As reported in megwrites and labelle77's spaces, a blogger is outing transwomen who might be found at that women's music festival in Michigan. I don't care how you feel about the Festival (okay, I care, but I don't want to discuss it with you) but I am upset that Wordpress is protecting information that can be used to further harrass an already-vulnerable group of people. Feminists get up in arms when anti-choice forces post hitlists of pro-choice doctors; we need to similarly step up and protect transwomen who are also at risk of violence.
I honestly don't care whether there's wiggle room in the ToS to argue about whether or not this speech is protected. Hosting a list outing transfolk is wrong.
I have no confidence that Wordpress will do the right thing here, but this is what I sent them:
This article (link redacted for this post; why give them more traffic?) violates Wordpress's ToS as it violates the privacy rights of multiple people who are already at risk of violence and harassment. This vulnerable population has been singled out for exposure and the five people who've been outed so far are in danger of losing their livelihoods. Nonconsensually outing transgender people subjects them to job discrimination, harassment, and violence.
This violates your ToS, which states:
By making Content available, you represent and warrant that:
[...]
the Content is not pornographic, does not contain threats or incite violence towards individuals or entities, and does not violate the privacy or publicity rights of any third party;
Please enforce your ToS and have this content removed.
Thank you-
Cheryl Trooskin-Zoller
(also, in the course of writing this, I ran across Wordpress.com's About Us page, with a photograph of wordpress employees. And I thought, wow, look at all the white guys! Did they really shove all the people of color and most of the women into the front row? Oh, yes they did. This shit doesn't happen in a void, people. As if I needed any more data to show that intersectionality is important...)
I honestly don't care whether there's wiggle room in the ToS to argue about whether or not this speech is protected. Hosting a list outing transfolk is wrong.
I have no confidence that Wordpress will do the right thing here, but this is what I sent them:
This article (link redacted for this post; why give them more traffic?) violates Wordpress's ToS as it violates the privacy rights of multiple people who are already at risk of violence and harassment. This vulnerable population has been singled out for exposure and the five people who've been outed so far are in danger of losing their livelihoods. Nonconsensually outing transgender people subjects them to job discrimination, harassment, and violence.
This violates your ToS, which states:
By making Content available, you represent and warrant that:
[...]
the Content is not pornographic, does not contain threats or incite violence towards individuals or entities, and does not violate the privacy or publicity rights of any third party;
Please enforce your ToS and have this content removed.
Thank you-
Cheryl Trooskin-Zoller
(also, in the course of writing this, I ran across Wordpress.com's About Us page, with a photograph of wordpress employees. And I thought, wow, look at all the white guys! Did they really shove all the people of color and most of the women into the front row? Oh, yes they did. This shit doesn't happen in a void, people. As if I needed any more data to show that intersectionality is important...)