I spent the better part of an hour this morning talking to the woman behind Social Autopsy, Candace Owens. Even though I wasn’t too keen on the idea here on my site, she liked that I had been fair to her throughout this process. Mostly, I was appalled at how she was being treated by Zoe Quinn and Randi Harper. It seemed like they were threatened by a young and extremely successful black woman coming to take a piece of their anti-harassment pie. It appears that Zoe only wants diversity of hair color in tech, not skin color.
Imagine, two white women coming down on the young upstart black woman. Problematic, indeed.
Now, none of this means I co-sign the idea of her site. It’s not really my thing. But, at least she’s doing something…moving with an idea. Randi and Zoe sit around and leech off people while running their mouths at lame ass tech conferences. What do they actually do besides that? Oh, yea, they get quoted in the media all the time because someone sent them a few mean tweets. Well guess, what? Candace Owens has been through more than either one of them put together.
She was a kid when she was bullied, not a grown woman that should be able to handle herself better (although when you hear about Zoe’s breakdown on the phone, you’ll see that she’s even more unstable than we thought). And as she says in this interview, she worked in Manhattan the last five years. No one knows who Zoe Quinn is outside our world. In fact, she’s basically a nobody. So you can imagine how Ms. Owens felt when this egomaniac called her and told her to shutdown her operation. She wasn’t too keen on it, to say the least.
But that’s not the end of the story. Owens has a very interesting narrative that shows her harassment only began once she ran afoul of Randi Harper and Zoe Quinn. It’s almost like these two notorious bullies were doing everything in their power to snuff her out before she could even get off the ground. I guess she had too much real credibility for them to take any chances. Candace also suggested that they have a lot to hide and that getting exposed would cost the pair “everything.” I would not doubt that in the least.
Listen for yourself, and comment here or on YouTube. I’m going to go finishing moving my stuff to the new house. That’s right, I’m in the middle of a move. But I simply couldn’t miss out on this.
Thank you again to Ms. Owens and I hope you all enjoy it as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwVONEHmAZg&feature=youtu.be
85 comments
Props to her, and nice job for speaking with her.
Did you know that Van Skankenburg calls herself a Minority?
If she was talking about her braindeadness then I think she is a minority
Perhaps she recently discovered that she’s a Jew.
I definitely prefer when opponents are humanised.
They may be wrong, they may be proposing awful solutions to problems that may not really exist (?) but they are often well meaning.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that when we see so many that lack such altruism.
Why is this video “unlisted”?
I wanted it to be site-only for an hour or so. It’s listed now.
She keeps saying the database couldn’t be searched by the public, but people managed to do just that by using Google. Besides, people have a right to know whether or not they’re on that bloody database. Because that’s possible defamation of character…
SA initiative sounded a desperate measure from the beginning. Like justice paladins, righteous, attempting to do the job of the government.
I don’t agree with her business model as such but she seems like a cool person. She’s done more than people who are trying to destroy her. It’s disgusting how Randi went at her and tried to seem more superior than her by listing all her ‘credentials’. The interview is interesting and I’m glad she agreed to it.
Randi went into immediate threat/bully mode because it works.
It wont but it will set a precedent of actually trying to DO something instead of just whining. That is scary for them as that is their specialty.
Randi is still trying to segway into a job interview by force. Same shit she did with Twitter when they picked up Anita.
Since Zoe wants to be the “go to” girl, I’d suggest her writing her number on the walls of restrooms.
Zoe and Randi have no interest in ending “cyber bullying” they would lose their entire source of income.
>implying that this disdainful contemptible “project” would end “cyber-bullying”
She sounds like a nice but misguided person (unlike Randi and Zoe who are horrible and misguided). I automatically mistrust people who think that they are the arbiters for what’s right and what’s wrong.
dat gravy train doe.
choo choo
Randi Harper is one of the biggest bullies in the history of the internet. Makes sense she would be terrified of something like Social Autopsy.
Interesting that she accepted the interview, cool.
Seems like she has nothing to fear unlike [too many names to list].
Databases of people are a bad idea and are always fallible, I feel this idea has the potential to create unintended consequences for possibly undeserving parties. That said, this is quite the plot twist in regards to the loosely formed “mob” that the Literally Who’s constitute, and Quinn’s response all but validates what we’ve all known from the beginning: the vast majority of the rape/hate/death threats coming into their camp are coming from themselves or people they know.
I really dislike the idea of the project, but candace doesn’t sound like an inane sjw. Randi Harprer and ZQ are like the Victim business mafia ha
La Lagnosa – the whiny.
If Candace is reading comments: Find out if your phone has a record feature and document any further conversation with any and all parties who try to contact you. What you say about Quinn’s response is similar to what others have said, but having a hard copy won’t allow her to dismiss your claims as she most certainly will.
It depends what state she is in. In some states it is illegal under wiretapping laws. However, yeah, it would be a great benefit if plausible.
I’m pretty sure it is legal as long as you inform the person this call is being monitored or recorded. That’s why a lot of Customer Service lines say that. Check the laws first though.
Yea its legal if you tell them but do you really think ZQ is going to say anything if she knows shes being recorded?
Possibly. They really lack self awareness, just look at Harper’s tirade where she brags she got this woman shut down after spending several minutes insulting and condescending her. And the other guys are the harassers, yes us gamers over here.
all states, if you at the start of conversation state that you are tapping the call they can never come after you. others its a 1 party state. you give your self consent
Correct. Generally there are ‘one party’ consent states, and ‘two party’ or ‘all party’ consent states.
That’s only if you’re submitting it in court as evidence, recording it for the court of opinion doesn’t require a team of lawyers
That is incorrect.
The legality or illegality of an act is not determined by the admissibility or inadmissibility of information/content derived from that act in a public proceeding.
It is a violation of law in some states to record a telephone conversation without all parties consent.
Exactly. The two party consent law under wiretapping laws is pretty common across the states. If memory serves though I believe Conn may be an exempt state. Something for her to look into definitely.
Right. I worked for a businessman who knew how to work around that. He would start the conversation on speakerphone with me and another in his office. Early in the conversation but not at the beginning he would say, “You don’t mind that I’m recording this?” If the speaker would have objected I assume his next ploy would have been to ask why. I mean, it’s all true? Right?
Even that might not work with a hostile judge so at the end of the call he kept the recorder on and asked me and the other witness to summarize the call.
IANAL so I will qualify this with 2 case here in Florida about 25 years ago.
The first was a murder case where the killer walked into someone’s office interrupting the man who was recording a memo. He said enough to identify himself and shot the businessman. The recording of him committing the murder was inadmissable here because there was neither a court order nor the murderer’s permission to make the recording.
The second was a hole in Florida law that has since been filled. The owner of a tanning salon was taking what are now known as creepshots of woman customers in the dressing room. There was no law against it then but he had used a video camera and the mike was on. There was nothing of note recording on that more than a girl idly saying “Ummm” or something and the sound of her putting her shoes on the floor, but that was enough for the prosecutor and the court to convict him of illegal sound recording.
Indeed, for smartphones there are apps available that will record a conversation for you automatically. Good way to fill your memory quickly unless you delete convos diligently. 😀
Good scoop, King Ralph. I’m sorry she has to go thru this ordeal.
Randi Harper and Zoe Quinn are both absolute and utter disgraces of human beings. They created the agenda driven baloney through fabrication, outright lies and/or deception(s) for the purpose of financial garnering. Frankly I find it humorous that Harper actually believes her “resume” is something worthwhile and to hang her hat on but that is a story for another day.
On topic, they certainly picked the wrong fight in this situation as (from what I can tell) this Candace certainly is going to bite back in a serious way.
After listening here and reading Hepatitis Harper’s novella it is no wonder they want this to fail.
Social Autopsy is a shitshow, but it also threatens the business plans of CON artists banking on anon “harassment” so they won’t go bankrupt.
Owens sounds intelligent, pretty normal and grounded, but the whole thing stinks of too much ignorance to actually accomplish anything.
I think a lot of it comes out of personal experience. She said she talked to directors of anti-bullying organisations so it’s clear that she has their support. She had a terrible experience and she wants to prevent it happening to other people, and these organisations’ objective is to stop bullying. So this plan probably seems smart to them. From what I can see, this will only affect you if you aren’t anonymous. And then it’s your face and your name, I don’t even think it shows what you said. I still don’t agree with it but it’s not as bad as people bigged up it to be.
Owens is not firebranded. She comes about as naive, non techsavy, didn’t realize the faults of her own project and doesn’t knows the shady corner of the Internet. She is a small fish who left her pond.
The objective- noble as it may be- isn’t the issue.
The issue is the execution of the ideal, and in that they are dangerously naive about the damage they could do to people without intending it.
I’m not opposed to the “name and shame” attitude of the site. I’m opposed to what appears to be a gal who watch a brain surgery in a movie once trying to set themselves up as a working neurosurgeon.
As others have pointed out, they already have a number of problems with their basic model and methods but have done nothing to address them. Their response to impersonation and mistakes is “LOL, if someone’s impersonating you then you have other shit to worry about than our site posting false misleading shit about you publically.”
They are inconsistent on the issue of minors in their database.
They are inconsistent on their own description of their site. “It’s images that aren’t searchable.” & “employers can use this to background check and search for people in it.”
When asked about correcting mistakes their response is “we don’t allow commenting to prevent bullying,” WTF? Why can’t they answer that question put to them?
” it’s not as bad as people bigged up it to be.” I don’t think they are bad or their intentions are bad. What they are and seem to be is naive and incompetent in a way that may be dangerous to people who said something they don’t like or was taken out of context.
Well Candace, I may not agree with your idea, but I admire your moxy and I like the fact you have chosen to be honest and open about things. The professional victims who ratfucked your Kickstarter did so because they have, until now, run the victimbux extortion schemes…and they just hate having to give a slice of the pie away to anyone. You threatened them, and they did your knees. Now…are you going to take that, or are you going to fight back tooth and nail? Use the media against them angel…shout it loud and proud, and tell the world who the real crybullies are. Id record any future interactions with them just in case this ends up in court though.
As to you Ralph my lovely great big bundle of Southern Fried fabulousness…..your new look….
Heh looks good, thx Dave.
There is actually an opportunity here.
See, with The Fine Young Capitalists, they were a charity trying to help female game developers. So their only source of press coverage had to be from video game sites. Which when they went to said sites, they were ignored because Zoe was their friend and they wouldn’t print anything against her. This was proven in the GameJournoPros email leaks and TFYC interviews. Check out William Usher, he actually covered them on blogjob.com/oneangrygamer.
With this situation, it has nothing to do with video games. Candance Owen can go to any media outlet looking for a story about a victim and run her story. Her story can then call out Zoe Quinn because her inner circle willing to censor, lie, and delete on her behalf don’t cover mainstream media. (Though yes, mainstream media will reprint video game media lies, or lies from Zoe herself)
assuming miss Quin doesn’t have connections to the Main stream media as well. friends of friends… shit can run alot deeper then you think
Zoe Quinn is a disgusting whore
Can’t condone this kind of stuff. It’s far too dangerous. This lady seems like she has the best of intentions and I believe she has a place somewhere to combat actual harassment. Social Autopsy though, isn’t it. It’s VERY Orwellian…
I still think this is a terrible fucking idea. SJW or not, this does seem like an excuse to dox someone. All you need is a person’s real full name now and you can find just about everything about them online. She doesn’t need praise. She needs fucking help.
I really don’t want to defend Social Autopsy, because I don’t agree with it but in the interview she said there will be no addresses or anything to do with doxing.
It will literally just be a name, then pictures of the offences be they facebook messages or whatever.
Dox used to mean credit card info / etc. Now it means public address you can find on google or whois. Now redefining it to “pictures of stupid crap you said” sounds silly.
Remember the online abuse prevention initiative? That wrote one letter to ICANN and nothing else? Randi and Zoe!
The issue seems to be the principle. Yeah anti anonymity would just swing the pendulum completely in the other direction. The only difference from China, is its not the state doing it, and putting pressure on you for saying unpopular things about the state, but the more people are encourage to report on each other enmasse lays the groundwork for that sort of climate.
Lets say less people wont be nasty out of fear of un forseen consequences, but it wont mean they are genuinely being nice either. It could also foster a climate where people will only give politically safe responses and rarely if ever engage honestly, even if those truths are politically inconvenient or potentially insulting.
People don’t just report others nowadays out of genuine attack, they report out of threat to their ideology and its a nasty political climate that could see undeserving people’s reputations ruined.
Posts are easy to fake.
Language is contextual and subjective to groups, and its best that the worse is corralled in areas of the internet where people can shoot off anonymously. We all don’t have the same personal definitions and context of offensiveness in every atmosphere, people observe professional boundaries at work because its WORK, but not everyone intertwines their work and leisurely behaviors.
Some people do have anxiety, and silent public scrutiny, or polarizing social dynamics can be just as powerful as the words they are afraid of.
Acutally, polarizing social dynamics are the fuel and context behind language that people perceive as an attack.
Owens project is still toxic and should not really exist all at. You can’t still get a person info from a Google search
By the by, how doesn’t she know who Zoe Quinn is? If she’s running an anti-bullying organization, shouldn’t she be at least informed enough to know about the U.N. controversy?
This girl sounds very reasonable, but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s fundamentally trying to create a system that never forget any shitty thing a person said.
If you judge me now by the kid I was 20 years ago, jesus christ… Nobody deserves that.
I’m not a fan of her site or social justice but many of us have been saying from the beginning that it is middle-class white women that are the most privileged class not just in the world, but in *history*. It does irritate me that how out of touch with reality Quinn is. Maybe now is the time to start dealing with her issues and stop cutting into other people’s.
I wonder when the false DMCA’s will roll in from Ms. Quinn?
So Randi Harper proves yet again that she is #MsBottyPsycho and a #Netopath who needs management and Cyber Detention for the safety of others.
Holy shit. Quin cried on the phone call screaming “This will ruin everything!” and then the Social Autopsy guys got the exact same harassment that she “warned” them about? This is very incriminating and almost too good to be true.
Can we assume now that Randi and Zoe are racists?
Nice job Ralph…this is a crack into what we’ve long suspected with Zoe and Randi’s “organizations”… now we just need keep sticking a light in deeper and see what roaches scurry out in a panic.
I believe her for the fact ZQ has done this before. Same behaviour when she went at The Fine Young Capitalists, the same crocodile tears when she did the BBC interview.msame pattern and let’s not forget Candace Owens and ZQ did exchange emails before Owens was harassed by numerous posts.
Great Interview Ralph.
I’m skeptical about Social Autopsy, but I’m genuinely surprised to see an anti-harassment initiative that doesn’t appear to be fueled by social justice bullshit. Owen’s ability to identify ZQ as a bully at once casts a glaring light on main stream media’s persistent inability to do so. Very interesting interview, thanks Ms Owen and Ralph.
Probably because Candance is an ACTUAL victim. Unlike the usual suspects. She had a classmate leave death/rape threats on her voicemail, and police found the guy.
Remember Anita bankrolls both Zoe and Randi. So all three have bullied and harassed a POC out of her business. That’s fucking rich. Watch nobody in the media cover this. Nobody.
You’d have to prove to me that Anita does that. I mean, that would be a generous impulse for Anita and that is not my assessment of her character.
Anita’s depth of commitment is shown by the fact the was the manager of PUA seminars which were to teach men how to hypnotize women even in a public setting, aka, neurolinguistic programming.
I’m mostly with everyone else here at the moment. The project is bothersome for a wide number of reasons, noble as its goals might be. However, Ms Owens herself sounds like a very grounded, very intelligent, and very worldly individual who is simply making an honest effort to combat a problem she takes personally.
She’s clearly no prog-trog or SJW, and she’s clearly possessed of a steely spine. Given time, I think she’ll change the nature of her program. Given time, I think she will make a strong friend for our movement.
Ms. Owen, unfortunately has not education herself with the ways of the Internet. She seem to be earnest trying to piece together what she wants to do with this project. Hopefully, she sit down and see all the possible of all the good and abuse her database can cause.
I’m interested to see if Zoe Quinn will name those “organizations” that brought this kickstarter to her attention and wanted Zoe to speak for them. I’m not going to wait, because I know they don’t exist, Zoe lies.
The bit about only Zoe knew the personal email account, then 45 minutes later it got n-word and other hate email (not just on the kickstarter campaign) is very telling. Telling us that Zoe is the harasser.
Good interview Ralph.
The only thing Social Autopsy will do is foster more of the anon accounts to troll and state opinions people don’t want coming back to haunt them, offer trolls more opportunities to fuck with normies as they will inevitably abuse this.
Otherwise I’m buying popcorn to watch this all go down.
You instantly lost me the second you called Zoe a racist because she was against someone of a different skin tone. Pathetic disingenuous and just nonsense and does nothing to help social discord along it just intentionally separates us further which seems to be the goal of people like you, separation so we all become easy targets.
I’m just interested in seeing Zoe Quinn and Hamburger Harper crash andb urn and if this helps them along, all the more for it!
None of this doesn’t change the fact SocialAutopsy is a totally broken backwards idea.
“We built it for employers to do a background check.”
That’s a blacklist.
Addendum:
I’d love to see an explanation in both technical and layman’s terms describing how employers are going to be able to get information from the site that the general public won’t also be able to get.
This is not going to end well. I smell lawsuits and tears.
I was looking into the socialautopsy.com stuff a few days ago, and I came away with the idea that these don’t seem like the typical. They seem like a bunch of young women just trying to do something about online bullying. I don’t necessarily agree with that, especially when what they were attempting is a doxxing site. But I do wonder if SocialAutopsy .com realizes the danger of what they are doing. But they don’t seem malicious. Maybe I’m being fooled.
Wow, they really went after Candace Owens and SocialAutopsy.com –
They’re all cunts.
First, I am quite sure that the harassment Owens got subsequent to her conversation with Quinn came from Quinn, Harper and their associates. As Ralph said, such coincidences aren’t coincidences, given the time frames involved.
Second, I respect the spine and fortitude of Ms Owens — and I support her intention, however misguided I think the execution of it is.
But, I’ve got to say that (in my opinion), whatever Owens’ accomplishments elsewhere in the business world, she may be the latest victim of Dunning-Kruger — and that however arrogant and loathsome a person Harper is, her technical analysis in her open letter on medium.com of why SocialAutopsy is a “goddamn trainwreck” is right. I can’t believe I’m doing this but yes, I’m actually agreeing with Randi Lee Harper. This time.
So is Cathy Young. The Social Autopsy project “is bad news, period”.
Let me be quite clear about this: bullying and harassment, wherever they occur, suck and can destroy lives. But the answer is not SocialAutopsy. Between them, Harper and Young already did a good job of describing why, so I’m not going to repeat them.
I submit, though, that an organisation:
• whose leader didn’t know what “doxing” meant before going public and didn’t research the subject field well enough to know about GamerGate† isn’t qualified in the field of abuse prevention;
• which, according to Young, used real people on their development site without preventing Google from indexing it isn’t competent to handle personal data responsibly;
• that is unaccountable to those individuals on whom it holds publicly-available information is a public menace — particularly when it is so equivocal on the question of whether, when and for how long minors might be listed (do they think that their database won’t get mirrored?)
and has many more questions to answer than those raised by Young and Harper, among them, whether they intend to comply with International Safe Harbor Privacy Principles — indeed, whether they’ve even ever heard of them, or considered European privacy laws and the fact that the Internet transcends legislative borders — and if not why not, or if so, how they will comply when they hold information about a person against their will.
I’m not interested in attacking Owens. In her own words, “I just don’t care” about Owens or her company. I do very much care about the implications of her enterprise, however, and those who will get hurt when her enterprised is abused — as is guaranteed to happen.
In some ways, the public spat between Owens and Quinn/Harper is (with apologies to Terry Pratchett) a bit like watching a wasp fight a scorpion — one of them is going to get stung, and you don’t care which. But, a lot of other people are going to get hurt if this thing goes live, too, and that’s too high a price to pay.
† Gamergate, its actors and its politics themselves may be niche, but the story is not. From a cookie-free session, it takes just two clicks to find out about GamerGate after Googling the phrase, “internet harassment” and since Forbes, Fortune, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, NPR, the UK Daily Telegraph and Breitbart amongst many others all wrote about the subject, Owens has absolutely no excuse not to know about the matter.
David King makes some excellent points.
Ms. Harper has issued a write up that raises a number of questions, but it seems to me everyone is making this about GamerGate, Zoe, and Randi Harper. That’s not what this is about. Zoe, Randi, and GamerGate are a
distraction of “look over here and ignore the real issues”.
There are a number of important questions that Candace/Social Autopsy have
failed to address such as:
1. What happens if their site accidentally links the wrong person with the wrong profile?
2. How do they address the fact a many people have the same name (John Smith) and live in the same city?
3. How do they address a situation where a co-worker who is merely jealous (hey that other guy got a raise & I didn’t) or otherwise upset with another co-worker posts their employer information when that employment
information was otherwise private and not listed anywhere else such as on LinkedIn?
4. What happens if someone posts bogus information? How can they verify that screenshots, etc. are accurate when they can so easily be faked? I’m not sure Candace understands just how easy it is to create fake “evidence” of bullying. How many times have we seen the real bully claim to be the victim by twisting facts and creating false evidence?
5.How does Social Autopsy verify the person being posted isn’t a minor or a previous victim of crime, identity theft, or harassment? Can someone who is a victim of incorrect information comment on the site to ask for a correction or clarification or removal? It appears not.
6. Has Social Autopsy ever heard of a thing called false light invasion of privacy? I’m betting not. I’m betting they’ve spent all their capital collecting data on people. So the next question would be whether the $75,000 they’re trying to raise will be to pay for legal fees when you they sued, because it’s absolutely going to happen.
What Candace fails to realize through her hubris and sheer arrogance is this
is not about her personal experience and knowledge of social issues and bullying. It is about her complete lack of knowledge around technology and how easy it is to “fake” evidence and even more so, her naivety about the legal ramifications of not addressing private data, inaccurate data, or victims of stalking being targeted.
Candace has been dismissive of a number of seasoned and highly regarded first amendment attorneys who have attempted to point out numerous flaws in her business model that will assuredly cause legal issues post launch. When this thing fails flat on its face, and it will, I won’t feel the least bit sorry for her.
I thought Randi and Zoe were genuine victims and good people but this exposes them for what everyone said they were and what I refused to believe was true.
“No one knows who Zoe Quinn is outside our world.”
Remember when there was that announcement several months about Quinn getting a movie and I said it would flop for exactly this reason? At the end of the day, she’s still a nobody and nobody is going to give a fuck outside the social justice cultists…And nobody is going to want to watch a movie based on a nobody, either.
Everyone always knew that Zoe Quinn and Randi Harper were/are steaming piles of fecal matter, pathological liars, contemptible pot stirrers and sociopaths.
As much as I hate to say it, RLH is on the money about the complete fucking shit show that Social Autopsy will be.
The site design sucks, a list of names got pulled off of it by hackers almost immediately, the verification process seems to be almost non-existent, there seemed to be little concern for protecting minors from being featured on the site, Owens is arrogantly flippant about all of these issues, and it doesn’t take much more than a shred of intelligence and foresight to see that it will cause infinitely more bullying and harassment than it will prevent.
That being said though, one ought not to trust Harper or Quinn (or any of the other professional victim squad) any farther than one can throw them. It shouldn’t take much brainpower to figure out that the above are going after Owens not out of genuine concern, but more of the snuffing out competition for the victimhood pie / crab basket type reasons.