Disrupting the everyday lives of Russian citizens is an effective way to incite change. Some will choose to flee the chaos, but some will choose to protest and fight the regime.
Will there be good Russians unfairly hurt as collateral damage? Yes.
But the Ukrainian civilians being gunned down in the streets and having their homes blown up are also being unfairly hurt. There is very little they can do to stop it, but they've been forced to drop everything and fight.
Like it or not, you're on one side of a war. It's to be expected that your life will be inconvenienced - so have lives on the other side. You can flee - nothing wrong with that - or you can protest, but you can't hope that you won't be impacted.
> Disrupting the everyday lives of Russian citizens
No it doesnt because is not a democratic country, why is it so hard for people like you to understand that things work very different in a democratic country than in non-democratic country?
Do you know what happens when you are in a country that doesnt respect human rights and you go to "protest"?
Do you know what happens when you, as a citizen with no power, try to fight a military regime?
Do you really think, russians right now are enjoyinig this and will somehow march to get Putin's head because their quality of life will be miserable now? no, they wont, because the moment they start doing it, they will be repressed and killed, and there you will be, super happy sharing your support posts to those people
the worst part of all of these, is that you don't realize that one of the goals of putin is to undermine his own state, so he can keep power for the years to come, and here you are, helping him :), good job at making every russian life even worse.
"No it doesnt because is not a democratic country, why is it so hard for people like you to understand that things work very different in a democratic country than in non-democratic country?"
I sympathize with this position but I also feel conflicted because despite the enormous amount of evidence that Putin was a bad guy as recently as 2017 he had 80+% approval rating. If had not had large scale popular support for most of the last 20 years despite his anti-democratic anti-freedom behaviour would he be in a position to execute this war?
I don't have good answers for this question but just as democracy isn't just having a vote political support in a non-democracy isn't just having the legal use of violence at your disposal. It is challenging for anyone from outside Russia that wants to oppose his regime to find a way that doesn't hurt ordinary Russians if most ordinary Russians mostly have supported him.
Protest isn't even a necessary event. If the reward of continuing the war becomes less than the damage of continuing it, it only needs Putin. Regardless, he always enjoyed a very high approval rating while amassing his position.
>Do you know what happens when you are in a country that doesnt respect human rights and you go to "protest"?
>Do you know what happens when you, as a citizen with no power, try to fight a military regime?
Luckily I am not Ukrainian, so I am not having this discovery forced upon me.
Why is it that every time one of these threads comes up it's a wall of text acting all innocent and trying to distract from the fact that they were promoting super sketchy Bitcoin gambling?
> a few videos in 2019 about some Bitcoin faucets and games
> I guess it was the "BTCspinner"
You didn't get banned for minifying a URL. You got banned for promoting predatory crypto gambling sites. And it was well deserved.
Not to condone this behavior, but I think it's absolutely worth noting that she was wearing a shirt that said "Penetration Expert" on the front (which the article mentions) which is reasonably mild. But the shirt also says on the back, if you follow the link, "When was the Last Time you were PENETRATED..." [capitalization sic] (which the article conveniently leaves out).
I've gotta say, that is way more sexual of a joke than I'd personally be comfortable wearing in a business casual environment, and I can't help but feel that if you wear that you're really opening yourself up to people teasing you with "Oh yeah, when was the last time you were penetrated?". There's a big difference between "she was asking for it because of her clothes" - bad argument - and "she chose to wear a shirt with an overtly sexual joke on it and people repeated the joke to her".
I don't think this is a fair argument. Sure, the shirt probably isn't appropriate for a business casual environment, but that doesn't change the fact that this behaviour is sexual harassment: made worse by the fact that the recruiters are acting from a position of power.
It's also worth pointing out that these events occurred at Black Hat, in Las Vegas: what passes as acceptable business attire there is not the same as what would fly in an office, and I guarantee there were plenty of people wearing far more risqué shirts without facing any harassment.
It's easy to try to pin some responsibility on the woman here, but that ignores the fact that this sort of language and culture is extremely common at Black Hat and DEFCON, and a shirt like she was wearing would not have been out of place at the conference. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if she won the shirt at the conference.
From the year before, here [0] is a sign from the vendor area at Black Hat, featuring an underwear clad model with the caption: "You know you're not the first... but do you really care?"
Similarly, to this day, DEFCON, held one week after Black Hat, and likely the largest security conference in the world, still holds a "Hacker Jeopardy" competition, featuring strippers who remove their clothing as contestants answer questions correctly.
I only say all of this because I think a lot of context is being lost in this article, by people who haven't been to these conferences: the women's shirt wouldn't have been what singled her out here, her gender was, and for the recruiters to harass her for that is unacceptable.
Ms. Mitchell, by wearing the t-shirt with overtly sexual language, was participating and engendering the ostensible 'sexualized culture' herself, and to absolve her of complicity in her own actions is maybe actually the sexist part.
If a man wore that shirt, we would declare it 'demeaning and sexist' I think, without doubt.
I fully agree, it's all too much, people should be more professional, and the Blizzard guys should not have referenced it at all.
You're 3rd paragraph doesn't add up. If she is wearing the 'dirty t-shirt' ... then she is not a 'victim' to what she herself is perpetuating, unless you think this person is unintelligent? I don't understand.
I don't think this is the story we are looking for, and I don't think legal action is warrant against people referring to someone by comments on their own t-shirt, and it's also upsetting that this nuanced information is not in the article.
'Sexism' is real, it happens, and it's important, and so we can't just flail around with bad information and journalism trying to push narratives. Facts matter and if people want to 'move the needle' it would behove us all to get the story straight.
> One of the Blizzard employees first asked if she was lost, another one asked if she was at the conference with her boyfriend, and another one asked if she even knew what pentesting was.
> "One of my C-suite executives saw that you had been added to our CRM database, and shared a very troubling and upsetting story with me:
> Back in 2015 at the Black Hat USA security conference in Las Vegas Blizzard had a recruitment booth in the “Career Zone” section of the vendor area. As the name implies, the purpose of the Career Zone is to connect hackers seeking jobs with companies seeking to employ them. My executive (whom I should clarify was not employed with us at the time, but rather was employed as a senior vulnerability researcher at large security consulting firm) approached the Blizzard booth to inquire about open positions; however instead of discussing potential job opportunities with her, the Blizzard recruiters ridiculed her for being a woman. They asked her if she was lost; if her boyfriend brought her to the conference; if she even knew what the conference was about; if she knew was penetration testing was, and how often she got penetrated; and a slew of other extremely inappropriate and wholly unprofessional questions.”
Or just believe the women in the face of credible evidence. The lengths many HN commenters will go to to cast FUD upon any accusation of sexism in the industry is a pretty clear indicator of how much sexism is in the industry.
"Or just believe the women in the face of credible evidence."
? But we just found that we can't do that.
The top commenter has basically turned the story upside down, with the fairly relevant information (i.e. evidence) that Ms. Mitchell was wearing a t-shirt with overtly sexual language - to which the Blizzard dorks merely responded directly to.
Blizzard guys met her at her level, with equal levels of dubious professionalism.
This information was not fully reported in the story and it materially changes the situation.
The story was presented as: "Woman Faced Sexual Harassment"
... but really it's something much more nuanced: "Woman Extolling Sexual Language, Is Responded To In Those Same Terms, Interprets Actions as Harassing"
The statements on her t-shirt, if correct (i.e. both sides) are clearly 'sexually charged language' that, if worn in any professional context, especially by a man, would have them immediately sidelined. Shamed, at minimum.
So in this case, it's a good thing that we 'didn't believe the story' because it turned out to be something more complicated.
I'm always immediately sympathetic to people in these scenarios ... but invariably I learn more, and that there is always considerably more nuance than reported, to the point wherein the authors of the story are effectively misrepresenting reality, and I become much less likely to accept anything reported just 'at face value' - which is frankly not good for 'the movement'.
I think the 'large central mass' of regular people are really, really open to change and looking at things differently, and in hearing legit stories, but as soon as they're misrepresented, the window of general empathy closes.
Please describe to me how your argument doesn't boil down to "she deserved it because of what she was wearing"?
> Blizzard guys met her at her level, with equal levels of dubious professionalism.
This is wildly charitable to blizzard guys. She's wearing a punny tshirt and asking about a job. They're responding by asking how often she's been penetrated, and whether she knows literally anything about csec. She isn't fucking hitting on them at a bar, and they're there as professionals looking to fucking hire people.
I don't think this really adds nuance. It attempts to excuse unprofessional (maybe can be interpreted as questionably okay in this context) and sexist (not okay, fucking period) actions. They're getting paid by Blizzard to be there. You don't say shit like that and expect to have a job the next day, regardless of the context.
> I think the 'large central mass' of regular people are really, really open to change and looking at things differently, and in hearing legit stories, but as soon as they're misrepresented, the window of general empathy closes.
Which is why FUD still works, because muddying the waters makes people excuse unacceptable, unprofessional and downright wrong language allows otherwise "open" people to say "well I guess we'll never know." which preserves the status quo.
"Please describe to me how your argument doesn't boil down to "she deserved it because of what she was wearing"?"
A person, whatever they are wearing, is not overly engaging in sexualized interaction.
But if someone writes something overtly sexual on their t-shirt, they are engaging in a communication.
That someone responded to the t-shirt shouldn't be surprising, even if it's unprofessional.
---
"I don't think it adds nuance"
It adds nuance because the men, engaging in discussion about 'penetration' without incitement, is something clearly different then the men commenting on the pun that is on another person's shirt.
---
"Which is why FUD still works, because muddying the waters "
It's not muddying the waters if you accept that the woman initiated a level of discourse by her own accord.
Consider what would happen if one of your male co-workers wore a t-shirt with an overtly crude, sexual double-etendre about 'penetration' to the office?
"Have you ever been PENETRATED? (wink wink!)"
Surely you'd be outraged that this would be exactly the kind of 'frat boy' culture you're condemning.
I'm certain that I would be told to 'change shirts' immediately, at least at my office.
So how do we then contemplate that a women, who wears such a is not directly engaging in this bad behaviour?
If you wear a t-shirt that says: "Suck My Banana!" to the office, and someone says to you "Ok, I'll Suck Your Banana!" - then who is really 'at fault' of being crude and sexist?
I don't think that Banana has much of a legitimate claim.
I thought that was a pretty big part of what we all learned during the #metoo movement - the incentives to lie are pretty weak for victims since they end up facing waves of harassment over even legitimate claims.
Considering Blizzard is currently being sued by the state of California for exactly the same discriminatory behavior it's same to assume that grain of salt has long since dissolved into this soup of illegal bullshit that Blizzard is being sued for.
Professionally, yes, practically, and probably legally, no.
The applicant has every responsibility to maintain a degree of professionalism.
If they entered into a conversation with overtly 'cheeky' and sexual context, then they've set the tone themselves.
More importantly - the victim here could be interpreted as the instigator of sexual harassment.
Imagine a man, wearing a T-Shirt at the office, that said 'When Was The Last Time You Were PENETRATED?' - he would be taken aside and accused of sexual assault or unwarranted behaviour, right on the spot, no conversation needed.
> Professionally, yes, practically, and probably legally, no.
The word professionally or professionalism are weasel words that don't hold up to scrutiny. Competence is necessary by every definition I found, so how, exactly, are you going to determine competence? By my measure everyone in management at Blizzard should be immediately terminated for lacking professionalism.
> The applicant has every responsibility to maintain a degree of professionalism.
That presumes everyone agrees to the same standard of professionalism, which isn't true, not even slightly.
> If they entered into a conversation with overtly 'cheeky' and sexual context, then they've set the tone themselves.
Why are you blaming the victim?
> More importantly - the victim here could be interpreted as the instigator of sexual harassment.
If reading words on a shirt instigates someone else to behave like that, then they should have their mental state evaluated.
> Imagine a man, wearing a T-Shirt at the office, that said 'When Was The Last Time You Were PENETRATED?' - he would be taken aside and accused of sexual assault or unwarranted behaviour, right on the spot, no conversation needed.
I've done exactly what you're describing several times at a few different organizations of various sizes. I think you're going to be very surprised how Twitter and corporate media aren't a proxy for real life.
This incident is such a baffling combination of the historically “loose” norms of both the security and gaming industries. I have no idea how to unpack all the layers here. I’m sure it would make me acutely uncomfortable to talk to someone (of any gender) wearing that shirt in a professional context.
The overlap between small-time OnlyFans creators and people hypervigilant about their privacy feels small. Streamers and idols have faced this problem for some time - with cases of people finding out where a streamer lives based on minutiae like reflections - but add porn and inexperience to the equation and it's not at all surprising that stalking behavior can get dangerously extreme.
Storytime - a girl at my uni mentioned in our school's subreddit that she does OnlyFans. She made the comment from the same reddit account she used to advertise her profile and she also wrote many regular SFW comments and posts. So... she was pretty hot, and me being a horny and curious college dude, I tried to see if I could casually ID them.
Yes, kind of creepy, I know. Horniness aside, the point is, it took me like 10 minutes to find their real name and identity, based only on information they decided it would be safe to publicly associate with themselves. Rest assured, I didn't do anything with that knowledge and I have no intention of ever doing so, obviously. Really big school, completely different majors that spend time in completely different parts of campus, I doubt I'd even notice if I ever crossed paths with them.
People who aren't techies who always have privacy on the mind often drastically underestimate how little information is needed to uniquely ID them. In this case, a) she posted in a specific school sub, b) she posted about her grades in a major-specific class, c) she mentioned her ethnicity in a regular SFW post, and d) she shared plenty of pictures of her body sans face from a variety of angles.
Well now I can know that there's an X-ethnicity person in Y grade of Z major at ABC university who has an identifying tattoo and a relatively uncommon hairstyle... Literally 2 or 3 Google searches later and I had a result. As I'm sure is often the case, she wasn't particularly concerned about the privacy of her regular, real life identity, presumably with the assumption that it wouldn't ever be connected to her OnlyFans. Name on school project websites, articles in the school newspaper, LinkedIns, public instagrams, things like that.
It doesn't take long to scroll through google images and recognize a body. And that's probably what's unintuitive about this risk - someone might think "well there are another 300 people who fit that description, so I'm good". But with computers, it's trivial to look through 300 people. Someone crazy enough could easily sift through 3000 pictures searching for you. They know roughly what you look like. And if the number of people fitting your description is only around 30, it's hard to even call that a search - a few seconds on a page or two is all it takes to ID you.
The good thing is that the vast majority of people are probably harmless. The occasional overly curious person like me might cross some boundaries and find out who you are, but it's not likely they'll have any desire to contact you in any way. The bad thing, of course, is that it only takes 1 nutcase to instill a lot of fear.
I don't think there's a solution other than more education - assuming this kind of content creation continues to exist without heavy regulation. Maybe OnlyFans could play a part. I'm sure most OF creators vaguely know the risks, but they may not be used to thinking carefully about sharing seemingly innocuous and vague details. Like, "Did you know you might be stalked? Yes. Did you know you might be stalked and identified if you share a picture of your dog at the park? Uh, what!?".
A quick 15 minute video on protecting yourself from the crazies could probably prevent a lot of dangerous situations. "Don't share your school or major", "Don't take pictures near street signs or stores", "Don't wear jewelry you usually wear", etc.
A truthful video would just say "the likelihood of your relatives, friends, neighbors, colleagues and creepy stalkers linking your OF profile to your real identity approaches 100% in the long run. Even if you never show your face. Do not create an account if you aren't sure you are 100% fine with it"
Of course, OF itself would never scare off prospective sources of income like that.
It's like you see a girl you think is hot and you ask people about her and follow her home.
Great you know where she lives.
You have seen her naked and paid for her pictures.
You are worried someone is going be as smart as you but take it a bit too far and go knock on her door? And what.. Ask her for a date? Kill her?
I would think if you go to the same school you could follow home anyone. And you have the opportunity to see lots of girls naked in person while in school.
Not seeing the risk of a low level star here. It's the same risk as being your neighbour and leaving the blind open.
What you're failing to account for is that online sex work massively increases the number of people paying attention to you in a way that can turn dangerous, and at the same time tends to reinforce dangerous attitudes.
The risk of some bitter, lonely guy living three states away, going off the rails and deciding that you are a bitch who needs to be taught a lesson, after years of having his attitudes messed up by hot women trying to make money by telling him "I need your cock right now!" - that is not a risk you run by hooking up in real life.
Isn't that person as likely to assault a neighbour.
Most channels are not pushing messages with 'I need your cock now' and if they are they are probably run by a professional operator.
A lot of channels aren't about sex. A lot of channels have males.
If all of your fears were valid I would recommend getting off instagram, facebook, etc because someone could find a photo clothed or not from those sources. It could lead to..
Or, some stalker might try to blackmail her with making this information public. Some professor might lower her grades because he is outraged by her behavior. Some colleagues might distance themselves from her because they view this as immoral.
Given the status of sex work, there are many reasons why many who do it do not want to associate their private identity with it.
You can't live in fear of other people's prejudices. Sex work is nothing to be ashamed about.
You can't blackmail someone making a few bucks on fansonly. If you tried to do it to someone at the top who had money the platform, police and dmca notices would come flying your way.
Professors marking you low because of fansonly seems like a stretch. They can mark you low because you sleep in their class and are more likely to.
> You can't live in fear of other people's prejudices.
That is an extremely privileged take. When other people take their prejudices to extreme levels, you can and sometimes must live in fear of them. Anti-sex work prejudices in modern day USA may not be as bad as anti-gay prejudices in Saudi Arabia, but the principle is not entirely different.
> You can't blackmail someone making a few bucks on fansonly. If you tried to do it to someone at the top who had money the platform, police and dmca notices would come flying your way.
Imagine you are a college-age girl working anonymously on OnlyFans and you receive a message asking you to do something small - go out on a 'date', send more nudes, help cheat on some exam, even send some amount of money - or they will reveal your identity to parents and peers. Do you think you could be unfazed and calmly assume that authorities will take care of it?
> Professors marking you low because of fansonly seems like a stretch.
What if this was a religious college, or just a particularly religious professor? Do you think that having a reputation as a sex worker will not impact the way you are treated by some?
Will there be good Russians unfairly hurt as collateral damage? Yes.
But the Ukrainian civilians being gunned down in the streets and having their homes blown up are also being unfairly hurt. There is very little they can do to stop it, but they've been forced to drop everything and fight.
Like it or not, you're on one side of a war. It's to be expected that your life will be inconvenienced - so have lives on the other side. You can flee - nothing wrong with that - or you can protest, but you can't hope that you won't be impacted.