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from the harrassed-turtles-all-the-way-down dept.
As the March kickoff for the weeks-long 2016 South By Southwest (SXSW) festival approaches, its disparate sections—music, film, and interactive—have begun announcing confirmed panels, speakers, and showcases. SXSW Interactive appeared prepared to host a panel about the hot-button topic of online harassment and abuse, but that plan changed on Monday when a festival director officially announced that the panel, along with another tangentially related panel, had been canceled due to allegations of "numerous threats of on-site violence."
SXSW Interactive director Hugh Forrest posted the news at the festival's official blog, though Forrest didn't confirm whether the threats were linked to both panels that he confirmed received the axe: "SavePoint: A Discussion on the Gaming Community" and "Level Up: Overcoming Harassment in Games." After describing SXSW as a home for "diverse ideas," Forrest also described a desire to maintain "civil and respectful" dialogue.
"If people can not agree, disagree, and embrace new ways of thinking in a safe and secure place that is free of online and offline harassment, then this marketplace of ideas is inevitably compromised," Forrest wrote. "Maintaining civil and respectful dialogue within the big tent is more important than any particular session."
And then, just a few days later, we have this report that the panels were restored:
South by Southwest's organizers reversed course Friday and scheduled a summit about gaming-related Internet harassment, after criticism for canceling similar sessions at next year's event due to threats of violence at the festival.
"Earlier this week we made a mistake," Hugh Forrest, director of the SXSW Interactive Festival, said in a statement on its website. "By canceling two sessions we sent an unintended message that SXSW not only tolerates online harassment but condones it, and for that we are truly sorry."
[...] "While we made the decision in the interest of safety for all of our attendees, canceling sessions was not an appropriate response," SXSW's Forrest said, adding the organizers had worked with authorities and security experts. "Online harassment is a serious matter and we stand firmly against hate speech and cyberbullying."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Francis on Monday November 02 2015, @04:17PM
Where are you hanging out? In all the years I've been on the internet, I've never hung out anywhere that had a problem like that. Women get less shit on the internet than men do. The only times I've seen women getting extra mocking were referencing that old saying "The internet, where men are men and women and children are FBI agents."
But, beyond that, I've never observed any actual additional harassment for being women. It's the internet, everybody gets trolled and the trolls don't seem to care what the topic they're using to troll is.