Post: #1

Some 4channers are trolling Jezebel by posting gory/violent animated gifs. The staff complained to Gawker management about this but nothing has been done "for months." They decided the best course of action is to go public with a collective meltdown so Nick Denton takes a break from his gay lover to solve the problem that is causing so much distress to women.

Full text:

Quote:Working at Gawker Media is a dream job for many of the women on staff here at Jezebel. This is a place that takes chances on developing writers, that has always stood behind us no matter what. But it's time the company had its feet held to the fire.

For months, an individual or individuals has been using anonymous, untraceable burner accounts to post gifs of violent pornography in the discussion section of stories on Jezebel. The images arrive in a barrage, and the only way to get rid of them from the website is if a staffer individually dismisses the comments and manually bans the commenter. But because IP addresses aren't recorded on burner accounts, literally nothing is stopping this individual or individuals from immediately signing up for another, and posting another wave of violent images (and then bragging about it on 4chan in conversations staffers here have followed, which we're not linking to here because fuck that garbage). This weekend, the user or users have escalated to gory images of bloody injuries emblazoned with the Jezebel logo. It's like playing whack-a-mole with a sociopathic Hydra.

This practice is profoundly upsetting to our commenters who have the misfortune of starting their day with some excessively violent images, to casual readers who drop by to skim Jezebel with their morning coffee only to see hard core pornography at the bottom of a post about Michelle Obama, and especially to the staff, who are the only ones capable of removing the comments and are thus, by default, now required to view and interact with violent pornography and gore as part of our jobs.

None of us are paid enough to deal with this on a daily basis.

Higher ups at Gawker are well aware of the problem with this feature of Kinja (our publishing platform, in case you're new here). We receive multiple distressed emails from readers every time this happens, and have been forwarding them to the architects of Kinja and to higher ups on Gawker's editorial side for months. Nothing has changed. During the last staff meeting, when the subject was broached, we were told that there were no plans to enable the blocking of IP addresses, no plans to record IP addresses of burner accounts. Moderation tools are supposedly in development, but change is not coming fast enough. This has been going on for months, and it's impacting our ability to do our jobs.

In refusing to address the problem, Gawker's leadership is prioritizing theoretical anonymous tipsters over a very real and immediate threat to the mental health of Jezebel's staff and readers. If this were happening at another website, if another workplace was essentially requiring its female employees to manage a malevolent human pornbot, we'd report the hell out of it here and cite it as another example of employers failing to take the safety of its female employees seriously. But it's happening to us. It's been happening to us for months. And it feels hypocritical to continue to remain silent about it.

Over the years, this company has undergone so many major changes that it would be easy to lose track of them all. But even in the midst of seemingly constant overhaul, Gawker has always been a place that would really go to the mat for its writers, a place that offered unmatched freedom to smart people with something to say. It's time that Gawker Media applied that principle to promoting our freedom to write without being bombarded with porn and gore. We're real, we're here, and we matter.

http://jezebel.com/we-have-a-rape-gif-pr...384265/all

This could be a troll job itself, but I think it's real because individual staff members are commenting about this serious problem that is fostering patriarchy, hurting women in tech, etc.

It looks like Denton doesn't care about the problem because Gawker gets a lot of page views from comments, and doing anything to limit those would give him less money. It looks like the Jezebel gals are just finding out that he cares less about the female cause/platform than getting paid.

Post: #2

OH MY GOD!

Why can they allow the voice of reason, the very voice of free America, the beacon of truth, the spear that pierces the darkness to go silent?

Please, please do something Michelle Obama. We need you in our time of darkness. Please stop 4-chan from posting gory images on Jizabel. THEY ARE NOT PAID ENOUGH TO DO THAT. They deserve better. They are the future.

Post: #3

I know the Jezebel gals don't play chess or care about strategy, but by posting this letter they put themselves in a real tough spot if Denton decides not to overhaul the commenting system. In that case, they will show they care about their own salary more than solving the "safety" problem that they claim is serious. Unless they quit, they will lose face with their readers.

If Denton does make the changes, he will supplicate to the girls and lower his income as a result of their demands and encourage the girls to revolt again in the future. Either result will be humorous for us.

Needless to say but for team Jezebel/Gawker, they made a large mistake in posting this letter.

Post: #4

"We receive multiple distressed emails from readers every time this happens, and have been forwarding them to the architects of Kinja and to higher ups on Gawker's editorial side for months. Nothing has changed. During the last staff meeting, when the subject was broached, we were told that there were no plans to enable the blocking of IP addresses, no plans to record IP addresses of burner accounts. Moderation tools are supposedly in development, but change is not coming fast enough. This has been going on for months, and it's impacting our ability to do our jobs."

So, in other words, when the going gets rough, the feminists are calling on the very "brogrammers" they criticize in their articles to help them out.

Where is all that female know-how and ingenuity we're always told about? Why can't the staff use the energy they use complaining to figure out how to tweak the system themselves?

How much you wanna bet the tech guys are purposely dragging their feet on this one?

Post: #5

Feminist privilege: when the most serious oppression you face in life is trolls posting gifs in your website's comment section.

Post: #6

Post: #7

Getting paid peanuts to moderate a website whose business model is user-generated content.

Getting pissed at actually having to do their job.

Getting the fuck out.

The Internet becomes a better place.

Post: #8

Quote:In refusing to address the problem, Gawker's leadership is prioritizing theoretical anonymous tipsters over a very real and immediate threat to the mental health of Jezebel's staff and readers.

No change there.

Post: #9

(08-11-2014 01:29 PM)scorpion Wrote:  Feminist privilege: when the most serious oppression you face in life is trolls posting gifs in your website's comment section.

Nah, they have a point.

I don't look at gore porn. That's disgusting.

You shouldn't have to look at rape porn and other gory images as part of your job (unless that's your job description).

I don't like Jezebel or what it stands for. But they are in the right.

The funnier point....Man, if you say something stupid on Twitter they will try ruining your life.

Their boss allows gore on their site (trigger warning, anyone?) and they don't say anything.

This just goes to show that they have no character. They stand for nothing. They are professional click bait trolls and ad saleswomen whose writing means nothing and will not stand the test of time.

Post: #10

Meanwhile, several weeks ago on Return of Kings...

Quote:While Jezebel tells men to embrace body positivity, diversity, and feminism, they do not practice those values in their own office. Jezebel’s new choice of editor confirms what Gawker is really about: money. And they’re willing to sell out every value they have for it.

http://www.returnofkings.com/39361/did-j...-her-looks

Gawker doesn't care about feminism, just $$$.

Called it.

Post: #11

They've sure got themselves a shitty little problem. They can't really give any moderation power to the users that could be exploited by 4chan. If they implemented a better downvoting system, everybody who voted would still have to see the gifs. Maybe Nick Denton doesn't care because it's the moderator's jobs to moderate.

The only solution I could see that would work pretty much immediately would be to tighten control of who can make accounts (like the rvf has done) and ban all gifs and images in the meantime. The moratorium on gifs could be undone once they had a secure user base. TBH I think they're blowing the scale of the problem somewhat out of proportion, it's probably only two or three guys doing it. All they would have to do is lock down the user base and eliminate burner/guest accounts and it would be problem solved. Then they could just ban users instead of deleting posts.

Post: #12

I hope the trolls drive the fatties at Jezebel in to mental break downs. Haha.

Post: #13

Here's the other question that speaks to our understating of women... How would implementing the changes one brand demands affect the other brands if it is a shared publishing platform? I realize Jezebel is naturally going to be a target for 4chan-esque trolling over Jalopnik, for example. But given then shared nature of the gawker brands, one has to assume that something like comments would affect all sites involved.

Oh wait... "What. The. Actual. Fuck! Jalopnik/Kotaku/Dradspin aren't more important than us! THATS LITERALLY PATRIARCHY!"

It just writes itself, doesn't it?

Post: #14

All you would have to do is implement a script to filter every comment with a gif and have it flagged first for moderator approval before it becomes visible. The text only comments would pass through unchecked.

I shouldn't be giving them any ideas but I doubt SJW's browse this forum.

Post: #15

They should hire some "strong and independent" women to fix the issue. Apparently, there are tons of women in tech who need jobs.

Post: #16

(08-11-2014 03:11 PM)Collide Wrote:  All you would have to do is implement a script to filter every comment with a gif and have it flagged first for moderator approval before it becomes visible. The text only comments would pass through unchecked.

I shouldn't be giving them any ideas but I doubt SJW's browse this forum.

Stop mansplaining to them. They strong empowered women lead by a brave homosexual who loves just like us. I'm sure they can figure it out.

Post: #17

It's only Monday and my week has already been made by this. Genius.

Post: #18

(08-11-2014 01:26 PM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:  "We receive multiple distressed emails from readers every time this happens, and have been forwarding them to the architects of Kinja and to higher ups on Gawker's editorial side for months. Nothing has changed. During the last staff meeting, when the subject was broached, we were told that there were no plans to enable the blocking of IP addresses, no plans to record IP addresses of burner accounts. Moderation tools are supposedly in development, but change is not coming fast enough. This has been going on for months, and it's impacting our ability to do our jobs."

So, in other words, when the going gets rough, the feminists are calling on the very "brogrammers" they criticize in their articles to help them out.

Where is all that female know-how and ingenuity we're always told about? Why can't the staff use the energy they use complaining to figure out how to tweak the system themselves?

How much you wanna bet the tech guys are purposely dragging their feet on this one?

I love the idea of "banning IP addresses" like that will solve the problem. They don't realize that a large % of IP addresses are dynamic (aka they change regularly), so if they start banning individual IP addresses (or even blocks of them), they may very well end up blocking legitimate commenters. Idiots.

Post: #19

(08-11-2014 03:04 PM)Trim Wrote:  I hope the trolls drive the fatties at Jezebel FURTHER in to THEIR mental break downs. Haha.

Fixed.

Post: #20

Quote:In refusing to address the problem, Gawker's leadership is prioritizing theoretical anonymous tipsters over a very real and immediate threat to the mental health of Jezebel's staff and readers.

Doesn't Jezebel itself fit that description?

Post: #21

Quote:I love the idea of "banning IP addresses" like that will solve the problem.

Actually banning IPs is very effective in keeping out trolls. But it reduces page views in the long run and takes money out of Nick's pocket.

Post: #22

(08-11-2014 05:41 PM)Roosh Wrote:  

Quote:I love the idea of "banning IP addresses" like that will solve the problem.

Actually banning IPs is very effective in keeping out trolls. But it reduces page views in the long run and takes money out of Nick's pocket.

Weird. They must be using a static proxy. Oh well, this story is still delicious.

Post: #23

Speaking of chess....

This is the sort of opportunity you wait years for.

Not that Jezebel had much credibility....But there are so many angles to attack these people on.

Anyone who does not seize this opportunity is missing out big time (not only in terms of self-promotion but also in terms of harming the enemy).

I for one will not waste any time in capitalizing on this information.

Post: #24

It's strange that a site that celebrates images of ugly obese women complains about being subjected to disgusting images.

What goes around comes around.

Post: #25

Quote:But there are so many angles to attack these people on.

Working on an ROK post... doing it for the schadenfreude.