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I don't know all the background, and I don't want to end up victim blaming, but often I've found these things to be red flags: I do remember there was some dra

I don't know all the background, and I don't want to end up victim blaming, but often I've found these things to be red flags: I do remember there was some drama involving her and BoingBoing a few years back. I do not remember all the details at the moment, but I do remember feeling as if it seemed like the situation was twisted to put herself in the spotlight. So with that in mind, when I saw "I reported on corruption at Wikipedia, so be sure to read the unbiased and accurate Violet Blue bio here." little alarm bells went off. I'm admitting I don't know the whole situation, and I'm not saying Wikipedia is an infallibly unbiased source, but the fact that the main tag on one's blog has to point seems really odd to me. The article came off as reasonable and well written, as I feel her other blog posts were back when I do vaguely remember the BoingBoing drama, but I'm glad the other comment is on here, to get both sides of the story. It does portray the talk organizer in a negative and reactionary light that I don't know is reasonable.

anateus 14y ago
I think it's clear in this case Violet Blue isn't a cause or direct antecedent of drama, regardless of her history. Her post above, to me, sounds like she was basically talking to a middleman who didn't convey the message from the Ada Initiative in a manner as nuanced as they would. I really really don't think they meant to say as simplistic "is there any rape we can't have rape". But the "drama" around this started before she made the post above showing the details of her side of the situation.
- prodigal_erik 14y ago
  I think the people actually running this event decided it was a threat they had to cave to, but the organization they're part of put a pretty face on it. Why would people organizing a hacker conference be ideologically okay with censorship of thoughtcrime?
- cupcake-unicorn 14y ago
  Yeah, I do agree, and I hope my first post tried to make that clear - I just have seen a trend with some dramatic bloggers in the past, so it often clouds my view when reading an unrelated/less biased post. It is reasonable for her to be upset about it, and it does seem as if it was handled poorly, but I guess ultimately it was the conference's call.
  - rdl 14y ago
    The conference is getting pilloried within the security community (and other organizers of BSides conferences), it seems, although that may just be that the loudest voices are the most opposed to what happened. BSidesLV extended an open invitation for her to speak (again), and made it clear they'd never bar someone for a talk like this. At the same time it would also suck if the response to censorship were hostile to women or whatever.

anateus 14y ago

I think it's clear in this case Violet Blue isn't a cause or direct antecedent of drama, regardless of her history. Her post above, to me, sounds like she was basically talking to a middleman who didn't convey the message from the Ada Initiative in a manner as nuanced as they would. I really really don't think they meant to say as simplistic "is there any rape we can't have rape". But the "drama" around this started before she made the post above showing the details of her side of the situation.

prodigal_erik 14y ago
I think the people actually running this event decided it was a threat they had to cave to, but the organization they're part of put a pretty face on it. Why would people organizing a hacker conference be ideologically okay with censorship of thoughtcrime?
cupcake-unicorn 14y ago
Yeah, I do agree, and I hope my first post tried to make that clear - I just have seen a trend with some dramatic bloggers in the past, so it often clouds my view when reading an unrelated/less biased post. It is reasonable for her to be upset about it, and it does seem as if it was handled poorly, but I guess ultimately it was the conference's call.
- rdl 14y ago
  The conference is getting pilloried within the security community (and other organizers of BSides conferences), it seems, although that may just be that the loudest voices are the most opposed to what happened. BSidesLV extended an open invitation for her to speak (again), and made it clear they'd never bar someone for a talk like this. At the same time it would also suck if the response to censorship were hostile to women or whatever.