Hm, I didn’t think that bit was the worse. I DO have both of those people’s words in text (DM on this forum that I took screenshots of & FB messenger messages). I’ve shared them with one other person.
I feel that the potential legal claims—including the one I’m contemplating bringing, or the accused/accusers that I have connections to (again, caveat with—these are still speculative, and I’d like to share the speculation as a warning to the community) - would be far more scandalous and damaging than those DMs/messages. They would be more public than the messages, take more time, and could make other information more public (no idea what this other information could be), they’d piggyback on the SBF/FTX ties and scandals, and they’d piggyback on the Time and Bloomberg pieces.
I would like to add that I did give the name of that high powered individual to CEA via email. I’m not one of the accusers, so any information they received from me would be second hand and highly circumspect and would need further investigation before action was taken. When I shared the name, they asked several questions that I did not answer, then a couple days later—they also wrote this and chose to stop engaging with me.
From that post—“She referred to some other situations both on the Forum and privately, which did not contain enough information for us to identify the situation or learn more.” I’m a private individual, and the onus cannot be on me in any way whatsoever to provide “enough information” or help CEA. They have the name of someone powerful, and they can chose to pursue that lead and investigate it. They have the resources and absolutely should work with the proper professionals. Rather than stating that my statements did not “contain enough information for us to identify the situation or learn more”, I would have hoped they said something to the effect of “She referred to some other situations both on the Forum, and we need to investigate further before taking action.” That they responded in the manner that they did is at best, not sharing information with the community (eg, if they are investigating instead of simply dropping it as stated in their comment—then they misrepresented the situation to me and the community in that comment), and at worst, disavowing their responsibility to mitigate sexual assault within the EA movement (by choosing to drop the issue altogether because I didn’t give them more than “I received an accusation of SA and silencing by high power individual”) --- though I suppose there is an even worse possibility that you (@titotal and @Amber Dawn) allude to you in your comments. I’m speculating here, because it’s hard to say what the intent behind that comment was when so much information is kept hidden, and there are no open channels of communication.
No, you’re right that post was unkind. It was written in a time of great stress for me, and in DMs and emails—CEA WAS being very unkind to me which added to my stress. The unkind tone is one reason why I deleted it—the other being that I simply do not want a relationship with CEA or EA. ADD: I do stand by the content of the post, although not the tone I used at the time.
Absolutely inaccurate—IMO. Additionally, I had 8 − 9 people DM in the forum when I was posting under J_J apologizing for how unkind everyone was to me right from the start, so it seems other people in your movement disagree with you as well. Further, I’m not speaking of the forum when I say “unkind”. I’m speaking of all the private emails, etc. I strongly feel that EA/CEA was silencing and bullying—I understand you/the movement overall may disagree—and I became angry and reactive. The way CEA treated me strongly brought up the way I was treated post-rape, [add—tbf, maybe someone else without my specific trauma wouldn’t feel as I did. If that’s how they treat people], I refuse to send more survivors their way. I’ve honestly not felt so gaslighted and triggered and upset in 5 − 6 years as I did then.
ADD: re: 30/point 1 in your response. You said you have “trouble trusting” because of my “liberal” definition (FYI: it took me a while to parse which “definition” you referred to) I am not (IMO) trying to mislead you as to having 30 cases that (IMO) are somehow tied to EA. I am using a different metric/definition than CEA/the movement. I am saying “I think CEA could be sued by the accuser OR accused in this many situations”. My impression from this forum & conversations with people in the movement is that you guys are saying “does this person (the accused only) have power and/or influence/is known in EA”. Additionally, I hadn’t and haven’t shared all the names and information with CEA/anyone. So when they say “4″ and “30”, those are two reasons why. This is also why I think it’s important that the movement look into their actions in these situations and ascertain whether or not they could end up in a situation in which they’d have to spend the time and money and reputation points to defend themselves—and then what the risk of legal liability would be in those situations as well.
You’re also ignoring that I had investigated and provided information to EA/CEA for four years prior with no benefit—no credit, no compensation—to myself, which WAS kind on my part. I hope that the years of kindness and help aren’t undone by a post, even if the post was unkind. And you’re not addressing that despite the unkind tone I took, I was ultimately trying to provide CEA/EA with information that could have helped you. I believe that the utilitarian response would be to find out what I was talking about (probably after things calmed down/mediation), and the emotive/reactionary response was the post response. I absolutely would not work with CEA/EA today, but at the time I thought that the information I had would be paramount in importance over the personal relationship dynamics/tension.
Your response was not unkind, but it was pretty defensive and reactive, as were many of my responses at the time of the Time article.
I stopped providing information to CEA after February. I will not provide names of accused or accusers to anyone in this movement, and will not DM you.
Maybe someone in this forum can start this conversation here or elsewhere—but I am also curious about why issues of liability/legal stuff aren’t brought up as important factors in these discussions. Outside of survivors being harmed, I would imagine that they are the most important factor. I feel a slight sense of shock whenever I’ve engaged with EA folks about how that’s not discussed, and most EA folks I’ve spoken to will move the conversation if I try to bring up those issues.
Add: Back on February 22, 2019 - an ex-friend who started an “EA org” (that is, an organization that is strongly funded through EA channels) said that it was likely that the person I accused of rape had strongly enough ties to EA to be banned. If I google his name + EA, some hits do come up.
I’ve never reported this to CEA or other organization. I don’t think the situation is important enough to have reported, but also, at the time and for several years after, I didn’t know I could report it anywhere.