7 ms·

I'll give a very personal account. I was in the past harassed on Twitter. I received death threats and users were giving out my phone number and address to othe

I'll give a very personal account. I was in the past harassed on Twitter. I received death threats and users were giving out my phone number and address to other Twitter users via DM. I filed an official complaint, and Twitter's response was this is not harassment, we won't do anything. I am pretty sure because of my political views the Twitter support representative decided they didn't like me. The hypocrisy, bias, and subjective filtering is rampant in silicon valley. It also unfortunately is a thing here on HN as well. To this day I still get downvoted not for the content of my comments, but because solely people "recognize" me.

hkmurakami 9y ago
There was a series of articles a few years ago about closet GOP supporters in the tech industry fearing being "outed" for the damage it would cause to their careers. In your experience do you feel that this concern is justified? (I think there was at least one startup CEO who declared that if he found out that anyone at his company had voted for Trump, that he would fire him/her)
- leereeves 9y ago
  There was an article about that a few days ago that got a lot of attention here on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15595586 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15595586
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- nodesocket 9y ago
  Absolutely. I've been lucky enough to be self-employed for a bit, but if you walk into any bay area startup nearly everybody will be a vitriol against Trump and conservatives very publicly. It is not even subtle. I'm the kind of person who actually enjoys a debate, and my lack of PC offends some. If I were an employee, probably would be problematic.
  - rb666 9y ago
    Reason is that the political debate is no longer right vs left in the US. Trump and his posse have proven to be compulsive liars. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trump... This means there is little left to debate.
    - hkmurakami 9y ago
      ? The "appropriate" size and role of the federal government is still a very worthwhile and earnest point of debate, and that is a classic left/right issue.
      - keganunderwood 9y ago
        Sorry but nobody is for small government. Nobody is for a balanced budget. It is a farce. We all have two piles: a. Things we want the government to do b. Things we don't If you're for a balanced budget, you'll oppose current tax cut plans and demand government cut spending. The problem is of course where do we cut spending? Find me a dollar of "waste" and I'll show you someone who benefits from it. Can we please stop pretending?
        sdfkljs 9y ago
        > Find me a dollar of "waste" and I'll show you someone who benefits from it. So if people always benefit from every dollar spent...why should we ever stop government spending...oh wait, hasn't this been tried before?
        timrichard 9y ago
        > Find me a dollar of "waste" and I'll show you someone who benefits from it. I expect others who've also worked on Government projects would find that as preposterous as I do.
        SamReidHughes 9y ago
        Trump has actually proven his bone fides for small government in the sense of reducing regulatory burden.
- mosselman 9y ago
  Without sources for any of your claims (GOP supporters fearing an outing, CEO that would fire Trump voters) your comment comes over as a way to incite a heated discussion here, AKA trolling.
  - StavrosK 9y ago
    I didn't read it that way, it's a valid question even without the references, and it's a problem that warrants discussion.
  - hkmurakami 9y ago
    For the former, a sibling commenter has provided a HN discussion regarding a CNN article with a 10+ minute interview with people who are being interviewed with a voice changer for fear of being outed. Regarding the latter, here's Grubhub's CEO calling for Trump voters to resign: The CEO of Grubhub, an online food delivery service, sent a company wide email Wednesday suggesting employees who agree with President-elect Donald Trump’s behaviors and his campaign rhetoric should resign.[1]. I remember reading articles from reputable media outlets for both issues, but I personally do not know peers who feel this way (which makes sense because well, if the news were true, many of them are in hiding). Hence the genuine inquiry towards an actual person -- a HNer -- who would have first hand experience with such attitudes. It's honestly a very rare chance to be able to ask someone this; I frankly only know one GOP voter within the several hundred tech people I am acquainted with. I sincerely must ask in return whether you are trolling me, since you seem to be unaware of the fact that these issues have been widely reported on in the past. [1] regrettably the link is fox news: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/11/10/boss-tells-pro-trump-employees-to-resign.html http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/11/10/boss-tells-pro-trump-em...
    - archagon 9y ago
      Not supporting Trump — supporting his behaviors and campaign rhetoric. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to tell people who support attacks on Gold Star families or Hispanic judges to reconsider their place of work. That goes way beyond a difference of opinion.
    - 9y ago
- WalterBright 9y ago
  We still have a secret ballot in this country, and this is why.
Griffinsauce 9y ago
> I am pretty sure because of my political views the Twitter support representative decided they didn't like me. That's conveniently completely unprovable. That said, there should be (some) recourse when you feel like you've been treated unfairly. A second opinion or escalation. On the flip side: Twitter is a company. It might be comprised of people that share a certain opinion and this will show in how they behave. That's how it works with any product or service. There's a gap between what is "morally good" and what you're actually entitled to in terms of treatment by someone else.
dogruck 9y ago
A similar thing happened to me.
sneak 9y ago
It turns out that humans have memories and reputation is important. Not to invoke Godwin, but Hitler’s opinions on mundane things will always be filtered through the lens of what he did and said otherwise. It is the same for all people. If you don’t want to damage your reputation, either publish your unpopular opinions anonymously, keep them to yourself, or figure out why your views result in others wanting to threaten you and evolve them into something more palatable to the society in which you live.
- nodesocket 9y ago
  So then why is the opposite not true of liberals especially in the bay? Just because they are the VAST majority they are allowed to publicly harass, give death threats, silence opinions, shame, witch hunt? It's happening from both sides, but still hypocrisy.
- stale2002 9y ago
  Is firing people for which party they vote for REALLY a war that you want to get into? Do you really believe that only Republicans would be targeted? If this stuff becomes normalized the Left needs to understand that there are a whole lot of powerful conservatives in the world, and that left leaning people will be hurt just as much as right leaning people. Attacks on open discourse, and freedom of thought hurt EVERYONE. And you should be careful what you wish for.
  - sneak 9y ago
    Why do you think that I think this would target republicans? Both “right-leaning” and “left-leaning” people in the United States pretty clearly quality as violence-supporting fuckheads, so I am fine with this being applied universally.
sdfkljs 9y ago
Sorry dude. I have a lot of respect for those who voice non-left opinions publicly. Something I would never do myself because of the repercussions in SV. Its insane. And I would not expose my IP to any of these services either, because as we see, there are uncontrolled, bleeding-hearts who are probably not afraid and maybe feel its their duty to unmask/dox ppl. This time period has solidified my acknowledgement for the need for true legal protections of freedom of speech, and ultimately the need for society to respect this as a whole. Something that should be ingrained in all citizens as much as possible. Before Trump, I never thought that people could go this crazy with censorship. And I somehow thought that the smart people of SV would get this...
product50 9y ago
The only fact in your statement is that you received threats. Rest is all your interpretation which suits your argument especially how Twitter didn't look into your matter because of your political inclination. I am surprised that Twitter didn't react more strongly especially given your claim that you received death threats on the platform. Maybe there is something missing here too?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- sdfkljs 9y ago
  If an employee feels they can deactivate Trump's account of their last day, and seeing the left lean of all top employees, I think its pretty clear what the culture is like inside the company, and that this kind of abuse is probably widespread. If the messaging and actions from the company focused on supporting free speech, listening to all points of view, etc. then you might think otherwise. But it is clearly hostile to the right, and even publicly mulls over deleting the President's account because he supposedly bullied Kim Jong.
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  > I am surprised that Twitter didn't react more strongly especially given your claim that you received death threats on the platform. They don't care. Many people get death threats on Twitter a day with no action from the Safety Team (see the replies to their "We're humans too and doing the best we can!" from last month.)
zimpenfish 9y ago
> Twitter's response was this is not harassment, we won't do anything. I am pretty sure because of my political views Given Twitter's utter inability to deal with harassment at all, I'd suggest it wasn't anything to do with your political views at all. They're just that shit.
EddieSpeaks 9y ago
Some 16 year old saying “SILENCE I KEEL YOU’ isn’t a death threat. Get a hold of yourself. I think you should just block trolls on twitter and get on with your life. The more you cry about it the more the trolls will keep hopping over you. I know this is news to you but you enable this toxic culture.
hsod 9y ago
Lots of left-leaning people have frustrating experiences with Twitter support as well
bad_user 9y ago
> It also unfortunately is a thing here on HN as well. To this day I still get downvoted not for the content of my comments, but because solely people "recognize" me. Out of curiosity, how do you know that? Personally I think the audience on HN is pretty diverse and the response depends a lot on context (TFA), so assuming that you're not writing dumb things, an expressed opinion might not be as popular as you think depending on the audience inclined to read the comments of a particular article. For example I criticize Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and others equally and noticed that for the same negative opinion about them I got vastly different responses, depending on article and timing. Also, don't get me wrong, but noticed your Twitter profile in your description — and an account with only 286 followers isn't so popular as to be recognizable across the web. I'm not disputing that you've been harassed on Twitter, I also have friends that have been harassed and Twitter did nothing about it. Just saying, in regards to thinking that your opinions are rejected due to whom you are, just make sure you're not paranoid.

hkmurakami 9y ago

There was a series of articles a few years ago about closet GOP supporters in the tech industry fearing being "outed" for the damage it would cause to their careers. In your experience do you feel that this concern is justified? (I think there was at least one startup CEO who declared that if he found out that anyone at his company had voted for Trump, that he would fire him/her)

leereeves 9y ago
There was an article about that a few days ago that got a lot of attention here on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15595586 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15595586
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
nodesocket 9y ago
Absolutely. I've been lucky enough to be self-employed for a bit, but if you walk into any bay area startup nearly everybody will be a vitriol against Trump and conservatives very publicly. It is not even subtle. I'm the kind of person who actually enjoys a debate, and my lack of PC offends some. If I were an employee, probably would be problematic.
- rb666 9y ago
  Reason is that the political debate is no longer right vs left in the US. Trump and his posse have proven to be compulsive liars. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trump... This means there is little left to debate.
  - hkmurakami 9y ago
    ? The "appropriate" size and role of the federal government is still a very worthwhile and earnest point of debate, and that is a classic left/right issue.
    - keganunderwood 9y ago
      Sorry but nobody is for small government. Nobody is for a balanced budget. It is a farce. We all have two piles: a. Things we want the government to do b. Things we don't If you're for a balanced budget, you'll oppose current tax cut plans and demand government cut spending. The problem is of course where do we cut spending? Find me a dollar of "waste" and I'll show you someone who benefits from it. Can we please stop pretending?
      - sdfkljs 9y ago
        > Find me a dollar of "waste" and I'll show you someone who benefits from it. So if people always benefit from every dollar spent...why should we ever stop government spending...oh wait, hasn't this been tried before?
      - timrichard 9y ago
        > Find me a dollar of "waste" and I'll show you someone who benefits from it. I expect others who've also worked on Government projects would find that as preposterous as I do.
      - SamReidHughes 9y ago
        Trump has actually proven his bone fides for small government in the sense of reducing regulatory burden.
mosselman 9y ago
Without sources for any of your claims (GOP supporters fearing an outing, CEO that would fire Trump voters) your comment comes over as a way to incite a heated discussion here, AKA trolling.
- StavrosK 9y ago
  I didn't read it that way, it's a valid question even without the references, and it's a problem that warrants discussion.
- hkmurakami 9y ago
  For the former, a sibling commenter has provided a HN discussion regarding a CNN article with a 10+ minute interview with people who are being interviewed with a voice changer for fear of being outed. Regarding the latter, here's Grubhub's CEO calling for Trump voters to resign: The CEO of Grubhub, an online food delivery service, sent a company wide email Wednesday suggesting employees who agree with President-elect Donald Trump’s behaviors and his campaign rhetoric should resign.[1]. I remember reading articles from reputable media outlets for both issues, but I personally do not know peers who feel this way (which makes sense because well, if the news were true, many of them are in hiding). Hence the genuine inquiry towards an actual person -- a HNer -- who would have first hand experience with such attitudes. It's honestly a very rare chance to be able to ask someone this; I frankly only know one GOP voter within the several hundred tech people I am acquainted with. I sincerely must ask in return whether you are trolling me, since you seem to be unaware of the fact that these issues have been widely reported on in the past. [1] regrettably the link is fox news: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/11/10/boss-tells-pro-trump-employees-to-resign.html http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/11/10/boss-tells-pro-trump-em...
  - archagon 9y ago
    Not supporting Trump — supporting his behaviors and campaign rhetoric. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to tell people who support attacks on Gold Star families or Hispanic judges to reconsider their place of work. That goes way beyond a difference of opinion.
  - 9y ago
WalterBright 9y ago
We still have a secret ballot in this country, and this is why.

Griffinsauce 9y ago

> I am pretty sure because of my political views the Twitter support representative decided they didn't like me. That's conveniently completely unprovable. That said, there should be (some) recourse when you feel like you've been treated unfairly. A second opinion or escalation. On the flip side: Twitter is a company. It might be comprised of people that share a certain opinion and this will show in how they behave. That's how it works with any product or service. There's a gap between what is "morally good" and what you're actually entitled to in terms of treatment by someone else.

dogruck 9y ago

A similar thing happened to me.

sneak 9y ago

It turns out that humans have memories and reputation is important. Not to invoke Godwin, but Hitler’s opinions on mundane things will always be filtered through the lens of what he did and said otherwise. It is the same for all people. If you don’t want to damage your reputation, either publish your unpopular opinions anonymously, keep them to yourself, or figure out why your views result in others wanting to threaten you and evolve them into something more palatable to the society in which you live.

nodesocket 9y ago
So then why is the opposite not true of liberals especially in the bay? Just because they are the VAST majority they are allowed to publicly harass, give death threats, silence opinions, shame, witch hunt? It's happening from both sides, but still hypocrisy.
stale2002 9y ago
Is firing people for which party they vote for REALLY a war that you want to get into? Do you really believe that only Republicans would be targeted? If this stuff becomes normalized the Left needs to understand that there are a whole lot of powerful conservatives in the world, and that left leaning people will be hurt just as much as right leaning people. Attacks on open discourse, and freedom of thought hurt EVERYONE. And you should be careful what you wish for.
- sneak 9y ago
  Why do you think that I think this would target republicans? Both “right-leaning” and “left-leaning” people in the United States pretty clearly quality as violence-supporting fuckheads, so I am fine with this being applied universally.

sdfkljs 9y ago

Sorry dude. I have a lot of respect for those who voice non-left opinions publicly. Something I would never do myself because of the repercussions in SV. Its insane. And I would not expose my IP to any of these services either, because as we see, there are uncontrolled, bleeding-hearts who are probably not afraid and maybe feel its their duty to unmask/dox ppl. This time period has solidified my acknowledgement for the need for true legal protections of freedom of speech, and ultimately the need for society to respect this as a whole. Something that should be ingrained in all citizens as much as possible. Before Trump, I never thought that people could go this crazy with censorship. And I somehow thought that the smart people of SV would get this...

product50 9y ago

The only fact in your statement is that you received threats. Rest is all your interpretation which suits your argument especially how Twitter didn't look into your matter because of your political inclination. I am surprised that Twitter didn't react more strongly especially given your claim that you received death threats on the platform. Maybe there is something missing here too?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
sdfkljs 9y ago
If an employee feels they can deactivate Trump's account of their last day, and seeing the left lean of all top employees, I think its pretty clear what the culture is like inside the company, and that this kind of abuse is probably widespread. If the messaging and actions from the company focused on supporting free speech, listening to all points of view, etc. then you might think otherwise. But it is clearly hostile to the right, and even publicly mulls over deleting the President's account because he supposedly bullied Kim Jong.
zimpenfish 9y ago
> I am surprised that Twitter didn't react more strongly especially given your claim that you received death threats on the platform. They don't care. Many people get death threats on Twitter a day with no action from the Safety Team (see the replies to their "We're humans too and doing the best we can!" from last month.)

zimpenfish 9y ago

> Twitter's response was this is not harassment, we won't do anything. I am pretty sure because of my political views Given Twitter's utter inability to deal with harassment at all, I'd suggest it wasn't anything to do with your political views at all. They're just that shit.

EddieSpeaks 9y ago

Some 16 year old saying “SILENCE I KEEL YOU’ isn’t a death threat. Get a hold of yourself. I think you should just block trolls on twitter and get on with your life. The more you cry about it the more the trolls will keep hopping over you. I know this is news to you but you enable this toxic culture.

hsod 9y ago

Lots of left-leaning people have frustrating experiences with Twitter support as well

bad_user 9y ago

> It also unfortunately is a thing here on HN as well. To this day I still get downvoted not for the content of my comments, but because solely people "recognize" me. Out of curiosity, how do you know that? Personally I think the audience on HN is pretty diverse and the response depends a lot on context (TFA), so assuming that you're not writing dumb things, an expressed opinion might not be as popular as you think depending on the audience inclined to read the comments of a particular article. For example I criticize Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and others equally and noticed that for the same negative opinion about them I got vastly different responses, depending on article and timing. Also, don't get me wrong, but noticed your Twitter profile in your description — and an account with only 286 followers isn't so popular as to be recognizable across the web. I'm not disputing that you've been harassed on Twitter, I also have friends that have been harassed and Twitter did nothing about it. Just saying, in regards to thinking that your opinions are rejected due to whom you are, just make sure you're not paranoid.