[Disclaimer, I have very little context on this & might miss something obvious and important]
In discussions of this post (the content of which I canât predict or control), Iâd ask that you just refer to me as Cathleen, to minimize the googleable footprint. And I would also ask that, as Iâve done here, you refrain from naming others whose identities are not already tied up in all this.
As there is some confusion on this point, it is important to be clear. The central complaint in the Twitter thread is that *5 days* after Cathleenâs post, the poster edited their comment to add the names of Leverage and Paradigm employees back to the comment, including Cathleenâs last name. This violates Cathleenâs request.
AFAICT the disagreement between Kerry and Ben stems from interpreting the second part of Cathleenâs ask differently. There seem to be two ways of reading the second part: 1. Asking people to refrain from naming others who are not already tied into this in general. 2. Asking people to refrain from naming others who are not already tied into this in discussions of her post.
To me, it seems pretty clear that she means the latter, given the structure of the two sentences. If she was aiming for the first interpretation, I think she should have used a qualifier like âin generalâ in the second sentence. In the current formulation, the âAndâ at the beginning of the sentence connects the first ask/âsentence very clearly to the second. I guess this can be up for debate, and one could interpret it differently, but I would certainly not fault anyone for going with interpretation 2.[1]
If we assume that 2 is the correct reading, Kerryâs claim (cited above) does not seem relevant anymore /â Benâs original remark (cited below) seems correct. The timeline of edits doesnât change things. Benâs original remark (emphasis mine):
The comment in question doesnât refer to the former staff memberâs post at all, and was originally written more than a year before the post. So we do not view this comment as disregarding someoneâs request for privacy.
Even if she meant interpretation 1, it is unclear to me that this would be a request that I would endorse other people enforcing. Her request in interpretation 2 seems reasonable, in part because it seems like an attempt to avoid people using her post in a way she doesnât endorse. A general âdonât associate others with this organisationâ would be a much bigger ask. I would not endorse other organisations asking the public not to connect its employees to them (e.g. imagine a GiveWell employee making the generic ask not to name other employees/âcollaborators in posts about GiveWell), and the Forum team enforcing that.
I disagree with that interpretation especially given the context of Cathleenâs post. It includes lengthy discussions of poor and bizarre behavior by members of the EA community toward Leverage/âParadigm staff.
I think reading Cathleenâs post and then re-adding her name is either an intentional violation of her wishes or, at a minimum, shows a reckless disregard for her request for privacy.
In any case, I donât think this issue is central. The original comment already was doxing given the context, which includes the âquestionâ to which it was a reply, the posterâs overall pattern of behavior, and the history of very poor behavior towards Leverage/âParadigm staff by members of the EA community. The posterâs behavior after reading Cathleenâs request for privacy simply makes their intention clearer.
Cathleen has also now commented above which I think clarifies how her request was meant to be taken. Hereâs a quote (as context, sheâs formatted her comment to be an idea for how CEA might have responded instead):
(At a cursory glance, itâs difficult to determine the most natural interpretation of the scope of Cathleenâs request, in order to assess the likelihood that the user was knowingly violating her wishes. We initially had a quite narrow interpretation, reading the quote out of context, but I think the situation becomes clearer if you take the time to read her entire post or the section that the quote was pulled from, entitled âWe want to move forward with our lives (and not be cancelled)â, which includes a direct reference to LinkedIn/âher intent to keep her work history private.)
[Disclaimer, I have very little context on this & might miss something obvious and important]
AFAICT the disagreement between Kerry and Ben stems from interpreting the second part of Cathleenâs ask differently. There seem to be two ways of reading the second part:
1. Asking people to refrain from naming others who are not already tied into this in general.
2. Asking people to refrain from naming others who are not already tied into this in discussions of her post.
To me, it seems pretty clear that she means the latter, given the structure of the two sentences. If she was aiming for the first interpretation, I think she should have used a qualifier like âin generalâ in the second sentence. In the current formulation, the âAndâ at the beginning of the sentence connects the first ask/âsentence very clearly to the second.
I guess this can be up for debate, and one could interpret it differently, but I would certainly not fault anyone for going with interpretation 2.[1]
If we assume that 2 is the correct reading, Kerryâs claim (cited above) does not seem relevant anymore /â Benâs original remark (cited below) seems correct. The timeline of edits doesnât change things. Benâs original remark (emphasis mine):
Even if she meant interpretation 1, it is unclear to me that this would be a request that I would endorse other people enforcing. Her request in interpretation 2 seems reasonable, in part because it seems like an attempt to avoid people using her post in a way she doesnât endorse. A general âdonât associate others with this organisationâ would be a much bigger ask. I would not endorse other organisations asking the public not to connect its employees to them (e.g. imagine a GiveWell employee making the generic ask not to name other employees/âcollaborators in posts about GiveWell), and the Forum team enforcing that.
I disagree with that interpretation especially given the context of Cathleenâs post. It includes lengthy discussions of poor and bizarre behavior by members of the EA community toward Leverage/âParadigm staff.
I think reading Cathleenâs post and then re-adding her name is either an intentional violation of her wishes or, at a minimum, shows a reckless disregard for her request for privacy.
In any case, I donât think this issue is central. The original comment already was doxing given the context, which includes the âquestionâ to which it was a reply, the posterâs overall pattern of behavior, and the history of very poor behavior towards Leverage/âParadigm staff by members of the EA community. The posterâs behavior after reading Cathleenâs request for privacy simply makes their intention clearer.
In case itâs helpful and youâve not read them, I think that the two main pieces of context that would be helpful are Cathleenâs original post and the Twitter thread of Kerry Vaughanâs that Ben West is referring to.
Cathleen has also now commented above which I think clarifies how her request was meant to be taken. Hereâs a quote (as context, sheâs formatted her comment to be an idea for how CEA might have responded instead):