[Disclaimer, I have very little context on this & might miss something obvious and important]
In discussions of this post (the content of which I can’t predict or control), I’d ask that you just refer to me as Cathleen, to minimize the googleable footprint. And I would also ask that, as I’ve 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 Cathleen’s post, the poster edited their comment to add the names of Leverage and Paradigm employees back to the comment, including Cathleen’s last name. This violates Cathleen’s request.
AFAICT the disagreement between Kerry and Ben stems from interpreting the second part of Cathleen’s 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 “in general” in the second sentence. In the current formulation, the “And” at the beginning of the sentence connects the first ask/sentence 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, Kerry’s claim (cited above) does not seem relevant anymore / Ben’s original remark (cited below) seems correct. The timeline of edits doesn’t change things. Ben’s original remark (emphasis mine):
The comment in question doesn’t refer to the former staff member’s post at all, and was originally written more than a year before the post. So we do not view this comment as disregarding someone’s 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 doesn’t endorse. A general “don’t associate others with this organisation” 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/collaborators in posts about GiveWell), and the Forum team enforcing that.
I disagree with that interpretation especially given the context of Cathleen’s post. It includes lengthy discussions of poor and bizarre behavior by members of the EA community toward Leverage/Paradigm staff.
I think reading Cathleen’s 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 don’t think this issue is central. The original comment already was doxing given the context, which includes the “question” to which it was a reply, the poster’s overall pattern of behavior, and the history of very poor behavior towards Leverage/Paradigm staff by members of the EA community. The poster’s behavior after reading Cathleen’s 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. Here’s a quote (as context, she’s formatted her comment to be an idea for how CEA might have responded instead):
(At a cursory glance, it’s difficult to determine the most natural interpretation of the scope of Cathleen’s 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 “We want to move forward with our lives (and not be cancelled)”, which includes a direct reference to LinkedIn/her 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 Cathleen’s 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 “in general” in the second sentence. In the current formulation, the “And” at the beginning of the sentence connects the first ask/sentence 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, Kerry’s claim (cited above) does not seem relevant anymore / Ben’s original remark (cited below) seems correct. The timeline of edits doesn’t change things. Ben’s 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 doesn’t endorse. A general “don’t associate others with this organisation” 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/collaborators in posts about GiveWell), and the Forum team enforcing that.
I disagree with that interpretation especially given the context of Cathleen’s post. It includes lengthy discussions of poor and bizarre behavior by members of the EA community toward Leverage/Paradigm staff.
I think reading Cathleen’s 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 don’t think this issue is central. The original comment already was doxing given the context, which includes the “question” to which it was a reply, the poster’s overall pattern of behavior, and the history of very poor behavior towards Leverage/Paradigm staff by members of the EA community. The poster’s behavior after reading Cathleen’s request for privacy simply makes their intention clearer.
In case it’s helpful and you’ve not read them, I think that the two main pieces of context that would be helpful are Cathleen’s original post and the Twitter thread of Kerry Vaughan’s that Ben West is referring to.
Cathleen has also now commented above which I think clarifies how her request was meant to be taken. Here’s a quote (as context, she’s formatted her comment to be an idea for how CEA might have responded instead):