Feeding the trolls

[mjg59]

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:

• 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.

Comments

Re: Community

[(Anonymous)]

(Another different anonymous here.)

This comment struck home for me a bit. I highly support the efforts of geek feminism groups and individuals; I think that as a community we have a serious problem that needs solutions, and I applaud the people working to change that. However, at the same time, I also frequently feel like I can't participate in discussions about any of these topics, for fear of retaliation as part of "them" for not wholeheartedly agreeing with 100% of the party line. ("You're either with us or you're against us.")

In my case, I hold the opinion that we should treat gender as an entirely superficial factor, just like hair color or height. Thus, I take offense at comments like the ones quoted in this blog post (blaming the victims is *never* OK), and even more offense at the original trolling that led to the comments. However, I also take offense at attempts to treat people non-equally in any direction, rather than simply fixing the problems in the first place. It bothers me that I feel afraid to express the latter opinion.

I'm not saying that the name-and-shame approach should never get used, and I actually agree with its use in this case (the comments quoted here don't seem to be legitimate attempts at contributing to discussion, but rather intentionally offensive statements). However, I wish that the "with us or against us" view would allow some room for the possibility of people who agree with the goals of the movement while still wishing to have a discussion about the methods used to reach those goals.

Re: Community

[(Anonymous)]

+1

Re: Community

[reddragdiva]

"I hold the opinion that we should treat gender as an entirely superficial factor, just like hair color or height."

This is the ideal. For it to work this way in practice, the situation would have to be much nearer to zero than it is. The common assertion that this is the way it should be therefore reacting to people saying "there's a problem" as if they're just making unnecessary trouble ... is observably adding to the problem.

Re: Community

[(Anonymous)]

Just because I believe that we *should* treat it that way doesn't mean I don't recognize the serious problem that we don't currently do so, nor would I treat most attempts to solve the problem as "making unnecessary trouble". I very much appreciate most efforts to solve the problem. Occasionally, someone proposes a potential solution which would have the effect of introducing new forms of bias or differentiation, and in those cases I disagree with such solutions; I wrote the comment I did to say that ideally I'd like to do so as part of a rational discussion without getting treated as "part of the problem" myself.