Kathy Sierra: Sexual Predation And Stalking Against A "Geek Woman" Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

An attempt to silence a woman through death threats and threats of sexual violence.

Kathy Sierra, March 26, 2007:

As I type this, I am supposed to be in San Diego, delivering a workshop at the ETech conference. But I'm not. I'm at home, with the doors locked, terrified. For the last four weeks, I've been getting death threat comments on this blog. But that's not what pushed me over the edge. What finally did it was some disturbing threats of violence and sex posted on two other blogs... blogs authored and/or owned by a group that includes prominent bloggers. People you've probably heard of. People like respected Cluetrain Manifesto co-author Chris Locke (aka Rageboy).

...

We all have trolls--but until four weeks ago, none of mine had threatened death. (The law is clear--to encourage or suggest someone's death is just as illegal as claiming you intend to do it yourself).

...

Most of all, I now fully understand the impact of death threats. It really doesn't make much difference whether the person intends to act on the threat... it's the threat itself that inflicts the damage. It's the threat that makes you question whether that "anonymous" person is as disturbed as their comments and pictures suggest.

It's the threat that causes fear.

It's the threat that leads you to a psychiatrist and tranquilizers just so you can sleep without repeating the endless loop of your death by:

* throat slitting
* hanging
* suffocation
and don't forget the sexual part...

I have cancelled all speaking engagements.

This is one blogger's attempt to counter the violent and sexual predation being inflicted against prominent tech blogger Kathy Sierra. My suspicion is that she is being attacked because she is a woman, blond and extremely knowledgeable about geek tech, which some geek tech men cannot tolerate. So I created this button and would welcome you to make use of it by linking back to Kathy Sierra's blog "Creating Passionate Users" at Headrush.com, both to frustrate these predators and to discourage future similar conduct against other women (and men) bloggers. Sierra's blog is a tech blog; it does not focus that much on politics.