[hashbanged]

Is that usually how things work? I thought we tend to believe whistleblowers over the institutions with financial interests that they speak out against?

Obviously I'm not saying everything that comes out of a whisteblower's mouth is absolute truth, but if you take GitHub's words at face value without considering their financial interests, etc, you're thinking very uncritically.

[jgon]

Actually things generally only work that way when the whistleblower has evidence of the things they claim. For instance, if Edward Snowden had come forward with claims of pervasive global surveillance by the NSA he would have been written off as paranoid like the many, many people who had made that claim before him. What made Snowden different is that he also brought with him verifiably authentic documentation of said surveillance among other things.

In this case we have the difficult choice of either dismissing claims of harassment and sexism, which is not a good thing to do if we want to help put an end to those things, or uncritically accepting someone's word without any evidence to back it up. And in fact with evidence going the other way, however insubstantial it may be. Doing that would not be good for the precept that one is innocent until proven guilty, which is something that is important to preserve for the disadvantaged, even when it benefits those in power.

At this time the only people who are making verifiable claims are github: They have hired an investigator who they believe to be competent and impartial. They name this person and their record can be investigated by anyone who cares. The investigator's report turned up evidence of bad behavior by the CEO and they took it seriously enough that he was removed.

Where do we go from here? As I said above, neither road is desirable and there isn't an easy answer. But I don't think that you can just say we should accept Ms. Horvath's word uncritically either, at least not when we have nothing to back up her claims.

[hashbanged]

Yeah, that's fair. I'm not sure GitHub's verifiable claims are worth anything though.

I think there are some good reasons to assume Julie's credibility. Like other whistleblowers, the consequences for speaking up are extreme. Not a lot of people I know would open themselves up to the kind of harassment and character assassination that Julie has for no reason.

While it's good that she hasn't turned out to be "unemployable," as many people insisted, the reality is that she has made her life a lot more difficult by speaking out than she would have if she kept quiet. What would she have gained by lying? I'm open to suggestions, but I feel like most of the things people are saying comes down to "disgruntled employee wants revenge" which I find really unconvincing considering the attacks on her character.

If someone doesn't believe that there is pervasive sexism in ANY male dominated industry, I don't know what I can say to convince them. But the truth is that if any HR person (and that's really what this independent investigator is, an HR contractor) asked people if they experienced sexism at work at any of my jobs, people would've been reluctant to be the one to call it out even though it is pervasive.

You're right though, I don't pretend to know objectively what happened. I just think there are a lot of good reasons not to weigh the words of a whistleblower equally with the company trying to protect itself and its investors.

[kemayo]

> Not a lot of people I know would open themselves up to the kind of harassment and character assassination that Julie has for no reason. [...] What would she have gained by lying?

Some people really like attention. I've known people who'll lie about things like that just for the sake of being in the public eye.

Alternately, she might have not expected the harassment, and thought of it as extra fodder for getting GitHub to compensate her for the stuff that their investigation says definitely happened.

To be clear: I'm not saying either of these is the case for Horvath. Just that the hypothetical "she was knowingly lying" case could be explained by these motivations.

[hashbanged]

> Some people really like attention.

Really? Like what? Can you give an example relevant to this discussion?

> Alternately, she might have not expected the harassment

Lol, I don't think it's possible to be a woman on the internet as much as she is and think something like that. This statement is ignorant of the reality of literally every woman on the internet who criticizes a predominantly male community.

> To be clear: I'm not saying either of these is the case for Horvath. Just that the hypothetical "she was knowingly lying"

Sure, I just think those hypothetical explanations are weak considering the arguments I put forward. I think Julie would have to be really dense not to know that coming forward the way she did would have consequences.

[kemayo]

>Really? Like what? Can you give an example relevant to this discussion?

Sure... here's a recent news story that springs to mind, from back in December: http://abcnews.go.com/US/waitress-anti-gay-tipping-scandal-l...

That's someone who made up an attack, presumably for the purpose of gaining sympathy. I doubt they intended it to go national like it did, but...