

Death Threats and Hate Crimes, Attacks On Women Bloggers Escalating - mkr-hn
http://ittybiz.com/death-threats-online/

======
parfe
This was a strange read. The entire thing comes across as fictional or
fictionalized. She makes no reference to police involvement even though she is
"in hiding." She doesn't name names. I googled her site as she claimed you'd
find who hacked it. I came up empty. Anyone have better luck?

"Attacks On Women Bloggers Escalating" She cited one incident from 4 years ago
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Kathy_Sierra#...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Kathy_Sierra#Controversy)

And her post is littered with self important "I'm a successful woman and woman
woman woman so people hate me." I'm betting it's more her writing style.
Glancing at a previous post I'm pretty disgusted with the author. Hint: It's
not because you're a woman, it's because you're an insulting, annoying and
condescending writer.

But without her citing reality it's hard to know what really brought the scorn
down on her. And to top it off, I would never trust a marketing person.

EDIT: Just realized these comments here are likely the types of "Death Threat
Hate" she's allegedly dealing with. She's a bad person who embraces hyperbole
to the point of comedy and creates her own hate machine.

~~~
rcfox
I'm sorry, but comments like this make you sound like one of the people this
woman is hiding from. It's as if you're trying to discredit her story by
attacking her personally. Such negativity isn't necessary.

~~~
parfe
She says she's hated on because she's a woman yet I specifically gave reasons
to dislike her writing that had nothing to do with her being a woman. Although
the fact she uses her gender as a shield is pretty absurd.

------
_debug_
> I’m going to tell you a story and it’s very, very important. Please read it,
> all the way through. Women’s lives are at stake.

So it's very, very, important to read this because a particular gender's lives
are at stake, and this gender, lest you forget, is very, very important.

Have you ever seen a man write like this, ever ready to use their gender as a
VIP card?

Then there's her "business" icon. Is that a semi-stripper?? Is that a post-it
note? Is her skirt hanging down into the space between the Y?

Have you ever seen many men promote their businesses using their sexuality or
gender as a card?

No, this is not a "vicious" hate crime or "attack" on Women Bloggers. This is
an "attack" on A particular woman blogger who is clearly using her gender as
both a food stamp and a responsibility-shield to get by in this world. For a
counterexample, @see jeanhsu.com. No whoring there.

~~~
britta
Even if she chooses to make her gender part of her branding in a prominent and
very-confident way, "whoring" is a poor choice of words - it's a loaded term
with connotations of specifically insulting a particular gender for behaving
in overly-confident ways. If you'd like to have a web where gender isn't an
important distinguishing characteristic by default, it's helpful to avoid
sexualized insults.

~~~
_debug_
You are right that I went overboard.

I could potentially point out politely that she is playing the gender card.

------
CJefferson
While I sympathise deeply with the author, I find this post really annoying.

Firstly, it doesn't tell me anything. I suspect long-term readers will know
exactly what 'Mean Website 1' and 'Mean Website 2' are. Without that
information it seems very rambling.

The main suggestion is to share this rambling, information-lite post.

Does anyone have the full story of what actually happened? In particular,
while I agree there are some horrible trolls out there (I've been targeted by
a few over the years), I find it hard to believe someone would get trolled so
hard just for "being nice". I'd believe some evidence, or independent
confirmation.

~~~
bugsy
People don't usually make this sort of stuff up. I agree with her decision not
to post details. She does not need your permission or consent to be upset. Her
experience is not subject acceptance of every random passerby on the internet
to be valid.

~~~
parfe
>People don't usually make this sort of stuff up.

Yes they do. People love attention. It can range from something as simple as
exaggerating the size of a fish to a friend in high school running 6 live
journals to have public multi-party fights with her primary identity.

~~~
bugsy
I'll tell you what. She's not making it up and she's not a drama queen. Will
you agree with both of these statements regarding this specific situation?

~~~
parfe
Why would I agree with either of those statements? Because you declared them
factual? You're coming off as weird. Like a creepy guy telling a girl she
wants to go on a date with him and thinking by staring at her all intently
she'll bend to his will.

Weird.

~~~
bugsy
She's posted the names and details of what is going on, so yeah, it's a fact.
Are you Anthony, or just one of his friends?

~~~
parfe
No relation with anyone involved (although I suspect you know these people in
real life) other than being subjected to their internet-drama. Anyway, much of
what she posts doesn't mesh up. She wasn't attacked for being a woman, a
successful woman or by some random hate sites that latched onto her for being
a woman.

She was attacked, online, because she had recently partnered with a man who
allegedly walked out on his family. A family that happened to include
religious fundamentalists who hate divorce. Now that little detail changes a
lot of the story.

She also happens to be in the business of... what exactly?

<http://ittybiz.com/ittybiz-1000/> You're welcome to quote me anything from
that page (or any other page on her site, couldn't really find a business-like
statement anywhere).

Closest I got was:

 _We want to help 1000 people quit their jobs this year.

We’re still in the early phases of creating a small army of motivated,
successful, fulfilled people who are ready and able to take charge of their
life, their work day, their career and their mission._

Now that explains why the scam-buster site was after her. Pretty much the only
kernel of truth in her original post was that some people were mean to her on
the internet.

Big whoop.

Edit: And just for an example in case you're confused:

 _As a reasonably prominent female face on the internet, I always knew the day
would come when it would get very, very ugly._

None of this hate came from being internet-famous, but by becoming involved
(professionally? Personally? who knows) with someone getting a divorce.

------
0x12
Anybody that puts themselves in the public eye will sooner or later have to
deal with the downsides of that.

Being a woman or a blogger has very little to do with it, attacks as a result
of internet interaction are increasing, period. And as more and more of our
communications and expressions are moving to the internet this trend will
accelerate rather than slow down.

A friend of mine is an author that sometimes goes on TV, after every
appearance there are at least several weirdos that feel the need to describe
how and where she's going to die.

That's nothing to do with TV, it has everything to do with your visibility.
The more idiots that figure out who you are and where you live the more you'll
get this sort of thing aimed at you.

It is interesting how the author is actually asking for even more visibility
which may very well result in more of such nonsense. That either means that
she doesn't think it is all that serious after all or that she hasn't thought
over the consequences of this action.

Trolls _love_ attention, if you want them to go away ignore them. And that's
just what these people are, real life trolls and griefers. My guess is that as
a result of this posting there will be a lot more attention from the jerks &
idiots.

Also, if you really are ever concerned about your health to the point that you
would write something like this the first place to stop is your local police
station to file a complaint, without that it is very easy to be told that you
'made it all up'.

The short version: If you plan on being visible, grow a very thick skin
regardless of your gender or occupation.

~~~
astrodust
Is it really that hard to track down trolls and get them prosecuted? Zed Shaw,
for example, seems to do this in his spare time and never seems to have much
difficulty pin-pointing the pin-heads.

~~~
0x12
Does he actually get them prosecuted?

------
bugsy
It's not about gender it's about being a minority compared to the majority in
some group.

I am not white and when it comes down to it, there are those that try to use
that to discredit me.

On the internet no one knows you are a dog, so using an alias I can hide my
race, which, no, I will not disclose to the curious. It is only relevant in
that I know what she is talking about and have experienced the same, but it's
not only women and gays that get to see these things brought up when someone
wants to discredit them to achieve greater power.

What is the solution? Is it to abandon my identity? Sure, maybe I am doing
that when I post here anonymously. When I post with my real, obviously ethnic,
name, I sure as hell get a lot more abuse rather than an honest consideration
of ideas.

When responding to people on the internet, I prefer them to be anonymous as
well. I like to respond only to ideas, though I will wonder about agendas when
posts just don't make sense.

The corporations that are trying to seize control of the internet from the
people don't like this. I say boycott Google and Facebook because of this. No
one is listening. They would rather trade freedom for shiny baubles and just
be part of the abusive system.

------
krakensden
The great thing about the internet is that it has really democratized public
speech. The terrible thing about the internet is that it turns out people
suck, and nobody wants democratic public speech.

On a related note, one of the iron laws of Eternal September is that it's
impossible to socialize everyone. Raising awareness will likely make you feel
better, but it will in no way staunch the flow of unprovoked vileness on the
internet.

------
waffle_ss
She sounds like an attention-starved loony. The only thing I was reminded of
while reading this post is that feminism is dead, and people that try to use
the "women's rights" card sound weird.

------
rcfox
I remember the situation with Kathy Sierra. It was a shame that she was forced
to stop blogging. I really enjoyed her posts. Her blog is still accessible
from here: <http://headrush.typepad.com/>

------
dfxm12
_This is a well-worn path when attacking women online. We are not attacked
based on our success, but on our suitability for sexual intercourse._

Does this woman use the Internet at all? This is how EVERYONE is attacked...

 _Successful men are generally accused of being gay._

Oh. Ok. I guess she realizes she isn't so special after all...

In short, this isn't a tragedy against women's rights, it's a tragedy against
the self-important author.

------
etherael
This sounds extremely hyperbolic, I have to wonder why there are no citations
as to the actual attacks in question?

 _As the comments started to escalate on Mean Website 2, one reader expressed
pleasure that the website owner was attacking a woman, inferring he hoped
there would be more. The owner’s response:_

Come on, really? You think that's credible? That there's a cheer squad out
there just looking for people that are victimising based on gender and seeking
to congratulate them for such sterling behaviour? This stretches the bounds of
credulity.

After a little googling I came up with this;

<http://saltydroid.info/the-ittybiz-spider/>

So is this basically some kind or marketer slanging match going down between
two parties and each is trying to paint the other as the bigger evil?

Why is this here?

~~~
astine
So, tl;dr for your link seems to be that people are attacking this woman, not
specifically because she is a woman but because they believe her to be con-
artist.

I only spent a brief moment reading the comments but I didn't see a lot of
people attack her for being a woman or issuing death threats, but I did see a
lot of folks accusing her of some nasty trickery. I don't trust this site
anymore than the woman's own, but it seems to me that this whole thing is
irrelevant to folks who don't read her blog.

~~~
gyardley
Really? I can't say I read the comments comprehensively, but the main poster
called her a 'bitch' a couple of lines in, and there was a lot of discussion
about her breasts.

I suspect this woman's trying to deal with her detractors in entirely the
wrong way - death threats are illegal, and instead of feeding the trolls, she
should immediately take what she's got to law enforcement.

That said, this thread is a lot less sympathetic than I would've expected. No
one deserves that sort of abuse. Let's say she _was_ a con artist. There's
also legal ways of dealing with that, and none involve discussing any part of
her anatomy.

~~~
astine
"Really? I can't say I read the comments comprehensively, but the main poster
called her a 'bitch' a couple of lines in, and there was a lot of discussion
about her breasts."

Is not the same thing as targeting her specifically because she is a woman.
Had the target been a man, they would likely have accused him of having a
small penis. It's not right, it's excessively personal, but it's hardly what
she described in her post. I didn't personally detect credible death threats
and unless you can, I think it's a non-issue.

------
mdink
Ok this might be reaching but if she is an SEO consultant and her username
clearly is just a sales pitch, I am not sure if I buy this story...

