Take Violent Threats Seriously

One would think that the trite point above requires little elaboration, but apparently there is some controversy about the matter. Professor B, Jessica, Echidne, zuzu, Sara, Amanda, Lindsay, and Melissa (among others) explain. To distill two key arguments:

• Worrying about some sort of Blogger Code of Ethics is, at best, a silly waste of time. Even if it’s not being conceived in the same comically transparent bad faith as the Online Integritude project, a charter of vague principles with no enforcement mechanisms will do nothing to stop the already-illegal acts of bad people.
• What happened to Kathy Sierra is extremely serious, and it’s remarkable (in a bad way) that the most prominent progressive blogger would poo-poo it, and also ignore the extent to which women in our social and political context are considerably more vulnerable to stalking and sexual violence.

I suppose it should also be noted that having Kos stand in for the whole class of “liberal men” is gold-plated hackery on a par with saying that because one woman repeatedly uses creepy misogynist sniggering about a young woman’s body to promote her blog Fifth-RateRealityTVPicturesofMadisonRepublicanTalkingPointsYoosta-BeeDivision.com and strongly supports the appointment of radical opponents of women’s rights to the Supreme Court, no woman really takes feminism seriously. Kos speaks for himself, and only himself.