
Time Person of the Year 2017: The Silence Breakers - rbanffy
http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2017-silence-breakers/
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peter303
Poor choice of a passing fad. Next year the runner ups Presidents Trump and Xi
will be far more influential.

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squozzer
I wonder how exposure to Arthur Miller's The Crucible affects opinion on these
types of accusations?

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binaryblitz
Not sure why, but I really expected more from the comments on HN. A lot of the
people here seem like conservative puppets who are just upset trump didn't
"win".

~~~
dominotw
There seem to be exactly 2 downvoted comments at the bottom of page expressing
they wanted to trump to win.

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xutopia
I'm pleased to see this happen. It's always going to be tough for a victim to
come forward but now it's ever so slightly less so.

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minimaxir
As the article notes, this is very relevant to HN as Susan Fowler’s story
indeed broke the floodgates for the tech industry.

See the HN discussion on Fowler’s original article, one of the most upvoted
submissions of all time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13682022](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13682022)

~~~
mzzter
It’s weird that the article author attributes Susan Fowler’s blog post as the
reason for Travis Kalanick’s resignation when it was really more of an
incidental symptom of the many underpinning factors that ultimately led to the
board’s letter asking the former CEO to step down.

The important impact of Fowler’s post was the investigation that led to dozens
of employee removals—the C.E.O. resignation wasn’t the primary effect.

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staticelf
Only me who thinks this is pretty lame? The whole point of having "Person of
the year" is for it to be a person.

This is just stupid.

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danso
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15861294](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15861294)

~~~
staticelf
Doesn't make it less lame.

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tenpies
I'm very glad that they didn't go with "Person of the Year: #MeToo" and
instead opted to create this exclusive group of "Silence Breakers". It strikes
me as very important to separate these accounts from a hashtag which can be
used by anyone for anything.

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iagooar
Why is that important to you? Genuinely curious.

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mcgannon2007
I think it makes it more concrete to have actual victims talking about
specifics of their incidents and then applying those to the bigger picture. A
hashtag movement is much more abstract and harder for readers to connect to,
which would be less powerful and do a lesser job of getting the message
across.

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thebiglebrewski
I'm all for this but...shouldn't the person be like...a person?

~~~
Jtsummers
1950: The American Fighting Man

1956: Hungarian Freedom Fighters

1960: US Scientists

1966: The Generation Twenty-Five and Under

1968: Apollo 8 Astronauts

1969: The Middle Americans

1975: American Women

1982: The Computer

1988: The Endangered Earth

1993: The Peacemakers

2002: The Whistle Blowers

2003: The American Soldier

2005: The Good Samaritans

2006: You

2011: The Protester

2013: The Ebola Fighters

2017: The Silence Breakers

Some of those were specific lists of people (US Scientists, American Women,
Ebola Fighters, Peacemakers). There are also a few years where it went to 2 or
3 people but they weren't a named group.

~~~
pvillano
I'm laughing at '82

~~~
maxerickson
Petty solid selection of an important thing happening at the time.

~~~
Crespyl
But a weird thing to give the label "Person". They could have selected one or
more notable humans involved.

~~~
Jtsummers
It was apparently changed to "Machine of the Year" for that one. Endangered
Earth, it was "Planet of the Year".

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galobtter
There's an interesting related wikipedia article on the "Weinstein effect"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weinstein_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weinstein_effect)

~~~
dominotw
I like how all the people who were doing business with him suddenly started
claming they themselves were also victims.

Here is an example from Time magazine interview with Tina Brown[1].

    
    
      You launched Talk Magazine with  Harvey Weinstein.  Do you regret going into business with Harvey Weinstein?
    
       I certainly do. I regretted that long before the sexual harassment complaints.
       I regretted it within about twenty-five minutes of signing the contract. 
       No, it was a very, shall we say, unwise career move on my part.
       And when I learned about what had been happening, I had no idea that that was happening.
     But the rest of his personality did not make me think, “What a surprise.” 
    
    

I like how time magazine themselves provided the answer for her in the
question " do you regret" and horrible dishonest answer by Tina. Unfortunately
noone held enablers like Tina accountable and time magazine helped ppl like
Tina absolve themselves publicly via softball "interview". Very dishonest
magazine and culture, Why didn't they ask her why she continued to take money
from him if she knew within first 25 mins.

Why am getting downvoted :\, can down voters pls let me know. I think this
comment is on topic.

1\. [http://time.com/5020615/tina-brown-
interview/](http://time.com/5020615/tina-brown-interview/)

~~~
neolefty
That's a great interview. I didn't know anything about Tina Brown before, and
I like hearing her voice in it.

Maybe you're being downvoted for somewhat over-the-top criticism? It's easy to
criticize successful, energetic people -- they're always making mistakes and
often learning from them too. But it comes across as jealous and petty.

~~~
dominotw
I am jealous of Tina Brown? I don't think so, I have no idea who she is, this
is first I've heard of her.

Whats "over the top" about my comment. Don't you think its fair to ask her why
she continued to take money from him if she knew within 25 mins of meeting
him.

I don't think Weinstein case was simple bad guy vs innocent women. There were
many enablers, don't you think its fair to ask tough questions to people who
got into business with him.

I think media like Time have gross "us vs them" biases, Tina is on their side
so she gets asked no tough questions.

~~~
Jtsummers
Your quote says she _regretted_ going into business with him within 25 minutes
of signing the contract. Not that she _knew_ of his behavior within 25 minutes
of meeting him.

Those are two entirely different things and if you want to avoid criticism you
would do well to maintain consistency across your posts.

~~~
dominotw
Then what kind of regret is she talking about? That it was some sort of bad
business deal ? How is that relevant in this context. "Do you regret it"
implies "regretting going into business with a sex predator" . Yea?

Her regretting bad business deal is not relavent here. Again thats the kind of
stuff I would've asked her if I was the one interviewing her.

~~~
Jtsummers
From your quote of the interview:

    
    
      I certainly do. I regretted that long before the sexual harassment complaints.
    

She regretted doing business with him _before_ knowing he was a sexual
predator. It's plain as day, and your misrepresentation of the interview is
why you're getting downvoted. You need to learn to present your case more
consistently and with quotes that actually expand on it rather than quotes,
like here, which present a different case than you intend.

~~~
dominotw
I understand, I am asking you what exactly did she regret about doing business
with him. Its important to know since she regretted it before he was outed.
correct?

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InitialLastName
She doesn't appear to say in the quote, but given the upcoming reference to
his personality, that might be part of it.

Let's be clear: she can regret that he was an asshole to work with and it in
no way reflects on his habits as a sex offender.

~~~
dominotw
His being asshole otherwise is not relevant to the context. Question was "do
you regret it" and context under which its asked is clear and its not about
general amicability of Weinstien. What does it matter if he was an asshole to
deal with.

"Mr. Weinstein’s final, failed round of manipulations shows how he operated
for more than three decades: by trying to turn others into instruments or
shields for his behavior, according to nearly 200 interviews, internal company
records and previously undisclosed emails. Almost everyone had incentives to
look the other way or reasons to stay silent. " [1]

Don't you think its media's job to ask tough questions to his business
partners? Instead of letting them off the hook with "yea he was an asshole"
type of non answers.

1\. [https://www.msn.com/g00/en-
us/movies/news/weinstein%E2%80%99...](https://www.msn.com/g00/en-
us/movies/news/weinstein%E2%80%99..).

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kendallpark
I'm concerned that given Roy Moore's example, we'll have more people that
decide their best course of action is to continually deny everything in the
face of strong evidence. Maybe this only works for people of a certain
charisma, but I worried this will become the new way to respond to
allegations.

> In a CBS poll (which gives Moore a 6-point lead), 71 percent of likely
> Republican voters say the misconduct allegations against him are false. And
> of that group, 92 percent say the Democrats are behind the charges, and 88
> percent say newspapers and the media are behind them.

Source: [http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/06/turnabout-why-
tru...](http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/06/turnabout-why-trump-gop-
leaders-are-now-backing-roy-moore.html)

~~~
a254613e
Are you proposing we assume people are guilty until proven innocent? What if
they _are_ innocent, and therefore keep denying it?

Are you worried that innocent people will insist they're innocent, or what?

Note: I'm not saying that Moore is innocent, I honestly don't know pretty much
anything about that case. But being worried that people who aren't convicted
of anything will deny they did something wrong just sounds... weird,
regardless of the topic.

~~~
minimaxir
> I honestly don't know pretty much anything about that case.

You should read about the case.

~~~
talmand
I've read about it and I'm still waiting for the definitive proof that his
denials about sexual misconduct are false. Although, I understand the standard
of proof required for the court of popular opinion is much lower than an
actual legal court.

~~~
minimaxir
This is an ironic comment for this particular HN submission, as it’s a story
about women whose _single_ testimony brought down industry leaders.

And Roy Moore has _eight_ independent accusers to date.

~~~
insickness
While eight may seem like a lot, it's not that hard to find people willing to
lie. If eight women came forward and said that a guy in the shipping
department had harassed them, I may question it less because there is less
motivation for eight women to say that. With a senate seat at stake there is a
lot more reason to question it without any accompanying evidence.

~~~
aplummer
It’s pretty had to get 8 people to get interviewed by the cops on something
this serious without screwing it up badly.

Look at the fake accuser plant and the WP, they sussed it out very quickly.

~~~
talmand
What police interviews are you speaking of? As far as I know the Moore
accusations have only been made to the press with no legal aspect to it at
this time.

~~~
aplummer
You’re right my bad I was thinking about the Washington Post but I said cops.

