Kathy Sierra and Chris Locke Publish Coordinated Statements

Kathy Sierra, target of misogynistic, sexualized death threats, and Chris Locke, owner of at least one of the now-dark sites where the threats were posted, issued coordinated statements yesterday in anticipation of their interviews on CNN this morning.

Quoth Kathy Sierra:

The firestorm around my post is both heartening and terrible. Chris told me himself that he believes I was right to speak out on this. However, my post led many people to the wrong conclusion about the specific levels of involvement by the people I named. That my one post touched a nerve for tens of thousands of people shows just how wide and deep this problem is. People are outraged not just because of my story, but because it's been a growing problem that's hurt the lives of so many others online. But Chris and I felt that if we — of all people — could demonstrate that we could see past the anger, connect with each other, and learn something together, maybe we could help encourage others to have a more calm, rational productive discussion. We should be talking about it, not reacting, over-reacting, and counter-reacting.

Quoth Chris Locke:

It's true [Kathy and I] laughed, but not at the core issues. No one was laughing about the offensive words and images that were posted to the blogs I was involved with. The material Kathy quoted on her site was hurtful and ugly. I do not excuse it or think it should be excused. Some of the things that were posted about her were admittedly frightening, and far beyond tasteless. The post about Maryam Scoble was cruel and disgusting. These postings prompted the decision to delete both blogs (and not, as has been reported, Terms of Service violations, which were assessed retroactively).

As an aside, I want to point out Joann Walsh's piece on Salon, "Men who hate women on the Web," the best piece I've seen yet on the whole matter.

(via Hugh McLeod)