11 ms·

The world is replete with examples of why you should never use your real name with your online identity in any way (although in this case, the guy's employer fo

• theorique 12y ago
  "Not too bad, he's a white male. I'm a black Jewish female." Nice quote here. As you say, it really does make Richards look empathetic. /s But seriously, this is not good for her image.
  • fpgeek 12y ago
    No, she doesn't look empathetic, but, considering the broader context, how much empathy can you reasonably expect? He lost his job and got a new one "right away" (according to the article). She also lost her job, was bombarded with all kinds of threats (death, rape, etc.), had to go into hiding and still doesn't have a new job (at least as of her interview for the piece). I'm sure she could improve her image if she were better at faking some empathy, but I understand why she wouldn't feel much.
    • bjornsing 12y ago
      That, and her own childhood. We tend to relativize bad things in terms of what we've experienced ourselves. If I had seen my father beat the teeth out of my mothers mouth with a hammer I'm not so sure I'd be up in arms about somebody losing their job...
      • TomSawyer 12y ago
        So you're saying that you'd be irreparably damaged for life? Overcoming those past experiences means understanding that they were aberrations.
        • bjornsing 12y ago
          That depends. If you think that somebody who feels limited empathy with someone who lost their job (and quickly got another one) is "irreparably damaged for life", then perhaps yes. But you could think of it in the opposite way as well: Perhaps our empathy should be directed more towards those that have it toughest in life, and less towards those with whom we can easily identify? In that case I'd say it's the 4chan guys that are "irreparably damaged", and the HN crowd obsessed with Hank's restitution... well, "damaged" but perhaps not "irreparably". ;)
    • StavrosK 12y ago
      But why not expect empathy? Hank has empathy for Adria, saying she didn't deserve what she got. It doesn't look like Hank was the one who instigated all the death threats and abuse, so why not feel empathy towards him for losing his job?
    • adekok 12y ago
      > No, she doesn't look empathetic, but, considering the broader context, how much empathy can you reasonably expect? Lots. The "broader context" is that people who aren't Hank harassed her. As a result, she suggests that Hank organized that harassment. i.e. she isn't sympathetic to Hank because of a ridiculous excuse she invented. I understand you want to have sympathy for a victim. Fine. Sympathize with Adria for the abuse she got. But also point out that her lack of empathy for Hank is itself a red flag.
    • alextgordon 12y ago
      I would hope that she would use the time for some introspection, and correct her racist attitude. Then she might find it easier to get a job.
    • jasonlotito 12y ago
      She has a job, and still very active in the tech community.
    • Lawtonfogle 12y ago
      He lost a job for sharing a private joke with a friend in a public setting. Who hasn't done that? He then apologized and wished the one who made his joke public well. His line of work is, at the core, developing software. She lost her job for tattling on a private joke shared with a friend that she overheard. She then tried to get the claim that she cost someone a job taken down, blamed the victim for his own problems, and blamed the victim for her problems. She is also quoted being quite racist and sexist. She may also have used her PR position to cause much of this (I've heard but have not seen conclusion evidence that the account she used was officially associated with her company.) Her line of work is, at the core, PR. That one was hired and the other wasn't should not be a surprise.
• warkid 12y ago
  > If there's anyone worse than Adria in this story, it's both Hank's and Adria's former employers. Worse? One (presumably) could've had a ruined business due to DDoS which could've led to much more layoffs than just one-I'm-very-sorry-for Adria. Hanks' employer could've had much more troubles than simply loosing money - by having a "black-jewish-feminist-hater" in his staff.
  • TeMPOraL 12y ago
    There's this concept of Dane Geld, popularly known also as "not negotiating with terrorists". If you show that you're willing to bow down to a random DDoS attack and fire someone as ransom, it only validates this method of action against you.
    • warkid 12y ago
      That's what terrorists do - they are trying to make an impression that their possible actions are much for dredful that what they'r asking from you. But it doesn't make you particularly bad if you feel scared, does it? And act out of fear? Like giving up something yours - one of your employees or, say, one of your freedoms?
    • rsanders 12y ago
      I think you might have that concept backwards. Danegeld was payment to "terrorists" presumably arrived at through the pragmatic notion that paying for protection was better than being dead.
      • TeMPOraL 12y ago
        When people say "dane geld", they often refer to the poem of R. Kipling, "Dane-geld", which explains why you should not pay it. That's what I was referring to. http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_danegeld.htm http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_danegeld.htm
  • pcthrowaway 12y ago
    Adria specifically pointed out that she doesn't identify with the feminist movement, so I'd say it's a bit of a stretch to posture he may be a "black-jewish-feminist hater"
• interpol_p 12y ago
  I don't think it's a lack of empathy. It feels like anger at a system that caters to men in a field she very much enjoys and wants to be included in. Unfortunately Hank happens to be a fairly good guy who is defended by this system and oblivious to it. He's an unintended casualty of her anger at something bigger. I had many of the same reactions as you when I read her words. But I've been trying very hard to imagine what it's like to go to PyCon as a minority, and to have someone sitting in earshot comfortably make jokes that make me feel threatened all while watching a talk on inclusiveness. While the emotional image of a little girl wanting to get into your field is up on screen. And then to have everyone defend that person and behave like you're the one that fired him just because you voiced your discomfort publicly. I don't agree with Adria's public tweet, and Hank got way more than he deserved (as did Adria) over it. But I can totally see how she could have been driven to do it, and I can even see how she would feel now — after all she's gone through — that she should not have to apologise for it. From that article it sounds like she came out of this worse than Hank, who got another job almost immediately. And you have to wonder — did Hank get another job so fast because our field is dominated by men, and they are likely to feel for him and have the same initial reactions as we do when reading this article? Unfortunately there are not many people who will feel for Adria. I'm sure she knows it.
  • bobcostas55 12y ago
    What is threatening about that joke?
    • interpol_p 12y ago
      That's exactly it. We find it so hard to understand how that joke is threatening. It's almost impossible to imagine. It just sounds like a dumb joke. But look at how Adria describes her feelings in the article: “Have you ever had an altercation at school and you could feel the hairs rise up on your back?” she asked me. “You felt fear?” I asked. “Danger,” she said. “Clearly my body was telling me, ‘You are unsafe.’” I believe she actually felt like this. And that it is possible for women to feel this way at a conference heavily dominated by men. But we are oblivious to it, we can't even imagine how it feels.
• vinceguidry 12y ago
  The chances of this sort of thing happening to any given person are astronomically small. The Internet has a fairly finite capacity for outrage. There's only so many memes that can grab attention at any one time. And the amount of that attention that has to be focused in order to achieve something like removing you from your job is just immense. And even then, you can rebuild. Eventually. There's no rebuilding from the kinds of public shaming that went on through history or even right now in the rest of the world. Imagine being a pariah in the only small village you've ever known in a world where every other village won't accept you at all. Even what Adria went through was tame compared to that.
• bjornsing 12y ago
  Well... I do agree it's not the most empathic response, but if you read the article again is that the weirdest lack of appropriate emotion you see? I must say I'm more concerned about the combination of her father beating her mother to pieces with a hammer, and her writing an upbeat and loving letter to him some 20 years later... To me that's the heartbreaking story here. UPDATE: Edited to clarify that I think there's room to empathize with Adria.
• eloisant 12y ago
  There are differences between Hank in Adria. * Hank did a private joke while Adria took the issue to the public (tweeted to her 10,000 followers) * Hank was a developer while Adria was a developer evangelist, so she officially represents the company publicly. It's important to note that a lof of her Twitter followers probably followed her because of her position at Sendgrid. Which is why I can understand Sendgrid's decision, but less Hank's employer's decision. Not based on the blackmail, but because it became hard for such a dividing personality to assume a position that involves public communication with a developer community that may or may not agree with everything you think.
  • amalag 12y ago
    As a developer evangelist you would think she could have handled it better.
    • darkerside 12y ago
      Great point. She was speaking in her capacity as a SendGrid spokesperson. Putting that on a private Twitter account totally unaffiliated with SendGrid might not have had the same outcome.
      • xtrumanx 12y ago
        I don't think that would have helped as I'm pretty sure she tweeted something to the effect of "SendGrid's got my back" shortly before getting fired.
  • byuu 12y ago
    Ah, thanks for the clarification. Still, the article made it sound like the public firing was a direct response to the DDoS blackmail (corporate expediency) rather than about her actions. Of course, it is possible that it's like you said, and was in the works already.
    • hga 12y ago
      I would assume it was both. Assuming they were already thinking about the problem, that forced a decision. Either way, when the whole thing came to their attention, they had to have realized that her action, as noted "speaking in her capacity as a SendGrid spokesperson" had made her utterly toxic to the vast majority of developers who are not "black Jewish females". If she displayed any of the attitudes WRT responsibility evident from the Guardian article if and when they talked to her, the decision would not have even been very difficult.
• TuringTest 12y ago
  > And, "if I had kids, I wouldn't tell jokes"? Seriously? This. Young netizens need to learn the meaning of "proportionate response". There were two adequate courses of action given the offence: - Confront the guys, and shame them face to face for their behavior. - If the goal was to change such misogynistic behavior of men at that kind of events (which is a reasonable and even courageous thing to do), the proper action should have been to describe the incident withholding the identities of the guys, precisely to not get them in such trouble. “Love the sinner, hate the sin”, as they say. Doing the later would have achieved the desired goal while avoiding the whole nightmare to all involved. But linking their names to the notice of wrong behavior was an irresponsible thing to do; in particular, performing such public shaming on the internet, which never forgets and where things can go viral and turn against the one doing the shaming, as it happened. Edit: Not to mention the disproportionate reaction of the employer, and of everyone that started bombing a company over this. Seriously guys, what's wrong with people when they're online?
  • Dewie 12y ago
    > If the goal was to change such misogynistic behavior of men Making a sexual innuendo about dicks or whatever isn't misogyny. Please, tell me how talking about dicks is an exhibit of contempt for women. The "joke" doesn't even have to do with women.
    • lurknomore 12y ago
      Misogyny: Thinking, saying, or doing something a woman doesn't like.
  • StavrosK 12y ago
    But what was the misogynistic behaviour? I didn't see women enter into it at all, the article said that the joke was about a guy.
    • TuringTest 12y ago
      It doesn't mater to my argument whether you think the comment was misogynistic or not; that's a red herring and figuring it out is not the most important thing regarding the incident. What matter is that Adria thought making sexual jokes in a conference was disparaging towards her, so she had every right to express her discomfort in public; what she had no right was to link her shaming discourse to the actual person who made her uncomfortable, without even letting him know about it. Personal affairs need to be kept private and discussed face to face before shouting them from the rooftops; that's simply the adult way to behave. Many women in the tech industry have stated a legitimate concern that, being in a minority, they feel very disturbing a "bro culture" in professional settings where sexual innuendo is unabashed, even when those are not directed at women - if not for other things, because that culture encourages some black sheeps to perform regrettable actions which are misogynistic, like unwanted sexual advances while discussing a business deal. After being made aware of such frequent and repeated complaints, the responsible way to behave in such contexts, when there are women present, is to restrain yourself and avoid such comments even if you don't agree that they are misogynistic, unless you're 100% sure that all the women present are OK with them.
• edw519 12y ago
  why you should never use your real name with your online identity in any way I believe exactly the opposite. People say horrible things hiding behind anonymity. Those of us who freely identify ourselves actually attempt (albeit sometimes feebly) to talk to others as if we were in person. If we just treated each other on-line like we did in person, most of this shit would never happen. - Proud self-identified member of Hacker News for 8 years. (see profile) EDIT 1: I love engaging others on-line when I know who they are (the way HN was for a long time) much more than anonymous strangers. I would be phony if I felt this way and remained anonymous EDIT 2: Why would anyone want to work for someone who would fire them for gossip, on-line or otherwise? Firing is almost always an extreme overreaction and a clear demonstration of one's inability to run their business. Fuck 'em. Find another job with someone a little more righteous. (FWIW, things I say in person in the workplace are probably much more offensive to those who don't get it than anything I'd ever say on-line.)
  • celticninja 12y ago
    except that only works if everyone plays by the same rules. they dont so it doesnt apply. If you get into an argument with someone, they can read through your history to determine eho you are, where you work, what your family life is like etc and then use this against you regardless of whether what you did was wrong or not. So whilst I agree in principle in reality it is unworkable.
  • TeMPOraL 12y ago
    I have to agree. Tying yourself to your on-line identity shows that you're willing to take responsibility for your actions. There are places where you might not want to be recognized for some reason, just as there are such places in real-life (I would feel as uncomfortable browsing Silk Road for nootropics as I would feel visiting a sex shop in the shadier parts of te city) - but in general, I try to stand by what I do, including mistakes, as any responsible adult should. But really this isn't even relevant in this case. They guy got fired because he was on the photo, and the girl was a developer evangelist, which by the very job description requires you to tie your face to your on-line presence and company. If either of them was otherwise anonymous on-line, it wouldn't help them anyway.
• tomp 12y ago
  > "Not too bad, he's a white male. I'm a black Jewish female." This makes her racist and sexist at the same time.
  • bluehex 12y ago
    Technically she is not, according to [1] /s [1] https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/6039856858 https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/6039856858
    • juliangregorian 12y ago
      Plus, she digs self-awareness.
    • rblstr 12y ago
      Oh. So she's actually racist. Great.
    • mkr-hn 12y ago
      Power imbalances and systemic issues are helpful for discussing society-level problems. It's useful to understand the broader society a jerk grew up in and see how certain societal norms might be involved. I'd still be a jerk if I insulted a straight guy for being straight, and I wouldn't use "it's not bigoted because of a power imbalance" as a shield when someone calls me out on it. The power imbalance doesn't excuse it, and no amount of mincing words will make my words/actions look better even if I might be right if we keep it to a society-level discussion without considering individuals.
• maxerickson 12y ago
  The many people who called for Hank to be fired and sent intimidation and threats and participated in the DDOS are all worse than both Hank and Adria. Hank's joke was perhaps inappropriate (it's impossible for those of us that were not there to even apply our own personal standards, volume, tone, etc. all factor into such things, and they are impossible to describe objectively). Adria's response is similarly hard to judge. I don't think the incident as she described it deserved much remediation. Certainly not beyond the resolution internal to the conference where he apologized. But I also think that there needs to be room to make mistakes. Sometimes people really are jerks, and they should be called on it, even if sometimes there is not wide agreement that they were jerks. But somehow, instead of focusing on the bile and rage that many internet participants see as part an parcel of participation, which are clearly inappropriate and not in any way useful, here we have dozens of comments picking at the details of what happened at the conference.
  • Anderkent 12y ago
    Because we can somewhat reasonably change what happens at conferences, while you can't change the internet mob being the internet mob.
  • Lawtonfogle 12y ago
    The one thing 4chan trolls would love more than being left alone to their trolling is to not be.
  • jellicle 12y ago
    HN is extremely supportive of the mob justice meted out on uppity black women, and there are numerous supportive comments in this story thread to that effect. Most HN readers don't even see a problem there, much less one that needs any attention or remedy. Sure, any rational examination of the situation would suggest that Adria's "offense" (saying something she didn't like was "not cool" on her personal Twitter account) was just about the most minor thing a human could possibly do, but the more important thing to HN is that she was a black woman challenging a white man, and that simply cannot be allowed to stand. > The many people who called for Hank to be fired Did anyone, at all, call for "Hank" to be fired? His name isn't even publicly known.
• gosukiwi 12y ago
  I was really surprised by that complete lack of empathy. But well when you get to read about her childhool everything makes sense I guess. Still, she went a bit too far...
• michaelochurch 12y ago
  If there's anyone worse than Adria in this story, it's both Hank's and Adria's former employers. Agree on Hank. Adria's case is more complicated. With regard to Hank, I know this is going to be unpopular but if the threats of physical violence (and, even, the actual fact) were directed at those who turned their backs on Hank, I'd support it, because morality demands enforcement sometimes, and abandoning someone in his time of need is unacceptable. Adria fucked up, but she was the wrong target. She did something bad, and stupid, and wrong, in hot blood. The people who decided to abandon Hank in cold blood are the ones who deserve to be brutalized and terrorized into future decency (or oblivion). Adria's case is more complicated because firing her was the right decision (she was in a PR role, and a fuckup that ruins another person's reputation is unacceptable when PR is your job) but I bet it was a sleazy tech-company firing where there's no severance or contractual positive reference, and where the person is often singled out and humiliated. They also picked the wrong time to do it. They should have eased her out with a 6-month "you don't work here, but we'll support you in landing on your feet" period, and unless there's something unusual that I don't know about, they didn't. So they're almost certainly dirty as hell and I almost hope she reads this, gets treatment for her issues (described below) and also sues the hell out of them, not for firing her (they had to remove her from a PR role) but for firing her, a person with disability (I'll get to that) in a damaging way at a damaging time. Her lack of empathy is absolutely staggering. And, "if I had kids, I wouldn't tell jokes"? Seriously? I'm going to say this non-judgmentally. I have cyclothymia (mild bipolar) and panic disorder and... I know it when I see it. She's mentally ill, and the most dangerous kind of it, because she doesn't know that she's ill. Instead, she justifies her horrible, mistaken actions by pretending she's some kind of SJW rather than someone who panicked in a crowd and fucked up. I didn't join the Adria-hate bandwagon, originally, because I saw her as someone who fucked up rather than someone to hate. And I found the hatred rising as I read this interview. Then I got to the part about the abuse, and stopped hating her, because it made sense: she has PTSD, doesn't know that she's ill, and has a lack of empathy because severe mental illness makes you selfish, not out of a character flaw, but by necessity. So, I found myself not hating her at the end (although she should still get the courage to apologize for fucking up). She, almost certainly, has PTSD because she was abused. That's nothing to be ashamed of. That's how normal people react to awful experiences. She had what sounds like a (mild-to-moderate, because she was still able to type) panic attack. For evidence, this quote: “Have you ever had an altercation at school and you could feel the hairs rise up on your back?” she asked me. “You felt fear?” I asked. “Danger,” she said. “Clearly my body was telling me, ‘You are unsafe.’” (Trigger warning: this paragraph.) She was in a crowd. The people around her were annoying her. (When you have an anxiety disorder, lots of small things annoy you.) At some point, her nerves blew out. Again, nothing to be ashamed of. It happens. I've had hundreds of the fucking things. And panic can make you an asshole, like when you're in line for water (to stop the dry-throat-feels-like-it's-closing-up feeling) and you're screaming at the people in front to "stop taking so fucking long". (I screamed at someone, mid-panic, for using what I thought was a credit card for a $3 purchase and "holding up the line". EBT, or "food stamps". Huge dick move on my part; thought she was a yuppie who couldn't be bothered to carry cash, I was wrong. Had to apologize profusely after that one.) So I am generally sympathetic to people who fuck up because of mental illness, even though posting a Tweet about the guys behind me wouldn't be my strategy for dealing with a panic attack. I fail to see how it would resolve the episode. What galls me about her is that she refuses to admit that she fucked up. I've seen enough not to demand empathy from the severely ill, but human decency is non-negotiable, and her self-righteousness is off-the-charts. Then she has to fall back on "he's a white male. I'm a black Jewish female." No, Adria, it's not about that; he was never a danger to you, and you are someone with an intensely painful, but fortunately treatable, medical condition. You freaked out and ruined someone's life in addition to your own, and that makes you hazardous. I have a lot of sympathy for people who suffer from mental illness, but not if they refuse to recognize and take responsibility for the problem.
• joshstrange 12y ago
  > why you should never use your real name with your online identity in any wa While I agree with most of your post I don't agree with this statement. In my opinion hiding behind a username not tied to your real identity is nothing more than a stopgap, eventually someone will link "byuu" with who you really are or more likely you will make a slip up and expose yourself. DPR did everything he could to conceal his identity while running SR and he still screwed up. Even if you don't make a mistake I believe that we aren't too far off from computers being able to analyse written comments/posts/tweets/etc and then link identities together based on writing style, posting time, and other metadata. It is because of this and the following two reasons that I nearly always post under "joshstrange". 1) I stand by what I have said and when I find out I'm wrong I like to publicly admit that. I'm not going to pretend I'm perfect, none of us are. 2) By posting under my real name I am less likely to say something that I will have to backtrack on, it would be a lot easier to spew off the cuff responses (which I'm still not perfect from doing) thinking that I was hiding behind some username that would never be linked to me. Pretty much I think that one day all my other identities will be easily linked back to me so why try and hide?
  • mreiland 12y ago
    For those of us who are older, the internet was a way to express ourselves without having to deal with the backlash of having views that weren't popular in your local community. being liberal in a conservative community, for example.
    • joshstrange 12y ago
      This is a very good point, as a 24 year old I will be the first to admit that my ideas may be wrong or misguided (It is what I believe at this point in time but beliefs need to be flexible to adjust to change and I believe mine are). I do see the internet as a way to talk as humans where we are judged by/on our thoughts/ideas and not things like race, political views, religious views, sexual orientation, etc which I understand conflicts with my previous statements. I'll never forgot some of the forums I was on as a kid where I was able to be myself and not be brushed off for being so young, I loved that feeling. Sadly I worry that I won't be able to find that again. There is a great deal of self-censorship that I do because I expect every comment I make to come back later be it positive or negative. It's less of "Oh I won't post that comment" and more of "I won't go near that forum/board/community in case I were to get doxxed". It's just that trying to be anonymous is so hard and even people that think they are doing a good job slip up all the time and get doxxed. If people trying their best fail what hope do I have?
• kefka 12y ago
  Karma's a bitch. Backwards male-hating feminist gets what she dishes out, and she cannot take it "like a man". Pity.
• quadlock 12y ago
  "if I had kids, I wouldn't tell jokes" is clearly taken out of context, so to your 'Seriously?' comment: Seriously? nice way to read it to support your own bias. Hank's life wasn't ruined. Adria's life has been most damaged, no employment for a long time, death threats, and this article will probably cause her a lot more grief. How many people in this thread have taken it upon themselves to send more abuse her way? Why is this article even on hacker news? To support the down-trodden software developers?
• mc32 12y ago
  My naive wish would be for companies to hold employees accountable when they are acting officially or on the job. But if you're off the job and not acting officially that people could be their ugly or nice selves without repercussions at the job. I wish there could be this hard separation of private and public life, but it seems impossible. I would like to think that if I ever become an employer I could allow the Adrias and trolls of the world keep on doing what they do in the off hours, so long as they don't implicate the company. And when people want to complain and boycott I could have the courage to tell them to fuck off because I have no input an an employees private life and I only care how well they do things at work. I know this cannot work in practice, but I'd like it to be that way. People are complicated, they are not monolithic personalities, they are conflicted, I think we need to understand that. We also need to understand that people who are perfect are only so because their indiscretions have not be on public.
• moe 12y ago
  Her lack of empathy is absolutely staggering. And, "if I had kids, I wouldn't tell jokes"? Seriously? Did you read to the end, about her childhood? She quite obviously has mental issues. The guy simply shouldn't have gotten fired over a such a childish remark. His former employer is the one who made the real mistake here and who should be at the center of any public shaming.
• FireBeyond 12y ago
  Right, the whole "don't make jokes like that" thing was eyebrow raising. The article hints, but the interviewer never explored the fact that her Twitter feed had regular sexual and innuendo-laden jokes about (among other things) suggesting someone stuff a rolled up sock into their underwear for a trip through airport security. I recall at the time she spent quite a lot of words mealy-mouthy defending how "different" that was, because it was a conversation between friends (as opposed to the conversation between friends at the conference), etc.
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• dhagz 12y ago
  My issue is I understand why Adria is upset with the system, but she chose a completely wrong joke to get upset over. Those comments were fairly inane and innocent. I can see how they could be construed as hate speech, but it's a stretch.