You have to remember, we're talking about Reddit, here. Anyone with eyes knows that Reddit is a cesspool and anyone can create an anonymous account with no verification at all. I'm a nobody, and I regularly have people fight with me on there and sometimes get death threats. Never happens anywhere near to that degree on other social media sites.
As a man, I've never experienced something like this (also never went viral) but I think it's at least somewhat comforting that most of those disgusting comments were downvoted and the moderators had an apologetic response.<p>I wonder how much of the hate was because she was a female programmer vs just because shitty human beings are going to be shitty on the internet regardless of her gender and unfortunately, being a woman in tech is an easy target for them.
Why is this about "a woman in tech"?<p>It seems it's just a story that happens to anyone who gets 15 min fame by some post.<p>But now all of a sudden it's again women in tech that are victims... Come on... please...<p>But I guess "person gets harassed online" wouldn't make the front page.
You know what basically flawed everything, inducing these toxic behaviours?<p>Just try to open any social network and navigate to Profiles of women related to coding. As an example, Instagram is full of women in tech writing delightful content but have you seen their pictures? Most of them are in sexy poses, or with full-body perspective, where more sexual recalls are involved, rather than focussing on programming/tech in general. The same happens for TikTok or Facebook.<p>I think all of this free sexism could have been stopped if someone started focussing really on technical aspects, independently from sexual orientation/gender/race/whatever, rather than exacerbating the narcissism.<p>Internet, as long as you don't expose your face, allows you to build a powerful identity, which hasn't nothing to do with personal aspect, but with competence, or at least, it was supposed to work so, until someone went out and started posted those pics.<p>As a reference (just a few selection):<p>- <a href="https://www.instagram.com/coding_unicorn/" rel="nofollow">https://www.instagram.com/coding_unicorn/</a><p>- <a href="https://www.instagram.com/ioana.codes/" rel="nofollow">https://www.instagram.com/ioana.codes/</a><p>- <a href="https://www.instagram.com/tech.unicorn/" rel="nofollow">https://www.instagram.com/tech.unicorn/</a>
Not to make small of her points, as i am sure women may get it more but the point 'Why should a woman have to expect to be harassed every time she puts herself out there online?'.<p>I agree this is bullshit, but its the same for anyone, if you put yourself out there expect to be harassed.
I, a man, posted a picture of myself on a hardware subreddit with an AWS Snowball and received replies criticising my smile "You're gonna catch flies if you keep your mouth open like that." (+28 Karma right now) as well as a bunch telling me I was fat (really? I had no idea), a couple calling me a "beta" and questioning my testosterone levels (why is that a thing?) and one that declared I was obviously a lizard person. All of them had positive karma but we're removed by mods, days later, so I can't quote them directly.<p>The internet is just mean, to everyone. I feel like with the negative karma on all this ladies unpleasant comments she really didn't get it that bad.
Social media posts for the vast majority are all risk and no reward. Risk comes in all forms. Creepy internet denizens, job loss, and misinterpretation.
I saw the video and it was funny and intelligent.<p>It’s disappointing to see the apathy in this thread. I agree with the blogger that we should expect more from mods and commenters.
That was a really funny video and so spot on!<p>I think there is a chronic plague amongst programmers to act differently around women, it is very unnecessary and that was a very relatable and humorous video that was posted. It is good to see more people being able to relate to the problem of tech recruiting as its closer to changing that way, and that isn't going to come from the maladjusted edge-lords prevalent in this industry.
The internet abuse in response to this is disgusting and absolutely predictable.<p>The video -- spot on. I have a good job today because I was accepted to an internship for students with minimal CS experience, received a return offer, and accepted it. I work hard but have never done a side project in my life, and am terrified of having to apply for a new job.
This kind of behavior -- I mean degenerate, human filth online behavior, not specifically the sexist kind -- happens a lot more lately now that it can spread by example over the internet, get learned by teenagers, and mimicked. This didn't generate out of, say, people that spent some teenage years posting on Usenet, or even people playing certain video games at certain times in the past, in my experience.<p>And you don't imagine 40-year-olds suddenly picking up and enacting this sort of conduct.<p>Maybe it's also absent in other languages' online behavior.<p>I think it's the sort of conduct that could be socially engineered out of existence -- or lowered by an order of magnitude -- in one teenage generation, if we figured out a way to do it.
People are simply creeps. The cesspools that allow them to be creeps are the biggest social networks out there. I know there is a difference between a video of me (male) vs featuring my daughter. The disgusting pigs come out at that time. I think every woman who gets views on social media will be subjected to this. I've personally had 20+ million views on YouTube, these types of comments rarely show up.
> And I’m sure most of these kids would have NEVER said any of those things in person, but being anonymous gives you a strange power and a weird desire to say harmful things.<p>Not to your face, no...<p>That's where I falter with the lamentations about the toxicity of online forums; to me, it's not that the language or vulgarity is novel or new, because it's not. At least, not in my personal experience.<p>What is new, and what makes the vulgar abuse more dangerous online, is that it has far greater reach. Many more people will read the forum comments than would have heard the spoken comments.<p>So, ie, where previously conspiracy theorists were a small community that relied on printed zines, limited run books, and (sometimes) radio; the "scene" took a nosedive when the internet took off.<p>Where listening to Art Bell and reading the Whole Earth Catalog was humorously enjoyable and rarely offensive, the online forums and facebook groups have given rise to QAnon.<p>There's something about the medium that's altering the message.
I've felt for some time that comments are probably the worst part of the web (and yes, the irony that I'm posting this is a comment isn't lost on me)