7 ms·

Being collateral damage in the culture wars of the West

114 points by dragonbonheur 8y ago

mc32 8y ago
It's sad that an organization like the NYT would engage in unbecoming behavior to protect one of their own's bad behavior (going against an agreement not to basically doxx someone) and going so far as character assassination because what Naomi Wu claimed went against the NYT's narrative.
- throwanem 8y ago
  This is what power does without accountability.
- tqy 8y ago
  Yes, so sad and unexpected coming from the Lügenpresse...
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  This is the New York Times. This is not unusual. Journalists shit on people who can’t hurt them all the time. The New York Times is different only insofar as it can shit on more people from a greater height. Journalistic ethics is a lie.
jessaustin 8y ago
In April of 2018, when Vice Magazine’s lawyers pressured Patreon to drop my account, I had no other options that would enable me to keep my YouTube channel going. ZOMG that's so evil! She complained that you didn't respect her desire to remain anonymous, so you destroy her livelihood? Why would any source trust Vice to safeguard her anonymity or indeed to do anything they promised after this saga of shitty behavior? Answer: they rely on sources not knowing anything about them, because after all the sources don't have the iron control of the social media "conversation" that Western journalists have. [EDIT: removed speculation]
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- SpicyLemonZest 8y ago
  Well, ok, but why did Patreon agree to drop her account? That seems like important context.
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    Patreon's deplatforming policies are capricious and draconian because they have to keep financial partners happy, and the policies of those partners are capricious and draconian. Those with enough social media and commercial power can deal (in fact if TFA is believed it appears they can actually steer the machine of injustice). The author of TFA cannot deal, which is the entire point of TFA. We always knew in our hearts that "twitter as help desk" was unjust at some level. This is a concrete example of that. [EDIT:] Now that I've read to the end of TFA, she buried the lede! This woman has been subject to so much shitty behavior! She was the third customer of a Patreon competitor, "SubscribeStar", and one of their largest customers, so the bastards just shut down the entire site. Now it appears that it's back up: https://www.subscribestar.com/posts/7863 https://www.subscribestar.com/posts/7863
    - SpicyLemonZest 8y ago
      Again, okay, but which specific deplatforming policy did they use in this case?
      - SexyCyborg 8y ago
        Covered here: http://medium.com/@therealsexycyborg/shenzhen-tech-girl-naomi-wu-my-experience-with-sarah-jeong-jason-koebler-and-vice-magazine-3f4a32fda9b5 http://medium.com/@therealsexycyborg/shenzhen-tech-girl-naom...
        xrd 8y ago
        I have a solution to your Patreon issues, see my other comment below. I would be very interested in talking to you if collecting Ethereum is an alternative you are considering.
towaway1138 8y ago
Sad story. And just one more stake in the heart of NYT's credibility.
tareqak 8y ago
There really should be a way to "roll your own Patreon" for individuals. Whatever your individual viewpoints on each of the de-platforming incidents in the recent past, having them all be lumped into one service makes it easier to take down and disrupt the users of said service. I don't think Bitcoin is necessary yet given the amount of additional complexity for the average creator and average patron, just a separate web page that allows for recurring subscriptions.
- tick_tock_tick 8y ago
  Payment processors are worse the Patreon especially mastercard so unless you manage to get around them you're not going to be able too.
- DanAndersen 8y ago
  "Build your own X" has its limits. The payment processors are the ones that will be and are the censors. Enough social-media shrieking and Mastercard and Visa willingly bend to the loudest voices. We don't yet live in a world of ubiquitous/easy crypto, and mailing cash or money orders around is not feasible at scale. Only government regulation will heal the imbalance.
- xrd 8y ago
  SexyCyborg (and others): I would love for you to check out https://finneyfor.com https://finneyfor.com. It is Ethereum based (not Bitcoin), but specifically designed to remove the problems that so many Patreon users have dealt with AND something that an average blog reader can use without understanding cryptocurrency at all (beyond getting some on an exchange like Coinbase). "FinneyFor facilitates collecting Ethereum (ETH) from your customers (readers, fans, or otherwise). FinneyFor does not require your users have a special browser, nor browser plugins. Collection happens on your site, but requires no server side components." FinneyFor works with Jekyll and WordPress. Would appreciate any feedback, positive or negative.
frankenfurter 8y ago
If the damage is done, I’m having a hard time understanding what did the damage. If I’m parsing the vague outline of what hasn’t been said directly, the sensitive details being danced around come across as strangely uncontroversial to a Western outsider, which seems to be a key part of the argument. At first I thought maybe the mentions of gender and implants, and the doubt that a twenty something girl could accomplish such things, might be a nod to status as a transexual? It seems that she’s fraternizing with a white boyfriend, and has implants that she flaunts scandalously, which is frowned upon by authoritarian government officials in China? That she’s accessing foreign platforms unlawfully is the only pretense these officials need to cause her problems, granted the dim view of her attention seeking to begin with?
- dragonbonheur 8y ago
  You're speculating too much here. Calm down a little. Your last two paragraphs are basically unsubstantiated. And if she's "attention seeking" What are the other millions of Youtubers doing, scratching and sniffing? Also, did you have to create another Greenhorn account just to write that nonsense?
  - show_dead 8y ago
    It definitely changes a significant chunk of the “Women in Tech” narrative, when she poses as woman, but was not born a woman. The key feature being the sense of abandon that this person operates apparent sexuality with. It’s deceptive to portray an image of, say, shining LED lighting through breast implants casually, like they’re nothing, if the individual wasn’t born with breasts and so, doesn’t feel an instinctive urge to take them seriously. This person obviously toys with the novelty of a sexualized appearance, because it wasn’t an authentic portrayal from the start. Now the true colors of the media apparatus become clear. Large recognizable outfits (NYT and Vice), opperating in coordinated unison, as fellow collaborators to destroy an oddity that threatens to tarnish what can longer possibly be anything but a carefully orchestrated propaganda program. An example of a highly sexualized MTF transexual that readily outperforms women is patently incompatible with concepts like women in tech and #metoo, and therefore must be destroyed. That Vice might play the role of a villain with teeth is less of a surprise, but that The New York Times acted in concert is doubly interesting, since we now can view evidence of the methods thet employ to keep their hands clean and their fingerprints away from the dirty work.
YUMad 8y ago
IMO, this person likes to stir up attention with baseless accusations when her profit-seeking machinations don't work out. I remember there was some makezine drama related to her a couple years back too. Iirc she was whining about not being featured in makezine, and her 'project' was a very simple 'I sewed LEDs into a cooter-shower miniskirt', not really comparable to what usually gets featured in makezine. But of course, makezine ignoring her demand to give her free publicity and consequent potential increase in youtube/patreon earnings constituted sexism. I'll wait for more details before rushing to conclusions on this one.
- dragonbonheur 8y ago
  And where are your Show HN's to justify you being so high-and-mighty?
  - YUMad 8y ago
    What is your point? I have a semi-popular machining youtube channel, but I am not looking for notoriety, victimhood or money. My comment was based on the only thing I remembered this person from. Between youtube and patreon, she was pulling 4-5k dollars in monthly couple years ago. But it was not enough and she got greedy. Looks like combination of her greed and manipulativeness fired back now, because she tried to use sjw bullying methods on those who are much more experienced 8n using the same. Again, this is just my opinion. I can have an opinion on comparative value of two things without being able to produce them.
    - dragonbonheur 8y ago
      If you have an opinion on two comparable things, YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY ENTITLED TO KEEP SAID OPINION TO YOURSELF AND NOT PARADE IT IN PUBLIC FORUMS. Else if you choose to make allegations using words like "his person likes to stir up attention with baseless accusations when her profit-seeking machinations" "she was whining" "cooter-shower miniskirt" "combination of her greed and manipulativeness" "sjw" then I am at liberty to think nothing more of you beside a hate-filled entitled scoundrel of the same type as the orange ersatz of a coprolith that currently occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and would deem any opinion that you may have or may have had as utterly worthless and repulsive as the semi-solid waste output that emerges from the rear end of the bovine species.
justaguyonline 8y ago
Found the story as written by SexyCyborg in the post very hard to follow, plus it felt a little too self serving to take 100% at face value. I'll admit though, I saw her once on Hacker News the first time she went viral, later read that Reddit "expose" and then promptly never thought of her again. It took a while to walk back what I thought was happening so I could understand what was going on. This video [1] helped me get the actual context of the article. The West honestly doesn't come off well in this, but neither does China really. More of the same "are the people with power over others using it with decency and respect?" [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0dkwwV_iaw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0dkwwV_iaw
DoreenMichele 8y ago
I have an expression I like to use, “It’s all about merit until merit has tits.” I'm very sorry for her negative experiences. From what I have read, she's genuinely been mistreated and I wish we lived in a better world. I'm well aware that sexism is alive and well. I'm reasonably vocal about my own frustrations and I'm frequently treated dismissively myself in a manner that looks suspiciously like sexism. I'm also guilty of not reading the entire article here, much less following the long backstory in any real depth over time. But she had breast implant surgery and her enormous artificial breasts are a significant part of her identity. She strongly emphasizes that element of her appearance in how she dresses and how she frames photos of herself that she posts to the internet, then justifies her style of dress as "It's not a problem in my city and I would dress appropriately if I visited your city" while not acknowledging that the photos on the internet are in a different context. That when she posts online, in some sense, she's no longer in her city anymore. She doesn't have to dress differently in her city to downplay this intentionally emphasized aspect of herself while on the internet. She basically insists that she has a right to express herself as she sees fit when it comes to body modifications and clothing, then vocally complains when the hypersexualized image she intentionally crafts and promotes gets her treated like a sex object. I have spent more than nine years participating on HN. It was unexpected drama at first, but has gradually gotten better. I have put a lot of time and effort into trying to figure out where I could do things differently in order to try to put down the enormous burden of cultural baggage from a very long history of gender stuff on the planet. The approach she has taken generally strikes me as "putting out the fire with gasoline." I have hesitated to say anything about it because it's likely to be interpreted as victim blaming and that's really not my intent at all. I think women need to know what works and what doesn't. I am in no way suggesting she was wrong to get breast implants, nor am I suggesting she should dress differently. I'm only saying she is entirely free to do both of those things without putting her tits front and center in soft porn style photos on what seems like all her social media platforms while bitching no one takes her seriously as a tech expert. I am unaware of any male tech experts who, say, put their genitals on display for all the world to see and then complain that it is all anyone talks about or something along those lines. I sincerely wish I could help her. I have never bothered to reach out to her because I have zero reason to believe she would take anything I think as sincerely helpful. I have lots of reasons to think it would go over so poorly that it's a game where the only winning move is not to play. I am absolutely not saying this to cause her trouble nor to dismiss any of the genuinely bad behavior she's been subjected to by various parties.
masonic 8y ago
Jeong was already infamous for defending[0] the U. of Virginia rape hoaxer[1]. [0] https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/11/04/report-jury-rules-against-rolling-stone-in-fake-uva-rape-story-lawsuit/ https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/11/04/report-jury-rules-... [1] https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/08/03/flashback-new-york-times-bigot-sarah-jeong-defended-uva-rape-hoaxer https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/08/03/flashback-new-york...

114 points by dragonbonheur 8y ago

mc32 8y ago

It's sad that an organization like the NYT would engage in unbecoming behavior to protect one of their own's bad behavior (going against an agreement not to basically doxx someone) and going so far as character assassination because what Naomi Wu claimed went against the NYT's narrative.

throwanem 8y ago
This is what power does without accountability.
tqy 8y ago
Yes, so sad and unexpected coming from the Lügenpresse...
barry-cotter 8y ago
This is the New York Times. This is not unusual. Journalists shit on people who can’t hurt them all the time. The New York Times is different only insofar as it can shit on more people from a greater height. Journalistic ethics is a lie.

jessaustin 8y ago

In April of 2018, when Vice Magazine’s lawyers pressured Patreon to drop my account, I had no other options that would enable me to keep my YouTube channel going. ZOMG that's so evil! She complained that you didn't respect her desire to remain anonymous, so you destroy her livelihood? Why would any source trust Vice to safeguard her anonymity or indeed to do anything they promised after this saga of shitty behavior? Answer: they rely on sources not knowing anything about them, because after all the sources don't have the iron control of the social media "conversation" that Western journalists have. [EDIT: removed speculation]

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
SpicyLemonZest 8y ago
Well, ok, but why did Patreon agree to drop her account? That seems like important context.
- jessaustin 8y ago
  Patreon's deplatforming policies are capricious and draconian because they have to keep financial partners happy, and the policies of those partners are capricious and draconian. Those with enough social media and commercial power can deal (in fact if TFA is believed it appears they can actually steer the machine of injustice). The author of TFA cannot deal, which is the entire point of TFA. We always knew in our hearts that "twitter as help desk" was unjust at some level. This is a concrete example of that. [EDIT:] Now that I've read to the end of TFA, she buried the lede! This woman has been subject to so much shitty behavior! She was the third customer of a Patreon competitor, "SubscribeStar", and one of their largest customers, so the bastards just shut down the entire site. Now it appears that it's back up: https://www.subscribestar.com/posts/7863 https://www.subscribestar.com/posts/7863
  - SpicyLemonZest 8y ago
    Again, okay, but which specific deplatforming policy did they use in this case?
    - SexyCyborg 8y ago
      Covered here: http://medium.com/@therealsexycyborg/shenzhen-tech-girl-naomi-wu-my-experience-with-sarah-jeong-jason-koebler-and-vice-magazine-3f4a32fda9b5 http://medium.com/@therealsexycyborg/shenzhen-tech-girl-naom...
      - xrd 8y ago
        I have a solution to your Patreon issues, see my other comment below. I would be very interested in talking to you if collecting Ethereum is an alternative you are considering.

towaway1138 8y ago

Sad story. And just one more stake in the heart of NYT's credibility.

tareqak 8y ago

There really should be a way to "roll your own Patreon" for individuals. Whatever your individual viewpoints on each of the de-platforming incidents in the recent past, having them all be lumped into one service makes it easier to take down and disrupt the users of said service. I don't think Bitcoin is necessary yet given the amount of additional complexity for the average creator and average patron, just a separate web page that allows for recurring subscriptions.

tick_tock_tick 8y ago
Payment processors are worse the Patreon especially mastercard so unless you manage to get around them you're not going to be able too.
DanAndersen 8y ago
"Build your own X" has its limits. The payment processors are the ones that will be and are the censors. Enough social-media shrieking and Mastercard and Visa willingly bend to the loudest voices. We don't yet live in a world of ubiquitous/easy crypto, and mailing cash or money orders around is not feasible at scale. Only government regulation will heal the imbalance.
xrd 8y ago
SexyCyborg (and others): I would love for you to check out https://finneyfor.com https://finneyfor.com. It is Ethereum based (not Bitcoin), but specifically designed to remove the problems that so many Patreon users have dealt with AND something that an average blog reader can use without understanding cryptocurrency at all (beyond getting some on an exchange like Coinbase). "FinneyFor facilitates collecting Ethereum (ETH) from your customers (readers, fans, or otherwise). FinneyFor does not require your users have a special browser, nor browser plugins. Collection happens on your site, but requires no server side components." FinneyFor works with Jekyll and WordPress. Would appreciate any feedback, positive or negative.

frankenfurter 8y ago

If the damage is done, I’m having a hard time understanding what did the damage. If I’m parsing the vague outline of what hasn’t been said directly, the sensitive details being danced around come across as strangely uncontroversial to a Western outsider, which seems to be a key part of the argument. At first I thought maybe the mentions of gender and implants, and the doubt that a twenty something girl could accomplish such things, might be a nod to status as a transexual? It seems that she’s fraternizing with a white boyfriend, and has implants that she flaunts scandalously, which is frowned upon by authoritarian government officials in China? That she’s accessing foreign platforms unlawfully is the only pretense these officials need to cause her problems, granted the dim view of her attention seeking to begin with?

dragonbonheur 8y ago
You're speculating too much here. Calm down a little. Your last two paragraphs are basically unsubstantiated. And if she's "attention seeking" What are the other millions of Youtubers doing, scratching and sniffing? Also, did you have to create another Greenhorn account just to write that nonsense?
- show_dead 8y ago
  It definitely changes a significant chunk of the “Women in Tech” narrative, when she poses as woman, but was not born a woman. The key feature being the sense of abandon that this person operates apparent sexuality with. It’s deceptive to portray an image of, say, shining LED lighting through breast implants casually, like they’re nothing, if the individual wasn’t born with breasts and so, doesn’t feel an instinctive urge to take them seriously. This person obviously toys with the novelty of a sexualized appearance, because it wasn’t an authentic portrayal from the start. Now the true colors of the media apparatus become clear. Large recognizable outfits (NYT and Vice), opperating in coordinated unison, as fellow collaborators to destroy an oddity that threatens to tarnish what can longer possibly be anything but a carefully orchestrated propaganda program. An example of a highly sexualized MTF transexual that readily outperforms women is patently incompatible with concepts like women in tech and #metoo, and therefore must be destroyed. That Vice might play the role of a villain with teeth is less of a surprise, but that The New York Times acted in concert is doubly interesting, since we now can view evidence of the methods thet employ to keep their hands clean and their fingerprints away from the dirty work.

YUMad 8y ago

IMO, this person likes to stir up attention with baseless accusations when her profit-seeking machinations don't work out. I remember there was some makezine drama related to her a couple years back too. Iirc she was whining about not being featured in makezine, and her 'project' was a very simple 'I sewed LEDs into a cooter-shower miniskirt', not really comparable to what usually gets featured in makezine. But of course, makezine ignoring her demand to give her free publicity and consequent potential increase in youtube/patreon earnings constituted sexism. I'll wait for more details before rushing to conclusions on this one.

dragonbonheur 8y ago
And where are your Show HN's to justify you being so high-and-mighty?
- YUMad 8y ago
  What is your point? I have a semi-popular machining youtube channel, but I am not looking for notoriety, victimhood or money. My comment was based on the only thing I remembered this person from. Between youtube and patreon, she was pulling 4-5k dollars in monthly couple years ago. But it was not enough and she got greedy. Looks like combination of her greed and manipulativeness fired back now, because she tried to use sjw bullying methods on those who are much more experienced 8n using the same. Again, this is just my opinion. I can have an opinion on comparative value of two things without being able to produce them.
  - dragonbonheur 8y ago
    If you have an opinion on two comparable things, YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY ENTITLED TO KEEP SAID OPINION TO YOURSELF AND NOT PARADE IT IN PUBLIC FORUMS. Else if you choose to make allegations using words like "his person likes to stir up attention with baseless accusations when her profit-seeking machinations" "she was whining" "cooter-shower miniskirt" "combination of her greed and manipulativeness" "sjw" then I am at liberty to think nothing more of you beside a hate-filled entitled scoundrel of the same type as the orange ersatz of a coprolith that currently occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and would deem any opinion that you may have or may have had as utterly worthless and repulsive as the semi-solid waste output that emerges from the rear end of the bovine species.

justaguyonline 8y ago

Found the story as written by SexyCyborg in the post very hard to follow, plus it felt a little too self serving to take 100% at face value. I'll admit though, I saw her once on Hacker News the first time she went viral, later read that Reddit "expose" and then promptly never thought of her again. It took a while to walk back what I thought was happening so I could understand what was going on. This video [1] helped me get the actual context of the article. The West honestly doesn't come off well in this, but neither does China really. More of the same "are the people with power over others using it with decency and respect?" [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0dkwwV_iaw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0dkwwV_iaw

DoreenMichele 8y ago

I have an expression I like to use, “It’s all about merit until merit has tits.” I'm very sorry for her negative experiences. From what I have read, she's genuinely been mistreated and I wish we lived in a better world. I'm well aware that sexism is alive and well. I'm reasonably vocal about my own frustrations and I'm frequently treated dismissively myself in a manner that looks suspiciously like sexism. I'm also guilty of not reading the entire article here, much less following the long backstory in any real depth over time. But she had breast implant surgery and her enormous artificial breasts are a significant part of her identity. She strongly emphasizes that element of her appearance in how she dresses and how she frames photos of herself that she posts to the internet, then justifies her style of dress as "It's not a problem in my city and I would dress appropriately if I visited your city" while not acknowledging that the photos on the internet are in a different context. That when she posts online, in some sense, she's no longer in her city anymore. She doesn't have to dress differently in her city to downplay this intentionally emphasized aspect of herself while on the internet. She basically insists that she has a right to express herself as she sees fit when it comes to body modifications and clothing, then vocally complains when the hypersexualized image she intentionally crafts and promotes gets her treated like a sex object. I have spent more than nine years participating on HN. It was unexpected drama at first, but has gradually gotten better. I have put a lot of time and effort into trying to figure out where I could do things differently in order to try to put down the enormous burden of cultural baggage from a very long history of gender stuff on the planet. The approach she has taken generally strikes me as "putting out the fire with gasoline." I have hesitated to say anything about it because it's likely to be interpreted as victim blaming and that's really not my intent at all. I think women need to know what works and what doesn't. I am in no way suggesting she was wrong to get breast implants, nor am I suggesting she should dress differently. I'm only saying she is entirely free to do both of those things without putting her tits front and center in soft porn style photos on what seems like all her social media platforms while bitching no one takes her seriously as a tech expert. I am unaware of any male tech experts who, say, put their genitals on display for all the world to see and then complain that it is all anyone talks about or something along those lines. I sincerely wish I could help her. I have never bothered to reach out to her because I have zero reason to believe she would take anything I think as sincerely helpful. I have lots of reasons to think it would go over so poorly that it's a game where the only winning move is not to play. I am absolutely not saying this to cause her trouble nor to dismiss any of the genuinely bad behavior she's been subjected to by various parties.

masonic 8y ago

Jeong was already infamous for defending[0] the U. of Virginia rape hoaxer[1]. [0] https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/11/04/report-jury-rules-against-rolling-stone-in-fake-uva-rape-story-lawsuit/ https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/11/04/report-jury-rules-... [1] https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/08/03/flashback-new-york-times-bigot-sarah-jeong-defended-uva-rape-hoaxer https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/08/03/flashback-new-york...