It's official: The Internet is Owned by White Dudes

[bettyellen]

55. Interesting thoughts! You will get a lot of blow back from dudes who don't care basically pretending

that life is one big meritocracy and women and the issue is POC don't care enough to be excellent, LOL. (If they could hear themselves!) As if there weren't proven widespread discrimination by the white men who've held the check books for way too long, as if business people make all their decisions without a hint of personal bias.

What's interesting to me if that a few of my favorite sites are incredibly well moderated for trolling and the experience is so much the better for it. It is not creating an echo chamber in the least, as these spaces have amazing comments sections where the discussion gets much deeper and broader than it does in most sites where sexist and racist rants are left up to disrupt the flow. You can go on all day long about "freedom of speech" but some guys add nothing but insults and disruption and I'm fine excluding people based on that.

The sad thing is it takes a lot more work to keep these sites up and free of trolling. Tons more work. The idea of women cleaning up the nasty shit in the comments sections is a really sad metaphor, I think. Not exactly sure where the need to troll women and poc comes from, but it's another irrational thing (like hiring less talented qualified people who are "like you&quot that fucks internet communities as well as the RL job market and marketplace.

AS far as anonymity goes, I feel like many contributors (of both sexes) use it to be as a way to be more generous, vulnerable, honest, and needy than they find can be in real life. And it can be awesome. There maybe a resentment from some men who have internalized their gender roles too deeply that they have to heap shit on that because they were taught to loathe that kind of vulnerability. You have to feel a little sorry for them- but not so much that you put up with their bullshit.