5 ms·

One of twitter's engineers has been accused of attempting to rape a female speaker at ApacheConf. That's the reason two friends of mine have quit Twitter last y

One of twitter's engineers has been accused of attempting to rape a female speaker at ApacheConf. That's the reason two friends of mine have quit Twitter last year. Their culture is incredibly broken.

sk5t 15y ago
Source? And why should we presume the accused guilty? Does Twitter company policy suborn rape?
harlanlewis 15y ago
This is a very serious accusation that implies a lot about how the company handled it, and after a handful of searches I've found no other references to it.
- noste 15y ago
  I assume goodweeds refers to this http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Noirin_Shirley_ApacheCon_incident http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Noirin_Shirley_ApacheCon_... . That page classifies the incident as sexual assault instead of attempted rape, but I have to admit that I don't know the precise distinction between the two.
- earl 15y ago
  That would be Noirin Plunkett. Her account [1] and the discussion that went about the same way all posts on HN that touch on sexual assault or misogyny do... [2]. [1] http://blog.nerdchic.net/archives/418/ http://blog.nerdchic.net/archives/418/ [2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1875718 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1875718
  - harlanlewis 15y ago
    Thank you (and noste) for providing links. Shameful.
goodweeds 15y ago
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/08/google-blogger-noirin-shi_n_780372.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/08/google-blogger-noir... There was no handling of it. The typical rapist response was "she was drunk, she asked for it". Then it was swept under the rug.
- goodweeds 15y ago
  Fun orthogonal fact. I only first heard about the ApacheCon incident this summer after a guy on that huffingtonpost thread started stalking a friend and co-worker of mine at a conference. It blew my mind to see him there so strongly defending the jerk at Twitter. I did some research (asking his co-workers) and discovered this was a known problem with him embarrassing them at several conferences, but his boss wouldn't fire him because he had a wife and a new baby. I bitched about the guy on facebook and found out two friends who had just quit Twitter said, "that guy was the final straw, we were just waiting for our vesting to finish". Sadly, they put more priority on their greed than their own moral compass. Moral of the story: Women at conferences are there to work, not to get hit on by some pimply-faced nerd with no game. Especially married ones with rings who say "NO".
  - paganel 15y ago
    I've just read the girl's story on her blog, and I know I may sound as a rapist-apologist or something, but frankly I don't care: she was just plain stupid by getting drunk in front of all those guys, performing dances wearing a short skirt and "sitting on laps". I didn't say "she asked for it", I'm just saying "she was stupid". Of course that Twitter guy is in all honesty a jerk (as was Bill Clinton or Dominique Strauss-Kahn and lots of other very bright men, intellectually speaking), but if this girl cares about her "safety" and all that she shouldn't play the role of Little Red Riding Hood in the land of horny, drunk and sexual deprived techies.
    - peteretep 15y ago
      For it to be 'stupid', you imply there's not a reasonable assumption on her part that she can't get a bit drunk around people without being assaulted. If you were at a party where you didn't know everyone, and had had a couple of beers, and someone beat the living shit out of you in the toilet and stole your wallet, have you been stupid? I'm assuming you don't think you've been stupid in that situation, so what's the difference?
peteretep 15y ago
Can you explain how you get from an alleged action of an individual to "their culture is incredibly broken"?
- goodweeds 15y ago
  By not firing him on the spot they sent a message to their employees that this is acceptable behavior and have created a hostile, fearful work environment for their female employees. They have also allowed Florian to attend other conferences and represent Twitter, which discourages other women from wanting to attend these conferences, and from wanting to interact with brogrammers from Twitter. Their lack of action is wrong in so many ways that if you don't understand it, I feel really sorry for you, because you were clearly raised without a father, or at least without a father who knew how to teach you to be a man. And for some reason, it's always germans. A german from VW violently raped one of my father's engineers at a conference 20 years ago, and VW tried pretty hard to cover it up. Since dad is now dead, I don't feel sorry to say that he beat this man to within an inch of his life, and then had him arrested.
  - herval 15y ago
    did the actually sent a message saying it was ACCEPTABLE behavior? are you kidding? Is there any actual proof of this?

sk5t 15y ago

Source? And why should we presume the accused guilty? Does Twitter company policy suborn rape?

harlanlewis 15y ago

This is a very serious accusation that implies a lot about how the company handled it, and after a handful of searches I've found no other references to it.

noste 15y ago
I assume goodweeds refers to this http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Noirin_Shirley_ApacheCon_incident http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Noirin_Shirley_ApacheCon_... . That page classifies the incident as sexual assault instead of attempted rape, but I have to admit that I don't know the precise distinction between the two.
earl 15y ago
That would be Noirin Plunkett. Her account [1] and the discussion that went about the same way all posts on HN that touch on sexual assault or misogyny do... [2]. [1] http://blog.nerdchic.net/archives/418/ http://blog.nerdchic.net/archives/418/ [2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1875718 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1875718
- harlanlewis 15y ago
  Thank you (and noste) for providing links. Shameful.

goodweeds 15y ago

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/08/google-blogger-noirin-shi_n_780372.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/08/google-blogger-noir... There was no handling of it. The typical rapist response was "she was drunk, she asked for it". Then it was swept under the rug.

goodweeds 15y ago
Fun orthogonal fact. I only first heard about the ApacheCon incident this summer after a guy on that huffingtonpost thread started stalking a friend and co-worker of mine at a conference. It blew my mind to see him there so strongly defending the jerk at Twitter. I did some research (asking his co-workers) and discovered this was a known problem with him embarrassing them at several conferences, but his boss wouldn't fire him because he had a wife and a new baby. I bitched about the guy on facebook and found out two friends who had just quit Twitter said, "that guy was the final straw, we were just waiting for our vesting to finish". Sadly, they put more priority on their greed than their own moral compass. Moral of the story: Women at conferences are there to work, not to get hit on by some pimply-faced nerd with no game. Especially married ones with rings who say "NO".
- paganel 15y ago
  I've just read the girl's story on her blog, and I know I may sound as a rapist-apologist or something, but frankly I don't care: she was just plain stupid by getting drunk in front of all those guys, performing dances wearing a short skirt and "sitting on laps". I didn't say "she asked for it", I'm just saying "she was stupid". Of course that Twitter guy is in all honesty a jerk (as was Bill Clinton or Dominique Strauss-Kahn and lots of other very bright men, intellectually speaking), but if this girl cares about her "safety" and all that she shouldn't play the role of Little Red Riding Hood in the land of horny, drunk and sexual deprived techies.
  - peteretep 15y ago
    For it to be 'stupid', you imply there's not a reasonable assumption on her part that she can't get a bit drunk around people without being assaulted. If you were at a party where you didn't know everyone, and had had a couple of beers, and someone beat the living shit out of you in the toilet and stole your wallet, have you been stupid? I'm assuming you don't think you've been stupid in that situation, so what's the difference?

peteretep 15y ago

Can you explain how you get from an alleged action of an individual to "their culture is incredibly broken"?

goodweeds 15y ago
By not firing him on the spot they sent a message to their employees that this is acceptable behavior and have created a hostile, fearful work environment for their female employees. They have also allowed Florian to attend other conferences and represent Twitter, which discourages other women from wanting to attend these conferences, and from wanting to interact with brogrammers from Twitter. Their lack of action is wrong in so many ways that if you don't understand it, I feel really sorry for you, because you were clearly raised without a father, or at least without a father who knew how to teach you to be a man. And for some reason, it's always germans. A german from VW violently raped one of my father's engineers at a conference 20 years ago, and VW tried pretty hard to cover it up. Since dad is now dead, I don't feel sorry to say that he beat this man to within an inch of his life, and then had him arrested.
- herval 15y ago
  did the actually sent a message saying it was ACCEPTABLE behavior? are you kidding? Is there any actual proof of this?