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Meredith and Andrea were, according to too many people yesterday: untrustworthy and biased. Many comments here urged everyone to suspend judgement, not rush to

Meredith and Andrea were, according to too many people yesterday: untrustworthy and biased. Many comments here urged everyone to suspend judgement, not rush to conclusions and not take allegations overly seriously. (Not always a bad idea, but apparently much less important today.) Now that Nick has written his story however, it goes back on the front page of HN and the comments here basically support it as totally credible. (Which of course, Nick is pretty solid, so it likely is. Just as Meredith, Andrea and many others are solid and credible.) Don't get me wrong, I very very much think that Nick should write up his story and feelings. But I think a lot of people need to examine themselves closely for why they couldn't believe the women who shared their stories yesterday, but now can today. This is why women come forward less often. People have a shocking tendency not to believe them, no matter how credible or well known they are. Please learn from this.

powera 10y ago
I'm not sure why people would have thought that Meredith and Andrea were biased. All they said was "Jacob was accused of sexual harassment", and they said it before the Tor release confirming exactly what they said. On the other hand, the http://jacobappelbaum.net/ http://jacobappelbaum.net/ site is clearly biased. If the only thing you can see is that all of those are women accusing Jacob of sexual harassment, you're probably sexist.
rdl 10y ago
I was equally slow to fully believe Nick until he posted details (which he did). In general I'll evaluate someone's own claims on their merit (including personal credibility), but am a lot less likely to base actions on third party hearsay. If any of the rape accusers posts a similarly detailed account with verifiable facts (easier under his or her own name, but still can be anonymous) those can be taken seriously too. Nick's account isn't the end of the process; it is the beginning. Now you have to evaluate, give the other parties a chance to respond, etc. Not pre-judging doesn't mean never judging.
- djcapelis 10y ago
  Hey Ryan, Let me just start by saying I think you're a totally reasonable person and I respect your thoughts,[1] so let's talk some more about why we've come down seeing things a bit differently here. So first off, I think that I've seen a lot more consistency from you than from other parts of the Internet. And that's cool, consistency is worth doing and I also agree skepticism is good. It's a value I hold. It's a value I know Meredith holds too. What is also true though, and I think anyone who examines this closely will also come to the conclusion that claims women make get a much higher degree of skepticism, accusations of bias and face a much higher bar before being accepted or believed. So even when you just compare responses to tweets people made (Nick tweeted yesterday too) or longer form stories that people wrote (that one site has collected a bunch now) you'll see the stark difference in how people respond to things posted by women vs. things posted by men. It contributes a lot to why being on the Internet as a woman is a much more problematic thing and why women don't get taken seriously. It's a real thing, and it'd be best if we were able to learn more from it. Please feel free to spend some more time to examine various threads and comments in various places. I'm sure you'll come to your own conclusions and I'll be interested to hear what you think. [1] You may not know me, but we've got some mutual friends and I've generally appreciated your commentary before being pretty on the level!
  - rdl 10y ago
    I'd generally agree that sexual claims are taken more skeptically, and that the way they're dismissed tends to be different (and gendered). Ironically while sexual claims are dismissed more, male-victim sexual claims are dismissed even more than female-victim sexual claims (although female-victim is more common, outside prison/military). I see this more as a sexual/violence/sexual-violence vs. professional ethics/other difference. In this specific case, I think you'll see non-sexual claims from men and women treated the same (although trolls probably dismiss them in a gender-specific way, i.e. going after Andrea's appearance and after Nick in other ways). I don't think ethical issues other than sexual issues would be treated/believed substantially differently based on the gender of the victim here. (I also think a lot of people are uncomfortable discussing sexual violence related problems, so while those certainly need to be addressed as well, if some people only want to focus on the plagiarism/ethics/work-stealing/etc. aspects, that seems like it could still be positive. Doesn't mean other people can't pursue the sexual/violence related issues with a person.)
anc84 10y ago
As a counter anecdote: I don't know those people, I "know" Nick and trust him so his story is much more credible than "random twitter accounts spouting filth" to me. Hell, the puellavulnerata account rings too many avoidavoid-bells learned in 25 years of internet to me. I do not believe in any way that the gender alone can be deemed responsible for your observation. What makes you even think that the same people who you saw alleging those women yesterday are the same who stand behind Nick here?
- djcapelis 10y ago
  Andrea is a well known Tor developer with a solid track record. If you don't know of her and discount what she says because of "25 years" of whatever kind of bullshit bells ring in your mind... that says a lot more about you than it does about her.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
danso 10y ago
I don't know if I saw the HN submission from the others (though I do remember upvoting the post from the Tor blog)...and while there are definitely users who espouse skeptical bias beyond a principled belief in "innocent until proven guilty" when it comes to sexual allegations...but from your description, it sounds like the women were sharing hearsay ("Jake finally raped enough people that Tor as an organisation couldn't ignore it anymore."), whereas Farr has offered a first-person testimonial, which is often more persuasive to people when it comes to evidentiary value.
dmix 10y ago
Did Meredith and Andrea actually share a story? I thought it was just a tweet. I reread the thread in question and yes...that is exactly what people were saying. Basically: Let's hold judgement until we have more information. Unlike two vague tweets Nick wrote a very detailed story with lots of background. To compare the reaction to those two instances is very disingenuous.
- nullc 10y ago
  Meredith has been stalking Jake for years, posing a lot of strange and clearly false accusations that fold up after on a small amount of investigation. I ran into a case of this a couple years back, when there was some campaign about "plagiarism" where I had direct personal experience that it was untrue. I posted about it and was harassed too. AFAICT, for some reason or another there is a fair amount of toxicity around the tor project. I've never personally seen Jake generating it, but I wouldn't really know. But the obvious toxicity and witch hunt culture caused me to unsubscribe from the lists and avoid that community since several years ago. Nick's story is interesting-- but it begins with a long series of vague allegations which are never backed up by the document. What it does show is that Nick put a person claiming Jake was a USG agent on a program, which I can understand why some might think it inconceivable that Nick would do so unless he'd been unduly influenced somehow, and then he got harassed over it. That sucks, but it doesn't rise to supporting the claims made in the first third of the document.

powera 10y ago

I'm not sure why people would have thought that Meredith and Andrea were biased. All they said was "Jacob was accused of sexual harassment", and they said it before the Tor release confirming exactly what they said. On the other hand, the http://jacobappelbaum.net/ http://jacobappelbaum.net/ site is clearly biased. If the only thing you can see is that all of those are women accusing Jacob of sexual harassment, you're probably sexist.

rdl 10y ago

I was equally slow to fully believe Nick until he posted details (which he did). In general I'll evaluate someone's own claims on their merit (including personal credibility), but am a lot less likely to base actions on third party hearsay. If any of the rape accusers posts a similarly detailed account with verifiable facts (easier under his or her own name, but still can be anonymous) those can be taken seriously too. Nick's account isn't the end of the process; it is the beginning. Now you have to evaluate, give the other parties a chance to respond, etc. Not pre-judging doesn't mean never judging.

djcapelis 10y ago
Hey Ryan, Let me just start by saying I think you're a totally reasonable person and I respect your thoughts,[1] so let's talk some more about why we've come down seeing things a bit differently here. So first off, I think that I've seen a lot more consistency from you than from other parts of the Internet. And that's cool, consistency is worth doing and I also agree skepticism is good. It's a value I hold. It's a value I know Meredith holds too. What is also true though, and I think anyone who examines this closely will also come to the conclusion that claims women make get a much higher degree of skepticism, accusations of bias and face a much higher bar before being accepted or believed. So even when you just compare responses to tweets people made (Nick tweeted yesterday too) or longer form stories that people wrote (that one site has collected a bunch now) you'll see the stark difference in how people respond to things posted by women vs. things posted by men. It contributes a lot to why being on the Internet as a woman is a much more problematic thing and why women don't get taken seriously. It's a real thing, and it'd be best if we were able to learn more from it. Please feel free to spend some more time to examine various threads and comments in various places. I'm sure you'll come to your own conclusions and I'll be interested to hear what you think. [1] You may not know me, but we've got some mutual friends and I've generally appreciated your commentary before being pretty on the level!
- rdl 10y ago
  I'd generally agree that sexual claims are taken more skeptically, and that the way they're dismissed tends to be different (and gendered). Ironically while sexual claims are dismissed more, male-victim sexual claims are dismissed even more than female-victim sexual claims (although female-victim is more common, outside prison/military). I see this more as a sexual/violence/sexual-violence vs. professional ethics/other difference. In this specific case, I think you'll see non-sexual claims from men and women treated the same (although trolls probably dismiss them in a gender-specific way, i.e. going after Andrea's appearance and after Nick in other ways). I don't think ethical issues other than sexual issues would be treated/believed substantially differently based on the gender of the victim here. (I also think a lot of people are uncomfortable discussing sexual violence related problems, so while those certainly need to be addressed as well, if some people only want to focus on the plagiarism/ethics/work-stealing/etc. aspects, that seems like it could still be positive. Doesn't mean other people can't pursue the sexual/violence related issues with a person.)

anc84 10y ago

As a counter anecdote: I don't know those people, I "know" Nick and trust him so his story is much more credible than "random twitter accounts spouting filth" to me. Hell, the puellavulnerata account rings too many avoidavoid-bells learned in 25 years of internet to me. I do not believe in any way that the gender alone can be deemed responsible for your observation. What makes you even think that the same people who you saw alleging those women yesterday are the same who stand behind Nick here?

djcapelis 10y ago
Andrea is a well known Tor developer with a solid track record. If you don't know of her and discount what she says because of "25 years" of whatever kind of bullshit bells ring in your mind... that says a lot more about you than it does about her.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

danso 10y ago

I don't know if I saw the HN submission from the others (though I do remember upvoting the post from the Tor blog)...and while there are definitely users who espouse skeptical bias beyond a principled belief in "innocent until proven guilty" when it comes to sexual allegations...but from your description, it sounds like the women were sharing hearsay ("Jake finally raped enough people that Tor as an organisation couldn't ignore it anymore."), whereas Farr has offered a first-person testimonial, which is often more persuasive to people when it comes to evidentiary value.

dmix 10y ago

Did Meredith and Andrea actually share a story? I thought it was just a tweet. I reread the thread in question and yes...that is exactly what people were saying. Basically: Let's hold judgement until we have more information. Unlike two vague tweets Nick wrote a very detailed story with lots of background. To compare the reaction to those two instances is very disingenuous.

nullc 10y ago
Meredith has been stalking Jake for years, posing a lot of strange and clearly false accusations that fold up after on a small amount of investigation. I ran into a case of this a couple years back, when there was some campaign about "plagiarism" where I had direct personal experience that it was untrue. I posted about it and was harassed too. AFAICT, for some reason or another there is a fair amount of toxicity around the tor project. I've never personally seen Jake generating it, but I wouldn't really know. But the obvious toxicity and witch hunt culture caused me to unsubscribe from the lists and avoid that community since several years ago. Nick's story is interesting-- but it begins with a long series of vague allegations which are never backed up by the document. What it does show is that Nick put a person claiming Jake was a USG agent on a program, which I can understand why some might think it inconceivable that Nick would do so unless he'd been unduly influenced somehow, and then he got harassed over it. That sucks, but it doesn't rise to supporting the claims made in the first third of the document.