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Please support Greta Christina

Fellow FTB blogger and atheist icon Greta Christina was recently diagnosed with endometrial cancer. While the outlook fortunately seems positive, she’ll be unable to work for some time, and has asked for assistance with her living expenses. Greta is one of the most inspiring and insightful leaders of the atheist movement, and I ask that all of you do what you can to help her out during this difficult time. Please contribute what you can, and get the word out online and among your families and friends. If nothing else, send her your messages of support. We’re all pulling for you, Greta.

Please support Greta Christina

Thunderf00t admits to sending my private emails to Michael Payton of CFI Canada

For those who rightfully wanted further confirmation of Thunderf00t’s intrusion into the FTB private mailing list (details here), Thunderf00t himself has now helpfully provided that:

So a week or so ago a guy called Michael Payton who works for CFI Canada (Center for Inquiry) put up a tweet about finding FTB unreadable. Now it turns out ironically Michael is on FTBs side on the issue of harassment policies at conferences (well mostly), however that didn’t matter if he was going to speak ill of freethoughtblogs and this precipitated an angry torrent of twitters from at least one FTBer and another to write an entire blog post about it (promoted by PZ Myers of course), and as with all such posts on FTB he (Payton) was repeatedly branded in the comments section with pejorative terms such as misogynist and MRA (the irony being that he posted an article on skepchick ‘speaking out against hate against women‘ FACEPALM). Indeed it turned out that merely hours after this tweet, CFI Canada had been contacted with calls for his dismissal. Yes his real life job was being threatened because of one tweet about FTBs!

That was a pretty disturbing turn of events having someones job targeted so quickly after a single tweet about FTBs, and after a brief chat with Michael, and knowing that FTB were going ballistic about this on their secret backchannel with some THIRTY messages being circulated on the backchannel about his single tweet, let him know what they were saying about him (naturally no personal details were passed on). Michael did not want to know, he did not need to know that personal info.

This is some of the chatter I passed on to Michael.

Nowhere does he even attempt to justify breaking into the mailing list immediately after he was officially removed – something he did a whole month before any of us said anything about Michael Payton. At the time he did that, there were no remarks about Michael Payton for him to take umbrage at. It was just something he did for whatever inscrutable reasons he needed to convince himself that this was acceptable behavior.

Also, that “chatter” on the mailing list was my email:

Just an early warning, I’m strongly leaning towards publicly making a minor deal of this – not focusing on Payton exclusively, but just as an example of the general attitude of dismissing all of FTB despite not being familiar with hardly any of us – *unless* there’s either an actual apology to us or some kind of sufficient reason for why it would be a bad idea to draw attention to his remarks at this time, such as a relevant illness. I’m usually not one to get involved in internal disputes in the movement, but if a national leader of the SCA or American Atheists had been so openly dismissive of FTB as a whole, I imagine we wouldn’t just let that pass unnoticed. So I’d just like to know if there’s any good reason why I shouldn’t do this, even if I can’t necessarily be privy to the details of it.

Yes, I said that. And so what? I’d say it again – I did say it again – and nothing about it excuses Thunderf00t’s actions. The fact that I said such a thing is not grounds for breaching the privacy of the mailing list or forwarding this email to outside parties, because what I said was not of such a nature that the act of saying it meant immediately abandoning any expectation of privacy. Michael Payton, national executive director of CFI Canada, was making absurd overgeneralizations about Freethought Blogs on Twitter. I drew attention to this and commented on it. And before I did, I asked others if there might be more to the situation that I wasn’t aware of, in case there was any reason why posting about this would be inadvisable.

Nothing about this is even remotely out of line. But for the crime of publicly disagreeing with someone’s public statements, and talking about this with others, Thunderf00t decided that I deserved to have my private email passed along to Michael Payton himself.

So, Thunderf00t, just how far does this line of reasoning extend? Do you plan to break into everyone’s private email, just in case they might eventually plan on writing something critical about someone and you need to show this to the world? Will this then retroactively justify your unauthorized access of their information, too? Is everyone else entitled to intrude upon your privacy for the same reasons, or are you the only one who’s entitled to decide whether other people are allowed to discuss things in confidence?

At the end of the day, you committed an unambiguous and inexcusable ethical violation, and the sole defense you’ve managed to muster is that Zinnia Jones was going to say something critical of Michael Payton’s remarks. Heaven forbid. Do you know what that tells me?

It tells me you’re a pathetic, petty, flailing little whiner.

Thunderf00t admits to sending my private emails to Michael Payton of CFI Canada

Thunderf00t's unauthorized access and leaking of the private FTB mailing list

Recently, the Freethought Blogs staff received evidence indicating that some conversations from the private mailing list for FTB bloggers had apparently been leaked to outside parties by Thunderf00t. These conversations had taken place on the list over a month after Thunderf00t had been removed from Freethought Blogs and the private mailing list. Upon examination of the mailing list logs, it was found that Thunderf00t had seemingly been able to regain access to the list immediately after he was removed. Once this was known, he was removed again and prevented from joining. After this, he allegedly repeatedly attempted to re-join the list without success.

By the time we became aware of the breach, Thunderf00t had apparently been able to access all of the dozens of conversations that had taken place on the private list over the past month, during which time his access was believed to be revoked. This material contained the private real-life identities and personal information of a number of FTB contributors, as well as various behind-the-scenes matters that could have serious adverse effects if they became public knowledge.

The mailing list has always been intended to be private. Every message posted to the list contain this notification: “All emails sent to this list are confidential and private. Revealing information contained in any email sent to the list to anyone not on the list without permission of the author is strictly prohibited.” FTB’s bloggers use the list under the assumption that its contents will not be made public or read by unwelcome parties. If you’ve ever had a conversation in the privacy of your own home which you did not want to become public knowledge, Thunderf00t’s actions are the equivalent of eavesdropping and telling others what you’ve said. And if you can understand the risks inherent to such snooping, you can understand the risks to us – as well as the sense of violation. We’ve now been deprived of control over discussions that were not meant to go beyond a limited group of chosen, trusted individuals.

People have the right to maintain their own private discussion areas, and control who is allowed access to them. This holds true regardless of our personal stance on any other subjects, such as sexual harassment, women in the skeptical movement, the handling of Thunderf00t’s brief stay at FTB, or FTB’s various contributors. The need to hold private conversations is entirely legitimate, and respecting that privacy is a ground rule. Thunderf00t appears to have violated this egregiously, and his actions simply aren’t justifiable. If disagreement on certain topics warrants breaching the privacy of those you disagree with and publicizing their confidential information, the possibility of any kind of good-faith discussion simply vanishes.

Thunderf00t’s alleged actions in this situation are inexcusable under any reasonable standard of ethical behavior, no matter what his motivations are. The limits to the damage he’s now possibly able to do to members of this community, should he attempt to do so, are unknown. Rarely have I seen such outrageous conduct by anyone on YouTube or in the atheist and skeptic community, and he was one of the last people I would have expected to do this. To say I’m disappointed would be an understatement. It’s infuriating that anyone would dare to be so disrespectful and reckless.

Thunderf00t's unauthorized access and leaking of the private FTB mailing list

Thunderf00t’s unauthorized access and leaking of the private FTB mailing list

Recently, the Freethought Blogs staff received evidence indicating that some conversations from the private mailing list for FTB bloggers had apparently been leaked to outside parties by Thunderf00t. These conversations had taken place on the list over a month after Thunderf00t had been removed from Freethought Blogs and the private mailing list. Upon examination of the mailing list logs, it was found that Thunderf00t had seemingly been able to regain access to the list immediately after he was removed. Once this was known, he was removed again and prevented from joining. After this, he allegedly repeatedly attempted to re-join the list without success.

By the time we became aware of the breach, Thunderf00t had apparently been able to access all of the dozens of conversations that had taken place on the private list over the past month, during which time his access was believed to be revoked. This material contained the private real-life identities and personal information of a number of FTB contributors, as well as various behind-the-scenes matters that could have serious adverse effects if they became public knowledge.

The mailing list has always been intended to be private. Every message posted to the list contain this notification: “All emails sent to this list are confidential and private. Revealing information contained in any email sent to the list to anyone not on the list without permission of the author is strictly prohibited.” FTB’s bloggers use the list under the assumption that its contents will not be made public or read by unwelcome parties. If you’ve ever had a conversation in the privacy of your own home which you did not want to become public knowledge, Thunderf00t’s actions are the equivalent of eavesdropping and telling others what you’ve said. And if you can understand the risks inherent to such snooping, you can understand the risks to us – as well as the sense of violation. We’ve now been deprived of control over discussions that were not meant to go beyond a limited group of chosen, trusted individuals.

People have the right to maintain their own private discussion areas, and control who is allowed access to them. This holds true regardless of our personal stance on any other subjects, such as sexual harassment, women in the skeptical movement, the handling of Thunderf00t’s brief stay at FTB, or FTB’s various contributors. The need to hold private conversations is entirely legitimate, and respecting that privacy is a ground rule. Thunderf00t appears to have violated this egregiously, and his actions simply aren’t justifiable. If disagreement on certain topics warrants breaching the privacy of those you disagree with and publicizing their confidential information, the possibility of any kind of good-faith discussion simply vanishes.

Thunderf00t’s alleged actions in this situation are inexcusable under any reasonable standard of ethical behavior, no matter what his motivations are. The limits to the damage he’s now possibly able to do to members of this community, should he attempt to do so, are unknown. Rarely have I seen such outrageous conduct by anyone on YouTube or in the atheist and skeptic community, and he was one of the last people I would have expected to do this. To say I’m disappointed would be an understatement. It’s infuriating that anyone would dare to be so disrespectful and reckless.

Thunderf00t’s unauthorized access and leaking of the private FTB mailing list

The day my entire body of work became unreadable: A Freethought Blogs story

When I first joined Freethought Blogs a couple months ago, little did I know this would be the cue for assholes of all stripes to make me a target of their bizarre personal grudges that actually have little if anything to do with me. Much like being trans, or “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day”, being on FTB has served as a magnificent jerk filter: it induces people to stand up and be counted as unreasonable fools. People like one of my followers on Facebook who isn’t a fan of PZ:

…and, um, the national executive director of CFI Canada:

I was ready to let this pass without remark simply because I’ve become used to such blatant cognitive errors after spending the past four years on YouTube. But here we have the director of a national skeptic organization casually insulting the entirety of one of the most prominent networks of atheist writers. Imagine if David Silverman, Edwina Rogers, or Dan Barker had done this, without even an attempt at justifying their wholesale dismissal of over 30 distinct blogs and their authors, or their vacuous accusation of “groupthink” toward people who have committed the cardinal sin of sometimes agreeing about things.

What makes his comments personal is how impersonal they are. In the weeks since I moved to FTB, did Payton scour my whole two-year archive of posts and four-year archive of video transcripts, before declaring that not a single one was “even remotely readable”?  If he has indeed read my blog at any point, I’d happily accept his opinion as just a difference in taste. As is, he’s making a blanket statement about the countless hundreds of thousands of words on the entire network, all of which are apparently impenetrable and useless. Was my work somehow any more lucid when it was located at my old domain, or would he have said the same thing about it if he had read it before I moved here? Does FTB just possess some kind of Aura of Crap such that only the most incompetent writers would be selected to join?

I suspect none of this actually matters to those who have decided that my own work can’t be taken seriously or even read at all because of something someone else did. In their rush to align themselves against the idea that we should take the concerns of women seriously, or some distortion of this which involves hating Rebecca Watson, reason and the spirit of free inquiry have apparently gone out the window. Now that we’re no longer judging people on their individual merits, I wonder if they’ll stop reading Hemant’s blog just because he’s on the same network as Mark Regnerus.

The day my entire body of work became unreadable: A Freethought Blogs story