To be charitable to Markos, he makes a good point generally about identity politics screwing up cohesion of the democratic party and hurting us electorally. An example is NARAL supporting Republicans.

However, that analysis only goes so far. It's one thing to make that kind of statement, it's another to not have empathy for the things that different sections of america feel.

Markos has no clue about the genuine level of harassment women bloggers have just because they have ovaries, and not because of anything they have said. There was a big flame war a few years ago where Markos said that women's studies seminar posters could basically take a flying leap. It is becoming a pattern. Markos did poor research on the issue, made a cavalier sweeping statement, and is being rightfully called on it.

Until that post I would have acquitted Kos of misogyny, now I am not so sure.

What I am sure of is that by writing that post he is in effect condoning online harrassment. People who do that do so because on some level they feel they have "permission" to do so. Kos basically validated that point of view and trivialized Sierra's fear.

I've had trollish email, but never on that level. To see photoshopped images indicating how someone plans to murder you, that is a fearful thing. For Kos to make light of that shows how very unfit for leadership he is.

We don't need a code, but we do need to speak out against online harrassment and make those people feel isolated.

As a blogger who has had to pay to have my number unlisted because of harrassing phone calls, may I point out that having to stop answering your phone and having to pay to keep an intruder from that kind of approach is a reaction to attack. It may never result in actual injury (although I don't know that), but it is violence. Making me an object of your harassment is an attack.

Ruth

... so I don't visit Kos or Atrios.

I have to admit that Donald Rumsfeld is correct that "freedom is messy."

People can say a lot of stuff, and they can be criticized, posts can be deleted, and people who cross lines can be fired for it (hard to do with anonymous blog commenters, though). In some cases, it makes sense to see if the authorities will help track down and jail a threatener.

It's terribly regrettable that people say uncalled for, abusive, and even threatening things. Is someone saying it isn't?

And what, exactly, is being proposed as a way to stop it from happening? The Ludovico Treatment?

www.vastleft.com

Well, VL, Kos's tone and words were explicitly dismissive of the threat. So...yeah, he did "say it isn't" in that sense. He basically reduced it to "stupid people write stupid emails" and if you can't take it, "find another line of work."

Here:

"Look, if you blog, and blog about controversial shit, you'll get idiotic emails. Most of the time, said "death threats" don't even exist -- evidenced by the fact that the crying bloggers and journalists always fail to produce said "death threats".

and

But so what? It's not as if those cowards will actually act on their threats. [...] Email makes it easy for stupid people to send stupid emails to public figures. If they can't handle a little heat in their email inbox, then really, they should try another line of work. "

Kos isn't just "people." He knows damn well his voice carries more weight than someone with far less readers and less reach. As a father of a daughter and a human being, he really ought to rethink his stance. And anyone who thinks this is just about KS (Kathy Sierra, the one threatened and who couldn't sleep over it) should probably consider a broader frame wherein it applies. Both the threats to a woman, and the dismissive nature of a man in power waving them away.

___________________________
.delusions of un mundo mejor.

... I think we can agree that Kos's bluster was an act of machismo, but I read it as him trying to disempower the threateners, not so much to mock the threatened.

That said, his bedside manner is surely wanting. If I'd been threatened, I would hope for a little more consideration than being told to, as it were, "man up."

That other thing said, is there any solution available other than, to continue the macho theme, soldiering on or cutting and running (tactical steps like deleting offending posts or whistleblowing notwithstanding)?

www.vastleft.com

Well, I guess I didn't prioritize his personal intention as much as the effects of his action.

Yes..."man up." Again, one has to read the feelings, life, and threats that KS received to truly appreciate how very "inconsiderate" telling a woman to "man up" is on this kind of thing. But we are agreed on that. To say the very very least her feelings and situation deserved more gravity than his post o' bravado and condescension.

The solution as I see it is manifold.

1) The left blogosphere is rallying to make it clear that at least out here in this virtual world, Kos' response won't fly. Why is that part imporant? Well...if the bigger voices on the 'Net won't speak out against this....who the hell will? And who will hear them? Leadership ought not be just about "hits" or "incoming links" or ad revenue. It ought to do with vision. You say MLK, jr. is a hero of yours. If he ran a blog and heard of KS's situation...what would his public proclamation have been? Would it have resembled Koz's?

2) Personally, I wonder if KS—the techie writer—was new to threats. In fact, I don't even know what the hell happened (aside from a woman writing smartly and prolifically in a "man's" field) to garner such male hate. Again, threats from a man have a much different resonance when a woman gets them. We have to consider her life, and her feelings of how society views and treats her. Me, I moderate my comments and when a vile screwball hater drops in (it's a regular thing for me and my content and today's climate toward Mexicanos) I delete them, look up their IP, whatever. I have no problem with deleting these people, though I do understand how a threat can resonate into your heart and your skeleton and shake your nights to pieces.

But we can't stop people from being vile. What is a solution for a woman receiving rape and death threats from her reading public?

It is for the rest of us to rise up with her and let those evil seeds know that they are rejects of our collective, that we are, in great numbers, against them. Right? To say "you cannot write that to one of our fellow human beings. You are vile and ugly and wrong." We must show solidarity.

The opposite, I'd say, of what Koz did.

___________________________
.delusions of un mundo mejor.

If someone sends you an explicit threat, say a photoshoped image of you with a noose around your head, complete with your address and social security number, as was the case with Kathy Sierra, then you notify the police, which she has.

She has also called for a blogger code of conduct. While I reject the code of conduct, having seen Kos' unbelievably crass reponse, I think the need to rally to Sierra's defense and state that this is unacceptable behavior.

All of Kos' bloviating about Goerge Allen and Don Imus is just so much political posturing, just to score points, with no priciple at stake, if he won't say the obvious, sending death threats is wrong. He must be able to say that silencing a blogger thru intimidation is wrong. If you can't say that, well, what sort of progressive are you?

... but having read a page full of content, I'm wondering about the applicability of Kos's statement "Look, if you blog, and blog about controversial shit, you'll get idiotic emails."

Does she get into "controversial shit"? Everything I saw was artful commentary about good software-design practices.

www.vastleft.com

... the Rovian disinformation ploy we just experienced in the affair of the faked photo of the Coptix brochure.

Not, I hasten to add, for the threats. But Kathy posts about her experience here (the formatting is gone). This passage caught me eye:

What finally did it was some disturbing threats of violence and sex posted on two other blogs... blogs authored and/or owned by a group that includes prominent bloggers. People you've probably heard of. People like respected Cluetrain Manifesto co-author Chris Locke (aka Rageboy). ... We all have trolls--but until four weeks ago, none of mine had threatened death. (The law is clear--to encourage or suggest someone's death is just as illegal as claiming you intend to do it yourself). At about the same time, a group of bloggers including Listics' Frank Paynter, prominent marketing blogger Jeneane Sessum, and Raving Lunacy Allen Herrel (aka Head Lemur) began participating on a (recently pulled) blog called meankids.org. At first, it was the usual stuff--lots of slamming of people like Tara Hunt, Hugh MacLeod, Maryam Scoble, and myself. Nothing new. No big deal. Nothing they hadn't done on their own blogs many times before. But when it was my turn, somebody crossed a line. They posted a photo of a noose next to my head, and one of their members (posting as "Joey") commented "the only thing Kathy has to offer me is that noose in her neck size." My first reaction--and probably yours--is to think, "Of course he doesn't actually mean it." But the "funny" thing about crossing the line from criticism to suggestion of death is that your mind starts to wander: * The guy who wrote this is anonymous (to me... I'm sure the people behind the site know exactly who made that comment and who posted the photo). I have no way of knowing just how disturbed he might be. * Normally sane adults don't cross that line, especially when they know they're breaking federal law. * The (apparently) same person made several sexual comments about me as well... for example, analyzing my "Canyon of Pain" graphic and turning it into a metaphor for what I want sexually (you can imagine). Noose. Sex. Hatred. Misogyny. Willing to commit a federal crime. Anonymity. I started to slide down a very bad path (and I'm showing you only a snippet of what was actually posted and sent to me), but held it together until two days ago, March 24. On that day, the meankids site was down and a new "replacement" appeared, unclebobism.wordpress.com. The "Bob's Yer Uncle" site was supposedly started by Cluetrain co-author Chris Locke (who, along with Jeaneane Sessum, also authors the Kat Herding Media site) and included most of the same members as meankids.

So--and perhaps I'm stating what's already obvious to others--it doens't seem to be the threat itself that "pushed" Kathy "over the edge" but the multiple-site nature of the threats.

This reminds me forcibly of my experience with Coptix's disinformation campaign on Karl Rove -- I held to my own theory too long because I didn't think that fake information on multiple sites was part of the Republican M.O.

(Another common factor is that the sites were in Kathy's field, just as some of the sites in the Coptix affair were in my field of techiness.)

From where I sit, it looks like some force--probably an emergent conspiracy, and/or wingers that just want to Fuck. Us. Up.--are attacking one of our strengths, which has been online social networking, by raising the level of fear and mistrust involved in online interactions through planted information (threats, fake photos).

(I can't say why Kathy was targeted, since she's not evidently of the left. Maybe the fact that she's a woman, technical, and in the Technorati top 50 was enough. Clearly for some loons it would be enough to call for a beatdown.)

To me, this is a lot more important than Kos being stupid. Kos is probably teachable. But if our social networks are being attacked, that is a strategic issue.

NOTE Remember, when I summed up the Rovian disinformation campaign in the Coptix affair, I said there'd be more? Maybe I'm projecting what I predicted, but both episodes have that brutal right wing flavor of mocking violence, created chaos, and a "Who, me? You have no sense of humor" Brown Shirt imperviousness to being called out. Sort of like street fighting in Germany in the 30s, except online.

No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.

She is gifted. I have been reading her for months now, and for a voice like hers to be stilled from fear of violence is a crime in and of itself.

I think she is over-reacting, but I don't blame her for it. It's all odds, is it not? How crazy are the crazies who are after you? Will they go beyond graphic threats to actual harm? There is no way to know.

There is a element of our society, about 30% by my guess, that will resort to these kinds of threats when there is no fear of retribution.

Jake

1. Since you've been reading her for a while, does she write "controversial shit"? Not that it would justify the threats one whit, but if she doesn't that makes Kos's "it goes with the territory" assertion that much more out of line.

2. Maybe I'm wearing rose-colored glasses, but 30% of my fellow Americans being the type to make anonymous death/rape threats? That seems a mite high.

www.vastleft.com

being a human being. Nominally she writes about how to create good code, good user manuals, good user groups. The underlying message in all her writings is about how to empower people - customers, users, fellow employees. Some of her graphics are priceless, they are so good. She is irreverent, passionate, and articulate.

Controversial? Not unless you think learning to think and act creatively at work and at home is controversial. And in a way, I guess it is. She is too good, and that, I think, is what drew the threats. Anyone in a class by themselves will bring down the hammer of the jealous. Destruction is always easier than creation.

The 30% was a play on Bush's remaining support. I sincerely hope that the actual fraction of anon crazies is much, much smaller than that.

But the play on words has an element of truth as well. That portion continuing to support Bush believes in violence, believes that problems can be solved if you only destroy those you fear. How can that kind of belief system not encourage the crazies to spew their venom on whatever target is close to the heart of their hatred?

Jake

All I've seen links to is her one statement about the harassment to which she was subjected. (Given the subject matter I feel petty to complain about lack of formatting, but the thing is almost unreadable.)

I'd like to see here "regular" work from before this hideous thing came up. Aside from the fact that she sounds like a terrific person I can always use help getting/staying up to speed on technical matters.

Jake? Anybody? Link help?

http://headrush.typepad.com/

www.vastleft.com