
An Apology From TechCrunch - USNetizen
http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/08/an-apology-from-techcrunch/
======
WestCoastJustin
Anyone coming here, wondering what happened, there were two presentation which
were clearly inappropriate. First one was an app called _TitStare_ , which
allows you to view, upload, and share softcore photos of.. use your
imagination. The second, _circle shake_ , was an app to measure how fast you
can jerk your wrist, upload and share your scores, accompanied by a pretty
wild presentation.

I think the first one must have been a joke, because titstare.com was only
registered today:

    
    
      $ whois titstare.com
      ...
      Creation Date: 08-sep-2013
    

Video of the presentations @ [http://valleywag.gawker.com/techcrunch-disrupt-
kicks-off-wit...](http://valleywag.gawker.com/techcrunch-disrupt-kicks-off-
with-titstare-app-and-fa-1274394925)

~~~
rfnslyr
That was absolutely hilarious. I encourage stuff like this. Have a little fun
people, nothing to apologize for. Who actually got offended?

~~~
Shank
I hope you're joking. Besides the flurry of tech presenters and writers in the
audience that were offended, a _nine year old girl_ was at TechCrunch Disrupt
demonstrating a product. Seeing as TCDisrupt isn't marketed as an 18+ event,
it _should_ be held to the same standards as any other public, professional
gathering of individuals.

Judging by TechCrunch's reaction, they wholeheartedly agree.

~~~
rfnslyr
Sorry but I really think everyone should collectively loosen up.

~~~
jessedhillon
Hear hear.

For example, I always drop the n-word when I'm walking around. People should
be more like me, I don't get offended by that kind of language, why should
anyone else? Sometimes people do, and I'm like, "What? Why're you getting so
offended? I'm not offended, why are you?"

I'm kidding. I don't ask "why are you?" \-- that doesn't matter LOL 8-)

For some reason, black people get especially offended at this kind of stuff.
No clue why. I mean, I don't get offended and that's literally the only thing
that matters when considering whether something should or shouldn't be said.
Not the audience, the venue or the event.

Literally, only my own sensibilities matter. Everyone else should loosen up.
Like me.

~~~
rfnslyr
Yes because tit is exactly like saying "nigger".

~~~
jessedhillon
I'd love to hear what you think are the salient differences between getting up
and presenting Titstare, and showing something fictitious like "N-watcher"

Evidently your reaction if someone got up to present the latter would not be
"LOL guys loosen up!" \-- even though you are not someone at whom the
humor/offense is targeted. Why the difference in attitude?

~~~
clarkm
The problem with that comparison is that I can easily imagine some spoof
"Racial Profiler!" app being showcased as a joke. Perhaps an app that allows
Atherton residents to report "suspicious" behavior.

But I guess the larger lesson here is: do not try these things unless you're
The Onion, SNL, or Key and Peele.

~~~
alsothings
I mean, this [http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/09/the-
re...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/09/the-real-problem-
with-a-service-called-ghetto-tracker/279403/) was not comedy and it happend
all of a few days ago.

------
Amadou
I watched the two presentations via the valleywag page others have cited. The
problem I see with TechCrunch's apology is that they are mixing up
terminology. I don't think either presentation was _sexist_ and especially not
misogynstic - what they were was sexual.

Modern society has a similar problem distinguishing between racist humor and
racial humor. While there certainly can be overlap between -ist and -ual
humor, my general rule for distinguishing the two is that -ist humor
stereotypes to get laughs while -ual humor laughs at the stereotyping.

Lots of organizations think the line between the -ist and -ual is too fine and
prefer to outright ban the acknowledgment of any issues at all. If we forbid
discussion of race at all then you never have to think about whether a topic
is racist or racial. Same with sex, if all mention of sex is forbidden then
there is no chance of someone saying something sexist.

If an organization wants to take such a "throw the baby out with the
bathwater" approach that's their prerogative, but they should be clear about
it. Don't say "any type of sexism will not be allowed" say "any mention of sex
will not be allowed."

~~~
parennoob
This.

Ted Dziuba has mentioned the tech industry being extremely sex negative, and
him being almost afraid to criticize it because of the inevitable massive
backlash he would face. And this is being reinforced by the increasing "don't
even mention anything related to sex in a prrrrrofesional setting" approach
being taken by a lot of popular organizations these days.

For example, just look at github's repository forking message. Before, it used
to say the not-very-funny-but-would-still-bring-a-smile-to-your-face "Hardcore
forking action". I'd bet good money this was changed to the unassuming dining
table due to these same sex-negative, puritanical people who claimed it was
somehow making them feel oppressed or uncomfortable.

Sex is a biological need of humans. A lot of the tech industry has forward,
progressive views on things such as gay marriage. Why retain these puritan,
intolerant, purse-lipped attitudes towards sex-positivity?

~~~
tallio
>This.

4chan is that way >>>

>Sex is a biological need of humans. A lot of the tech industry has forward,
progressive views on things such as gay marriage. Why retain these puritan,
intolerant, purse-lipped attitudes towards sex-positivity?

Because feminism is invading. If you can't see this, you've probably not been
a part of the tech industry for too long.

~~~
Amadou
_Because feminism is invading. If you can 't see this, you've probably not
been a part of the tech industry for too long._

You _appear_ to be saying that feminism == puritanism. That's just completely
wrong.

------
jessedhillon
I'd like to stem a couple of obvious, but inevitable (for HN and some other
tech communities) criticisms that are bound to appear:

1) Yes, this stuff is tasteless and offends the sensibilities of most decent
adults. (Invariably, someone likes to point out that it offends everyone, and
conclude therefore that it can't be misogynistic)

2) Yes, people differ in their tolerances for crudeness in their humor. First,
I think most people can agree that none of this was actually even funny -- as
in, these presentations did not successfully execute the elements of humor.
Second, a hackathon is not the place to get up on stage and pretend to come on
the audience. There's audacity -- which, when coupled with other necessary
elements can make for a great presentation -- and there's poor taste.

3) Yes, some women will take particular offense to these presentations and
they are justified.

Allowing a couple of dumbasses to get up and laugh about staring at breasts
and dropping terrible puns -- even when their presentation is self-deprecating
and they hint that they know how crass they are being -- sends the message
that the organizers and the audience accept the premise of the presentation:
that leering at women's bodies in a completely unaware manner, is acceptable.
It's not -- please let there be nobody who contests that point.

(Aside: a woman in a low-cut shirt is not putting her breasts on display for
public consumption. And leering is different than looking -- nobody is saying
that you aren't allowed to notice the attractiveness of a woman.)

Getting up and pretending to inseminate the audience is just gross, and as an
act, it is at the same level as the guy in my seventh grade class who drew a
full-page phallus in my yearbook. His excuse is that he was thirteen, and
assumed that everyone else was as obsessed with his genitals as he was. That
people are laughing about this sends another message, and I can understand if
women are more sensitive to that message than men -- who were themselves
thirteen y/o males at one time.

I don't know if I've demonstrated why things like this create an environment
where it's hard to say, seriously, that women should get into tech.

~~~
WestCoastJustin
Distilled into _management of expectations_.

When you go to an event like this, or say a TED talk or some type of
technology conference (VMworld, PyCon, etc), I assume a G/PG rating, unless
told otherwise. Sure they were jokes, just told in the wrong setting. Some
people like to push the boundaries, and if you give them a soap box, they will
speak. This should be news to no one, but when you show PG-13, or R content to
someone expecting a PG show, joke or otherwise, then eyebrows will raise.

As an example, lets say you went to see Louis CK [1], is anyone going to be
outraged if he did a bit about either of these things, maybe, but that's what
they signed up for, both were jokes right, what is the difference, people
expect and _want_ a PG-13/R rated show when they signed up to see Louis CK.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_CK](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_CK)

~~~
MetaCosm
Agreed. Would be nice if the people running a hackathon like this simply put a
note "Keep it family friendly" (which, with a 9 year old presenting, seems
reasonable).

Context matters a ton, but don't assume people have a clue, spell it out.
"Keep it G rated, this is a family friendly hackathon" ...

~~~
gojomo
I would like to see the opinion of someone who actually brought their young
child to the event... or even, ideally, from a child in attendance.

When parents bring a child to an event that's traditionally ~99% adults, I'm
not sure that what they want is for the event to down-shift to be more 'family
friendly'. They may be trying to show their child more of the authentic grown-
up world.

I think that's what my parents were after when they brought me to R-Rated
movies at the age of 9. (Or perhaps, they were just too cheap to hire a
babysitter.)

~~~
MetaCosm
But, your parents KNEW it was R-rated, they didn't go into an UNKNOWN and then
got whatever they got... I am fine with a hackathon saying "This is X rated,
for improving <pornsite>" \-- that is perfect fine, it isn't about the
specific expectation, it is about SETTING one.

Having no guidance means that if this is acceptable is far more grey... I
think it if was supposed to be G-rated, everyone would agree it was not.

Clear boundaries and expectations help everyone, from a parent deciding if
their children should participate to an adult deciding if they want to attend.

------
objclxt
I think one of two things happened. The first is TechCrunch simply didn't
screen the hacks being presented in any way before they went up on stage. The
second is they did screen them, but whoever did the screening had no problem
with the two problematic submissions.

It's pretty clear to me the latter was has occurred, for a number of reasons.
Firstly, the language in the apology refers to a failure to "properly screen",
rather than screen. Secondly, TechCrunch originally tweeted a link to one of
the two hacks in question (subsequently deleted). And finally, it's a high
profile event being broadcast live. You're screening the presentations if only
to avoid potential legal and liability problems.

And it's because of this that I have a hard job taking TechCrunch seriously
when they say _" we've worked hard to counteract it in our coverage and in our
own hiring"_. It only takes one or two incidents like this to totally
undermine any credibility you might have.

~~~
davidedicillo
I was one of the people who presented at the hackaton today (ChowDown) and I
can say that there was no screening, since the only material requested was
names, a brief description and special needs (adaptors, etc.).

~~~
cpayne
a brief description...

Whoever was reading the "brief descriptions" should have known better.

------
gojomo
Their promised fix, "every presentation is getting a thorough screening from
this hackathon onward", destroys something that was neat about their
hackathon: an essentially free minute on stage to do whatever wild/strange
thing the entrants wanted.

Yes, such freedom means some embarrassments, promotional spam, offensiveness,
and weak/unfunny jokes get on stage.

But no-prior-restraint errs on the side of project-inclusiveness and free
speech, gets the most possible teams/ideas on stage, and avoids the endless
rathole discussion of exactly what the "officially enforced content standards"
should be.

Now, the extra overhead of screening (or debating corner-cases) could easily
mean fewer teams on stage, simply because of the extra effort required inside
an already chaotic and time-bottlenecked get-on-stage process.

Some teams will water down what would have been an interesting/memorable
presentation, beyond what's strictly necessary, just knowing a content-
screening filter must be passed. With screening in place, appearance-on-stage
now implies a level of 'approval' from the organizers that didn't previously
exist. That invites further controversies over the precisely-acceptable
boundaries, and a bias toward more taboos and caution over time.

Ultimately, the people such content-policing is purported to protect may not
get a net benefit out of the smaller, tamer forum that results.

~~~
roguecoder
On the other hand, maybe a team that was previously going to take some lazy,
stereotypical sexist copout will now stretch themselves to do something novel,
or even interesting instead.

------
Swizec
I've always wondered why in the US everyone loses their shit over a tittie
app, but in Europe you can have billboards containing nothing but naked
breasts advertising a conference.

Source: [http://metro.co.uk/2009/09/11/giant-boobs-advert-turns-
heads...](http://metro.co.uk/2009/09/11/giant-boobs-advert-turns-
heads-404554/)

Related question: would everyone lose their shit if the app was called
GuyStare and was aimed at women to look at hot guys?

~~~
angersock
It's because sexism only exists in the United States.

~~~
estel
No, it doesn't.

~~~
angersock
(that is the joke you see)

------
zainny
I wonder if the biggest reason why things like this keep happening is because
we're all on a state of "high alert" in the tech community. Hear me out.

Right now in the tech world we've got ourselves in a big damn tizzy over
anything even slightly sexual in nature.

By contrast, almost every single other medium we encounter on a day to day
basis (TV, movies, magazines) is HIGHLY sexualised and makes absolutely no
apologies for it. I've seen TV ads on primetime more offensive than some of
these presentations.

I wonder if we're just going to keep running in to this issue again and again
in the tech world simply because our standards are so out of whack with what
the average person deems appropriate?

~~~
graue
First of all, not everything that's ok in an entertainment medium (TV, movies)
is ok in a professional setting. I don't think presentations like these would
have been appropriate at a conference of lawyers, doctors, artists, or
biologists, either.

That said I think this also has to do with the extreme gender imbalance. Tech
conferences are very male-dominated. I think the first photo here really gets
this across, of the restroom line at another conference in SF:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/06/ridicu...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/06/ridiculously-
long-mens-room-lines-at-tech-conferences-a-photo-essay/276721/)

Imagine that you're a woman and you're walking to the restroom, past a line of
40 or 50 men. And now, imagine they've all just seen a "joke" presentation
about staring at women's breasts. You might feel like a bit of a target, don't
you think? It could be pretty uncomfortable.

Whereas, _if_ we had a gender-balanced industry, and _if_ we had, say, 47 men
in the men's restroom line and 43 women in the women's restroom line, a
presentation like the ones we're discussing would _still_ be offensive and
inappropriate, and still really not ok, but it might at least feel less
personally threatening.

~~~
zainny
I think the difference here though is conferences like this are intentionally
positioned at being more casual and less formal/professional. I doubt lawyers
even have similarly casual conferences of this nature. In the tech world,
we've intentionally positioned our conferences to be this way. I honestly
think therefore that people will be more likely to bring their normal set of
standards to bear in situations like this.

Now, I have a question for you. Imagine that you're a woman and you're walking
to the restroom, past a line of 40 or 50 men. And now imagine those men have
any time recently walked past a magazine store where upon they saw hundreds of
magazines depicting women naked (ie. every single magazine store anywhere).

Or imagine those men are discussing the latest episode of Boston Legal, a
typical TV show depicting a professional setting (legal firm) which contains
highly sexualised themes (like, again, pretty much every show on TV today).

I'm not saying this is a good thing. I'm simply making the point that the
standards people seem to be applying in the tech world seem to me to be
completely out of whack with what society in general deems appropriate.

------
farmerjack
Are people actually outraged? Since when did hacker culture take such a large
turn toward political correctness?

~~~
USNetizen
You had to create a new HN identity to post that? Afraid of something?

Hacker culture is no longer a good-ol-boy's club for good reasons. I don't
know about you, but I wouldn't feel very included in a culture that denigrated
me like certain hacker events of late do to women.

~~~
farmerjack
I didn't have an HN identity. I felt like this might be an interesting
discussion, so I created an account.

Is it a big secret that men like to look at boobs? I'd like to meet the women
who were so offended by such an obvious joke. In the entire circle of women I
know, I really can't think of one who wouldn't recognize the playfulness of
the idea (and not take it seriously).

If a female made an app that included men's butts, would people have the same
reaction?

~~~
memset
"If a female made an app... would people have the same reaction?"

Probably not, but that is because men aren't trying to release themselves from
the clutches of institutional harassment and marginalization in tech. It isn't
like you can just swap the pronouns for your argument - because in doing so,
you also swap the historical context and culture, and when you do that then
you come to different conclusions.

------
andrewljohnson
When I first saw the TitStare thing, I thought it was a Google Glass hack to
let you stare at boobs without actually looking at them directly.

While still a really sexist thing, I thought such an app would be an
interesting hack, and make quite a statement about the future of these
wearable technologies... might be considered an art project if cast in the
right light (and also probably renamed).

But a boob-photo sharing app? Sexist and boring.

~~~
subsystem
If something is actually good it rarely has to hide behind something like
sexism. It's not like you read xkcd and think "I wish it had more dick jokes".

~~~
parennoob
No, it's not like _you_ read xkcd and think "I wish it had more dick jokes".

 _I_ would prefer _my_ xkcd with an extra side order of dick jokes with fries.
Please stop generalizing your personal likes and dislikes and rebasing them
onto the rest of us.

~~~
subsystem
Ah, the downfall of HN personified.

------
dbecker
The circle jerk application had overtones that were sexual, not misogynistic.

The presentation may have been inappropriate for this venue, but it's shallow-
minded to pretend sexual and sexist are the same thing.

------
Systemic33
Making this to more than a kinda childish joke is more of a problem than the
act itself. By elevating this to a "Look how troubled our industry is" kinda
thing, its just gonna get more of an issue.

The only way this will change is if it doesn't become the naughty thing it is
right now. And this seems to be quite a US-centric issue, stemming from the
paradoxical opinion about women in US.

Anywhere else, this would just have been a funny joke, and everyone would have
laughed and thought the people were silly and unproffesional.

Anyone who gets offended by this, has more severe issues than the guys who did
this.

------
USNetizen
It's reassuring to see, based on the comments here, that a large majority of
HN users see this issue with this type of behavior and are against it. There
are still a few I noticed who haven't matured beyond their teen years yet,
though.

------
yosho
Anyone know the details of what happened? Can someone elaborate on this?

~~~
jdstraughan
This. What did I (we) miss?

~~~
olefoo
[https://twitter.com/search?q=%23titstare](https://twitter.com/search?q=%23titstare)

------
smoyer
So it's come to this? A society that prefers that male nerds spend their time
indoors working on a computer screen from an early age is bound to end up with
socially inept geeks. The real shame here is that these young (and old?) men
don't realize there can be so much more to a relationship than staring.

If the parents of these young men won't do their duty (including the whole
junior high blind date scenario), I'd suggest that the best course of action
for teaching the resulting lepers is the smoyer social skills class. In short,
you'll learn the basic syntax of male-female encounters, as well as the all-
important order-of-operations as follows:

1) Looking a girl in the eyes (and don't look down)

2) Having a conversation

3) Having another conversation

4) Asking for a date (repeat as needed)

5) Staring (and maybe even touching) with permission

Our advanced course features additional materials to help when you need to
meet the parents, get engaged, get married and live happily ever after. So
there are scenarios where its permissible (and even flattering) to stare, but
you geeks are doing it all wrong.

</humor>

Unfortunately, there's a grain of truth in a lot of what I wrote. Many of you
are as dismayed as I am that this happened, but some of you laughed along
without realizing you should be uncomfortable. You need help!

------
mesozoic
From my understanding that hackathon is basically just a way to get free
tickets to Disrupt. Thus no one takes it seriously and you get things like
this.

~~~
davidedicillo
1) Yes, probably a lot of people was here to get the free ticket (including
myself)

2) Most people (including myself) still took it very seriously (proof all the
people who worked 20 hours straight and slept on floors for few minutes).

~~~
TheZenPsycho
It's sad that in hacker culture, forgoing sleep is seen as "taking it
seriously". From my experience at game jams, and from the people who run these
game jams, skipping on sleep is an almost certain guarantee of failure.

Sorry for the off topic.

------
metaphorm
file this under the ever growing file of evidence that the tech industry has
lost its sense of humor.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Exactly. Those two guys up on stage really did seem to think they were being
funny - where has all the genuine humour in tech presentations gone?

~~~
metaphorm
its ok to try to be funny and fail at it.

------
crankywoman
Just crass. 15 minutes of fame and they got it. But are they capable of
designing and commercialising a real idea? We can all take short cuts to get
publicity (I'm thinking of an app called 'check my package' which photographs
and then invites comments on mens' anatomy). Poor form from the organisers -
in the world of grown up tech we expect better. Plenty of room for fun but not
schoolboy stuff.

------
maxcan
Sidenote: I find expressions of religious faith particularly offensive and
harmful to children. We should ban any faith related apps from tech
conferences.

------
sashk
I don't get what's there to apologize for. Both projects were funny. One of
them was distasteful. That's all.

------
MistahKoala
At least Jizabel and Gawker now have something to write about for the next
fortnight.

------
benologist
Machine-generated search engine spam is also a problem in our industry, like
the machine-generated search engine spam TechCrunch offers at:

[http://smartphones.techcrunch.com/](http://smartphones.techcrunch.com/)

[http://tablets.techcrunch.com/](http://tablets.techcrunch.com/)

[http://digital-cameras.techcrunch.com/](http://digital-
cameras.techcrunch.com/)

[http://laptops.techcrunch.com/](http://laptops.techcrunch.com/)

[http://headphones.techcrunch.com/](http://headphones.techcrunch.com/)

being syndicated from a content farm with > 100,000,000 such junk pages.

[http://seobook.com/scalable-seo](http://seobook.com/scalable-seo)

