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The knife cuts both ways. The clickbait media and various groups are trying to paint the now predictable narrative of '50 white male racist misogynist neck bear

The knife cuts both ways. The clickbait media and various groups are trying to paint the now predictable narrative of '50 white male racist misogynist neck beards' who want to chase women out of tech again. Over 200,000 people with legitimate concerns sign a petition to have Pao step down yet they still carry on with there charade. People are sick and tired of the media and a small group of militant activists trying to silence people who they disagree with. They engage in all forms of harassment, trying to get people fired, posting addresses and family pictures etc. The most critical things against Pao and her husband I have seen are posts about there phony extortion sexism and racism law suits. All of which is factual information available to the public and even the media has to admit these things are facts. The clickbait media has to be called out more then anyone for trying to turn every issue no matter how banal into a black and white battle between good and evil and then fanning the flames on both sides. Its extremely cynical mostly to drive traffic to there sites. There is zero accountability in the media today and zero ethics. Everyone needs to be much more sceptical about what they read in the press and there motivations.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
magicalist 11y ago
> The most critical things against Pao and her husband I have seen are posts about there phony extortion sexism and racism law suits. All of which is factual information available to the public and even the media has to admit these things are facts. Oh please. You can disclaim the disgusting statements made all over reddit recently as not part of a coherent community or whatever, but don't pretend they didn't exist at all. As for the rest of this nonsense, the statement quoted had nothing to do with "clickbait media and various groups" (I seriously feel like we're in talking points memos territory with this stuff), this is a statement from Sam Altman, so take it up with him. > There is zero accountability in the media today and zero ethics. Everyone needs to be much more sceptical about what they read in the press and there motivations. I mean, seriously, what on earth are you addressing here? Who are you talking to?
- badsock 11y ago
  Maybe I'm misinterpreting, but those last two lines read to me like a callout to #gamergate's "It's about ethics in journalism" BS.
  - axlprose 11y ago
    So questioning ethics in any kind of journalism anywhere is automatically BS now because of some random highly-opinionated internet drama? Way to discourage critical thinking. Orwell and Huxley would be proud.
    - magicalist 11y ago
      No, abruptly trying to turn a conversation about disgusting comments made on reddit into one on the "clickbait media has to be called out" is like a parody of the parodies of gamergate. I mean, it's like well into Poe's law territory.
      - axlprose 11y ago
        Did you even follow the original parent's argument? He didn't just bring up "clickbait media" as a non-sequitur while defending reddit comments. He highlighted how everything in this whole mess so far can be explained through the lens of questionable media, and literally none of his analysis+critique has been addressed so far, all that's been done is point out how he sounded like some angry mob person. Please explain to me how that is a logical way to respond to a legitimate argument.
        dasil003 11y ago
        Saying that online activists are equally to blame as misogynists and racists for the devolution of civil dialog online is sort of like insisting on creationism getting equal media coverage to evolution on the basis of fairness.
        11y ago
morbius 11y ago
> now predictable narrative of '50 white male racist misogynist neck beards' who want to chase women out of tech again This is a pretty accurate narrative. You may not agree, but casual misogyny is incredibly pervasive on most defaults, and it's fairly prevalent within the smaller, community-based subs as well. > small group of militant activists trying to silence people who they disagree with If you're referring to SRS, they're annoying and take themselves far too seriously, but as far as I know they don't try to silence anyone. > The most critical things against Pao and her husband I have seen are posts about there phony extortion sexism and racism law suits. I'm not even going to address how laughably absurd your characterization of consistent harassment, abuse, and terrifyingly legitimate rape and death threats as "criticism" is. Most people were upset with Pao because she was part of an executive decision to shut down FatPeopleHate and a couple of other abusive subreddits. It's quite a stretch to say that she was solely responsible for this decision, and even then, it's sobering that people would respond with scathing, fiery, and highly toxic personal and threatening attacks on a decision that was intended to help people be kinder to each other -- and worse, lobbed on someone that had at most 2/5ths of the executive power to make that decision. The media didn't turn the shaky relationship between reddit's users and their administrators into a black-and-white affair. Reddit itself did, by using Pao as a scapegoat to attack everything they saw as antithetical to freedom of hatred and abuse under the guise of "free speech."
- zxcvcxz 11y ago
  Didn't Ellen Pao her self claim that the racists and misogynists are a small minority?
  - saryant 11y ago
    Regardless of the actual numbers (I have no idea what they are), I wouldn't expect the CEO of Reddit to effectively announce to prospective advertisers that their user base was a bunch of racists.
  - fredkbloggs 11y ago
    Her actual claim was that the people who are critical of her and the changes Reddit made are a minority. For example, http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/reddit-users-turn-interim-ceo-ellen-pao-n377226 http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/reddit-users-turn-... and http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/04/technology/reddit-moderators-shut-down-parts-of-site-over-executives-dismissal.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/04/technology/reddit-moderato... for example. Being a racist or mysogynist is unrelated to being critical of or disagreeing with how she was managing Reddit as a business.
mikedouglas 11y ago
"No, don't you see? This is all about ethics in game journalism."
tptacek 11y ago
My favorite thing about Pao's loudest critics are how bad they are --- like, "ethics in gaming journalism" bad --- at concealing their agenda. "there phony extortion sexism and racism law suits", "even the media has to admit these things are facts". Real slick, there.
squeaky-clean 11y ago
> . The most critical things against Pao and her husband I have seen are posts about there phony extortion sexism and racism law suits. What about the subreddit comparing Ellen Pao to Pyongyang [0]. Jokes about Pao with over a +4000 positive score [1] [2] Jokes comparing Ellen Pao to Hitler. [3] I remember a post to /r/pics or /r/funny of Hitler's Wikipedia page, with Pao's photo instead of Hitler. I ran into some old coworkers (who take Reddit WAAAY too seriously) at a bar during the weekend this whole thing was first blowing up. They were literally talking about how Pao needs to die. Then they got drunk, forgot they had ranted about her, and told me again how she needed to die. This whole thing was really disgusting and made me hate the average Reddit user. I'll still browse some of the smaller subs, but I won't be touching the frontpage ever again. [0] http://www.reddit.com/r/paoyongyang http://www.reddit.com/r/paoyongyang [1] http://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/3c03y8/ellen_paos_career/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/3c03y8/ellen_paos_car... [2] http://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/3c05wq/what_sound_does_reddit_make_when_it_blows_up/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/3c05wq/what_sound_doe... [3] http://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/3c0b5p/whats_the_difference_between_ellen_pao_and_hitler/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/3c0b5p/whats_the_diff...
- zak_mc_kracken 11y ago
  > This whole thing was really disgusting and made me hate the average Reddit user They are not the average Reddit user. Probably a huge majority of Reddit users have no idea who Ellen Pao is.
  - zxcvcxz 11y ago
    Sorry you're getting downvoted. Even Ellen Pao claims the racist and misogynist are a small minority.
  - estel 11y ago
    Even if that's the case, they're a very visible component of Reddit's userbase, to the point that an outsider definitely might see them as representative. If the default home page and /r/all can all be flooded with posts about her, it's not exactly a small group of extremists.
eli 11y ago
I don't understand the preoccupation with the "media." It doesn't seem to me like news sites had much to do with this saga. Is there a mountain of unfair coverage I didn't see? It seems kind of obvious that Reddit is much more "the media" than any clickbait news site. And wasn't the whole point of "blacking out" subreddits to gain media attention?
georgeglue1 11y ago
There are dozens of posts with 1000+ upvotes comparing Ellen with Hitler. As far as I can tell, there's something larger and terrible going on within reddit's community.
- oldmanjay 11y ago
  You mean there might be thousands of jerks in a population that is measured in 9 figures? Say it ain't so!
- xienze 11y ago
  Bush was compared to Hitler endlessly. But that probably didn't bother you. Public figures, especially unpopular ones, are subject to ridicule. It happens.
- vonklaus 11y ago
  > dozens of posts Literally (in the actual sense of this word) there are 160 million unique users on reddit monthly. Personally, I applaud free speech even when it is extremely hateful as I would not trade my right to speak my mind for protection from others voices[0]. However, even if I didn't believe that, I do believe that it is wrong to judge a large group of people based on the actions of a small minority. [0] I get that the websites are private, before anyone points that out.
- pixl97 11y ago
  Could you possibly believe many of those same people also post here?! HN would just flag and ban you for saying it right off that bat. Most people you know are in some form or fashion, an asshole. They quietly be a racist, sexist, nationalist to an extreme, have a fetish far beyond the norm, or other strange or socially unacceptable behavior. They just don't personally show it to you to avoid the judgement. It just seems like there are a whole lot more of them on Reddit because Reddit doesn't silence them. Let that settle in for a little bit. It's the anti-gay pastor that gets caught with a man, for example. That said, people are allowed to show their more negative sides without any repercussions things can become problematic and the more extreme can take over a community if enabled.
vacri 11y ago
> People are sick and tired of ... a small group of militant activists trying to silence people who they disagree with. You're damn right people are tired of the shrill MRAs with their short-sighted, selfish, and immature wails, who can't think of anyone but themselves. They're a small group of militant activists crying over what amounts to a skinned knee, always trying to shout down other people, but never being pro-active and creating events of their own.
- vonklaus 11y ago
  Honest question, what do you think is an appropriate set of measures to curtail [people you don't like] on the internet? Do you believe the internet should be a safe space?
  - vacri 11y ago
    No, I don't think the internet should be sanitised. But at the same time, I find the MRA shrill talking-points to be of a pretty shallow depth, and, as a group, they're pretty vocally violent. In contrast, I find feminist talking-points to have a fair amount of depth to them. Those feminists who conduct themselves in the shrill manner that MRAs do are just as bad, but when you take those kinds of people away and look at what's left over, it's quite different. So how should you counter people you don't like? Well, by trying to be mature, and if you fail, trying for better next time. Death threats and rape threats are never okay. Especially if the person in question is not forcing themselves into your life - people go to reddit, reddit does not force themselves into living rooms and makes you read it, nor do many people pay for it. For the record, I am a white male. I loathe the MRA crowd because they're purely reactionary. Men do have systemic social issues that need addressing, but in general, the MRA crowd isn't actually interested in exploring, discussing, and addressing the issues. Instead, they use men's issues as a weapon with which to beat down discussion that other people are having; there is very little that is proactive in that crowd. For example, here on HN, pretty much all the men's rights stuff has been presented as some sort of counterpoint to a perceived feminist slight... yet these same shrill voices that demand we pay attention to the issues faced by men... never post articles in their own right, only weaponised comments to win internet points. Threats of violence are never okay unless you're being physically threatened. Immature commentary should never be at the forefront of a social movement, since it's never going to solve root causes and can only provide a superficial salve. These things are destructive, and are all about making the other side lose - an ideal outcome is a win-win situation, though that's not always possible, of course.
mlangdon 11y ago
Is there a larger red flag for the aggrieved tech male to wave these days than whinging about "ethics" in the media?
LordHumungous 11y ago
> The most critical things against Pao and her husband I have seen are posts about there phony extortion sexism and racism law suits Why the fuck is someone else's sexual harassment lawsuit with their former employer any of your concern? Unless you have a political agenda against women who complain about sexual harassment.
dang 11y ago
This comment has no relevance to the top comment it replied to. When we see people doing that, we detach the subthread from its parent.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

magicalist 11y ago

> The most critical things against Pao and her husband I have seen are posts about there phony extortion sexism and racism law suits. All of which is factual information available to the public and even the media has to admit these things are facts. Oh please. You can disclaim the disgusting statements made all over reddit recently as not part of a coherent community or whatever, but don't pretend they didn't exist at all. As for the rest of this nonsense, the statement quoted had nothing to do with "clickbait media and various groups" (I seriously feel like we're in talking points memos territory with this stuff), this is a statement from Sam Altman, so take it up with him. > There is zero accountability in the media today and zero ethics. Everyone needs to be much more sceptical about what they read in the press and there motivations. I mean, seriously, what on earth are you addressing here? Who are you talking to?

badsock 11y ago
Maybe I'm misinterpreting, but those last two lines read to me like a callout to #gamergate's "It's about ethics in journalism" BS.
- axlprose 11y ago
  So questioning ethics in any kind of journalism anywhere is automatically BS now because of some random highly-opinionated internet drama? Way to discourage critical thinking. Orwell and Huxley would be proud.
  - magicalist 11y ago
    No, abruptly trying to turn a conversation about disgusting comments made on reddit into one on the "clickbait media has to be called out" is like a parody of the parodies of gamergate. I mean, it's like well into Poe's law territory.
    - axlprose 11y ago
      Did you even follow the original parent's argument? He didn't just bring up "clickbait media" as a non-sequitur while defending reddit comments. He highlighted how everything in this whole mess so far can be explained through the lens of questionable media, and literally none of his analysis+critique has been addressed so far, all that's been done is point out how he sounded like some angry mob person. Please explain to me how that is a logical way to respond to a legitimate argument.
      - dasil003 11y ago
        Saying that online activists are equally to blame as misogynists and racists for the devolution of civil dialog online is sort of like insisting on creationism getting equal media coverage to evolution on the basis of fairness.
        11y ago

morbius 11y ago

> now predictable narrative of '50 white male racist misogynist neck beards' who want to chase women out of tech again This is a pretty accurate narrative. You may not agree, but casual misogyny is incredibly pervasive on most defaults, and it's fairly prevalent within the smaller, community-based subs as well. > small group of militant activists trying to silence people who they disagree with If you're referring to SRS, they're annoying and take themselves far too seriously, but as far as I know they don't try to silence anyone. > The most critical things against Pao and her husband I have seen are posts about there phony extortion sexism and racism law suits. I'm not even going to address how laughably absurd your characterization of consistent harassment, abuse, and terrifyingly legitimate rape and death threats as "criticism" is. Most people were upset with Pao because she was part of an executive decision to shut down FatPeopleHate and a couple of other abusive subreddits. It's quite a stretch to say that she was solely responsible for this decision, and even then, it's sobering that people would respond with scathing, fiery, and highly toxic personal and threatening attacks on a decision that was intended to help people be kinder to each other -- and worse, lobbed on someone that had at most 2/5ths of the executive power to make that decision. The media didn't turn the shaky relationship between reddit's users and their administrators into a black-and-white affair. Reddit itself did, by using Pao as a scapegoat to attack everything they saw as antithetical to freedom of hatred and abuse under the guise of "free speech."

zxcvcxz 11y ago
Didn't Ellen Pao her self claim that the racists and misogynists are a small minority?
- saryant 11y ago
  Regardless of the actual numbers (I have no idea what they are), I wouldn't expect the CEO of Reddit to effectively announce to prospective advertisers that their user base was a bunch of racists.
- fredkbloggs 11y ago
  Her actual claim was that the people who are critical of her and the changes Reddit made are a minority. For example, http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/reddit-users-turn-interim-ceo-ellen-pao-n377226 http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/reddit-users-turn-... and http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/04/technology/reddit-moderators-shut-down-parts-of-site-over-executives-dismissal.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/04/technology/reddit-moderato... for example. Being a racist or mysogynist is unrelated to being critical of or disagreeing with how she was managing Reddit as a business.

mikedouglas 11y ago

"No, don't you see? This is all about ethics in game journalism."

tptacek 11y ago

My favorite thing about Pao's loudest critics are how bad they are --- like, "ethics in gaming journalism" bad --- at concealing their agenda. "there phony extortion sexism and racism law suits", "even the media has to admit these things are facts". Real slick, there.

squeaky-clean 11y ago

> . The most critical things against Pao and her husband I have seen are posts about there phony extortion sexism and racism law suits. What about the subreddit comparing Ellen Pao to Pyongyang [0]. Jokes about Pao with over a +4000 positive score [1] [2] Jokes comparing Ellen Pao to Hitler. [3] I remember a post to /r/pics or /r/funny of Hitler's Wikipedia page, with Pao's photo instead of Hitler. I ran into some old coworkers (who take Reddit WAAAY too seriously) at a bar during the weekend this whole thing was first blowing up. They were literally talking about how Pao needs to die. Then they got drunk, forgot they had ranted about her, and told me again how she needed to die. This whole thing was really disgusting and made me hate the average Reddit user. I'll still browse some of the smaller subs, but I won't be touching the frontpage ever again. [0] http://www.reddit.com/r/paoyongyang http://www.reddit.com/r/paoyongyang [1] http://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/3c03y8/ellen_paos_career/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/3c03y8/ellen_paos_car... [2] http://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/3c05wq/what_sound_does_reddit_make_when_it_blows_up/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/3c05wq/what_sound_doe... [3] http://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/3c0b5p/whats_the_difference_between_ellen_pao_and_hitler/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/3c0b5p/whats_the_diff...

zak_mc_kracken 11y ago
> This whole thing was really disgusting and made me hate the average Reddit user They are not the average Reddit user. Probably a huge majority of Reddit users have no idea who Ellen Pao is.
- zxcvcxz 11y ago
  Sorry you're getting downvoted. Even Ellen Pao claims the racist and misogynist are a small minority.
- estel 11y ago
  Even if that's the case, they're a very visible component of Reddit's userbase, to the point that an outsider definitely might see them as representative. If the default home page and /r/all can all be flooded with posts about her, it's not exactly a small group of extremists.

eli 11y ago

I don't understand the preoccupation with the "media." It doesn't seem to me like news sites had much to do with this saga. Is there a mountain of unfair coverage I didn't see? It seems kind of obvious that Reddit is much more "the media" than any clickbait news site. And wasn't the whole point of "blacking out" subreddits to gain media attention?

georgeglue1 11y ago

There are dozens of posts with 1000+ upvotes comparing Ellen with Hitler. As far as I can tell, there's something larger and terrible going on within reddit's community.

oldmanjay 11y ago
You mean there might be thousands of jerks in a population that is measured in 9 figures? Say it ain't so!
xienze 11y ago
Bush was compared to Hitler endlessly. But that probably didn't bother you. Public figures, especially unpopular ones, are subject to ridicule. It happens.
vonklaus 11y ago
> dozens of posts Literally (in the actual sense of this word) there are 160 million unique users on reddit monthly. Personally, I applaud free speech even when it is extremely hateful as I would not trade my right to speak my mind for protection from others voices[0]. However, even if I didn't believe that, I do believe that it is wrong to judge a large group of people based on the actions of a small minority. [0] I get that the websites are private, before anyone points that out.
pixl97 11y ago
Could you possibly believe many of those same people also post here?! HN would just flag and ban you for saying it right off that bat. Most people you know are in some form or fashion, an asshole. They quietly be a racist, sexist, nationalist to an extreme, have a fetish far beyond the norm, or other strange or socially unacceptable behavior. They just don't personally show it to you to avoid the judgement. It just seems like there are a whole lot more of them on Reddit because Reddit doesn't silence them. Let that settle in for a little bit. It's the anti-gay pastor that gets caught with a man, for example. That said, people are allowed to show their more negative sides without any repercussions things can become problematic and the more extreme can take over a community if enabled.

vacri 11y ago

> People are sick and tired of ... a small group of militant activists trying to silence people who they disagree with. You're damn right people are tired of the shrill MRAs with their short-sighted, selfish, and immature wails, who can't think of anyone but themselves. They're a small group of militant activists crying over what amounts to a skinned knee, always trying to shout down other people, but never being pro-active and creating events of their own.

vonklaus 11y ago
Honest question, what do you think is an appropriate set of measures to curtail [people you don't like] on the internet? Do you believe the internet should be a safe space?
- vacri 11y ago
  No, I don't think the internet should be sanitised. But at the same time, I find the MRA shrill talking-points to be of a pretty shallow depth, and, as a group, they're pretty vocally violent. In contrast, I find feminist talking-points to have a fair amount of depth to them. Those feminists who conduct themselves in the shrill manner that MRAs do are just as bad, but when you take those kinds of people away and look at what's left over, it's quite different. So how should you counter people you don't like? Well, by trying to be mature, and if you fail, trying for better next time. Death threats and rape threats are never okay. Especially if the person in question is not forcing themselves into your life - people go to reddit, reddit does not force themselves into living rooms and makes you read it, nor do many people pay for it. For the record, I am a white male. I loathe the MRA crowd because they're purely reactionary. Men do have systemic social issues that need addressing, but in general, the MRA crowd isn't actually interested in exploring, discussing, and addressing the issues. Instead, they use men's issues as a weapon with which to beat down discussion that other people are having; there is very little that is proactive in that crowd. For example, here on HN, pretty much all the men's rights stuff has been presented as some sort of counterpoint to a perceived feminist slight... yet these same shrill voices that demand we pay attention to the issues faced by men... never post articles in their own right, only weaponised comments to win internet points. Threats of violence are never okay unless you're being physically threatened. Immature commentary should never be at the forefront of a social movement, since it's never going to solve root causes and can only provide a superficial salve. These things are destructive, and are all about making the other side lose - an ideal outcome is a win-win situation, though that's not always possible, of course.

mlangdon 11y ago

Is there a larger red flag for the aggrieved tech male to wave these days than whinging about "ethics" in the media?

LordHumungous 11y ago

> The most critical things against Pao and her husband I have seen are posts about there phony extortion sexism and racism law suits Why the fuck is someone else's sexual harassment lawsuit with their former employer any of your concern? Unless you have a political agenda against women who complain about sexual harassment.

dang 11y ago

This comment has no relevance to the top comment it replied to. When we see people doing that, we detach the subthread from its parent.