
Major Hacker Conference Organizers Accused of Ignoring Harassment - Tomte
https://gizmodo.com/major-hacker-conference-organizers-accused-of-ignoring-1821631895
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polartx
The title is intentionally misleading; ignoring harassment is not the same as
choosing not to mainstage the discussion through already limited presentation
blocks. At the end of the day, someone’s job is to schedule topics that
interest the segment of their target market. Why? So that they can sell
tickets, so they can pay for the venue, etc. etc. If you force topics that
don’t interest the HackerCon market, they don’t come back, even if the
discussion is ‘for their own good’.

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nv-vn
>Appelbaum denied the allegations at the time, calling the accusations “a
calculated and targeted attack.”

I think it's worth noting that no proof has been presented publicly, and to
the contrary, 2 of the alleged victims have denied there being any sexual
assault. So at least to a certain degree these are targeted attacks. Whether
he was targeted because he sexually assaulted someone else is an open
question, but there were some false claims.

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gyger
I like the article of the zeit.

[http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2016-08/jacob-appelbaum-rape-
sexua...](http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2016-08/jacob-appelbaum-rape-sexual-abuse-
allegations/komplettansicht)

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Odenwaelder
I always found this Code-of-conduct stuff ridiculous. Can you just go to the
organizers, finger-point at somebody else and yell "muh feelingz are hurt" and
the accused person will be kicked out? Does it really work that way?

Germany has laws on harassment, and so does probably every other western
country. If you've been harassed, it is your right to go to the police and
press charges.

And ffs, don't do fingerpointing on Twitter. We don't live in the dark ages,
we don't burn witches anymore.

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gtcode
In the US, one can fill out a police report, but that doesn't mean that the
police will opt to press charges. If one contacts the police to report a
crime, they still need probable cause to press charges.

As for witch hunts, folks do get burned in the digital age, whether as result
of posts on a public twitter feed, or worse yet in some cases, privately via
other social media channels or other (digital) communication mechanisms.
Publicly outing someone or a group is perhaps a last resort, but necessary in
some cases.

