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

[(Anonymous)]

It bothers me immensely for the situation to have become so bad that you have to consider your personal safety a factor affecting your choice of online activities. That just sums up so much of the problem right there.

[denise]

*nod* It really, really does. And, see -- not to say anything about your specific reaction, this is just a general observation I've noticed in previous rounds of this discussion -- this is the kind of thing that is, IMO, one of the most major points of disconnect whenever the discussion takes place. Group A (often, but not entirely, composed of women) mention that online harassment and threats of reprisal have made them fearful for their safety, or has caused them to curtail their (online or offline) behavior. Most everyone who's been online in any fashion for more than about, oh, ten minutes, has seen some forms of online harassment, chest-thumping, hyperbolic language, idle threats, etc -- things of the "I'm gonna hit you until candy comes out" kind of exaggeration. Group B, hearing a statement from a member of Group A to the effect of "online harassment has made me fear for my life", thinks said member of Group A is referring to the kind of harassment everyone sees, not realizing it's more systemic, more sinister, and more creepy than the usual chest-thumping. (Which, I mean, the usual chest-thumping is not all that great either, but it's not something that most people would consider credible threats.)

So, some members of Group B might think our member of Group A is just being hypersensitive, and make comments coming from that perspective, which leads to "you're just hysterical/oversensitive" type discussions -- which, when the member of Group A is a member of a historically-underprivileged group, has a lot of really ugly historical resonances. (Outside the scope of this comment, really, and I'm having trouble off the top of my head locating a good resource for why that type of discourse is so ugly, but Finally Feminism 101 would be where I'd look in depth -- maybe somebody else driving by would be able to offer a good resource there.) So of course our member of Group A thinks that our members of Group B is telling her that this kind of behavior is acceptable in the community, while most if not all of our member of Group B would possibly be horrified if they realized what was really going on.

This disconnect is one of the reasons why I am, ultimately, glad that these discussions are happening, even when they're personally tiresome or disheartening or exhausting, and it's why I'm so thankful for the many fierce and courageous women who have spoken up to detail their lived experience, and why I'm so thankful for the many supportive allied men (such as our host for this discussion!) who speak up to say no, it actually is like that, even if you don't see it. Whenever I personally wind up disheartened about "oh god, this conversation again?" I remember that I have been told at least a double dozen times that something I've said or done or shown has helped to convince someone else that there is a problem and help inspire them to act on it, and that's a really heartening feeling.

(And that's something that allied men can do that's really simple and easy, and helps so much -- you really have no idea how much -- in discussions of sexism in geek communities: just speak up and say "yes, I believe you, and yeah, everybody else, it really is that bad, and yes, this is not okay." It may feel like it's nothing big and nothing special, but hearing that at the right time has personally kept me going a lot of the time, and there's proven research stating that members of $group will hear things from other members of $group that they just won't hear from members of $notgroup.)

[gedmin.as]

I hear you, and I agree, that this is not okay.

For many years I had no clue that this sort of harassment was going on, and I was shocked when I found out. If speaking up helps, I will speak up.

[denise]

It really, really, really helps when people say that. Thank you :)

[(Anonymous)]

I've seen that same disconnect before, and you've just provided the clearest explanation of it that I've ever seen.

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.)