And wonders where the techies who are up in arms about this have been while this has been going on elsewhere:
Andy Carvin at PBS is coping a different way: By organizing a Stop Cyberbullies Day this Friday.
I sympathize and empathize greatly with Sierra. Death threats and misogynistic epithets and comments suck. But I find the response of the tech blogging elite rather underwhelming and unbecoming.
First, where have y’all been?
She then cites a variety of examples from her experience and that of others, stating:
My response to this and other endless slurs and threats–most empty, some serious–has been two-fold:
1) Report the serious threats to law enforcement.
2) Keep blogging.
As I have said before: “There is a time to be tolerant and there is a time to draw lines. If you don’t draw those lines, bullies will be emboldened.”
That is my unsolicited advice to those now cowering in the face of anonymous commenters and assorted nutballs who will never go away.
Keep blogging. Don’t cut and run.
Which is, I think, good advice. Because if not, the terrorists will have won.
As Michelle notes, the BBC is now on the story of the terrorized techie, whose brave decision to come forward has sparked this debate.
Which is where, I think, Michelle loses her patience:
But my unsolicited questions for all of you high-falutin’ tech bloggers now taking a stand against such hate-mongers and purging your blogrolls in solidarity with women bloggers who have been abused by the male-dominated tech world, though, are these:
Do you condone the Gawker empire’s racist Filipina ping-pong ball jokes?
What about Gawker’s fraudulent use and adulteration of personal spring break photos from college girls who have yet to receive an apology? Do you plan on objecting now?
Or is it just harmless fun when tech elite in-crowd bloggers smear and target other bloggers and innocent bystanders whose politics you oppose?
Just how much of the bullying you now loudly condemn–bullying glamorized by your own blog friends, peers, and business partners–have you been blindly and silently condoning all these years?
Oh, and while we’re all paying fresh attention to bloggers who have endured unacceptable abuse, where is the techblogging elite’s support for Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom? For the last eight months, he has battled the blogosphere’s looniest left-wing stalker. The ordeal has cost him time and money. It has affected his family. And his work. And his blog.
I called the apathy toward his personal and legal nightmare Kitty Genovese Syndrome, blog-style. It continues today.
Will there be a “Stop Cyberbullies Day” held in solidarity with Jeff?
I agree with Michelle that there is an (at least) double standard in operation here, and I agree that there are many on the left who believe that “people like Jeff Goldstein” deserve whatever they get because of the political views they express, or the way that they express themselves. And obviously, someone who writes a tech blog that doesn’t air obnoxious political views is going to be a person whom the majority of the MSM view with more sympathy. (Just for the record, she’s also a blonde woman, which is how we like our distressed damsels, right Ms. Plame?) And Michelle’s been a great supporter of Jeff’s blog, which I’ve mentioned before, and which I appreciate. I want to emphasize, though, that it’s not fair to expect people in the tech-blogosphere to have taken notice of what goes on in this neighborhood.
There is going to be a backlash against Michelle’s post, by lots of people who deplore her views and her expression of them. Those who lash out are not going to register what she’s written about her empathy towards Kathy Sierra and how she has no tolerance for misogynistic threats. They are going to talk about how Michelle is “attacking” a victim, and they are going to talk about her hypocrisy and her “enabling” of “masculinist” blogs like Protein Wisdom. And it will all be about their sensibilities, and how offensive to them is our vision of evenhandedness, because it doesn’t take into account the special circumstances surrounding yadda-yadda-yadda mau-mau-mau.
Michelle’s been there before, and she’ll deal with it. It’s just so tiresomely predictable.
Oh, and today’s my birthday, so please don’t go overboard expressing how badly Jeff’s blog has been affected without taking that into consideration. (All I want is a MONSTER TOAD, and maybe a penis mud pack).
David Thompson melts down. (The lunatic, not the blogger).
In the spring
a young man’s fancy
lightly turns to thoughts
of pooter
I just wanted to demonstrate that I can turn a phrase as aptly as I can turn a trick.
Happy birthday, you neocon racist Bu$hbot Rovian tool of the phallocentric eurpean white male hegemony!
Why, thank you very much! That’s the nicest characterization anyone’s ever made of me!
Happy birthday, oh decrepit toady (see, I worked a toad in there) or (possibly) sockpuppet of the Pasty One. Thanks for taking a break from fellating the entire administration to let us know!
Thanks, Slart! I needed to cleanse my palate anyway.
Seriously, thanks for that David Thompson clip. It’s nice to, periodically, recalibrate my relative sanity.
I’ve heard a little pickled Ginger is just the thing for palate-cleansing, but I’ve always been partial to the notion of an only slightly tipsy Mary Ann.
Happy birthday, Dan. And thanks for making it so clear that the David Thompson in the clip isn’t actually me. I’m now getting mail expressing concern for my wellbeing.
Happy Birthday Dan!
Birthday? Is that what they call the production date of evil Rovian cybernetic organisms built to spread da hate?
Hope you’re feeling better soon, David. Remember to take your meds, now.
But I’m wondering…what’s the weapon of choice? Tranquilizer dart? Taser? Net gun? Probably pepper spray is a little excessive.
Watching that, though…anyone else have a little Warren Zevon flashback?
“The lunatic, not the blogger.”
Yes, let’s be clear about that.
Wait…we have a little MPD going on, here?
The blogger seems to be sane enough, but that other guy is playing bridge with a euchre deck.
Happy Birthday Mr. Psychosexual Violence Supporter! Hope you’re happy with the blood of the 8 million poor, innocent free range bloggers who have died because of Rove-Hitlerian penis attacks being on your filthy, filthy hands.
I don’t have either of those to offer, but if you’d like, I could whip out (heh) a quick Adlerian analysis! I understand that such is a sign that you’ve made it!
Happy anniversary of your first expulsion Dan. Is the phrase “and many more” appropriate here?
tw: give45 – um, I was thinking a bit less . .
Because you and she are self-absorbed doesn’t mean everyone else is that fascinated with you.
To whom was that addressed?
And yet you’re here.
bwahahahhaha
okay, this is just getting good. Back after my shower.
And yet, you are.
GET YOUR FILTHY BLOG OFF HER UTERUS, RACIST!
That’s only 316 hits, Pablo, and probably only half of those are unique. A truly fascinated individual would have posted thousands of articles mentioning Malkin. And we’re not even broaching the subject of TROs.
Ah, yes. Little wonder Mandy’s ears were burning. Who does that bitch Malkin think she is, thinking for herself and drawing reasonable conclusions from her own observations? She’s fucking up the metanarrative, the stupid godbag!
It’s my fuckin’ birthday, Marcotte. I get to be self-absorbed, stupid tampon.
I’ll let this post stay up, but I’m not happy with it. First, I don’t like posts that appear so self-serving. Second, I don’t like certain incidents to be discussed here on this site, even in quotes from others. And third, I don’t find it particularly gracious.
You write that Michelle can’t expect people in the tech blogosphere to notice what goes on over here, and yet you took notice of what was going on over there. For a time, my situation was at the top of Technorati, and it made mainstream media outlets.
I personally don’t care how people try to turn Michelle’s post against her. I am thankful there are people out there who remember what’s been going on with me, and who are cognizant of the fact that I am losing revenue, my traffic, my standing in the blogosphere, and many many precious hours of family time thanks to an ongoing battle with an obsessed and jobless woman.
But my wife and I made a vow to see this thing through, and so we’re doing what has to be done. And I greatly appreciate the support of high profile people like Michelle, who serve, on occasion, to remind people that my family’s travails—though I don’t post on them for legal reasons—are ongoing.
Otherwise, this site may have just dried up and blown away.
John Edwards must just be absolutely crushed to have lost a writer of such ability and intellect. I am disappointed she didn’t grace us with one of those “shorter” bits, I think those illuminate her true genius.
Totally OT: When Law prof Paul Campos pontificates on hypocrisy, people tend to roll their eyes…
I hate being the dumbass in the room and I really hate admitting it, but who is David Thompson and why should anyone care? BTW I’m blocked from viewing the video at the link.
David Thompson (not to be confused with the blogger David Thompson, even though they inhabit the same body*) is some highly excitable boy who’s angry about helicopters and hockey rinks, to mention a couple of pet peeves of his.
I suspect if there were zoning regulations against having too many pet peeves in one house (the way there are for, for instance, house cats), Mr. Thompson would be in violation, I think.
*Not really. Just poking the anthill.
1) You always have to love it when someone who claims they aren’t interested in what you have to say goes out of thier way to find you and remind you, pointedly, that they have no interest in you.
2) Michelle Malkin need not refrain from things for fear of being criticized for them – she suffers enough slings and arrows for being who she is to render them irrelevant. Besides, grotesque attacks say more about the assailant than the victim.
3) Happy Birthday to Dan,
Hapy Birthday to Dan,
Neocon Bloodchicken Hitlerburton Trans-fatty Acid Hitlerburton Denominationalist Christofascist and/or Bhuddofascist Paternalistic Phallocentric Proxy Joooooooooooooo!
Happy Birthday to you!
4) I’ve observed that as the “tech community” has become more media-savvy and popularized, it has largely lost its “Libertarian edge” and general free-wheeling nature (replaced by simplistic moral free-wheeling). A chunk seem to have been replaced by classic College Liberals (probably as computer education has become mainstream), others are the result of “Media Popularity” (Wired Magazine and other journalism graduates going from reporting to “trendsetting”).
Slashdot even had its own “September that never ended” in approximately 2004, when occasional political disputes, primarily obscure, morphed into raging BDS that drove a lot of people whose primary interest is tech off – and permanently changing the character of the average poster AFAICT.
A lot of the old-school wildly open-minded geeks seem to have been replaced with eccentrics obsessed with trivia and childish repetition of silly memes (Pastafarianism?), but maybe after the first round of expansion, no community can ever match its initial “creativity” ro appearance thereof. Or maybe I’m just being nostalgic.
…
Don’t ask me where I was going with that.
So is the 27th or the 28th your birthday, Dan? I suppose you want me to lay off any hypocrisy-identification in honor of the occasion. Glad to. But it’s the 28th now, and I’m getting this tic…
Oh, and happy birthday.
It’s the 28th, Angie. Sorry about the tic.
Hippy Uterine-Eviction Day Dan!
If your mother had been Asian, would that have been a disorienting experience?
I’m sorry to have offended you, Jeff, as I am generally sorry to have offended people whom I don’t dislike. I am not sure exactly how you think that my post’s ungracious, but insofar as it seems that way, I’m sorry for that, too. I believe I’ve noted my appreciation of Michelle often enough that a difference of opinion on this issue isn’t seen as a slam.
Well, yes, I did. But then I troll (in the piscatorial sense) memeorandum and tailrank and some other places that I don’t imagine most people do. At the time Cathy Seipp died, somebody named <a href=”http://www.dailygut.com/?i=2364 “ target=”_blank”>Steven Furtick </a>was #1 on Technorati. I didn’t know who he was, and I still don’t, and frankly haven’t much interest in finding out.
Of course, very little could compete with this incident for cruelty, but happy birthday might have been nice.
Happy Birthday, Dan.
Sorry if I came off as abrupt, but I spent the morning doing yet another round of screencaps related to a particular case I don’t find it useful to discuss here.
Tends to put one in a foul mood—and tends to make any “difference of opinion” with somebody who took the time to stand up for me, especially when that difference of opinion comes from my site, seem poorly timed.
In my opinion.
Which of course is no reflection on you personally.
Thanks, Jeff. I do mean, by the way, that I’m sorry to have posted it without checking with you. It was thoughtless.
It’s the 28th, Angie.
OK. twitch I’ll just save twitch it for tomortwitchrow—Ow!—then.
If it makes you feel any better, I don’t see how your post was ungracious to Michelle either, although I do see how Jeff would want us to refrain from discussing that thing we shouldn’t discuss.
w007! Happy Birthday, Dan! obviously, people born in March are the best.
Thanks, Maggie.
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