While James Damore is out virtue signaling with the alt-right (he’s already been interviewed by Jordan Peterson and Stefan Molyneux, you know Dave Rubin and Joe Rogan are drooling at the prospect of getting him on, and I hear that Gad Saad has sent him an invitation — the deplorables already love him), Google had to cancel a town hall meeting because of growing harassment.
On Tuesday, a 4chan-related Twitter account posted screenshots of fourteen Twitter profiles of Google employees, ranging from rank-and-file engineers to Sundar Pichai himself. Every Googler targeted was either a woman, trans man, or a man of color. This tweet may not have been the origin point of this list of Googlers, but it was spread widely.
Because if you’re not a cis-het white man, you deserve to be attacked by 4chan. Most troubling is that internal screen shots are being leaked by people at Google, who know exactly what’s going to happen to their colleagues.
The targeting of those specific Googlers might have been the work of outsiders, but anxieties are running high inside the company because of the publication of screenshots from the internal Google+ on alt-right channels. On Tuesday, Gizmodo reported that a meme depicting whistleblowers being beaten was being shared on an internal meme generator.
On Sunday, alt-right blogger Vox Day published screenshots from the internal Google+, showing employees criticizing the Damore memo. On Monday, Breitbart published an even larger set of internal screenshots. Names and profile pictures were not redacted. “What really gets me is that when Googlers leaked these screenshots, they knew this was the element of the internet they were leaking it to,” a former Google employee tells The Verge. “They knew they were subjecting their colleagues to this type of abuse.”
It’s a big company, and it’s to be expected that there will be a fair number of Silicon Valley misogynists working there, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that anything disseminated within the company will eventually find its way elsewhere. It’s just sad that there are these people with so much contempt for their coworkers that they’ll sic 4chan dorks on them.
And then if they’re caught, they’ll be so outraged at getting fired.
Getting fired is the least they deserve. Maybe legislators can stop worrying about where I fucking pee and start criminalizing cyberharassment. This is sick. These fuckers are terrorists.
My boyfriend works for Google, and generally likes to talk about gender issues. But now he’s hesitant to talk about this memo in any medium that can be screenshotted.
Yup,agree Siobhan.
My impression is that Google has a great many talented coders. And probably security systems rivalling the Pentagon’s. Leading me to suspect that there are many people who are talented enough to identify the leakers, and systems that can track their outgoing communications. I expect a purge shortly.
anbheal: Unfortunately, while you’re definitely right about the practical ability to crack down on them, I’m afraid you’re overestimating the political will to do so. A friend of mine is one of those being targeted by the nazis; they’ve noted that although plenty of fellow employees have stopped by to express sympathy and support, not one person above them in the chain of command has even acknowledged anything is happening to them.
Erm, Joe Rogan hasn’t been an alt-righter for years. He’s basically both an economic and social liberal now, and reading posts about him on alt-right websites is just an absolute shitstorm of hate.
He still has some of the milder alt-righter’s on but he’s definitely a left-winger.
I’m sure the Venn diagram between google systems engineer/ tech dude and asshole 4chan/reddit misogynist racist troll is quite large. Who else but the techbros has the expertise to obsess and make bots specifically to harass feminists and POC because a dude suffered consequences for being a hateful asshat? Or criticized the misogyny in video games. Or broke up with her stalky abusive BF. Or said “Guys, don’t do that.” Or got annoyed with dudes sitting behind her making vile sexist remarks during a panel. Or instituted a harassment policy.
I hope that Google figures out that its employees are in fact responsible for much of the online harassment, and cleans house. I’m sure there a plenty of tech people who can do their jobs without the attitude problem.
I’m sure the overlap in the Venn diagram..
Páll Jónsson, #6
He might not be an alt-righter. But he certainly does love toxic masculinity, anti-feminism, transphobia, and general anti-SJ stuff. He’s a piece of shit.
Saad: Don’t call somebody a piece of shit for not agreeing with you. This is just “othering” people who mostly agree with you anyway.
I really recommend this article on the matter: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/
Not interested in being nice to misogynists and transphobes. Not interested in discussions with them either. Or understanding them.
@Pall #10
The humanity and worth of groups already violently oppressed by society is NOT up for discussion.
These are the *minimum* terms to “mostly agree”, the lowest possible bar.
If someone “disagrees” with that, whatever difference they might have with the alt-righters is not meaningful.
Tethys@7/8: There is clearly overlap, and it may indeed be quite large, but I’m unconvinced by the reasoning given. The argument seems to be assuming each bot is specifically crafted for the harassment. If that is indeed true, then yes, there would seem to be fair number of people involved.
But as a systems engineer myself, I doubt each bot is custom-created. Some very probably are. Far more likely, however, is one or both of the following: (1) Just a few different bot-programs which are modified (tweaked) to make a “different” bot; and / or (2) Just a few different bot-programs which are programmable (so each “different” bot is a programmable-bot-program with a different set of bot-“macros”). Neither would require a large set of people, and in both cases, once an individual has done it a few times and “got the hang of it”, they could roll out yet another one quite quickly (and I would not be too surprised to learn of people doing precisely that for pay†).
This does not mean there are few misogynists, racists, whatevers; nor does it mean there are many. It only means trying to conclude how many there are based on how many bots there seems to be dubious.
† The Russian hacking collectives immediately come to mind here.
Joe Rogan talking about transgendered people sounds exactly like every 40-year-old guy in the world. Accepting of their existence, not overly enlightened and a bit too focused on the bathroom thing.
If you consider him to be denying their humanity and their worth, to the degree that he should just be called a piece of shit and not reasoned with, you are clearly being unreasonable.
Megan Phelps-Roper can be saved from the Westboro Babtist Church but Joe Rogan is just a piece of shit for you to freely other? That’s a weird viewpoint, man.
You’re wasting your time talking to someone like me. Like I said, I’m not interested in that. You’d be much better off talking to the many liberals who believe the position to adopt lies halfway between social justice and bigotry.