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Re: [tor-talk] Misogyny on tor-talk is an existential threat to Tor



> Most people on tor-talk don't necessarily care to hear about these topics
(or do they?) but we're all out there fighting the good fight. Our work
just isn't salacious enough to merit a poorly-written gossip column.

While I completely understand Tor people's reservations about the press
you've received over the years, there are two important points to make here

a) While there are plenty of negative articles about Tor, it's easy to
forget that much of the press and social media chatter about Tor is
extremely positive (See: the chatter about Comcast allegedly blocking Tor
or HN or reddit or twitter or anywhere I saw) and one of the most popular
articles I've ever seen on Tor (at least in terms of the media I keep an
eye on) was about Andrew's work with domestic abuse and stalking victims.
b) There are journalists who want to interview you about your work and who
find it extremely important. I've sent you an email about it in the recent
past :) There may be a bunch of reasons why you decline to talk about it
with me specifically, plenty of which may be valid, but let's not pretend
there is no interest in your work. If you don't particularly trust me to
write that article, I can definitely accept that, but don't doubt that
there would be a line of journalists out the door if you spoke out a little
more about the great work you do. This is true of a lot of the objectively
positive work Tor people do that even the most biased voice couldn't
tarnish. At the end of the day, you all barely talk about it. It's very
noble that you're doing great work and not trumpeting it in the public but
in that case you can't easily blame journalists for not always writing
about it.

And, for the hell of it, a third point:

c) I'm sure that many people on Tor-talk, like many in the general public,
find the work you do important. Tor-talk tends to dwell on other issues,
technical and what have you, but is this mailing this really terribly
gossipy? It's not talked about here for various reasons but I'd be shocked,
honestly shocked, if most of us didn't care to hear about the ways Tor is
helping change these peoples' lives for the better.

On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 2:18 PM, Griffin Boyce <griffin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

> As some of the list knows, my introduction to Tor was while working on a
> peer counseling project that primarily served women. Even now, the *vast*
> majority of people that I teach about online privacy and security are women
> in very high-risk situations -- frequently involving stalking, domestic
> violence, and serious medical issues. This is the case for lots of people
> who work with Tor. Karen, Kelley, and Andrew all work directly with
> survivors of domestic violence to help them stay safe. I wouldn't be able
> to help the types of people that I help if Tor were not so usable.
>
> Most people on tor-talk don't necessarily care to hear about these topics
> (or do they?) but we're all out there fighting the good fight. Our work
> just isn't salacious enough to merit a poorly-written gossip column.
>
> ~ Griffin
>
>
> Anonymous <z9wahqvh@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 12:29 PM, Ted Smith <tedks@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >> Tor as a technology and community helps women and humans far more
> >than
> >> it hurts them,
> >>
> >
> >This is to the side of your main point (with which I am largely in
> >agreement), and I mean this in the most serious and respectful way
> >possible: can you point to statistics, metrics, data that support this
> >point?
>
> --
> "Hackers are not rockstars. You know who are rockstars? ROCKSTARS."
> ~Dan Kaminsky
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