Techrights Statement on Men Who Viciously Attack Women in Free Software
Online abuse, including IRC abuse, is not a new problem. I've been in IRC since the mid-nineties. Abusive language and "floods" (people spamming IRC channels) were quite common, either for "lols" or for more targeted vandalism, such as "rivalling groups" trying to destroy one another.
Having said that, when women are specifically targeted, and when the aim is to scare them or discourage them from participating in GNU/Linux advocacy/writing/curation (basically being part of the FOSS community), we cannot just stand by and ignore, dismissing the matter as for "lols".
Techrights will protect women's dignity by all means available, including legal means as necessary.
IRC abuse is one thing; abuse against women is another. The people who do this are going to pay for it. Only this way they might learn to stop attacking women in FOSS and then, perhaps, more women can get involved in FOSS. Yes, women. J.K. Rowling called them 'people who menstruate' after being repeatedly provoked in social control media (probably for her views on Tory policies, which she strongly opposed). A recent poll or survey showed that about 3 out of 4 British people agree with J.K. Rowling on this. It's not some radical, "fringe" view.
Nobody in the community will be safe when we idolise or promote people who said (themselves) that they were looking for sex in FOSS conferences (according to themselves!), spoke in their Web site about doing code for "sexual favours", and even admitted that female colleagues were afraid of them - to the point of disconnecting their devices. This is like "upskirting" territories and it is creeping out women. We're talking about people who boast about breaking into other people's devices.
The FOSS community needs some "cleanup". If that takes a court battle, so be it. We're fully equipped for a long battle and history shows women will win. █
