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I think the core problem here is we have someone (Shanley) who is allowed to attack people on the basis of their gender, class, profession, etc. [e.g. https://t

I think the core problem here is we have someone (Shanley) who is allowed to attack people on the basis of their gender, class, profession, etc. [e.g. https://twitter.com/ryan/status/474791621100199936 https://twitter.com/ryan/status/474791621100199936 ] An example relevant to HN is: https://twitter.com/shanley/status/474601030986903552 https://twitter.com/shanley/status/474601030986903552 "HN is fucking obsessed with me lol. what is wrong with you little boys? mad cuz i'm cute and would NEVER talk to you or know you exist?" Yet, this person is still able to get an employer to fire one of their employees for engaging in the same behavior she does. Is it just me that feels people who attack people on the basis of their gender shouldn't be able to get people fired for doing the same thing? Edit: I was trying to say the consequences should be equal. I probably should have said the reverse in my question at the end there since it seemed to lead to confusion. [e.g. Both should be fired since consequences should be equal for equally bad behavior]

fleitz 12y ago
The employer doesn't care because no one on the internet is going to look into the backstory. It's realpolitik my friend, if you don't engage trolls you can't be bitten by them.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  I thought it was all about the noopolitic these days.
- opendais 12y ago
  I guess. I just don't like the idea of cowering in fear because trolls will be trolls.
  - fleitz 12y ago
    No no, don't cower in fear, change tactics.
    - opendais 12y ago
      To what? Pointing out a troll's hypocritical behavior seems to be the only one that is effective with both trolls and rational people.
      - fleitz 12y ago
        I have no idea because I have no idea what your objective is... Which eludes to my original point of why one would engage with them... what did he hope to accomplish?
        opendais 12y ago
        > I have no idea because I have no idea what your objective is... I'd like to see equal, proportional response regardless of gender or the size of your soapbox. > Which eludes to my original point of why one would engage with them... what did he hope to accomplish? You'd have to ask him that :/
      - baddox 12y ago
        Not if the troll's entire audience doesn't care if (or won't accept that) their troll leader is hypocritical.
      - eqdw 12y ago
        This doesn't work. It gives the troll and their followers more fodder to troll about. The only winning move is not to play. Completely ignoring them.
scarmig 12y ago
For that particular tweet: this is what we call trolling. Shanley's MVC (which is a very interesting site that everyone should read, its proprietor notwithstanding) has a "feature" where they highlight the worst and most clueless comment on HN of the month. This entire imbroglio has doubtlessly netted MVC a very rich upcoming "worst of HN" piece. Joy. Substantively: why should the previous behavior of the reporter matter one bit? If someone does something bad, whether a person complaining about it is "good" or "bad" is sort of besides the point, and digging into how evil that person is amounts to an all-too-transparent attempt at deflection. Shanley, for better or for worse, takes advantage of that to generate news. That means that even if you get provoked, external observers won't and shouldn't care enough to get caught up in whether Shanley's a bad person or not. (Your takeaway, by the way, should be "do not engage" because she's communicating with an audience that's not-you when she engages with you. Also: all comments on this story amount to engagement, hence the heavy flagging.) My sympathy for the fired guy is very limited. He clearly fucked up, and immediately knew it and took it down (before she even posted her screenshot, it seems), either because a friend told him he was out of line or he realized it himself. Which does elicit a bit of sympathy from me, and if I were in her shoes, I'd have let it slide--there's more than enough misogyny in tech than to need to scrape the bottom of the barrel here. Despite that, he did fuck up. Freedom of speech is not an issue: if he had posted a long stream of tweets calling for Jews to be slaughtered, no one would be upset that his company let him go. She has just as much freedom-to-report-speech as he has freedom-to-insult-speech, and freedom of association is an equally important right.
- rrss1122 12y ago
  I think it's clear he realized soon after he posted that he did something wrong, either because a friend told him he was out of line or he realized it himself. Getting him fired doesn't help him realize more that he did something wrong. I think the main point is the precedent that Jon Snoeder tweeted about. This isn't to just punish the fired guy. It's to set an example to everyone else about what would happen if you are out of line.
  - calibraxis 12y ago
    We saw his retweets and insults, for example retweeting someone calling her "animal". No, he didn't accidentally slip up with a single tweet.
baddox 12y ago
> Is it just me that feels people who attack people on the basis of their gender shouldn't be able to get people fired for doing the same thing? I certainly don't agree with that logic in general. If the offense was valid (which I don't think it is in your specific example), I am fine with offenders reporting other offenders. For example, I am fine with a murderer turning in another murderer.
- opendais 12y ago
  Did you miss the edit? I was trying to avoid changing it to avoid confusing what I was trying to say further :/
jacalata 12y ago
But that's basically saying "all employers should have exactly the same standards for when to fire someone" which is silly.
- opendais 12y ago
  If you feel "insulting people on the basis of their gender" isn't something that should be universally vilified and cause for firing someone....I'm really not sure what to say beyond making sure that is what you mean?

fleitz 12y ago

The employer doesn't care because no one on the internet is going to look into the backstory. It's realpolitik my friend, if you don't engage trolls you can't be bitten by them.

lotsofmangos 12y ago
I thought it was all about the noopolitic these days.
opendais 12y ago
I guess. I just don't like the idea of cowering in fear because trolls will be trolls.
- fleitz 12y ago
  No no, don't cower in fear, change tactics.
  - opendais 12y ago
    To what? Pointing out a troll's hypocritical behavior seems to be the only one that is effective with both trolls and rational people.
    - fleitz 12y ago
      I have no idea because I have no idea what your objective is... Which eludes to my original point of why one would engage with them... what did he hope to accomplish?
      - opendais 12y ago
        > I have no idea because I have no idea what your objective is... I'd like to see equal, proportional response regardless of gender or the size of your soapbox. > Which eludes to my original point of why one would engage with them... what did he hope to accomplish? You'd have to ask him that :/
    - baddox 12y ago
      Not if the troll's entire audience doesn't care if (or won't accept that) their troll leader is hypocritical.
    - eqdw 12y ago
      This doesn't work. It gives the troll and their followers more fodder to troll about. The only winning move is not to play. Completely ignoring them.

scarmig 12y ago

For that particular tweet: this is what we call trolling. Shanley's MVC (which is a very interesting site that everyone should read, its proprietor notwithstanding) has a "feature" where they highlight the worst and most clueless comment on HN of the month. This entire imbroglio has doubtlessly netted MVC a very rich upcoming "worst of HN" piece. Joy. Substantively: why should the previous behavior of the reporter matter one bit? If someone does something bad, whether a person complaining about it is "good" or "bad" is sort of besides the point, and digging into how evil that person is amounts to an all-too-transparent attempt at deflection. Shanley, for better or for worse, takes advantage of that to generate news. That means that even if you get provoked, external observers won't and shouldn't care enough to get caught up in whether Shanley's a bad person or not. (Your takeaway, by the way, should be "do not engage" because she's communicating with an audience that's not-you when she engages with you. Also: all comments on this story amount to engagement, hence the heavy flagging.) My sympathy for the fired guy is very limited. He clearly fucked up, and immediately knew it and took it down (before she even posted her screenshot, it seems), either because a friend told him he was out of line or he realized it himself. Which does elicit a bit of sympathy from me, and if I were in her shoes, I'd have let it slide--there's more than enough misogyny in tech than to need to scrape the bottom of the barrel here. Despite that, he did fuck up. Freedom of speech is not an issue: if he had posted a long stream of tweets calling for Jews to be slaughtered, no one would be upset that his company let him go. She has just as much freedom-to-report-speech as he has freedom-to-insult-speech, and freedom of association is an equally important right.

rrss1122 12y ago
I think it's clear he realized soon after he posted that he did something wrong, either because a friend told him he was out of line or he realized it himself. Getting him fired doesn't help him realize more that he did something wrong. I think the main point is the precedent that Jon Snoeder tweeted about. This isn't to just punish the fired guy. It's to set an example to everyone else about what would happen if you are out of line.
- calibraxis 12y ago
  We saw his retweets and insults, for example retweeting someone calling her "animal". No, he didn't accidentally slip up with a single tweet.

baddox 12y ago

> Is it just me that feels people who attack people on the basis of their gender shouldn't be able to get people fired for doing the same thing? I certainly don't agree with that logic in general. If the offense was valid (which I don't think it is in your specific example), I am fine with offenders reporting other offenders. For example, I am fine with a murderer turning in another murderer.

opendais 12y ago
Did you miss the edit? I was trying to avoid changing it to avoid confusing what I was trying to say further :/

jacalata 12y ago

But that's basically saying "all employers should have exactly the same standards for when to fire someone" which is silly.

opendais 12y ago
If you feel "insulting people on the basis of their gender" isn't something that should be universally vilified and cause for firing someone....I'm really not sure what to say beyond making sure that is what you mean?