Which is not surprising. Even the article posits that this is not an issue with any one person, but with the hacker community and culture as a whole. Shrugging your shoulders and saying "Well, users flagged it" is very much in line with the kind of behavior he's criticizing.
> Our community has persistent and pervasive problems of a particular sort which we are not allowed to talk about: sexual harassment and assault. Men who assault, harass, and even rape women in our spaces, are protected.
This is completely alien to my personal experience. Does this match anyone else's personal experience? Have I just avoided all the objectionable events by sheer luck?
If this statement is true, I would have expected to have observed at least some harassment or mild assault by now, but I haven't. I can't think of an instance. I mean, one time I saw some guy grab some girl's ass, but it turned out she was his wife.
> I attended a hacker event this year – HiP Berlin – where I discovered that some of the organizers had cooperated to make it possible for multiple known rapists to participate, working together to find a way to circumvent the event’s code of conduct – a document that they were tasked with enforcing.
This is just kind of strange. It's not clear what he means by "circumvent" the code of conduct. Is he saying that they were rapists in the opinions of the organizers? And that if they were rapists in the opinions of the organizers then they should have barred them from the event, but they didn't?
I would assume that the most likely situation is that something happened which Drew thinks means the people in question are "known rapists" but the event organizers did not. And not knowing the facts, we can't really say which of them is right.
I mean, unless I'm supposed to just believe that Drew is right because he's speaking up about a difficult topic or something like that. At the risk of potentially silencing marginalized people with extraordinary standards of evidence: no, I won't just believe him.
> This is completely alien to my personal experience. Does this match anyone else's personal experience? Have I just avoided all the objectionable events by sheer luck?
I've seen this a lot, folks protecting and defending men (in particular) that assault women. They do it under the guise of "innocent until proven guilty," as though we are operating as agents in courts of law. That's what Drew is describing in the post, in different words. You may have been lucky enough to avoid seeing this but it definitely happens.
> Some of us have events in our past that we try not to think about, because if we think too hard, we might realize that we crossed the line. This fills men with guilt and uncertainty, but also fear. We know the consequences if our doubts became known ...
> So we lash out in this fear. We close ranks. We demand the most stringent standards of evidence to prove anything, evidence that we know is not likely to be there
Let me get this straight here: sexually assaulting someone -> defensiveness -> expecting evidence
So his criticism of people who expect evidence of assault is that they're really just defensive closet rapists? This seems like a really bizarre take, I wonder why he's making it
Couldn't a more reasonable take be that more egregious allegations require more rigorous proof (and more extreme consequences for lying)? What's unreasonable about that expectation?
If I go around accusing John Appleseed of murder and manage to fuck up his entire life, are you saying I should just be able to get away with that because murder is bad or under-prosecuted?
I don't think naming names in this post is necessarily the best action. This would only serve to reproduce the idea that the problem is individual rapists who need to be punished. Instead, Drew is pointing towards systems which need to be transformed, in order to make our communities safer.
For example, the story about the conference, why was it possible for malicious organisers to hack the safety protocols? Making spaces safer requires recognising the roles that decision-making protocols and organisational structures, among other components, have in enabling rapists to act.
Well-said? He approached a sensitive topic by prefacing it with horse shit about how all "free[-]speech absolutists" in cyberspace are not victims of hate speech, therefore they go out of their way "to defend hate speech". This is false, and anyone who does this and claims to be such an absolutist, is lying to themselves and to everyone else around them, because they do not understand what free speech even entails.
I'm targeted (either personally or blanketed) by all manners of what most people would call bigotry and hate speech, and I still defend the position that such speech should be considered protected under free-speech doctrine, because for one, it gives me a clear indicator of what those people really think about me, rather than anyone having to beat around the bush and hope that I understand that they're a transphobe or whatever. And for another, it empowers me with the exact same language I can use to defend myself. On top of that, this kind of shit enters dangerous territory when it comes to the rights of parody authors or, say, black comedy. Fuck that.
Calls to action (the "shouting fire" or, more relevant here, calls for genocide or other hate crimes) are not protected under free speech. Devault is kidding himself by misinterpreting or simply not bothering to understand a definition that has been solidified by many a historical philosopher. They all came back with the same conclusion, and somehow that's lost on the masses today.
I admit to not having read the full article because I already have an idea of what the rest of it is about (after hearing what Devault dealt with early this year, from his own talk with me) and I don't feel comfortable endorsing this post at all when the entire first page is blasphemous.
This reads like chatGPT generated rubbish. And based on your post history (historically short comments, and then lately more longer-form content like this) I guess that is the case.
While I do agree on most of the points, the conclusion "Tell People That All They Have to Do Is to Not Listen" does not follow and is borderline offensive. Are you really saying that the solution to racism and discrimination is to just ignore it?
Here's some points I grabbed from ChatGPT.
Complexity of Speech: While the idea of 'just don't listen' might sound simple in theory, it does not consider the nuanced complexities of real-life situations. There are circumstances where hateful or harmful speech can incite actual physical harm or can propagate harmful stereotypes.
The Impact on the Vulnerable: Telling people to simply 'not listen' can be especially problematic for vulnerable groups or minorities who are often the target of hate speech. For them, it's not just about ignoring the speech; it's about navigating the real-world implications and potential threats that come with it.
A Shared Responsibility: While individuals can choose to 'not listen', it's important to note that platforms, corporations, and societies also play a role in moderating and guiding the discourse.
I acknowledge that I am addressing a community of highly educated, intelligent, and sophisticated individuals. In order to maintain respectful discourse, I freely admit to using AI to refine my thoughts and present them in a way that is both concise and informative. However, I am troubled by the fact that I am being judged by my perceived lack of intelligence and education. I understand that free speech comes with a responsibility to not use it to harm others, but only when that harm is not tangental to real harm. We all have the right to live freely, and we should allow others to do the same, regardless of their political, religious, or other dogmatic views.
Yes the solution to racist speech is to just ignore it.
You seem to be though equating speech with racism. Racism typically takes many other forms. The racism you cannot ignore is when it’s violence, or policies or the like. Neither of those is free speech.
So yes if it’s racist * speech* in the sense of truly just words, then yes. Ignore it.
It's less of an equation and more of a counter example for how absurdly oversimplified and privileged the position of "just ignore it" is.
>Yes the solution to racist speech is to just ignore it.
Citation needed. As a foreigner living in Germany it's pretty obvious they've drawn different conclusions than that.
I'll also point out that there is nothing obvious about how free speech is defined (by Americans). There's obviously limits to speech, it's just been delineated into the constitutional "free speech" and the colloquial notion of "free speech". Which you seem to be conflating (or assuming that I care about). The OP is squarely about the more colloquial understanding of the word.
Given that the "First Amendment" is purely a US thing, and applies only to the Government curbing speech, I am not sure how much of this really applies anywhere else and in any other context?
There are some limits on free speech though. From the top of my head:
a) Speech that spreads outright lies about someone, damaging their reputation for the sake of that damage, etc (libel & related). Knowingly spread lies, prepare to be held accountable.
b) Outright calls to incite violence, call for one group of citizens to go out & attack another group, and so on. There is (and should be) no room for that in a civilized society.
Libel isn’t not really a limit on the first amendment. It’s not a criminal offense and the government doesn’t have a law against it.
It’s just a civil offense for which you can be sued. So I think the language of the first amendment (the government shall pass no laws…) still stands true.
"If you said something like "the First Amendment only stops the government from censoring you so it doesn't apply to this civil case, which is one individual suing another.""
Is there any transparency with regards to moderation here, now that I think of it?