The Endless Knot

Life, Buddhism, and Me

27 March 2007

Death threats and rotten apples in the blogosphere

Via Slashdot, a horrifying story. I’ve never heard of Kathy Sierra before, but now I know that she’s a respected author of books about Java. Apparently that frightens people. Yeah, I can’t figure that out either. So on a couple of blogs that have now been taken down, and on her own blog, she started receiving death threats. Vile, disgusting, horrifying threats. Apparently some of the people on those sites have in other places been crying, “But it’s free speech, man!” Sorry, threatening or suggesting that someone die ain’t protected.

I don’t know who the “siftee” person, or the “Joey” person, or the “Rev ED” people are, but I hope that they get what they have coming. See, there are lots of places that this kind of stuff falls into the “making terroristic threats” domain, and that’s big trouble.

Kathy has had to cancel speaking engagements because of the fear that has fallen upon her. Whether it was a person or people who thought they were being funny or that they had some right to speak this way though they didn’t really mean it, or it was someone who really intended her harm, the fear she feels is still just as real.

What saddens me most is that apparently any idea of civility has completely left at least a part of the blogosphere. Chris Locke, one of the people wound up in this mess, seems to be truly puzzled as to why people might consider him “acerbic and misogynistic” but I offer this: Apparently he was let go as the person helping get the Kat Herding blog up (caution, annoying embedded music player). The post on Kat Herding is relatively mild, the strongest being that he was “sort of an oddball and quite difficult to work with.” Locke’s response on his site was, “the bitch fired me! can you believe it? Of all the low down dirty stinking moves. That little crack whore fired me!”

He later disingenuously says to a journalist, in relation to the threats against Sierra, “Surely I've seen hateful stuff about women online, and when it is directed at women *because they are women,* I am disgusted by it. I have a 17-year-old daughter whom I love very much and I would not ever want to see her subjected to such Neanderthal views and behavior.”

What if said behavior is on your very own blog, Mr. Locke? Is it different because it’s all “just in fun?” How would people, like me, who have never been to your blog know that?

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