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Feeding the trolls
A few years ago I got up on stage and briefly talked about how the Linux community contained far too many people who were willing to engage in entirely inappropriate behaviour, how this discouraged people from getting involved and how we weren't very good at standing up against that sort of behaviour. Despite doing this in front of several hundred people, and despite the video of me doing so then being uploaded to the internet, this got me a sum total of:
Which is, really, what you'd expect, right? The internet seems intent on telling me otherwise:
Well, she didn't do herself any favors by talking at conferences about women in tech, or setting up a feminist movement. If you wanted to attract abuse, that's a good way to go about it. It should be expected.
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MikeeUSA is a troll. He has no means to actually harm anyone, and he does it purely for the lulz.
Thus, MikeeUSA trolled a woman, and she took the bait. I just don't get why this is news, I've been trolled before, I don't get a news story.
(Source)
I was going to start a rant about how this behavior is encouraged by the macho men online, but this was just one guy harassing her. "Due to harassment" reads as due to harassment from the community, but she gave in to one idiot. She let him win.
(Source)
The full comment thread has rather more examples. If you stand up and say anything controversial, you should expect abuse. And if you let that abuse change your behaviour in any way, you've let the trolls win.
These attitudes are problematic.
The immediate assumption underlying such advice is that the degree of abuse is related to what you've said, not who you are. I'm reasonably visible in the geek world. I've said a few controversial things. The worst thing that's happened to me has been Ryan Farmer deciding to subscribe me to several thousand mailing lists. Inconvenient, but not really threatening. I haven't, for instance, been sent death threats. Nobody has threatened to rape me. And even if they had done, I wouldn't need to worry too much - there's a rather stronger track record of violent antifeminism being targeted at women than men.
I don't have to worry about this kind of thing. That means I don't get to tell other people that they should have expected it. Nor do I get to tell them that they should ignore it, or that if they don't call the police then they have no grounds to complain. And nor does anyone else.
The trolls don't win because someone decides that getting out of the tech business is more appealing than continuing to face abuse. The trolls win because we consider their behaviour acceptable and then blame the victim for inviting them in the first place. That needs to change.
[1] It was justifiably pointed out that saying all this while standing on stage next to a mostly naked guy wearing a loincloth with a raccoon tail covering his penis may have weakened my message somewhat.
- No death threats
- No discussion about any of my physical attributes or lack thereof
- No stalkers
- No accusations that I was selling out the Linux community
- No accusations that I was a traitor to my gender
- No real negative feedback at all[1]
Which is, really, what you'd expect, right? The internet seems intent on telling me otherwise:
Well, she didn't do herself any favors by talking at conferences about women in tech, or setting up a feminist movement. If you wanted to attract abuse, that's a good way to go about it. It should be expected.
(Source)
MikeeUSA is a troll. He has no means to actually harm anyone, and he does it purely for the lulz.
Thus, MikeeUSA trolled a woman, and she took the bait. I just don't get why this is news, I've been trolled before, I don't get a news story.
(Source)
I was going to start a rant about how this behavior is encouraged by the macho men online, but this was just one guy harassing her. "Due to harassment" reads as due to harassment from the community, but she gave in to one idiot. She let him win.
(Source)
The full comment thread has rather more examples. If you stand up and say anything controversial, you should expect abuse. And if you let that abuse change your behaviour in any way, you've let the trolls win.
These attitudes are problematic.
The immediate assumption underlying such advice is that the degree of abuse is related to what you've said, not who you are. I'm reasonably visible in the geek world. I've said a few controversial things. The worst thing that's happened to me has been Ryan Farmer deciding to subscribe me to several thousand mailing lists. Inconvenient, but not really threatening. I haven't, for instance, been sent death threats. Nobody has threatened to rape me. And even if they had done, I wouldn't need to worry too much - there's a rather stronger track record of violent antifeminism being targeted at women than men.
I don't have to worry about this kind of thing. That means I don't get to tell other people that they should have expected it. Nor do I get to tell them that they should ignore it, or that if they don't call the police then they have no grounds to complain. And nor does anyone else.
The trolls don't win because someone decides that getting out of the tech business is more appealing than continuing to face abuse. The trolls win because we consider their behaviour acceptable and then blame the victim for inviting them in the first place. That needs to change.
[1] It was justifiably pointed out that saying all this while standing on stage next to a mostly naked guy wearing a loincloth with a raccoon tail covering his penis may have weakened my message somewhat.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2011-11-04 10:11 pm (UTC)(link)For a long time, I had no idea about the depth of the problem. I believed that a problem existed, because people said it did, and because I'd seen the occasional bit of questionable behavior in public; however, I mostly lumped it into the same category as various other immature comments of the sort you might see quoted on bash.org, and certainly never into the category of "fear-inducing".
Then I started occasionally seeing real explanations and reports of harassment, threats, and worse. And suddenly, I started to grasp the real severity of the problem.
Now, I'd like to think I understand the problem as well as anyone can who has not personally experienced it and who doesn't personally claim membership in any
group subject to these kinds of problems.
So, for the record, if I ever find people doubting that this problem exists, or misunderstanding the severity, I can definitively say that the problem *does* exist, and I can point to some of the mails and comments mentioned in this discussion if anyone doubts the severity. Count me as one of the people who agrees that this behavior is *not OK*, and will say so if it helps.
(On a related note, I also think some males want to avoid coming across as the stereotypical whiteknighting male defender role, which attracts its own form of ire, and taken to extremes represents an entirely different form of somewhat patronizing discrimination. There's a certain social convention to just shut up if you're not a member of the ingroup in question.)