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To be honest, this reads less like an attempt to integrate anti-harassment measures and more like an attempt to completely destroy a business trying to offer th

To be honest, this reads less like an attempt to integrate anti-harassment measures and more like an attempt to completely destroy a business trying to offer them. It further solidifies Twitter management as complicit in aiding and abetting the harassers by using its capital to eliminate a threat from the market. After the speed with which Twitter went after the ICE employees list, the evidence is clear that Twitter only has a problem tackling harassment when it's against marginalized populations.

dang 8y ago
That's a pretty extreme leap when virtually no information is available yet. The HN guidelines ask you to "assume good faith" for a reason: people are all too ready to take such charges as givens and then pile more on top of them. It's a behavior that harms the container here, and it's not hard to wait until actual evidence appears.
- philipov 8y ago
  That's fair, I will suspend judgement until further evidence appears, but the well of beneficial doubt is running low. I think a long past history of suspicious behavior is a good reason to update our assumptions.
  - dang 8y ago
    I don't disagree. But the real reason for having an "assume good faith" rule is what it does to this community when people don't. Therefore it needs practicing even when it feels undeserved.
    - tedivm 8y ago
      Here's the whole guideline you're talking about- > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. It's talking about how we all talk to each other. I think it's main purpose is not to lessen criticisms for corporations so much as to keep the discussion constructive.
      - pvg 8y ago
        You're probably not going to win an argument with a moderator by explaining to them the subtle logical error in the interpretation and purpose of their own guidelines.
        cjbprime 8y ago
        Yet now we're failing to assume good faith in our moderators, by assuming that they will fail to recognize a conflict of interest arising from questioning the extent and source of their authority, which they have reason to see maximized. The parent comment actually seemed spot on to me. The rule is to assume good faith of your interlocutors. The parent failed to assume good faith of a billion dollar corporation. I think it's reasonable to push back against being asked to tone down the latter, while honoring the rule for the former.
        pvg 8y ago
        I think dang explained it pretty clearly in the comment. It is bad for the forum when, given some very limited set of facts, you offer the most heated, ragefest pile-on inducing explanation or theory. It doesn't require some talmudic reading of the guidelines which are, after all, guidelines and not every single thing is explicitly spelled out. 'Avoid taking discussions into flamey or ragey directions' is advice the mods dole out to some person or another nearly daily.
  - pvg 8y ago
    the well of beneficial doubt is running low That is a metaphor made with an industrial grade cement mixer.
300baud 8y ago
Hi. Former Twitter anti-abuse employee here. If I had to sum up Twitter's executive leadership, it would be with Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Their leadership is mainly white and mainly men. I don't believe they really care about abuse in a meaningful way. They mainly care about it as a PR problem, so they'll do the minimum necessary to get out of trouble. But that's not because they hate anybody; it's because as a company they're not very good at getting anything at all done. They succeeded because they created a platform with a network effect; in that situation, competence is secondary. My guess is that Smyte was failing as a business and looked around for an acquihire. I'd further guess that they had some connection at Twitter, and that getting a few engineers with relevant experience at a low price seemed like a good deal. So I'd suspect that nobody at Twitter cared either way what happened to Smyte customers.
- EpicEng 8y ago
  >Their leadership is mainly white and mainly men. I don't believe they really care about abuse in a meaningful way. I don't like the implication here (i.e. white men don't care about harassment/abuse and they are also stupid.) I would wager that most anyone of any color or gender or religion in any high position of authority at any company cares first and foremost about the financial viability of the company they have been charged with running. Many (most) "white men" do in fact care about this stuff and aren't bigots/sexists/racists. You're naive and part of the problem if you think this is a "white male" issue and not a much more complex problem. In fact, you're exhibiting the bias you attribute to these managers.
  - agentPrefect 8y ago
    Yea me neither. Generalizations like this aren't helpful, or least bit fair.
  - tedivm 8y ago
    I think it's fair to say that people who are not white males (such as myself) are more likely to be targeted by a wide variety of harassment, and that without their views it may be much easier to miss the issue. As a white male I don't get targeted by misogyny or racism (at least not anywhere near the scale that others have). Having people who have experienced that around to help guide the decisions for how to deal with it- and how many resources to devote to it, since most business decisions come down to money. Also, we can all have biases without it meaning people are being racist. My parents like rock music, so I'm biased towards listening to that over country. I went to certain schools and that colored my world view. I once heard bias described as a heuristic the brain uses to make quick decisions- something that was extremely useful for primitive humans but which needs to be actively balanced in our complex society. A huge part of that for decision makers is exposing themselves to other viewpoints as a way to collect information they themselves wouldn't have gotten. There's a reason why companies have used things like focus groups and surveys to understand their customers- having more people who understand those customers in leadership at companies is an even better way to do it.

dang 8y ago

That's a pretty extreme leap when virtually no information is available yet. The HN guidelines ask you to "assume good faith" for a reason: people are all too ready to take such charges as givens and then pile more on top of them. It's a behavior that harms the container here, and it's not hard to wait until actual evidence appears.

philipov 8y ago
That's fair, I will suspend judgement until further evidence appears, but the well of beneficial doubt is running low. I think a long past history of suspicious behavior is a good reason to update our assumptions.
- dang 8y ago
  I don't disagree. But the real reason for having an "assume good faith" rule is what it does to this community when people don't. Therefore it needs practicing even when it feels undeserved.
  - tedivm 8y ago
    Here's the whole guideline you're talking about- > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. It's talking about how we all talk to each other. I think it's main purpose is not to lessen criticisms for corporations so much as to keep the discussion constructive.
    - pvg 8y ago
      You're probably not going to win an argument with a moderator by explaining to them the subtle logical error in the interpretation and purpose of their own guidelines.
      - cjbprime 8y ago
        Yet now we're failing to assume good faith in our moderators, by assuming that they will fail to recognize a conflict of interest arising from questioning the extent and source of their authority, which they have reason to see maximized. The parent comment actually seemed spot on to me. The rule is to assume good faith of your interlocutors. The parent failed to assume good faith of a billion dollar corporation. I think it's reasonable to push back against being asked to tone down the latter, while honoring the rule for the former.
        pvg 8y ago
        I think dang explained it pretty clearly in the comment. It is bad for the forum when, given some very limited set of facts, you offer the most heated, ragefest pile-on inducing explanation or theory. It doesn't require some talmudic reading of the guidelines which are, after all, guidelines and not every single thing is explicitly spelled out. 'Avoid taking discussions into flamey or ragey directions' is advice the mods dole out to some person or another nearly daily.
- pvg 8y ago
  the well of beneficial doubt is running low That is a metaphor made with an industrial grade cement mixer.

300baud 8y ago

Hi. Former Twitter anti-abuse employee here. If I had to sum up Twitter's executive leadership, it would be with Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Their leadership is mainly white and mainly men. I don't believe they really care about abuse in a meaningful way. They mainly care about it as a PR problem, so they'll do the minimum necessary to get out of trouble. But that's not because they hate anybody; it's because as a company they're not very good at getting anything at all done. They succeeded because they created a platform with a network effect; in that situation, competence is secondary. My guess is that Smyte was failing as a business and looked around for an acquihire. I'd further guess that they had some connection at Twitter, and that getting a few engineers with relevant experience at a low price seemed like a good deal. So I'd suspect that nobody at Twitter cared either way what happened to Smyte customers.

EpicEng 8y ago
>Their leadership is mainly white and mainly men. I don't believe they really care about abuse in a meaningful way. I don't like the implication here (i.e. white men don't care about harassment/abuse and they are also stupid.) I would wager that most anyone of any color or gender or religion in any high position of authority at any company cares first and foremost about the financial viability of the company they have been charged with running. Many (most) "white men" do in fact care about this stuff and aren't bigots/sexists/racists. You're naive and part of the problem if you think this is a "white male" issue and not a much more complex problem. In fact, you're exhibiting the bias you attribute to these managers.
- agentPrefect 8y ago
  Yea me neither. Generalizations like this aren't helpful, or least bit fair.
- tedivm 8y ago
  I think it's fair to say that people who are not white males (such as myself) are more likely to be targeted by a wide variety of harassment, and that without their views it may be much easier to miss the issue. As a white male I don't get targeted by misogyny or racism (at least not anywhere near the scale that others have). Having people who have experienced that around to help guide the decisions for how to deal with it- and how many resources to devote to it, since most business decisions come down to money. Also, we can all have biases without it meaning people are being racist. My parents like rock music, so I'm biased towards listening to that over country. I went to certain schools and that colored my world view. I once heard bias described as a heuristic the brain uses to make quick decisions- something that was extremely useful for primitive humans but which needs to be actively balanced in our complex society. A huge part of that for decision makers is exposing themselves to other viewpoints as a way to collect information they themselves wouldn't have gotten. There's a reason why companies have used things like focus groups and surveys to understand their customers- having more people who understand those customers in leadership at companies is an even better way to do it.