Blogging culture, which is often at least partially anonymous, is going overboard. Death threats have forced blogger Kathy Sierra to cancel speaking engagements and stay in her house.
I’ve also received death threats in the comments on this blog and TechCrunch, and people have said they will kill my dog. I’ve had a lot of parties at my house and my address is fairly easy to find, so these comments do make me sleep poorly sometimes. But for the most part I ignore them. As a man, I am far less likely statistically to be stalked or attacked than a woman. In some ways, I see it as a cost to doing business.
A lot of people we interact with daily seem very normal. But put them behind a keyboard and allow them to make anonymous comments and some really evil stuff can result. There’s no clear line as to what’s acceptable and not acceptable. But if you find yourself making anonymous attack comments that may be going overboard, ask yourself if you really want to be causing people the kind of pain that Kathy is going through. And then just stop.
I’ve also added my tinu voice to this as well. This type of behavoir is totally unacceptable - not to mention disgusting.
http://www.winextra.com/2007/03/26/blogosphere-death-threats-definitely-not-cool/
(thanks for the heads up on this on Twitter)
“There’s no clear line as to what’s acceptable and not acceptable”
I guess I would probably draw the line well below death threats. And I’d probably consider tracking down and taking action (if possible) if death was involved. I mean, they track down kids for stealing songs, death is a little more serious. There’s no excuse for going that far.
This is sickening and totally unacceptable.
I have no doubt these people will be caught by the police and I truly hope they get what they deserve.
As a man - but as one who often online (and offline at times as well) am assumed to be a woman due to the gender neutralness of my name - I am troubled by these recent events - and the general tone of much of internet/geek culture.
I am always surprised by the assumption that programming and technology is a “man’s” (well more often “boys”) world. In most other modern areas women have made huge advances (indeed in graduate schools they now make up a near majority of students).
I do not think it is anything inherently “male” about computers or computer science - rather I think it is the culture much of it online now that has built up around “geeks”.
We all suffer for this - men and women. The more insular and self-limiting our culture, the less relevant, the less in touch with everyone’s needs it becomes.
My cousin (a woman) has recently graduated college and is thinking about graduate school - I have been encouraging her to continue in science, perhaps in math at the PhD level - but though she loves it (and is very smart) all around her are too many models of females in “social” fields - and too few in “hard sciences”.
I think besides supporting Kathy we, men and women alike, should think about how to make the online world(s) - and the geek culture of events and networks more inclusive, less prone to misogyny, and encouraging of women - not as sexual objects but as fellow geeks and skilled individuals.
Anonymity is pretty complicated - it has a lot of value, but it also gives rise to easy bad behavior - seemingly consequence free actions.
Shannon
Hey Shannon,
>the general tone of much of internet/geek culture
Well, you don’t have to look too far. See the comments to the demo video by Ning co-founder Gina Bianchini that was posted on TechCrunch: http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/02/27/ning-demo-video/#comments
Comment threads like those create an environment that’s extemely demaning to women. Is it any order of magnitude close to death threats? No. Does leaving those types of comments up on respected blogs embolden the sickos? Maybe.
Right on, Michael, and I’m glad you and lots of other people are blogging in support of Kathy.
And I’m really sorry to hear about you also getting threatened and feeling the hate… that sucks.
Disgusting situation, but not altogether surprising considering the web has very ugly corners and shaded areas
Threw my support Kathy’s way.
It’s one thing to disagree with somebody passionately, but it’s quite another to threaten people (or their animals, that’s just lame Mike, sorry to hear about that too).
I, too, hope whomever is responsible is prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Mike equally sickened. Maybe either do what Scoble has done and not post for a week in protest and/or turn off anonymous comments. Finally add in openid support to comments and possibly it is harder to comment but at least people cannot hide. If you make a negative comment then be man or women enough to identify yourself and publically stand by your opinions.
It’s my hope that any legal professionals who are at the top of their game reach out to Kathy and offer their pro bono assistance to her. If you’re a legal professional who excels at seeking and winning damages in civil suits, please offer your assistance to Kathy and help her litigate against any involved parties. While nothing can undo the harm of the words said and threats made, it will hopefully deter future actions like this if others realize the enormous legal bill that their irresponsible words can create.
I just hope that when wordpress.com deleted the offending blog for breaking terms of service they didn’t delete the data to find the perpetrator. Wordpress.com usually says that deleted blogs are irretrievable.
I don’t think anonymity is as big of a culprit as people make out — a lot of the people involved in meankids.org weren’t anonymous. Being an asshat is a bigger issue than being anonymous.
Couldn’t agree more - the web is ugly, and it has been this way since the very early days. I remember even old BBS’s where users would slur abuse at each other and threaten each others lives.
What worries me is that women are particularly susceptible.
I am not sure what can be done about it though - but not blogging for a week only makes the threats more effective and gives these people more of an incentive to continue with their ways.
Mike, I somewhat suprised that you still allow the purile sexist comments on TechCrunch (linked to above).
Actions speak louder than words - why not delete those pathetic comments to show that such behaviour is not tolerated?
Nik - just ignoring these comments and pretending it’s not happening is not the method to stamp it out. I fully support Robert in his bold, clear statement that he does not tolerate this behaviour.
I just saw what they wrote on MeanKids about Maryam. What I wrote was written BEFORE I saw that (someone emailed me the cache).
I’m a lot more pissed now. What they wrote was hate speech. I demand an apology — written in public — from all of those involved.
Totally disgusting speech.
Let’s start with Christopher Locke. He’s trying to defend his meankids.org site (he pulled it down, so you gotta do digging around Google’s caches).
He totally doesn’t get it. And, this is from a “Cluetrain Manifesto” type.
I thought these people were my friends. I guessed wrong.
While this is indeed entirely unacceptable, this kind of behaviour has been going on since the start of chat-mediums. You won’t believe the kind of threats one used to get for saying something not so positive about Bush, for instance. Most of these flamers are clearly kids, however, and what are you going to do? Ban kids from the internet? Never gonna happen, and all we can really do is ignore them (and install better flame-filters).
The line is not clear?
The line is formed by people standing shoulder to shoulder, not by some airtight logic. The sign on the line reads:
We’ll be unreasonable if you cross this line.
As for deleting comments - that always is a poor thing to do just that. It needs explanation just like with children. How shall they learn that this is not acceptable behaviour just by removing it?
Don, that is a great line and very true. The problem with that is when the people standing together may be many, but are not how all people interact.
Many of us have a clear view now that that is crossed the line and should not be - but where does that start? It is sad, but I think it is probably necessary like a kid needs to learn the hard way that putting a hand in the fire hurts.
Or needs to see other kids crying when doing so and then come to conclusions.
Nicole,
Explanation and deletion are not mutually incompatible. On the contrary, I think they reinforce one another. If nothing else, one can surely delete and explain at the same time. Just because you’ve deleted someone’s comment doesn’t mean you can’t offer them an explanation.
Gabe agreed. It is a slipery slope though - in the end if you do not deal with my comments and delete them all the time, I will just write them somewhere else.
Deleting them does not make them go away. Unless you do understand this, just deleting them will not do the trick.
Mike, it would be nice you would think about the comment you emailed me a few minutes ago.
Tony
I have difficulty taking anyone seriously who calls in the police, and blogs about it. You do one or the other, not both. I’ve read that Sierra is appearing on TV with the person she pointed the finger at. If this is true, I’m not convinced this is really about personal safety. Appearing on a TV show with someone you claim has threatened your life has to be about publicity. Before this, I’d never heard of her.
Sierra had quite innovative way to promote herself! For a while I even felt sorry for her…