially, Adrian 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:11.080 said that she was wanted to ignore this, but in 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:14.880 her blog but I'm a Girl, Adria explained what triggered 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:18.080 her to send that tweet. She writes, I was gonna 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:20.320 let it go. It has been a long week, a 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:23.120 long month. I've been on the road since mid February 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:26.400 attending and speaking at conferences. Icon was my fifth and 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:29.800 final conference before heading home. I know it's important to 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:31.960 pick my battles and I don't have to be a 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:35.360 hero and in every situation, but sometimes I want to 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:38.720 go to a conference and be a geek. But like Popeye, 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:41.520 I couldn't stands it no more because of what happened. 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:45.920 She talks about how her company was a sponsor for 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:49.840 this event and when she heard them talking about dongles, 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:55.160 she felt blustered. Then, she writes, then it happened the trigger. 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:59.120 She's watching somebody on the main stage and he's talking 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:02.760 about this young Hooder's workshop that Adrian volunteered at. He 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:05.840 was mentioning that the Pie Ladies auction had raised ten 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:08.440 thousand dollars in a single night for funds that we're 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:11.560 going to be used to support this young Coder's Workshop initiative. 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:14.000 I saw a photo on the main stage of a 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:16.320 little girl who had been in the Young Coder's Workshop. 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:19.520 I realized I had to do something because she would 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.680 never have the chance to learn and love programming because 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:25.200 the ask clowns behind me would make it impossible for 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:29.840 her to do so. So I I remember reading this 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:31.600 when the whole situation was going down, and I was 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:34.480 very moved by what she had written. Um, I think 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:37.040 it's if you're if you're listening to this and thinking 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:42.640 that seems a little overdone. Fine, sure, but I guess 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:45.800 I'm saying that I understand what where she sort of 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:49.679 coming from when she wrote that. Yeah, I mean like, 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:53.080 I definitely have empathy for for the way that she's 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:56.400 feeling here. I feel like that happens to a lot 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:59.400 of people in the business world, and specifically within the 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:02.840 tech space, where you're in a situation where you're like, well, 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:06.840 I could say nothing, but you know that would be 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:13.240 very disappointing to child me, or to my niece, to 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:17.120 my nephew, to my daughter, to my son, the inner 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:21.120 child in me where where I'm like, okay, you know, 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:24.960 I couldn't. While this might seem small to some who's 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:28.560 to say that many small things. If you let it 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:30.880 go this time, you might let it go the next 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:33.600 ten times, and then it's just a habit, and then 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:37.000 it's a pattern, and then you're enabling. So that's exactly 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:39.480 what she says. In her blog, she writes about how 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:42.560 this incident was actually not the first time that she 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:46.520 had heard a sexualizing joke at that particular conference. She 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:49.440 describes how earlier during that event, in a hallway, a 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:52.440 guy had made a crass joke about looking under the 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:55.760 skirt of the table and you know, make he made 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:59.199 some crass long and about it, not like so it 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:01.840 doesn't have pubic hair, just like I like it. But 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:08.080 because this happened in a way, I know, really not great. 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:11.600 She says that because this happened in a hallway and 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:15.280 not like at a seated, you know, main stage event 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:18.599 while somebody's on stage talking, she actually did feel comfortable 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:21.319 speaking up to whoever made that joke. And I think 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:23.800 it's exactly what you were saying, Sophie. It sounds like 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:28.280 this was death by a thousand cuts for her, where 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:31.720 it was laugh it off, laugh it off, say something, 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:37.120 say something, and eventually she just couldn't anymore. Like I've 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:40.880 been there where you just hit your limit of ship 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:44.120 that you are willing to smile through or giggle through 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:47.880 or brush off to the point where you just can't anymore. 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:51.280 The conference staff talk to the guys who end up 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:55.080 being developers who made the joke. For their part, it 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:59.439 sounds like these guys handled it very well. Ticon put 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:02.760 out a state meant saying quote. An incident occurred involving 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:06.720 some inappropriate comments made during a crowded plenary session her 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:09.000 the state of guidelines for the attendees and staff. The 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:13.480 issue was reported to PIKE staff and resolved privately. Both 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:16.559 parties were met with in private. The comments that were 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:20.280 made were in poor taste, and the individuals involved agreed, apologized, 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:22.880 and no further action were taken by the staff of Pike. 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:28.040 No individuals were removed from a conference, no sanctions were levied, 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:31.320 and so honestly, it sounds like it truly could have 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:34.800 ended there. You know, these developers who were making this 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:39.720 crass joke, they they seem like they legitimately felt bad. 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:44.640 They apologized. Picon staff it sounds like they acted quickly 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:47.800 and it was resolved. It truly could have been there, 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:52.120 and honestly, throughout the entire situation, Adrian is clear both 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:54.160 in her writing and in her actions that she does 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:56.680 not want these men fired. You know, she is not 0:11:56.840 --> 0:12:02.400 calling for any consequences were them beyond just being talked 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:06.120 to about appropriate conduct by the Picon staff, which they were, 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:08.720 So this truly could have just been the end of it. Yeah, 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:10.679 it sounds like all she really wanted to do was 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:13.000 come on, guys, not a time or place, do better? 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:17.240 Does it? It's easy for me to have a lot 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:21.000 of empathy for all of the individuals involved in the situation, 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:23.400 Like those guys shouldn't have been making that joke. It 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:25.960 does sound like it was crass and stupid. It does 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:28.480 sound like it was against the rules of what happened. 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:32.600 It's easy for me to just because I'm someone who 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:35.840 says things without thinking a lot, it's easy for me 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:37.800 to put myself in their shoes of like, oh, yes, 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:40.800 certainly I've said things where it comes out of my 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:42.920 mouth and boy I wish it hadn't. You know? For 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:46.880 sure somebody who's on a lot of podcasts can relate, 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:52.120 can relate. Yeah, I'm not saying that these guys are 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:54.520 like the worst guys ever, and they handled it very well. 0:12:54.880 --> 0:12:57.959 Both men worked for a company called play Haven, which 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:01.880 was a sponsor for picon the event, and this incident 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:06.240 led to one, but not both of the men being fired. 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:11.280 Play Haven CEO Andy Yang acknowledge the firing, writing quote, 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:14.160 play Haven had an employee who was identified as making 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:17.240 inappropriate comments at picon, and as a company that is 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:20.880 dedicated to gender equality and values honorable behavior, we conducted 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:24.160 a throw investigation. The results of this investigation led to 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:27.000 the unfortunate outcome of having to let this employee go. 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:30.000 We believe in the importance of discussing sensitive topics such 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:32.600 as gender and conduct, and we hope to move forward 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:36.160 with a civil dialogue based on the facts, which unfortunately 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:38.560 does not happen. But you know, and you might be 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:43.640 asking yourself, Well, HbF photographed and pointed out two men 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:47.040 who worked at play Haven who were having this inappropriate conversation, 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:49.959 So you might be asking why was only one man 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:52.720 fired and not the other. Play Haven went on to 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:55.600 say in their statement that they would not comment on 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:58.560 all the factors that contributed to our parting ways with 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:02.680 the one developer, So it's totally clear, you know what 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:06.200 is actually happening if the decision was entirely about what 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:10.000 happened at picon, or if something else contributed to it, Right, 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:15.000 this could have been a a noted behavior from this 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:20.640 person or some other reason. Yeah, that's interesting and and 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:24.960 kind of um, I would say, CEO and Yang actually 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:29.880 taking action is kind of rare, I would say, especially 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:33.760 at that time. So that's that's interesting to know here 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:35.840 as well. But yeah, I totally see what you're saying, 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:38.880 Like there could have been other things there that we 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:43.600 just don't know and we'll never know. But yeah, what happened, Oh, 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:46.120 I know what I good to what happened. I'm bombed. 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:50.760 It's not great. And honestly, like I I mean, I 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:53.120 don't know, I don't have any kind of special insight, 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:57.320 but I would be willing to bet just from what 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:00.720 I know about how tech companies work that play Haven 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:03.800 that there was some sort of information that maybe we're 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:07.280 not privy to that play Haven like maybe this was 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:10.240 a pattern, maybe there were other factors at play, and 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:13.480 play Haven was like, well, you know, let's just part 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:16.240 ways with this person and this is just another just 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:18.480 just one more reason why we should take that action. 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:30.480 So after Adria's tweet, everyone kind of starts responding to 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:34.920 what happened. Now. I absolutely do not think that Adria 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:37.080 thought that this was going to blow up the way 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:40.080 that it did, with so many people beyond the tech 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:44.160 conference weighing in. You know, some people are supportive of Adria, 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:47.280 others are supportive of the developers. And I have to say, 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:50.440 this is to be really clear, not all the people 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:53.320 who were not on adria side are men. There were. 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:55.400 I saw a lot of women weighing in and saying 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:57.440 that they felt like Adria was making it harder for 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:00.640 them as women in tech by being so are sensitive 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:03.520 or not just talking directly to the men, right, So 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:06.840 it's not it's certainly not a clear cut men on 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:09.680 one side, women on the other side issue. When people 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:13.000 were just sort of talking about it, expressing their their 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:16.720 take on it. The fire developer posted on Hacker News, 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:19.320 and I have to say his post, which is still up, 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:23.640 it's actually pretty civil. Uh. In my opinion, I do 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:28.280 not think that the fired developer was interested or intended 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:31.120 to whip up a hate mob around Adrian. I think 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:34.760 that that was not a consequence that he was expecting 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:40.240 or was welcoming in any way. He apologized, saying, quote, first, 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:42.440 I'd like to say I'm sorry. I really did not 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:44.720 mean to offend anyone, and I really do regret the 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:47.040 comment and how it made Adria feel she had every 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:49.440 right to report me to staff, and I defend her position, 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:54.400 which I think is like pretty recent. Yeah. He also 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:58.360 clarified her characterization of part of his comments. He says, 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:02.080 while I did make big dongle joke about a fictional 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:05.520 piece of hardware that identified as a male, no sexual 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:08.560 jokes were made about working. My friends and I had 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:12.560 decided that forking someone's repo is a new form of flattery, 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:15.240 and we were excited about one of the presenter's projects. 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:18.680 A friend said I would fork that guy's repo. The 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:23.520 sexual context was applied by Adria, not us, and I, 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:25.840 you know, I wasn't there, so I can't speak to 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:29.399 whether or not the forking part of that joke was 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:32.919 sextual or not. I will say that with jokes, oftentimes, 0:17:33.000 --> 0:17:36.160 you know there's nuance and context between friends that maybe 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:39.720 can be easily missed when you're overhearing it. I have 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:41.679 no idea. I don't know. I whether I don't know 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:46.560 what he says. I can't read into what he's saying. Sure, yeah, 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:49.639 what do you think I'm like forking dongle if the 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:55.720 shoe fits um? But but sure, sir. Yeah, It's like 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:59.360 it's hard. It's hard. And what's what's funny is that 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:03.879 after what I'm sure it was like a well intentioned clarification. 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:06.600 Of course, people on the internet ran with that and 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:10.200 they were like, totally Andrea lied about what he said. 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:13.520 And it's like, well, I could even if even if 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:16.119 he is correct and she misrepresented or like misunderstood it, 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:20.080 it's not really a lie like that nuance is completely 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:22.720 stripped from the conversation when bad actors on the internet 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:26.960 get involved. Absolutely, I mean, we're out here analyzing somebody's 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:31.160 really bad middle school joke about gongles. Yeah, and it's 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:35.480 like I know what happens next, and it's like, don't 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:38.359 just like, don't defend your bad joke. I don't know, 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:40.680 like if you meant it that way or not putting 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:44.000 the blame on Adria. Just I don't think that was cool. 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:46.960 Like I'm not, I'm not, I'm not thrilled with that. 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:50.120 So this is something that I do have to take 0:18:50.160 --> 0:18:53.359 issue with. In his post on Hacker News, he kind 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:57.480 of implies that Adria personally taking his photo and tweeting 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:00.240 it is the reason why he got fired. He it's 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:03.560 Adria has an audience and is a successful person of 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:06.040 the media. Just check out her web page linked in 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:09.040 her Twitter account or hard work and social activism speaks 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:12.560 for itself. With that great power and reach comes responsibility. 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:15.399 As a result of the picture she took, I was 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:18.359 let go from my job today, which sucks because I 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:20.720 have three kids and I really liked that job. She 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:23.480 gave me no warning. She smiled while she snapped my 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:26.679 picture and sealed my fate. Let this serve as a 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:30.720 message to everyone. Our actions and words, big or small, 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:35.520 can have serious impact. I have a question. Sure, I 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:38.920 looked up Adria again on Twitter before we started doing 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:42.040 this episode, and I'm sure it's changed since then. But 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:44.840 you know, at the time, do we know what her 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:46.879 bio was, Do we know how many followers she had? 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:49.680 Anything like that? Just as like a side note, Yeah, 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:52.360 I don't. It's not super clear. I think that when 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:55.840 he said media, I don't think that he was saying 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:58.159 and it does actually relate. I was gonna put this in, 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:01.160 but I didn't know how to say it. I think 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:03.639 that he was saying not that she is a member 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:06.040 of the media, which god, we know members of the 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:08.840 media are always attacked in the line. I think that 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:14.119 he was saying that she is a successful person of 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:18.320 the media, like she gets glowing media attention, because at 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:20.160 the time that was kind of her thing. I think 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:23.360 that basically, I guess, if I'm gonna keep it real, 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:26.200 this is just my opinion. I think he was trying 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:29.320 to sort of imply that she is someone who is 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:33.440 good at using the media and good at getting her 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:36.720 perspective and her name in the media for her causes. 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:40.280 And I think that he was kind of trying to 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:45.320 imply that in tweeting about his joke at this conference, 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:49.360 that she was perhaps intending to get media on her 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:53.359 side because she has a uh skilled that using media. 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:56.600 She's you know, she's a YouTuber. She's someone who like 0:20:57.280 --> 0:20:59.600 has a name for herself and it's very visible. So 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:03.239 I think that he's making a nod toward her visibility, 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:06.760 which is sort of incumbent on media and her ability 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:09.480 to to be a person in media. That's what I think. 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:12.120 This is my opinion. Yeah, it just comes off as 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:17.960 like weird, weird, jealous vibes. It's just the phrasing and 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:21.399 what he said, it just comes off very well, she's 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:27.080 fake news, and um, why would you believe her when 0:21:27.119 --> 0:21:29.960 she knows, like clearly she knows what she's doing here. 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:33.320 It just reads very Oh god, it just reads witch hunt. 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:37.280 I hate it. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And I really 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:40.960 struggled with how to deal with this nuance in the 0:21:41.000 --> 0:21:45.000 episode because I do genuinely think the Spire developer is 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:47.720 trying to his best to be civil through a tough situation. 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:52.280 But I also think that he is using a couple 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:57.479 of key phrases that the audience definitely picked up on 0:21:57.720 --> 0:22:01.719 as Oh, she was trying to like use him and 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:04.359 what he said to bolster her own career and to 0:22:04.440 --> 0:22:09.960 boost her own profile. And the conversation around how Adrian 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:15.159 Richards handled this was very much steeped in. She was 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:18.480 really calculated, and she was doing this because she thought 0:22:18.480 --> 0:22:21.280 it was going to, you know, empower her and boost 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:24.240 her own profile, and it was very like self motivated. 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:26.440 I honestly think she just tweeted it and didn't think 0:22:26.520 --> 0:22:28.000 much of it and it blew up on her face. 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:30.880 If I'm being honest, just my perspective. But the way 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:35.040 that he writes his statement, people, what you're calling out 0:22:35.240 --> 0:22:38.240 people definitely picked up on and ran with it. That 0:22:38.280 --> 0:22:42.000 she is untrustworthy, that she is calculating and conniving, and 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:46.520 that she did this in a calculated, intentional move to 0:22:46.520 --> 0:22:51.040 to cloud Chase and they're going to punish her for it. 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:54.240 How did she respond to his post? So that is 0:22:54.280 --> 0:22:57.960 a great question. So she writes to his post on Hackernew, 0:22:58.040 --> 0:23:01.560 she replies, I'm sorry to hear your employer decided not 0:23:01.600 --> 0:23:03.399 to work with you on this, and I hope they 0:23:03.440 --> 0:23:07.320 reconsider bring you back and deal with it constructively. So again, 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:09.720 she wasn't calling for him to be fired. If she was, 0:23:09.960 --> 0:23:13.119 she could have easily, you know, said like this was 0:23:13.200 --> 0:23:16.280 on you. You did this, you agree that you did it, 0:23:16.359 --> 0:23:17.919 you should be fired. She didn't say any of that. 0:23:17.960 --> 0:23:20.159 She was like, oh, sorry to hear, not what I 0:23:20.200 --> 0:23:22.800 had in mind. I hope they reconsider. That's not that. 0:23:23.400 --> 0:23:25.320 In my book, those are not the words of somebody 0:23:25.359 --> 0:23:29.240 who is gleefully watching the takedown of somebody they're hoping 0:23:29.280 --> 0:23:33.360 to clout build by tearing down, not at all. And 0:23:33.400 --> 0:23:35.520 I think this is one of those as part of 0:23:35.560 --> 0:23:38.400 the nuance of the conversation, because I think you could 0:23:38.480 --> 0:23:40.840 argue that the men should not have been making these 0:23:40.920 --> 0:23:43.760 kinds of jokes at the conference. And I also think 0:23:43.800 --> 0:23:46.800 that it's within the realm of possibility that you could 0:23:46.840 --> 0:23:49.879 take issue with the fact that Adria took a picture 0:23:49.920 --> 0:23:52.000 of these guys and tweeted it. I'm I am a 0:23:52.080 --> 0:23:55.880 big I think that taking pictures of people unless they're 0:23:56.320 --> 0:23:58.680 committing an act of violence against you. I think taking 0:23:58.680 --> 0:24:01.240 and tweeting pictures of people without their consent is like 0:24:01.280 --> 0:24:03.560 a no no in my book. Just personally, I think 0:24:03.560 --> 0:24:06.359 you could argue that she shouldn't have done that. Side note. 0:24:06.400 --> 0:24:10.320 After the incident, ICON updated its attendee procedure for handling 0:24:10.320 --> 0:24:15.120 harassment to encourage conference attendees to report behavior privately and 0:24:15.200 --> 0:24:17.720 not to tweet about them publicly like Adria did, and 0:24:17.720 --> 0:24:22.000 so their new procedures say public shaming can be counterproductive 0:24:22.040 --> 0:24:25.280 to building a strong community. ICON does not condone nor 0:24:25.320 --> 0:24:28.679 participate in such actions out of respect. I mean, I 0:24:28.680 --> 0:24:32.960 think the word public shaming is such a loaded term, 0:24:33.440 --> 0:24:36.200 and it is interesting to me that that is the 0:24:36.280 --> 0:24:39.640 language that they chose to update their procedures. They said, 0:24:39.760 --> 0:24:43.640 we don't want bad pr so let's keep these things quiet. 0:24:44.080 --> 0:24:46.240 They didn't say they didn't. What they didn't say is 0:24:46.800 --> 0:24:48.440 I mean, like I guess they said it prior where 0:24:48.440 --> 0:24:50.560 they're like, we don't condone this type of thing. But 0:24:50.760 --> 0:24:57.520 they made a public policy change that points the finger 0:24:58.000 --> 0:25:05.480 again at Adria. She's consistently getting the finger pointed at her. Yeah. 0:25:05.560 --> 0:25:08.880 Public And dare I say public shaming by POCON Maybe 0:25:08.920 --> 0:25:11.320 a little bit, I mean I want to get into that, 0:25:11.359 --> 0:25:13.639 but absolutely. And it's it's so funny that you bring 0:25:13.760 --> 0:25:18.159 up this idea of how people attending a conference should 0:25:18.200 --> 0:25:22.560 handle conflict. I am a longtime political organizer. I go 0:25:22.560 --> 0:25:26.000 to a lot of like lefty progressive political conferences. At 0:25:26.080 --> 0:25:29.680 the conferences that I go to, they will call your 0:25:29.720 --> 0:25:33.400 ass out. Almost every single time I go to a conference, 0:25:33.440 --> 0:25:36.160 like a net Roots or something, there is some elected 0:25:36.160 --> 0:25:40.280 official who's being booed or bird dogged or tweeted at. 0:25:40.359 --> 0:25:42.760 You know, I think Biden spoke there a couple of 0:25:42.800 --> 0:25:45.439 years ago, and everybody was tweeting at the conference and 0:25:45.520 --> 0:25:47.600 using the conference hashtag like oh why don't you go? 0:25:48.080 --> 0:25:50.920 The ports of people are like like, like I came 0:25:51.080 --> 0:25:55.679 up in a conference scene where it was expect I 0:25:55.760 --> 0:25:59.440 totally expected that you were going to handle whatever conflicts 0:25:59.480 --> 0:26:03.040 you had entirely publicly. So it is a little telling 0:26:03.040 --> 0:26:05.200 to me that they're like, oh, no, part of our 0:26:05.640 --> 0:26:07.600 quote of conduct is if you have a problem with somebody, 0:26:07.960 --> 0:26:09.879 keep it on the hush hush, because it's like, well, 0:26:10.840 --> 0:26:12.800 I don't know, I guess I feel like it shouldn't 0:26:12.800 --> 0:26:15.800 be up to the conference to decide how I feel 0:26:15.800 --> 0:26:17.720 it's best to handle my conflict. Like, I feel like 0:26:17.720 --> 0:26:21.120 that's almost like a personal choice. That's it's a weird 0:26:21.200 --> 0:26:27.560 micromanagement by the conference. I don't know. Yeah, you've definitely 0:26:27.760 --> 0:26:30.959 are are somebody who spends more time at conferences than 0:26:31.000 --> 0:26:34.080 I do. But unfortunately I was like, I was like, 0:26:34.240 --> 0:26:36.960 I follow you on social media, um, and if you 0:26:36.960 --> 0:26:41.200 don't follow Bridge of Fall Bridger, But yeah, that's weird. 0:26:41.359 --> 0:26:45.600 It's anytime somebody's like, let's do this behind closed doors, 0:26:46.160 --> 0:26:49.320 I'm like, oh, red flag. Yeah. I just feel like 0:26:49.520 --> 0:26:52.320 having that as a rule that you have to agree 0:26:52.359 --> 0:26:55.520 to in the code of conduct. Just in general, I 0:26:55.560 --> 0:26:58.439 am not a big fan of a power structure telling 0:26:58.480 --> 0:27:00.880 me that I can't be public about something that i've experienced. 0:27:00.880 --> 0:27:03.600 I guess, let's put it that way totally. And so 0:27:03.720 --> 0:27:06.920 even if you think that Adria should not have taken 0:27:06.920 --> 0:27:09.959 the picture of these guys and tweeted it, Adria Richards 0:27:10.359 --> 0:27:14.119 does not handle hr decisions at play Haven, right, and 0:27:14.280 --> 0:27:16.439 they are the ones who decided to part ways with 0:27:16.440 --> 0:27:19.080 this developer. Again, I have no evidence for this, but 0:27:19.520 --> 0:27:21.760 I suspect that there might have been other reasons why 0:27:21.800 --> 0:27:25.040 this developer was let go, particularly because that they only 0:27:25.080 --> 0:27:28.120 fired the one developer and not the other, even when 0:27:28.160 --> 0:27:30.919 two men were photographed. And it is really interesting to 0:27:30.920 --> 0:27:34.680 meet how play Haven just allowed Adria to become this 0:27:35.080 --> 0:27:39.800 very public scapegoat or their hiring and firing decisions. They 0:27:39.800 --> 0:27:43.760 didn't speak up and say, hey, Adria doesn't work at 0:27:43.760 --> 0:27:47.440 play Haven and had no you know, did not force 0:27:47.480 --> 0:27:50.159 our hand. We made this decision. It is interesting to 0:27:50.160 --> 0:27:54.160 me how they didn't take the flak publicly. This visible 0:27:54.240 --> 0:27:57.000 black woman in technology was the one who got all 0:27:57.320 --> 0:28:00.960 of the negative attention for their decision. And I guess 0:28:01.000 --> 0:28:05.920 I think you know, companies just back then certainly did 0:28:05.960 --> 0:28:09.200 not and I would argue still do not know how 0:28:09.200 --> 0:28:11.879 to handle it when there is a big public outcry 0:28:11.960 --> 0:28:15.600 happening around one of their employees. Had play Haven said 0:28:16.240 --> 0:28:18.879 we're aware of the issue and we're taking the appropriate action. 0:28:18.920 --> 0:28:21.800 Blah blah blah. You know, release some statement that's just like, 0:28:21.960 --> 0:28:23.800 we know what's going on and we're gonna handle it. 0:28:24.160 --> 0:28:26.200 None of this would have happened. You know, if people 0:28:26.240 --> 0:28:29.439 are mad that this developer was fired, they should be 0:28:29.480 --> 0:28:32.600 mad at play Haven, not Adria. But Adria as a 0:28:32.640 --> 0:28:35.960 black woman, she's very visible and she represents all of 0:28:36.000 --> 0:28:39.280 the different trigger points that make people mad. She's black, 0:28:39.360 --> 0:28:43.120 she's outspoken, she's a woman, and she's very actively trying 0:28:43.160 --> 0:28:46.320 to shake up the status quo in technology as being 0:28:46.360 --> 0:28:49.840 this white male bros. Club, all of which makes her 0:28:49.840 --> 0:28:53.880 an easy target when the actual decision makers are play Haven. 0:28:54.400 --> 0:28:57.280 And it seems like people were not just angry about 0:28:57.320 --> 0:29:00.120 the firing of this one developer, but they were angry 0:29:00.000 --> 0:29:04.600 about is Age R. Richards and what she represents in technology. 0:29:04.800 --> 0:29:08.880 She represents technology and technology spaces becoming more accommodating to 0:29:08.920 --> 0:29:12.480 women and marginalized people. She represents women and marginalized people 0:29:12.760 --> 0:29:16.120 having meaningful power in those spaces and feeling like they 0:29:16.120 --> 0:29:19.200 can actually take up space in those spaces and with 0:29:19.280 --> 0:29:23.320 that comes all the people who currently had power in 0:29:23.400 --> 0:29:27.320 those spaces feeling threatened, feeling like the order that they 0:29:27.360 --> 0:29:29.160 are used to where there on the top and have 0:29:29.280 --> 0:29:32.880 the power, might actually be upset, and that they might 0:29:32.960 --> 0:29:35.400 actually have to make room for people who traditionally have 0:29:35.560 --> 0:29:39.320 not had a lot of institutional power in technology spaces. 0:29:39.320 --> 0:29:42.240 That's what she represents. A good example of what I 0:29:42.320 --> 0:29:44.640 mean is the fact that when this all was going down, 0:29:45.120 --> 0:29:48.800 three redditors launched what they called the Feminist Defense Fund, 0:29:49.040 --> 0:29:52.960 where they took donations in bitcoin for the fire developer, 0:29:53.200 --> 0:29:56.240 and in their plea for donations, they write, feminism has 0:29:56.240 --> 0:29:59.080 call us some serious changes to our culture, to our society, 0:29:59.080 --> 0:30:01.840 into our lives. We focus on some that are effected 0:30:01.960 --> 0:30:04.600 more than others, and we give back. Our goal is 0:30:04.640 --> 0:30:07.520 to encourage men to speak out, to be men, to 0:30:07.640 --> 0:30:12.440 not fear oppression, and enjoy their freedom of speech. Unfortunately, 0:30:12.560 --> 0:30:15.520 in today's climate, being a man has become a financial liability. 0:30:15.840 --> 0:30:18.080 Say the wrong thing in the wrong place, and you 0:30:18.120 --> 0:30:23.320 can find your entire life ruined, destroyed. Feminists fought for equality, 0:30:23.480 --> 0:30:27.080 but now they're out for our rights. They're destroying us financially. 0:30:27.240 --> 0:30:29.920 They're trying to tear apart our families. We're saying that 0:30:30.040 --> 0:30:33.320 enough is enough. No longer should men fear masculinity, No 0:30:33.440 --> 0:30:37.040 longer should speaking up risk that man a job, a career, 0:30:37.160 --> 0:30:39.200 or a family. It is time to rise up against 0:30:39.240 --> 0:30:41.000 the tyranny. It is time to tell men it is 0:30:41.040 --> 0:30:43.920 okay to speak up. We're here for you. This is 0:30:43.920 --> 0:30:49.120 the Feminist Victims Fund. So it's so obvious, like what 0:30:49.200 --> 0:30:54.560 they're pissed about. Oh god, crime, crime, crime, Oh god, 0:30:54.640 --> 0:30:59.400 that was great. Man, read the room, my guy. Yeah, 0:30:59.680 --> 0:31:03.200 it is like, it's so clear that they are using 0:31:03.240 --> 0:31:06.680 this as a proxy to fight these larger kind of 0:31:06.720 --> 0:31:10.520 culture wars issue. They don't care about this developer. They 0:31:10.520 --> 0:31:14.120 don't care that even he agrees that joke that he 0:31:14.200 --> 0:31:16.840 made was stupid and inappropriate for the setting. That's not 0:31:16.880 --> 0:31:20.400 what they care about. They care about women, and in 0:31:20.400 --> 0:31:23.920 this case, specifically a black woman shaking up the status 0:31:23.960 --> 0:31:27.360 quo and technology and threatening what they see as the 0:31:27.400 --> 0:31:36.920 way that the world in society should work. Let's get 0:31:36.920 --> 0:31:39.960 into the fallout of what happened with all of this. So, 0:31:40.360 --> 0:31:44.280 speaking of companies being really cowardly and caving to a mob, 0:31:44.760 --> 0:31:47.520 that is pretty much what happened to Adria Richards. So 0:31:47.680 --> 0:31:51.480 after the developer gets fired, the internet, or more specifically, fortune, 0:31:51.960 --> 0:31:55.920 really turned on Adria and her employer sent Grid. Adria, 0:31:56.040 --> 0:32:00.000 I have to say, is horribly, horribly harassed her website. 0:32:00.000 --> 0:32:01.840 It gets a d O s attacked, which is, if 0:32:01.840 --> 0:32:03.200 you don't know what that is, it's a denial of 0:32:03.240 --> 0:32:07.840 service attack where essentially attackers blood a website with more 0:32:07.920 --> 0:32:10.280 traffic than it can handle to shut it down. What 0:32:10.360 --> 0:32:13.280 happened to Adria wasn't just people tweeting that they disagreed 0:32:13.320 --> 0:32:15.920 with her, Nor was it just a few mean tweets 0:32:15.960 --> 0:32:19.200 or mean comments online, which side note, Funnily enough, a 0:32:19.200 --> 0:32:22.280 lot of the garden variety mean tweets directed at Adria 0:32:22.360 --> 0:32:26.600 are still up as we speak. You know, tweets like quote, 0:32:26.840 --> 0:32:29.800 horror cost two men their jobs in this economy, you 0:32:29.960 --> 0:32:32.240 just made two families poor. I hope you feel good, 0:32:32.320 --> 0:32:35.840 hypocritical bitch, or little did they know they were sitting 0:32:35.840 --> 0:32:38.920 behind some count, or good job at being a picture 0:32:38.920 --> 0:32:41.560 book feminist bitch? Or why are you such a count? 0:32:42.280 --> 0:32:45.600 You know? So definitely not nice stuff. But those are 0:32:45.600 --> 0:32:47.840 not even the tweets and messages and comments that I'm 0:32:47.880 --> 0:32:51.440 talking about the harassment that Adria Richard Scott was heinous 0:32:51.520 --> 0:32:56.240 and worse, it was coordinated. I personally witnessed many, many, 0:32:56.280 --> 0:32:58.960 many death and rape threats that she got some of 0:32:59.000 --> 0:33:01.480 the worst people on the internet. We're telling her in 0:33:01.720 --> 0:33:05.760 mass that she deserved to die by suicide. They docked 0:33:05.840 --> 0:33:08.760 and publicized her home address and phone number to the 0:33:08.800 --> 0:33:11.120 point where she had to flee from her own home 0:33:11.360 --> 0:33:17.600 for her own safety. Oh cool, they're dosing her. Yeah, 0:33:17.800 --> 0:33:23.640 that's really scary. Fortune circulates a change dot org petition 0:33:23.720 --> 0:33:26.760 calling for Adrian to be fired from sin grid. Meanwhile, 0:33:26.840 --> 0:33:30.280 a pastebind document claims that anonymous has sin Grid's client 0:33:30.360 --> 0:33:33.400 list and that they're harassing their customers and will continue 0:33:33.440 --> 0:33:35.520 to do so if they don't fire her. Um here's 0:33:35.560 --> 0:33:38.560 a bit from that post. They say ad R Richards 0:33:38.640 --> 0:33:42.800 engaged in malicious conduct to destroy another individual's professional career 0:33:43.120 --> 0:33:45.200 due to what she perceived as an affront to her 0:33:45.200 --> 0:33:48.400 own extremist views from a comment that was not directed 0:33:48.400 --> 0:33:50.400 at her, not meant for her to hear, and certainly 0:33:50.440 --> 0:33:53.680 not for her to provide unwarranted input on. As such, 0:33:54.040 --> 0:33:57.960 she should have her professional career destroyed just like her victim, 0:33:58.000 --> 0:34:00.520 and ordered for justice to be rendered and for balance 0:34:00.600 --> 0:34:03.440 to be restored in the universe. The Hive Minds judgment 0:34:03.560 --> 0:34:08.200 is final. There is no appeal, no forgiveness, no forgetting. Remember, 0:34:09.040 --> 0:34:12.440 real life harassment is an escalation that comes into play 0:34:12.480 --> 0:34:14.879 based on how long the situation is allowed to play out. 0:34:15.719 --> 0:34:18.480 It is not affected by the effectiveness of previous forms 0:34:18.480 --> 0:34:21.719 of harassment. Even if your customers and financial backers are 0:34:21.800 --> 0:34:25.640 dropping like flies, this will still happen if Anonymous maintains 0:34:25.640 --> 0:34:28.520 an interest in the situation. Boxing is a term used 0:34:28.520 --> 0:34:32.320 to define the discovery and dissemination of all personal information, included, 0:34:32.360 --> 0:34:35.680 but not limited to, home address, phone numbers, credit card numbers, 0:34:35.680 --> 0:34:38.560 your medical records, what brand of toothpaste you buy, etcetera. 0:34:39.239 --> 0:34:41.640 If some of the more talented members of Anonymous take 0:34:41.680 --> 0:34:45.360 interest into this, every employee of sent grid becomes a target, 0:34:45.640 --> 0:34:48.720 starting at the top. For your reference. This is already 0:34:48.719 --> 0:34:53.680 happening to miss Richards as per standard protocol. So basically 0:34:53.920 --> 0:34:56.920 that's like a clear threat, like this is you know 0:34:57.000 --> 0:35:00.719 whether this is legit or not. This is someone basically 0:35:00.760 --> 0:35:06.680 trying to scare this this major tech company. So the 0:35:06.680 --> 0:35:10.840 attacks on send grid worsen um sin Grid acknowledge that 0:35:10.920 --> 0:35:14.120 they had suffered a denial of service attack, and so 0:35:14.280 --> 0:35:16.880 you know, this is a major company and their website 0:35:16.880 --> 0:35:19.480 traffic is essentially shut down. They're not able to have 0:35:20.120 --> 0:35:21.880 have people go to their website, which is a pretty 0:35:21.920 --> 0:35:25.000 big deal. And so I guess I feel like if 0:35:25.000 --> 0:35:28.600 I was running a big company, I would not cave 0:35:28.960 --> 0:35:33.120 to a mob that is outright threatening me. But that's 0:35:33.160 --> 0:35:36.680 exactly what sin Grid did. Sin Grid eventually cave to 0:35:36.719 --> 0:35:42.359 this mob and fired Adria, and they fired her publicly. 0:35:43.160 --> 0:35:48.600 Cowards fucking coward ship. It's so cowardly, and so they 0:35:48.600 --> 0:35:52.319 write on Facebook. Effective immediately, sin Grid has terminated the 0:35:52.320 --> 0:35:55.520 employment of Adria Richards. While we are generally sensitive and 0:35:55.560 --> 0:35:58.840 confidential with respect to employee matters, the situation has taken 0:35:58.840 --> 0:36:01.360 on a public nature, and we have taken action that 0:36:01.440 --> 0:36:04.319 we believe is in the overall best interests of sin Grid, 0:36:04.360 --> 0:36:07.520 its employees, and our customers. A few hours later, sent 0:36:07.600 --> 0:36:11.480 Grid CEO Jim Franklin expanded on the company's reasons for 0:36:11.560 --> 0:36:16.040 firing Adria, writing, sin Grid supports the right to report 0:36:16.080 --> 0:36:20.239 and appropriate behavior whenever and wherever it occurs. What we 0:36:20.320 --> 0:36:23.759 do not support was how she reported the conduct. Her 0:36:23.800 --> 0:36:26.359 decision to tweet the comments and photographs of the people 0:36:26.360 --> 0:36:29.719 who made the comments cross the line. Publicly shaming the 0:36:29.760 --> 0:36:34.120 offenders and bystanders was not the appropriate way to handle 0:36:34.160 --> 0:36:38.400 the situation. And the aftermath of all of this was 0:36:38.480 --> 0:36:42.920 that Adria had to literally go into hiding. And she 0:36:43.080 --> 0:36:46.799 was someone who had this big voice online and this 0:36:47.040 --> 0:36:51.800 big online footprint, and she essentially stopped tweeting and stopped 0:36:51.840 --> 0:36:54.600 making videos and stopped putting our perspective out into the 0:36:54.600 --> 0:36:58.040 world after this happened. And so, you know, I feel 0:36:58.040 --> 0:37:02.080 like so many people, for example, the men's rights activists 0:37:02.120 --> 0:37:05.520 who were raising money for the fired engineer, we'll talk 0:37:05.680 --> 0:37:09.000 so much about things like free speech, free speech, but 0:37:09.840 --> 0:37:13.000 they almost never talked about the fact that somebody like Adria, 0:37:13.520 --> 0:37:16.000 who was someone who really did a lot of putting 0:37:16.000 --> 0:37:19.959 her voice out into the world, was effectively silenced when 0:37:20.000 --> 0:37:23.320 this harassment campaign against her began. So she she wasn't 0:37:23.360 --> 0:37:26.600 continuing to, you know, speak up. And so when we 0:37:26.680 --> 0:37:30.440 talk about whose free speech is being threatened, it's almost 0:37:30.520 --> 0:37:34.600 never the marginalized people who have to stop speaking and 0:37:34.640 --> 0:37:37.840 our silence when they become the targets of harassment campaigns 0:37:37.840 --> 0:37:43.000 like Adria was. So that's basically what happened with Advia Richards. 0:37:43.040 --> 0:37:46.279 And so there are so many takeaways here and so 0:37:46.360 --> 0:37:49.480 many things I think that we can learn from this situation. 0:37:50.120 --> 0:37:54.920 One is that I believe that Adrivia Richards situation really 0:37:55.040 --> 0:37:59.560 ushered in this new understanding of situations that are complicated 0:37:59.600 --> 0:38:03.760 and involve being real people being treated like tit for tat, 0:38:03.800 --> 0:38:07.040 you know, these culture wars and identity wars, point scoring 0:38:07.480 --> 0:38:10.440 where our guy got fired, so their guy has to 0:38:10.480 --> 0:38:14.400 get fired, or this happened, so that happened. You know, 0:38:14.600 --> 0:38:17.560 they made a black aerial in The Little Mermaid, so 0:38:17.640 --> 0:38:19.799 now they need to make a Malcolm X movie where 0:38:19.840 --> 0:38:22.640 Malcolm X is white. Yeah, go ahead, go ahead, bro, 0:38:22.840 --> 0:38:28.359 try that one. Go ahead. Yeah. It's a completely reductive 0:38:28.600 --> 0:38:33.040 and unhelpful thing that I think that dongle Gate really 0:38:33.120 --> 0:38:36.280 ushered in. You know, the big rallying cry in dongle 0:38:36.320 --> 0:38:40.240 Gate was that because the play Haven developer was fired, 0:38:40.560 --> 0:38:43.400 that Adrian needed to be fired just like he was. 0:38:43.480 --> 0:38:45.600 You know, as that poster put it, she should have 0:38:45.640 --> 0:38:48.760 to have her professional career destroyed just like her victim 0:38:49.120 --> 0:38:51.600 in order for justice to be rendered and for balance 0:38:51.640 --> 0:38:54.759 to be restored to the universe. But in the real 0:38:54.840 --> 0:38:59.200 world of complexity and nuance and adults. It's really just 0:38:59.360 --> 0:39:03.400 not help to have these situations be viewed through this 0:39:03.560 --> 0:39:08.000 incredibly simple, black and white binary lens. And when you do, 0:39:08.400 --> 0:39:12.160 you are creating the conditions that are prime for bad 0:39:12.200 --> 0:39:15.760 actors to exploit. And that brings me to my next takeaway, 0:39:15.760 --> 0:39:21.080 which is bad actors. Those fuckers ruin everything. And I 0:39:21.120 --> 0:39:24.279 feel like the situation is a great example because even 0:39:24.320 --> 0:39:27.640 though dongle gate was obviously very gendered, I don't want 0:39:27.640 --> 0:39:30.080 to give the impression that it was that all of 0:39:30.120 --> 0:39:32.960 the men who did not agree with Adria taking a 0:39:33.000 --> 0:39:35.879 picture of these guys. It's not like all of them 0:39:35.920 --> 0:39:40.480 had joined in on this harassment campaign against Adria. And 0:39:40.600 --> 0:39:43.000 there were certainly women in tech who did not agree 0:39:43.000 --> 0:39:46.160 with Adria's actions. One of them Amanda Blum, who was 0:39:46.200 --> 0:39:49.480 a developer who worked with Adria I r L when 0:39:49.520 --> 0:39:52.080 she invited Adria to speak at a conference that she organized. 0:39:52.320 --> 0:39:54.400 Um she writes in her blog post about how she 0:39:54.440 --> 0:39:56.920 did not have a great interaction with Adria. She was like, Oh, 0:39:56.920 --> 0:39:59.839 I don't really like her, but that doesn't mean that 0:40:00.400 --> 0:40:03.799 this kind of harassment campaign against her is good. You know, 0:40:03.840 --> 0:40:05.839 her her piece, which will link to in the show notes, 0:40:05.920 --> 0:40:09.120 is this very measured piece about what went down, and 0:40:09.200 --> 0:40:12.480 basically pointed out that she felt like everyone lost here. 0:40:12.480 --> 0:40:14.840 It was just a loss for everyone, And so I 0:40:14.880 --> 0:40:19.279 think that reasonable people could agree or disagree with what 0:40:19.360 --> 0:40:23.320 Adria did, and they did agree or disagree. There was 0:40:23.360 --> 0:40:27.200 a lot of substantive conversation online about what it means 0:40:27.239 --> 0:40:30.400 to be a woman in tech, how men can be 0:40:30.480 --> 0:40:33.399 allies to women in tech? Are men going to be, 0:40:33.800 --> 0:40:37.120 you know, afraid of making whatever joke or speaking up 0:40:37.120 --> 0:40:39.560 that they're working with women? How can women and men 0:40:39.680 --> 0:40:42.080 and everybody all work together in these spaces. There was 0:40:42.120 --> 0:40:47.120 a lot of really meaty, meaningful conversation that I think 0:40:47.200 --> 0:40:51.640 was sparked from dongle Gate. But what people remember was 0:40:51.760 --> 0:40:55.840 not the meaningful conversation or people like Amanda writing measured 0:40:55.880 --> 0:40:59.279 takes about the situation. They remember the hateful mob, right, 0:40:59.320 --> 0:41:02.520 They don't remember any of that meaningful conversation. So I 0:41:02.560 --> 0:41:06.080 believe that the kind of behavior like these coordinated attacks 0:41:06.080 --> 0:41:10.600 that we saw from Fortune actually drown out debate and discourse. 0:41:10.719 --> 0:41:13.319 They don't make us more thoughtful, They don't push us 0:41:13.320 --> 0:41:15.799 forward on all of the issues that we need to 0:41:15.880 --> 0:41:20.000 make progress on They keep us all polarized and enraged 0:41:20.200 --> 0:41:24.640 and frankly stuck having these silly circular debates about well 0:41:24.760 --> 0:41:27.360 he got fired, so she should get fired. That don't 0:41:27.360 --> 0:41:30.640 help our serve anybody. You know, an online mob like 0:41:30.760 --> 0:41:34.320 Fortune getting involved in this situation didn't make it more clear. 0:41:34.360 --> 0:41:37.880 It just inflamed it and polarized it. And these situations 0:41:37.920 --> 0:41:41.880 already exist at tension points between things like race and 0:41:41.960 --> 0:41:45.680 gender and conversations around inclusion in tech that we know 0:41:45.800 --> 0:41:48.680 are kind of heated. You know, it's predated that Google 0:41:48.719 --> 0:41:51.799 employee who kind of became an right murder after he 0:41:51.840 --> 0:41:55.359 wrote that memo blasting diversity in tech. You know, so like, 0:41:55.680 --> 0:41:59.080 these are conversations that are hot, that are that are 0:41:59.520 --> 0:42:03.799 hense and you know, as someone who works in combating 0:42:03.920 --> 0:42:08.000 miss and disinformation, this is a textbook tactic of bad 0:42:08.040 --> 0:42:11.959 actors to purposely inflame conversations that are rooted in these 0:42:11.960 --> 0:42:15.799 things that are legitimate tension and pressure points, and to 0:42:15.960 --> 0:42:19.600 hijack those conversations and to weaponize them so that pretty 0:42:19.680 --> 0:42:22.759 much it ensures we can never get anywhere on them. 0:42:23.200 --> 0:42:25.279 And I think the sad part about all of this 0:42:25.440 --> 0:42:28.480 is that it sounds like from all public accounts that 0:42:28.640 --> 0:42:32.359 Adrian and the Fire Developer seems like people who were 0:42:32.400 --> 0:42:35.759 being used as proxies in a larger kind of identity 0:42:35.920 --> 0:42:39.399 culture war fight. In that hacker news back and forth 0:42:39.440 --> 0:42:42.200 that they had, they seemed like two people who were 0:42:42.239 --> 0:42:45.080 genuinely interested in coming to some kind of a conclusion 0:42:45.080 --> 0:42:48.040 with one another. But that is simply not possible when 0:42:48.080 --> 0:42:52.279 bad actors with an ax to grind hijack conversations and 0:42:52.320 --> 0:42:56.960 are really invested in making those conversations as polarized as possible. Yeah, 0:42:57.000 --> 0:42:59.960 I was gonna say the comments section definitely wasn't looking 0:43:00.120 --> 0:43:03.120 to find a solution here. They were just looking to 0:43:03.200 --> 0:43:09.200 cause more chaos and uh, make things worse for everybody. 0:43:09.239 --> 0:43:12.759 In the Fire Developers post, there are people who are like, 0:43:13.320 --> 0:43:16.520 when he apologizes for his comments, don't apologize? How is 0:43:16.560 --> 0:43:19.000 that helpful if somebody has taken a look inward at 0:43:19.000 --> 0:43:21.600 their own behavior and feels the need to apologize. And 0:43:21.640 --> 0:43:25.279 this goes for pretty much all conversations. If a celebrity 0:43:25.320 --> 0:43:27.480 is saying something on the Internet, there's always and they 0:43:27.480 --> 0:43:29.919 apologize for something, It's always going to be that one 0:43:30.080 --> 0:43:33.640 stand in the comments who's like Queen don't apologize like 0:43:33.880 --> 0:43:37.040 we love you, you you know what I mean, I certainly do. 0:43:40.520 --> 0:43:44.600 Another takeaway from this is that companies and institutions just 0:43:44.840 --> 0:43:48.120 didn't know how to deal with mobs back then, and frankly, 0:43:48.320 --> 0:43:51.359 I don't think they've gotten much better today. You know, 0:43:51.480 --> 0:43:54.680 as fucked up as four Chune ship heads were here, 0:43:55.160 --> 0:43:58.120 my real beef is actually with play Haven and sent Grid. 0:43:58.640 --> 0:44:01.920 This was happening back in teen and maybe none of us, 0:44:02.040 --> 0:44:04.920 and by extension, the people who run companies didn't know 0:44:04.960 --> 0:44:07.279 how to handle it when a mob swarmed around one 0:44:07.280 --> 0:44:10.120 of their employees. You know, play Haven was ultimately the 0:44:10.360 --> 0:44:14.600 decider when deciding to fire that developer that Adria photographed. 0:44:14.840 --> 0:44:16.960 They didn't have to do that, and they certainly did 0:44:17.000 --> 0:44:19.560 not have to let Adria take the fall for what 0:44:19.680 --> 0:44:23.719 was entirely their decision and no one else's. And to 0:44:23.800 --> 0:44:26.920 that point, they didn't even if this was somebody that 0:44:26.920 --> 0:44:29.799 that deserved to be fired for reasons we don't know about, 0:44:30.400 --> 0:44:36.000 they didn't need to make it public and therefore point 0:44:36.080 --> 0:44:40.399 that mob towards Adria and then just sit back and 0:44:40.440 --> 0:44:43.880 say nothing as this mob pour her apart and she 0:44:43.920 --> 0:44:47.080 had to flee her home and locked down her entire 0:44:47.160 --> 0:44:49.440 online presence that she had been building forever, you know, 0:44:50.040 --> 0:44:54.359 totally completely Yeah, and looking at sin Grid, I'm sure 0:44:54.400 --> 0:44:58.040 that sin Grid, as a big tech company, loved having 0:44:58.080 --> 0:45:01.200 a visible black woman in tech when Adrian was making 0:45:01.200 --> 0:45:04.480 their company look very inclusive and forward looking. But when 0:45:04.480 --> 0:45:08.440 that same employee was facing racialized harassment, they did not 0:45:08.600 --> 0:45:11.279 support her. And this is sort of a side note, 0:45:11.280 --> 0:45:14.880 pet peeve of mine. People are so fond of saying 0:45:14.920 --> 0:45:18.759 things like, oh, support black women, champion black women, you know, 0:45:18.800 --> 0:45:23.840 support their leadership, without acknowledging that part of supporting the 0:45:24.040 --> 0:45:27.520 leadership of black women is also being honest about the 0:45:27.680 --> 0:45:29.840 climate that a lot of black women will be coming into. 0:45:30.000 --> 0:45:32.840 You know, if you're a visible black woman coming into 0:45:32.880 --> 0:45:36.239 a pretty white, pretty male field, you might have a 0:45:36.280 --> 0:45:39.239 little bit of a tougher time. And ignoring it and 0:45:39.280 --> 0:45:42.360 pretending that is not the case is not actually supporting 0:45:42.360 --> 0:45:44.960 black women. And so I always say, don't just support 0:45:44.960 --> 0:45:47.799 black women, also work to create the conditions where black 0:45:47.800 --> 0:45:50.759 women can actually have an equal playing field and and 0:45:50.840 --> 0:45:53.200 thrive in the work that you want to support them in. 0:45:54.120 --> 0:45:57.000 Um sen Grid also did not have to cave to 0:45:57.160 --> 0:46:01.040 these coordinated four chan mob attacks that were threatening their 0:46:01.080 --> 0:46:04.000 business via harassment and denial of service attacks, you know, 0:46:04.520 --> 0:46:06.320 fin Grid. If I had been running sin Grid, I 0:46:06.320 --> 0:46:09.520 would have said, you know, hey, people who are angry, 0:46:09.920 --> 0:46:12.800 we hear you, but our personnel decisions are our private 0:46:12.840 --> 0:46:16.120 business and we will handle this privately, even if they 0:46:16.160 --> 0:46:19.600 felt like Adria deserved to be reprimanded. I think it's 0:46:19.680 --> 0:46:22.800 pretty rich that in their statement public statement on Facebook 0:46:22.840 --> 0:46:26.400 about her firing, that they say that, oh, we're against 0:46:26.719 --> 0:46:30.279 public shaming, and Adria publicly shamed these men and then 0:46:30.320 --> 0:46:34.640 said nothing as Adria was harassed publicly with rape and 0:46:34.760 --> 0:46:38.280 death threats and racial slurs, and then fire her in public, 0:46:38.440 --> 0:46:42.879 completely inflaming the very public shaming that she was going through. 0:46:43.200 --> 0:46:46.440 It's just cowardly. And these are the exact same kind 0:46:46.480 --> 0:46:49.080 of tactics that would go on to fuel gamer Gate, 0:46:49.120 --> 0:46:52.280 you know, coordinating on message boards like Fortune to avenge 0:46:52.280 --> 0:46:56.000 some perceived grievance around women and feminists and marginalized people 0:46:56.400 --> 0:46:58.360 claiming power in a tech space. You know, in the 0:46:58.400 --> 0:47:01.120 case of gamer Gate video games, I would argue that 0:47:01.120 --> 0:47:04.919 if we had done some real collective analysis after dongle Gate, 0:47:05.400 --> 0:47:08.360 we might not then have allowed bad actors have basically 0:47:08.400 --> 0:47:11.680 do the exact same thing a year later with gaybor Gate. 0:47:11.800 --> 0:47:14.279 I think things would have gone very differently had we 0:47:14.320 --> 0:47:17.600 had some kind of public accounting for what actually happened, 0:47:17.800 --> 0:47:20.600 who were the major players, and what decisions allowed those 0:47:20.640 --> 0:47:23.279 tactics to be weaponized in that way. And I feel 0:47:23.320 --> 0:47:25.840 like today, you know, the targets may have changed, but 0:47:25.920 --> 0:47:28.719 the tactics are pretty much the same. You know, we 0:47:28.840 --> 0:47:31.480 still see the same kind of thing play out. A 0:47:31.560 --> 0:47:35.000 small handful of bad actors have pretty much used this 0:47:35.080 --> 0:47:37.080 playbook to get their way, and I think they're going 0:47:37.120 --> 0:47:40.840 to continue doing it until we do something. For example, 0:47:41.000 --> 0:47:43.520 by now, I think that most folks listening know that 0:47:43.600 --> 0:47:46.239 just this last week, there was a violent attack on 0:47:46.320 --> 0:47:49.640 Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi, who was attacked with a 0:47:49.760 --> 0:47:52.400 hammer to the head while he was sleeping by an 0:47:52.400 --> 0:47:55.600 assailant who claimed that he wanted to break Nancy Pelosi's 0:47:55.640 --> 0:47:58.839 knees to send a message of fear to other Democrats, 0:47:59.640 --> 0:48:02.200 and per of the writings of the accused attacker online, 0:48:02.560 --> 0:48:04.960 it was gamer Gate that, you know, for lack of 0:48:04.960 --> 0:48:08.560 a better word, radicalized him, and that he described gamer 0:48:08.560 --> 0:48:12.600 Gate as the turning point in his own trajectory politically. Now. 0:48:12.640 --> 0:48:15.080 I have a ton to say about this. We're gonna 0:48:15.080 --> 0:48:18.319 do a whole other episode later this week all about this, 0:48:18.680 --> 0:48:21.520 but I'll just say right now that gamer Gate provided 0:48:21.520 --> 0:48:24.640 this connection between the cultural and the political. You know, 0:48:24.840 --> 0:48:27.960 you're angry about women taking up space and technology and gaming, 0:48:28.200 --> 0:48:30.919 so you use these tactics to harass and attack them 0:48:30.960 --> 0:48:33.560 and take away their power. And it really created a 0:48:33.560 --> 0:48:37.320 blueprint for how those same tactics could be weaponized politically 0:48:37.360 --> 0:48:40.120 as well, which I think is exactly what we're seeing 0:48:40.200 --> 0:48:43.120 right now. And maybe if when all of this was 0:48:43.160 --> 0:48:46.160 happening with Adria Richards, if the takeaway hadn't been to 0:48:46.239 --> 0:48:48.879 just blame her for her own harassment and to think 0:48:48.920 --> 0:48:51.920 a little bit more clearly about how these same tactics 0:48:52.320 --> 0:48:55.759 might be perfected and abused and weaponized on larger and 0:48:55.840 --> 0:48:59.320 larger scales, targeting more and more people, maybe these gamer 0:48:59.360 --> 0:49:02.120 Gate tact would not be happening as part and parcel 0:49:02.239 --> 0:49:05.239 of our current political and social landscape now. You know, 0:49:05.400 --> 0:49:09.480 things like people coordinating on Facebook pages to flood schools 0:49:09.480 --> 0:49:12.840 with calls about teachers who they suspect of being lgbt Q, 0:49:13.239 --> 0:49:16.200 or you know, they suspect of teaching something that they 0:49:16.239 --> 0:49:19.720 don't like in schools, which happened to a Georgia school teacher, 0:49:20.160 --> 0:49:22.520 Cecilia Lewis, who will talk about in a later episode 0:49:22.520 --> 0:49:25.160 of this podcast. You know, that's definitely a tactic that 0:49:25.280 --> 0:49:30.160 I see that was really refined in dongle Gate and 0:49:30.239 --> 0:49:33.040 gamer Gate, and rather than taking some kind of action 0:49:33.520 --> 0:49:36.279 to have that not be a tactic that is so 0:49:36.360 --> 0:49:40.560 easily weaponized against people who are marginalized, now it's just 0:49:40.560 --> 0:49:42.279 a tactic that we all have to live with, whether 0:49:42.320 --> 0:49:44.600 you're marginalized or not. Now it's a Now, it's just 0:49:44.760 --> 0:49:49.400 part of our political and social landscape that unfortunately, I 0:49:49.480 --> 0:49:51.640 worry is not going to go away. In fact, is 0:49:51.680 --> 0:49:55.319 going to become worse. It also happened recently to a 0:49:55.320 --> 0:49:57.920 woman named Nina janko Witz, who was the former head 0:49:57.920 --> 0:50:01.440 of the Biden administration's Disinformation When It's board, who eventually 0:50:01.560 --> 0:50:04.000 had to resign and go into hiding after a right 0:50:04.040 --> 0:50:07.560 wing smear campaign against her. You know, I think it 0:50:07.600 --> 0:50:11.800 doesn't take that many people to really disrupt and shut 0:50:11.840 --> 0:50:16.080 down institutions if those institutions do not know how to 0:50:16.160 --> 0:50:19.920 handle it when one of their employees is being attacked 0:50:20.080 --> 0:50:23.799 in this coordinated way like these women have been. And 0:50:23.840 --> 0:50:26.319 it also is one of the reasons why, and I 0:50:26.360 --> 0:50:29.400 know this is perhaps a bit of an unpopular opinion 0:50:30.360 --> 0:50:35.040 why I think that it's not great when the internet 0:50:35.239 --> 0:50:39.080 rallies together to like call someone's boss to get them fired, 0:50:39.440 --> 0:50:43.359 even if I ostensibly agree with like, that person needs 0:50:43.360 --> 0:50:46.680 to be fired, right, I definitely have seen situations on 0:50:46.680 --> 0:50:49.240 the Internet where I'm like, oh, well, that person should 0:50:49.280 --> 0:50:51.440 not hold the office that they hold. But I just 0:50:51.520 --> 0:50:56.200 don't think that the tactic of coordinating people to call 0:50:56.320 --> 0:50:58.839 someone's an employer or to disrupt their work for their 0:50:58.880 --> 0:51:03.040 life is a good one because companies are cowardly and 0:51:03.080 --> 0:51:05.440 we know that they will cave to mobs, and I 0:51:05.480 --> 0:51:09.439 just think it turns into an easily gamified numbers game 0:51:09.760 --> 0:51:12.400 that I know, the worst people on the Internet can 0:51:12.440 --> 0:51:15.560 definitely coordinate to get a blood of angry emails or 0:51:15.600 --> 0:51:18.080 tweets to give the impression that there is a broad 0:51:18.160 --> 0:51:21.279 consensus where really there is none, you know, And I'm 0:51:21.280 --> 0:51:23.680 certainly not going to act like I don't find it 0:51:23.760 --> 0:51:27.520 cathartic when I'm being a video of a racist in 0:51:27.600 --> 0:51:30.880 public lose their jobs. I fucking love that ship. Who doesn't. Right, 0:51:30.920 --> 0:51:33.320 I'm not gonna say that, I I it's a good time. 0:51:34.000 --> 0:51:35.560 It's a good time. I'm not going to say that 0:51:35.640 --> 0:51:39.200 I'm like above that. But I just know that that 0:51:39.280 --> 0:51:44.759 tactic is so easily weaponized by bad actors coordinating for 0:51:44.920 --> 0:51:47.799 bad and so I just think it's something that as 0:51:47.920 --> 0:51:50.239 good stewards of the Internet, we have to really be 0:51:50.360 --> 0:51:55.000 careful when we traffic and tactics like that, because it 0:51:55.120 --> 0:51:57.920 is a tactic that is well worn by bad actors, 0:51:58.120 --> 0:51:59.720 and I don't think it's getting us to a place 0:51:59.760 --> 0:52:06.279 that is better on the Internet. Internet Hate Machine is 0:52:06.280 --> 0:52:09.040 a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from 0:52:09.040 --> 0:52:11.600 cool Zone Media, check out our website cool zone media 0:52:11.640 --> 0:52:14.000 dot com, or find us on the I Heart Radio app, 0:52:14.040 --> 0:52:16.640 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.