I wouldn't get too worried over Google Ideas.
Google is a giant company and with giant companies, you get a lot of people trying to pick away at it. One of the big whines about silicon valley is that it's not "feminist friendly" and that is because computer programming is entirely incompatible with the LAS/humanities "my rights end where your feelings begin" BS. If Google were to give the middle finger to these fat cunts, it might enable the fat cunts who work at Google to file EEO lawsuits, costing the company potentially tens of millions of dollars or worse, a class action lawsuit and that number may run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Now cunts like Anita and Zoe Quinn are nothing more than rent seekers and shakedown artists. But if they fly these cunts out (first class no doubt), have them bitch about men in a glass conference room once in a great while, and post some announcements about inviting them to talk about harassment, it acts as a relief valve. Google can say that they're not part of the problem, Zoe's giant ego gets mollified, and Google doesn't really have to take much action. Eventually people will start whining about the lack of action taken but by that time, Anita and Zoe will be gone. Google will have effectively dragged their feet on the issue long enough until people have moved on from them.
Furthermore, I'm not sure what Google would do exactly. I suppose they could have a "report abuse" function but I imagine they have that already. Google isn't going to doxx shitlords because then they'd get their asses sued by said shitlords. So in the end, it's a whole lot of nothing and Google avoids litigation by doing so.
Same goes for the UN. The UN can show that they really care about online harassment but all of their mandates are toothless and worthless. The key fallacy is that the definition of online harassment keeps changing due to hurt feelings. The UN and countries who adopt this worthless idea are going to have to stay on top of the latest tumblrisms and even pozzed shitholes like Sweden aren't going to have the wherewithal to keep following up to see what is new and offensive online. Again, it's a relief valve so these fat bitches feel important, the UN can pat themselves on the back, and nothing will get done.
Izzie Zahorian, a designer and researcher for Google Ideas, whose Twitter bio says she is “thinking about how to make the web a safer and more inclusive space,” recently removed a number of retweets from attendees Randi Harper and Zoe Quinn. An archive of her timeline from one day ago reveals a number of tweets from both individuals, but a glance at the same timeline today shows the tweets have been un-retweeted.
Zahorian had previously retweeted messages from Randi Harper that mocked onlookers’ concerns at her track record of abuse. They, too, have disappeared from Zahorian’s retweets.
If Zahorian is sincere about her efforts to make the web a “safer” place, she is indeed wise to distance herself from these two activists. Harper, in particular, is notorious for her two-faced attitude to online abuse. As we have reported at length, Harper has been at the centre of some of the most vicious and sustained campaigns of abuse on the web.
Just one day before the Google Ideas event, she boasted about “destroying men for sport.” This wasn’t an exaggeration: a number of her victims, such as academic Vivek Wadhwa, software engineer Roberto Rosario and data scientist Chris von Csefalvay endured horrendous personal upheaval due to Harper’s protracted campaigns of abuse, which extend well beyond the internet and into their offline lives.
It’s hard to know what Google Ideas were thinking when they extended invitations to Harper and other online abusers, including a feminist game developer who gloated about a DDoS attack on a rival feminist games project and a journalist who helped trigger the high-profile public shaming of “comet scientist” Dr. Matt Taylor.
The decision has led to a social media storm, taking a considerable toll on the Google Ideas’ public image. The #GoogleAbuse hashtag, started by abuse victims and their supporters as a means to protest the invitations, has been tweeted almost 12,000 times in just two days.
This episode serves as a cautionary tale for any organisation looking to delve into the topic of online abuse. With so many online abusers engaging in doublespeak – claiming the mantle of anti-abuse activist as a means to cover up their own trail of online victims – choosing whom to invite can be treacherous.
On this particular issue, organisations should take care to closely research the background of anyone claiming to be a “campaigner against online abuse.” They may be shocked at what they find.
