Today’s news links are of highly paid professionals in positions with above-average levels of public interaction who have somehow failed to hurdle extremely low bars for standards of conduct.
What’s piqued your media interests lately? (the theme of each edition is merely for discussion-starter purposes – all current news items are on topic!)
Readers who are already part of SF fandom have probably seen a lot of this WisCon 38 fallout already, but since this sort of institutional memory-holing of relevant history regarding serial harassers is precisely the sort of social convention that serial harassers rely upon in order to keep getting away with what they do, alongside the fallacy that harassers are obvious deviants who could never be part of my well-ordered community (when in fact they are commonly those with the well-liked/respected status to be given the benefit of the doubt when/if reports are made against them), it’s worth reading about the mistakes of communities with which one isn’t familiar so that one can learn about patterns to watch out for and procedural standards which need to be known and practised by decision-makers.
[Content Note: discussion of graphic rape threats and links to posts that quote them]
the way you personally feel about rape threats is irrelevant. What’s relevant is how you behave when they happen. When you support and promote the work of someone who makes rape threats, you are tolerating rape threats.
Hoyden About Town 