Solidarity against online harassment

by arma | December 11, 2014

One of our colleagues has been the target of a sustained campaign of harassment for the past several months. We have decided to publish this statement to publicly declare our support for her, for every member of our organization, and for every member of our community who experiences this harassment. She is not alone and her experience has catalyzed us to action. This statement is a start.

The Tor Project works to create ways to bypass censorship and ensure anonymity on the Internet. Our software is used by journalists, human rights defenders, members of law enforcement, diplomatic officials, and many others. We do high-profile work, and over the past years, many of us have been the targets of online harassment. The current incidents come at a time when suspicion, slander, and threats are endemic to the online world. They create an environment where the malicious feel safe and the misguided feel justified in striking out online with a thousand blows. Under such attacks, many people have suffered — especially women who speak up online. Women who work on Tor are targeted, degraded, minimized and endure serious, frightening threats.

This is the status quo for a large part of the internet. We will not accept it.

We work on anonymity technology because we believe in empowering people. This empowerment is the beginning and a means, not the end of the discussion. Each person who has power to speak freely on the net also has the power to hurt and harm. Merely because one is free to say a thing does not mean that it should be tolerated or considered reasonable. Our commitment to building and promoting strong anonymity technology is absolute. We have decided that it is not enough for us to work to protect the world from snoops and censors; we must also stand up to protect one another from harassment.

It's true that we ourselves are far from perfect. Some of us have written thoughtless things about members of our own community, have judged prematurely, or conflated an idea we hated with the person holding it. Therefore, in categorically condemning the urge to harass, we mean categorically: we will neither tolerate it in others, nor will we accept it among ourselves. We are dedicated to both protecting our employees and colleagues from violence, and trying to foster more positive and mindful behavior online ourselves.

Further, we will no longer hold back out of fear or uncertainty from an opportunity to defend a member of our community online. We write tools to provide online freedom but we don't endorse online or offline abuse. Similarly, in the offline world, we support freedom of speech but we oppose the abuse and harassment of women and others. We know that online harassment is one small piece of the larger struggle that women, people of color, and others face against sexism, racism, homophobia and other bigotry.

This declaration is not the last word, but a beginning: We will not tolerate harassment of our people. We are working within our community to devise ways to concretely support people who suffer from online harassment; this statement is part of that discussion. We hope it will contribute to the larger public conversation about online harassment and we encourage other organizations to sign on to it or write one of their own.

For questions about Tor, its work, its staff, its funding, or its world view, we encourage people to directly contact us (Media contact: Kate Krauss, press @ torproject.org). We also encourage people join our community and to be a part of our discussions:
https://www.torproject.org/about/contact
https://www.torproject.org/docs/documentation#MailingLists

In solidarity against online harassment,

Roger Dingledine
Nick Mathewson
Kate Krauss
Wendy Seltzer
Caspar Bowden
Rabbi Rob Thomas
Karsten Loesing
Matthew Finkel
Griffin Boyce
Colin Childs
Georg Koppen
Tom Ritter
Erinn Clark
David Goulet
Nima Fatemi
Steven Murdoch
Linus Nordberg
Arthur Edelstein
Aaron Gibson
Anonymous Supporter
Matt Pagan
Philipp Winter
Sina Rabbani
Jacob Appelbaum
Karen Reilly
Meredith Hoban Dunn
Moritz Bartl
Mike Perry
Sukhbir Singh
Sebastian Hahn
Nicolas Vigier
Nathan Freitas
meejah
Leif Ryge
Runa Sandvik
Andrea Shepard
Isis Agora Lovecruft
Arlo Breault
Ásta Helgadóttir
Mark Smith
Bruce Leidl
Dave Ahmad
Micah Lee
Sherief Alaa
Virgil Griffith
Rachel Greenstadt
Andre Meister
Andy Isaacson
Gavin Andresen
Scott Herbert
Colin Mahns
John Schriner
David Stainton
Doug Eddy
Pepijn Le Heux
Priscilla Oppenheimer
Ian Goldberg
Rebecca MacKinnon
Nadia Heninger
Cory Svensson
Alison Macrina
Arturo Filastò
Collin Anderson
Andrew Jones
Eva Blum-Dumontet
Jan Bultmann
Murtaza Hussain
Duncan Bailey
Sarah Harrison
Tom van der Woerdt
Jeroen Massar
Brendan Eich
Joseph Lorenzo Hall
Jean Camp
Joanna Rutkowska
Daira Hopwood
William Gillis
Adrian Short
Bethany Horne
Andrea Forte
Hernán Foffani
Nadim Kobeissi
Jakub Dalek
Rafik Naccache
Nathalie Margi
Asheesh Laroia
Ali Mirjamali
Huong Nguyen
Meerim Ilyas
Timothy Yim
Mallory Knodel
Randy Bush
Zachary Weinberg
Claudio Guarnieri
Steven Zikopoulos
Michael Ceglar
Zachariah Gibbens
Jeremy M. Harmer
Ilias Bartolini
René Pfeiffer
Percy Wegmann
Tim Sammut
Neel Chauhan
Matthew Puckey
Taylor R Campbell
Klaus Layer
Colin Teberg
Jeremy Gillula
Will Scott
Tom Lowenthal
Rishab Nithyanand
Brinly Taylor
Craig Colman-Shepherd
A. Lizard
M. C. McGrath
Ross MacDonald
Esra'a Al Shafei
Gulnara Yunusova
Ben Laurie
Christian Vandrei
Tanja Lange
Markus Kitsinger
Harper Reed
Mark Giannullo
Alyssa Rowan
Daniel Gall
Kathryn Cramer
Camilo Galdos AkA Dedalo
Ralf-Philipp Weinmann
Miod Vallat
Carlotta Negri
Frederic Jacobs
Susan Landau
Jan Weiher
Donald A. Byrd
Jesin A.
Thomas Blanchard
Matthijs Pontier
Rohan Nagel
Cyril Brulebois
Neal Rauhauser
Sonia Ballesteros Rey
Florian Schmitt
Abdoulaye Bah
Simone Basso
Charlie Smith
Steve Engledow
Michael Brennan
Jeffrey Landale
Sophie Toupin
Dana Lane Taylor
Nagy Gabor
Shaf Patel
Augusto Amaral
Robin Molnar
Jesús Cea Avión
praxis journal
Jens Stomber
Noam Roberts
Ken Arroyo Ohori
Brian Kroll
Shawn Newell
Rasmus Vuori
Alexandre Guédon
Seamus Tuohy
Virginia Lange
Nicolas Sera-Leyva
Jonah Silas Sheridan
Aaron Zauner
Christophe Moille
Micah Sherr
Gabriel Rocha
Yael Grauer
Kenneth Freeman
Dennis Winter
justaguy

Lee Azzarello
Zaki Manian
Aaron Turner
Greg Slepak
Ethan Zuckerman
Pasq Gero
Pablo Suárez-Serrato
Kerry Rutherford
Andrés Delgado
Tommy Collison
Dan Luedders
Flávio Amieiro
Ulrike Reinhard
Melissa Anelli
Bryan Fordham
Nate Perkins
Jon Blanchard
Jonathan Proulx
Bunty Saini
Daniel Crowley
Matt Price
Charlie McConnell
Chuck Peters
Ejaz Ahmed
Laura Poitras
Benet Hitchcock
Dave Williams
Jane Avriette
Renata Avila
Sandra Ordonez
David Palma
Andre N Batista
Steve Bellovin
James Renken
Alyzande Renard
Patrick Logan
Rory Byrne
Holly Kilroy
Phillipa Gill
Mirimir
Leah Carey
Josh Steiner
Benjamin Mako Hill
Nick Feamster
Dominic Corriveau
Adrienne Porter Felt
str4d
Allen Gunn
Eric S Johnson
Hanno Wagner
Anders Hansen
Alexandra Stein
Tyler H. Meers
Shumon Huque
James Vasile
Andreas Kinne
Johannes Schilling
Niels ten Oever
David W. Deitch
Dan Wallach
Jon Penney
Starchy Grant
Damon McCoy
David Yip
Adam Fisk
Jon Callas
Aleecia M. McDonald
Marina Brown
Wolfgang Britzl
Chris Jones
Heiko Linke
David Van Horn
Larry Brandt
Matt Blaze
Radek Valasek
skruffy
Galou Gentil
Douglas Perkins
Jude Burger
Myriam Michel
Jillian York
Michalis Polychronakis
SilenceEngaged
Kostas Jakeliunas
Sebastiaan Provost
Sebastian Maryniak
Clytie Siddall
Claudio Agosti
Peter Laur
Maarten Eyskens
Tobias Pulls
Sacha van Geffen
Cory Doctorow
Tom Knoth
Fredrik Julie Andersson
Nighat Dad
Josh L Glenn
Vernon Tang
Jennifer Radloff
Domenico Lupinetti
Martijn Grooten
Rachel Haywire
eliaz
Christoph Maria Sommer
J Duncan
Michael Kennedy Brodhead
Mansour Moufid
Melissa Elliott
Mick Morgan
Brenno de Winter
George Scriban
Ryan Harris
Ricard S. Colorado
Julian Oliver
Sebastian "bastik" G.
Te Rangikaiwhiria Kemara
Koen Van Impe
Kevin Gallagher
Sven "DrMcCoy" Hesse
Pavel Schamberger
Phillip M. Pether
Joe P. Lee
Stephanie Hyland
Maya Ganesh
Greg Bonett
Amadou Lamine Badji
Vasil Kolev
Jérémie Zimmermann
Cally Gordon
Hakisho Nukama
Daniel C Howe
Douglas Stebila
Jennifer Rexford
Nayantara Mallesh
Valeria de Paiva
Tim Bulow
Meredith Whittaker
Max Hunter
Maja Lampe
Thomas Ristenpart
Lisa Wright
August Germar
Ronald Deibert
Harlan Lieberman-Berg
Alan L. Stewart
Alexander Muentz
Erin Benson
Carmela Troncoso
David Molnar
Holger Levsen
Peter Grombach
John McIntyre
Lisa Geelan
Antonius Kies
Jörg Kruse
Arnold Top
Vladimir G. Ivanovic
Ahmet A. Sabancı
Henriette Hofmeier
Ethan Heilman
Daniël Verhoeven
Alex Shepard
Max Maass
Ed Agro
Andrew Heist
Patrick McDonald
Lluís Sala
Laurelai Bailey
Ghost
José Manuel Cerqueira Esteves
Fabio Pietrosanti
Cobus Carstens
Harald Lampesberger
Douwe Schmidt
Sascha Meinrath
C. Waters
Bruce Schneier
George Danezis

Claudia Diaz
Kelley Misata
Denise Mangold
Owen Blacker
Zach Wick
Gustavo Gus
Alexander Dietrich
Frank Smyth
Dafne Sabanes Plou
Steve Giovannetti
Grit Hemmelrath
Masashi Crete-Nishihata
Michael Carbone
Amie Stepanovich
Kaustubh Srikanth
arlen
Enrique Piracés
Antoine Beaupré
Daniel Kahn Gillmor
Richard Johnson
Ashok Gupta
Alex Halderman
Brett Solomon
Raegan MacDonald
Joseph Steele
Marie Gutbub
Valeria Betancourt
Konstantin Müller
Emma Persky
Steve Wyshywaniuk
Tara Whalen
Joe Justen
Susan Kentner
Josh King
Juha Nurmi
John Saylor
Jurre van Bergen
Saedu Haiza
Anders Damsgaard
Sadia Afroz
Nat Meysenburg
x3j11
Julian Assange
Skyhighatrist
Dan Staples
Grady Johnson
Matthew Green
Cameron Williams
Roy Johnson
Laura S Potter-Brown
Meredith L. Patterson
Casey Dunham
Raymond Johansen
Kieran Thandi
Jason Gulledge
Matt Weeks
Khalil Sehnaoui
Brennan Novak
Casey Jones
Jesse Victors
Peter DeChristo
Nick Black
Štefan Gurský
Glenn Greenwald
hinterland3r
Russell Handorf
Lisa D Lowe
Harry Halpin
Cooper Quintin
Mark Burdett
Conrad Corpus
Steve Revilak
Nate Shiff
Annie Zaman
Matthew Miller (Fedora Project)
David Fetter
Gabriella Biella Coleman
Ryan Lackey
Peter Clemenko
Serge Egelman
David Robinson
Sasa Savic
James McWilliams
Arrigo Triulzi
Kevin Bowen
Kevin Carson
Sajeeb Bhowmick
Dominik Rehm
William J. Coldwell
Niall Madhoo
Christoph Mayer
Simone Fischer-Hübner
George W. Maschke
Jens Kubieziel
Dan Hanley
Robin Jacks
Zenaan Harkness
Pete Newell
Aaron Michael Johnson
Kitty Hundal
Sabine "Atari-Frosch" Engelhardt
Wilton Gorske
Lukas Lamla
Kat Hanna
Polly Powledge
Sven Guckes
Georgia Bullen
Vladan Joler
Eric Schaefer
Ly Ngoc Quan Ly
Martin Kepplinger
Freddy Martinez
David Haren
Simon Richter
Brighid Burns
Peter Holmelin
Davide Barbato
Neil McKay
Joss Wright
Troy Toman
Morana Miljanovic
Simson Garfinkel
Harry Hochheiser
Malte Dik
Tails project
„nuocu
Kurt Weisman
BlacquePhalcon
Shaikh Rafia
Olivier Brewaeys
Sander Venema
James Murphy
Chris "The Paucie" Pauciello
Syrup-tan
Brad Parfitt
Jerry Whiting
Massachusetts Pirate Party
András Stribik
Alden Page
Juris Vetra
Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn
Marcel de Groot
Ryan Henry
Joy Lowell
Guilhem Moulin
Werner Jacob
Tansingh S. Partiman
Bryce Alexander Lynch
Robert Guerra
John Tait
Sebastian Urbach
Atro Tossavainen
Alexei Czeskis
Greg Norcie
Greg Metcalfe
Benjamin Chrobot
Lorrie Faith Cranor
Jamie D. Thomas
EJ Infeld
Douglas Edwards
Cody Celine
Ty Bross
Matthew Garrett
Sam P.
Vidar Waagbø
Raoul Unger
Aleksandar Todorović
John Olinda
Graham Perkins
Casa Casanova
James Turnbull
Eric Hogue
Jacobo Nájera
Ben Adida

If you would like to be on this list of signers (please do — you don't have to be a part of Tor to sign on!), please reach us at tor-assistants @ torproject.org.

Tags
outreach
community
feminism
anti-harassment

>With anonymity, sadly, often we also get people doing and saying things that they'd never do in person.
I don't think that's a sad thing at all. People should be given the ability to say things that they otherwise would not feel comfortable doing. In Tor's case, it's a win-win situation. It allows people to avoid censorship, while simultaneously giving people the tools they need to nullify online harassment.

>Speaking anonymously is a mechanism to protect yourself against nation-state harassment (or worse).
That is not entirely true. Speaking anonymously is also about protecting against an adversarial society, one in which your views make you a target for harassment, discrimination, or even physical harm. I have a feeling you would instantly do a 180 if asked if a victim of abuse should have to decry their abuse, using their real name instead of doing so anonymously. Anonymity cannot, and should not, be selectively dealt out only to those that you (or any given social climate's collective opinion) label as victims.

>If you've got a beef with any of those things or whatever else, write a blog post, under your real name, and argue your case with precision.
A world where that can be done under your real name safely is a world where Tor is obsolete. We do not live in such a place yet. The only times at which this would be safe is if the point you are arguing is socially accepted by a critical mass of people.

It is socially acceptable to call a person who is advocating murder for profit despicable and disgusting, but it is not socially acceptable to call a person who is fat (or of a different political view, or a different sexuality, etc) the same. Both of these are harassment, but the average person might not agree because to them, "harassment" is only harassment if it is against a person they align with, and I find that very disappointing. I think that people should be free to say anything to people anonymously, while the "target" should also be free to protect themselves with tools like Tor.

Anonymous

Anonymous (not verified) said:

December 12, 2014

Permalink

We at Take Back the Tech! are thrilled to see this very powerful statement from Tor and are always happy to partner on related initiatives. Online harassment causes real harm and restricts a variety of rights from freedom of expression to right to work.

For anyone facing online harassment, we have resources on our site: https://www.takebackthetech.net. For developers, we recommend incorporating the Feminist Principles of the Internet into your work in order to create technology and digital spaces that are open, inclusive and equal and that reject violence in all its forms: http://www.genderit.org/articles/feminist-principles-internet

In solidarity,
Take Back the Tech!

Anonymous

Anonymous (not verified) said:

December 12, 2014

Permalink

Thanks Tor Project, for taking a stand against online harassment! (On top of all the other things you do.)

Click-baiting writers like to portray you as somehow responsible for everything illegal or idiotic that people do over the Tor network. It's not so simple.

Anonymous

Anonymous (not verified) said:

December 12, 2014

Permalink

This is an important and welcomed step. I stand by the colleagues at the Tor project and I proudly join them in this invitation to improve the space we work in. Let's aim for dialogue instead of harassment, but let's not be shy of calling it out when we come across it.

Best,
Enrique Piracés

Anonymous

Anonymous (not verified) said:

December 12, 2014

Permalink

Thanks for this public statement. It is good to be explicit about our expectations of basic decency to one another, though it's a bit depressing that these standards aren't obvious for every thinking and feeling person already.

In solidarity,

Daniel Kahn Gillmor (dkg)

Anonymous

Anonymous (not verified) said:

December 12, 2014

Permalink

Thanks for taking a stand. Online harassment is why we can't have nice things.

It is good to realize not just the victim suffers, but everyone who stands by and does nothing loses. The community loses and society at large loses.

We fully trust the people at Tor and support them in their fight for freedom and and a better world.

- The Greenhost Team -

Anonymous

Anonymous (not verified) said:

December 12, 2014

Permalink

"Don't feed the trolls" works when they're isolated. But when they become organized mobs and plan malicous harassment campaigns, they feed themselves. Standing up to them and saying 'no', firmly, becomes necessary. Thank you for this.

Anonymous

Anonymous (not verified) said:

December 12, 2014

Permalink

Thank you for this effort. Online harassment is not being addressed, and the emotional, physical and psychological toll it has on women and sexual minorities is enormous. As a staff at a rapid response grantmaking organization, we are Urgent Action Fund take online harassment very seriously, as women and trans* human rights defenders continue to get attacked online, which further undermines their work.

Anonymous

Anonymous (not verified) said:

December 12, 2014

Permalink

I literally had to leave Twitter, because the entire platform is just rife with mistreating people who are unhappy with their own bodies, and seeking to match their brain with it.

Personally, I don't recommend Twitter or Facebook for a multitude of other reasons. There is a reason most of my real friends use Diaspora and not Facebook.

Start caring about trans rights, then we'll talk.

we *do* care about trans rights!

I'm proud to see such strong solidarity in our community on this issue.

Folks may be interested in a recently published guide "How to Survive the Internet: Strategies for Staying Safer Online" by Yael Grauer. It discusses some ways of defending oneself against online harassment & targeting, you can find it here:

https://yaelwrites.com/saferonline.pdf

(disclosure: I provided some feedback on an early draft)

Michael

Where was your solidarity when Brendan Eich was being harassed for having the wrong political opinion?

Missing. We have a long way to go in our various communities. That's why it's so important to raise awareness about these issues.

(I am happy to see that Brendan has signed on to our statement.)

A thousand thanks to all Tor staffers for your hard work!

arma's post raises more questions than it answers in my mind, but it is probably not a bad thing to state that you are determined to protect your staff from harassment.

I'm totally with you guys.

We in Tunisia were able to change our lives, lead our revolution and ouste what we once thought an undefeatable dictator using the Internet. With Freedom online, we really changed our destiny, and the destiny of our children as well. We must keep it safe an free.

Rafik.

Thanks for taking an important step to create coalitions who stand in solidarity against online harassment.

As is the case in an offline world, people get harassed because of gender, believes, political affiliation, etc. This is not how we should treat each other and work towards a better and more equal world.

Let's create that better and more equal world.

In solidarity,
Jurre van Bergen

I LOVE YOU TOR guys.

I think that, whether you're talking about online harassment or just how to behave in an academic environment, everyone could use more education about these kinds of issues. What I see in University environments a lot are students who are otherwise good people and just aren't aware of their own nature, and other students who think the behavior is specifically targeted at them and not a general problem that the more aggressive student has. For example, male students tend to talk over female students who are, e.g., giving a talk. I've seen it a hundred times where a female student is giving a presentation and a male student interrupts, then another male student jumps in, and suddenly it's a discussion amongst the male students and the female student is standing there wondering whether she'll be allowed to speak again. I just try to: (1) educate the more aggressive students that they may not realize they're doing it, but they are; (2) keep it in my mind, since I have the exact same tendency and sometimes don't catch myself; and, (3) let the speaker know that others not letting them speak is a general problem that they should be aware of and that other students have faced, too.

My point is that education is needed all around. We need to educate people who are prone to harassing behavior about what they're doing, we need to educate people like me that are well-meaning but not as sensitive to these issues as we should be, and we need to educate people that may become targets that---while the specific instance of harassment is specific to them---the problem is a general one that a lot of people face.

Jed Crandall
Associate Professor, Dept. of Computer Science
University of New Mexico

ty Jed Crandall
I totally agree.

I've often wished that civics courses (with a strong helping of ethical philosophy and topical cybersafety) were standard fare in US high schools. The problem is that parents (and school boards) tend to react badly when their child reports that their teacher asked them to read... almost anything a teacher might assign for a classroom discussion about ethical philosophy.

Its all very well making wonderful statements that everyone can agree with. However I don't see anything in the way of solutions being presented. And, let's face it, technology like Tor is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it makes it harder for internet bullies to locate you and a curse because it makes it harder for victims of internet bullying to identify them!

I can't help feeling that this statement is somewhat defensive given that Tor technology does make it much easier to bully people anonymously. I have no idea how you are going to prevent internet bullying at the same time as making it harder to trace or identify any of the people doing the actual bullying.

So, whereas I like the sentiment of this message, I am skeptical about what can be done to remedy the situation.

Calls for solidarity must always be called into question. Allowing a respected body to act on behalf of its community to inform them how they should be behaving is inherently a call for centralized control regardless of good intentions. This is the case here, and I find the support for this move a sign that skepticism towards authoritarian language is dwindling.

"Harassment" is a nebulous and poorly defined term. Unless you can cite a clearly written and objective law agreed upon by consensus as to what harassment truly is, saying you stand in solidarity against "online harassment" is a defacto endorsement of censorship. As an example, I have seen "harassment" being used to describe any form of contact between parties on a public forum. One can argue this is an extreme outlier but only after "harassment" is clearly defined.

Your article here creates a false equivalency between real word abuse and online "harassment". A person suffering from abuse in the real world often has bodily harm and emotional distress which is unavoidable. Online harassment, in of itself, never has bodily harm and the emotional distress is almost always avoidable by not engaging with toxic individuals. The comparison portrays a skewed version of reality in order to emotionally appeal to the audience to stop them from questioning your statements.

The sexism card is also on the table in full display. Their is a common belief that women online receive more harassment and/or receive worse harassment than then men. There has been no peer-reviewed rigorously provided body of studies confirming this to be reality. Without a source to back up the assertion, it is meaningless. Further, would it not be better these measurements are being done to prevent all harassment regardless of one's identity?

Most troubling is the line "Further, we will no longer hold back out of fear or uncertainty from an opportunity to defend a member of our community online." which implies a guilt-before-innocence mentality. If someone comes to you claiming they are being harassed, would you blindly believe them and act on their behalf to take punitive or legal action against the accused? Such an attitude will lead to false flags and will promote an environment of abuse from those trying to prevent it.

Very well said.

I do wish to point out though that, at least as far as I've heard, the Tor Project member who was being harrassed was being harrassed in a more serious way than normal, troll-tier "internet harrassment". From what I've heard, it could have been an organized effort, much the way arma or ioerror has been harrassed before moving to Germany (I don't remember which one it was). I could be totally wrong, but that's what I've heard.

"at least as far as I've heard"
"From what I've heard,"
"that's what I've heard."

Why should anyone have to rely on such hearsay?

Why is the post completely devoid of any information or facts of what actually happened in the case in question that is being called "harassment"?

Does this not concern you?

Ah, the old "more study is needed" delaying tactic.

"Ah, the old "more study is needed" delaying tactic."

Yes! Much better to just accept any and every claim, allegation and accusation at face value, without any scrutiny. As long as the crime or sin that is alleged to have been committed supports the correct narrative, confirms the correct biases and furthers the correct agenda, then there is no need to demand facts, evidence or proof, is there?

Worked really well in the case of the University of Virginia rape tale, didn't it? (That being only the latest well-known example of such libels, hoaxes and fabrications).

Glad to see I wasn't the only one who noticed the conspicuous absence of any description whatsoever of what actually occurred that is being described as "harassment". Incredibly, I could not find even the vaguest description anywhere in the post. Without this, we simply cannot know what actually happened and whether or not the characterization of it as "harassment" is reasonable and justified.

[NOTE: I first submitted the below post on or around December 25th, 2014. Since then, other new comments have appeared while both this one of mine as well as several similar ones have not. In my experience, this is entirely uncharacteristic behavior for this blog; in the time I have been submitting comments to this blog, the overwhelming majority of them have appeared, usually not long after my submitting them. It is difficult to imagine how comments such as the above one of mine and the similar ones I cited could be considered inappropriate or off-topic in any way. In fact, MANY of the comments of mine that WERE approved over the now-years that I've been participating here stuck to the topic-at-hand far less than the above one. Thus, it baffles the mind as to why the one above and the similar ones that I first submitted on or around this past December 25th would not be approved.]

Thank you to Tor for speaking out publicly against this kind of abuse and harassment.

Thank you for taking an unequivocal stance against harassment, and for committing to contribute to the larger conversation. -Yael

To Mr. Crandall: what female researchers ask is a basic working environment rights. Justifying it by saying male don't notice it is just an excuse for undermining the problem. Also, postponing finding solutions for it.

I didn't intend to make excuses or postpone finding solutions. The point I was trying to make is that if you ask most males "Do you do things that are inappropriate w.r.t. to how you treat female students/researchers in your field" many will (thinking they're being honest) answer "no" when the true answer should be "yes". If we were all a little more sensitive to these issues and understood our own role in them better then finding solutions will be easier.

Jed

He didn't justify or attempt to justify it. On the contrary, he very clearly stated that it was unjustified and unjustifiable.

Thank you to *everyone* @ Tor.

Signed in solidarity!

It is sad that in the year 2014 we still need to deal with this shit.

Absolutely well said. I'm so proud to support a project that has these ideals and helps provide protection to online abuse/harassment. Just one of many solid uses and benefits of using Tor.

Many thanks to all Tor staffers for your hard work!

Against online harassment .Solidarity!

Jinping xi !!!!

What about those evil entities such as Cloudfare and Google who continue to harass Tor users?

Yes, this is indeed a big issue that needs attention too.

But it's a different issue. It's in large part one of education, since the particular engineers at these two companies who handle abuse don't understand the value of privacy and don't understand how pervasive Tor use has become in recent years. And it's also a technical problem, because we (the privacy research community) still need to work on better technical approaches that these sites can use to handle abuse while still allowing privacy for their users.

For much more on this topic, check out
https://blog.torproject.org/blog/call-arms-helping-internet-services-ac…

arma: What you have written here suggests that you do not agree with the commentor's characterization of the companies-in-question as "evil".

Shouldn't you have stated as much?

I have been following the Tor project for a very long time now, and I want to make it crystal clear: I stand with you.

Good post and it's nice to see the name list growing, but I wonder about the inclusion of obvious pseudonyms and submissions from anons. For example, I could have created a post saying, "Please add my name, Roger Dingledine, to the list."

I guess that the worst that could happen is someone is placed on the list that doesn't want to be on, or a pseudonym is on that is then used somewhere online to harass. Is the point of signing the post supposed to be showing that there are real people who are willing to work towards the goal?

i salute you what you have done

It was about time we started to act about this issue. Great initiative

I'm a co-founder of AntiPolygraph.org, a non-profit, public-interest website. I literally depend on Tor daily and am deeply grateful for the hard work of everyone at the Tor Project.

I deplore the harassment campaign directed against Tor developer Andrea Shepard and wish to publicly express my solidarity.

George W. Maschke
AntiPolygraph.org

Raising awareness is generally good.
What does it mean to "not tolerate harassment"?
Especially in a Tor context, might it mean for example that the answer to (anonymous) bad speech is a flood of (anonymous or not) counterarguments and support? Or is there a backdoor being considered to trace harassing users?

This is excellent. Thank you so much.

in addition to it's privacy enabling, tor is also helpful for advancing human rights. so this statement against harassment fits easily within that human rights work.

some people are just so miserable they can't see it benefits all internet users to be against harassment.

keep up the good work!

Freedom for all. Peace. :)

Thank you for highlighting this issue. I condemn all forms of of harassment, on-line or otherwise. The right to anonymity and free speech does not confer a right to harass, insult or otherwise maltreat any other person.

I am proud to add my voice in support.

Mick Morgan

Am I the only one who had hoped that Tor would refrain from making any political/social justice/otherwise biased statements?
I honestly expected a complete neutrality towards any internet activity from the project that claims support for internet freedom.
As much as I'm against any harassment, this blog entry did strike me as dissapointing.