Roger Dingledine from the Tor Project writes, "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."
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.
Solidarity against online harassment
(Thanks, Roger!)
