When female journalists like me dare to question the SpaceX and Tesla founder, there’s a predictable result: We get called bitches, idiots, and worse.
The reality for some more prominent women in science communication
This needs more notes than it has
This article and this discussion come off as a little carping. As other people have pointed out, why is Elon being held responsible for random, rude twitter users when hardly anyone else is? Other people on twitter (prominent people, too) actively encourage their followers to go after and harass people who disagree with them. Elon has never done that.
It’s widely understood that twitter sucks and there are a lot of people on twitter who are awful, but it’s unrealistic and unfair to hold Elon responsible for the things that awful people who happen to like him say. Trolls on twitter don’t speak for anyone but their stupid selves, I thought that was a pretty widely-accepted 21st century adage.
Of course, that in itself is its own problem, sexism and harassment on social media, but putting the blame on Elon Musk because he has some followers who say mean things is unjustified. I know it’s the popular thing to attack Elon right now (particularly in journalism and at places like the Daily Beast) but if you’re going to write about twitter mobs, take the time to write a serious article about twitter mobs, not a specific and personalized hit piece because you don’t like him.
(Not to mention, the journalist, Erin Biba, has been attacking Elon, unprovoked and ad hominem, for months on twitter)
This piece didn’t need to be so personal (especially at the end) but Elon’s fanboys are a good example to use if you want to talk about harassment of journalists on the internet.
Elon Musk spent FOUR DAYS talking about the media and went so far as to buy a website to start holding them accountable for false reporting. I understand his frustration that Tesla’s mistakes are advertised more than their accomplishments. And this is pretty redeeming:
But Erin was right that Elon HAS to understand that when he goes on rants like this he’s rallying his troops. I go to school with Elon’s troops and they will defend him to the death. They’re crazy. They’re fanboys.
Erin deserves to be called out for attacking Elon for no reason, and I’m glad you pointed that out, but the bottom line is that nobody deserves rape threats on the internet and she has every right to get mad and hold those people accountable for the terrible things they say.
I think you’re overlooking:
The part where Biba has been harassing Musk in the same matter for months
Biba decided that she cared about taking what she dished, right when Musk started criticizing the press
There’s plenty of screenshots documenting this if you take a quick look.
Now, I haven’t been a Musk fanboy since c. 2014, and none of my classmates were particularly fanatical about him, either. Dr H gave a very interesting lecture criticizing Tesla’s business model, for instance, and not even the guy who’d interned there really argued with it.
I’m sorry Purdue’s still that badgotten that shitty since I was there, but that doesn’t really change the fact that this is an incredibly weak, fallacious attack which does not really address the problem. The is plenty of room to criticize Musk and his ventures intelligently, and this is …. not that. Possibly the nicest way I can put this is putting your hand in the beehive and blaming the apiarist you got stung. The apiarist only has so much control over the bees, especially since beekeeping wasn’t really his goal and the bees just sorta showed up of their own accord. Treating them as self-interesting entities and acting accordingly will get you honey instead of stings.
If we want to talk about responsibility, though: when is CNN going to apologize for giving Funny Wrestling Man so much unpaid air-time that he got elected President of the United States? There are much larger and more powerful entities which are not being held accountable for their actions—which include all the things Musk’s worst fans are doing and so much more.
Okay yikes these are shitty. It sucks that the only reason she starts talking about internet harassment is when she picks a fight and loses. And it also sucks that the actual conversation is continually interrupted by people like @missaerospaceblog ’s secret anon admirer. Gotta love the freakin’ internet.
