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Comment by vonklaus | Hacker News Reader

> You are not voicing a valid opinion

I'm not sure how an opinion could be invalid? Maybe to another, but obviously not to the person who has that opinion.

> asserting that gender has nothing to do with it

Of course it does in her case. I feel bad for her, and it totally sucks. However, this is what trolls do. They troll people for various illogical reasons.

> So let's fix it.

I am not trying to be rude, but this is so naive it is painful. You can't do anything to stop trolls online, especially intelligent technically proficient ones. You can behave respectfully and enforce societal norms in your own office and daily life. That is all you can do. Be a good person in real life and hold people to a reasonable standard.

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> You can't do anything to stop trolls online [...]

So painfully wrong. There are many things you can do, including not giving up and walking off. You just have to decide you've had enough and are willing to do hard work.

Speak out, even when it's not in your own best interest.

Support people who are targeted.

And, last but not least, don't pick pedantic points to argue while losing sight of the main issue: it absolutely stinks to be a woman in tech.

So let's fix it.

I am not trolling I am just being a realist here. I recognize that it totally sucks, and it does seem to be harder for women in certain arenas because they are targeted by trolls more heavily. That being said, this comment is wishy-washy feel good fluff, and doesn't address the real issue.

If i was being harassed online how would I employ these tactics? These are just cliche motivational phrases.

> not giving up and walking off

> had enough and are willing to do hard work

> Speak out, even when it's not in your own best interest

None of these would do anything to prevent harassment.

> Support people who are targeted.

This could mediate some of the damage caused.

> So let's fix it.

You act like it is a clogged sink.

It's disingenuous to switch from your original context in which you, a bystander, urge listeners to believe that this is an unsolvable problem, to the context of the victim, which you aren't.

If you, the bystander, decide to take a stand rather than write this off as too hard a problem to solve, you help the victim by giving them support, and you help future victims by decreasing, however slightly, the chance that harassers will continue to believe that their behavior is tolerable.

If you, the bystander, are willing to spend time on one person who doesn't yet understand but who may be willing to think, and then to move from thought to action, your efforts gain leverage and that minuscule probability decrease becomes larger.

If you, the bystander, continue to do this, even without being a victim yourself; if you do this in places your voice can be heard; if you do this even when you gain no personal benefit, you hopefully influence the people around you to at least think deeper, and from there, to act in some way that fits with their conscience. And in doing so, you give the victims hope for a day when this isn't their norm.

It's not a clogged sink. It's also not an intractable problem.

So let's fix it.

I have been thinking about this more and more lately. It is a security problem, not a social one.

>So let's fix it.

I posted a thread earlier today trying to solicit advise about solving this and posted some of my own advise. I realized that there is a lot that can be done but I was focusing on the attacker. This is much more about defense than it is about offense.

> This is much more about defense than it is about offense.

What you seem to mean by this is "I don't believe we can prevent threats from being sent".

Harassment is also a cultural issue. A vast amount of people live among a circle of friends who believe that sending things like death threats in anonymous emails is something that can be done light-heartedly. It's what transpires when people downplay the situation by saying "They can't be serious" or to "Just ignore them".

You mix up the need to stop an offender in action, with the need to remove the situations in which someone becomes an offender. Changing this "acceptable threat" culture is the offense you describe as less relevant, but it's key to a long-term change.

Exactly right. Make it wholely unacceptable to make these "threats-in-jest" and a lot of the problem goes away.

Thank you for thinking about this. It's a very worthy topic for thought. If you'd care to link the thread you mention, I'm sure others would like to help.

BTW, a very good primer on learning how to be helpful is http://juliepagano.com/blog/2014/05/10/so-you-want-to-be-an-...

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