Miranda Yardley calls out the predator

I mean, Twitter employs stand-up folks like Dana McCallum, convicted of raping (am I allowed to say "his" here, MNHQ, in light of the person being a convicted rapist?) Dana's wife.

valleywag.gawker.com/twitter-engineer-dana-mccallum-pled-guilty-to-two-misde-1643207780

Posted earlier today.

Datun Looks like it. I had seen lots of rumours re influence high up in twitter but was really shocked to see that photo on the twitter feed today. In fact now I think about it - could there be a subtle agenda reposting a tweet from 2014 today? I just scrolled a little way down the twitter feed of said person and there it was.

Flying - There's so much in your post I'm not sure how to respond. LF (and RF) were a bit different in the second wave to what they are now. I'm not sure that the third wavers have ever read the founding texts (including Wollstonecraft and HTM). I don't think that Greer can be categorised. To some extent, I think she might be an anarcho-liberal ... I have a huge soft-spot for Dworkin, despite disagreeing with her. John Stoltenberg is also an interesting character. I'd like to meet him.

YetAnotherSpartacus
Thank you for posting that first link, I haven't looked at the second. I agree with a small part of it (but mostly disagree).
I don't want to derail but it's given me a direction to go off and research in. Thanks.

YetAnotherSpartacus
Ok thanks. My understanding of libertarianism is pretty much "who pays for roads?" Liberalism I took to mean a focus on basic individual freedoms within a loose but accepted social contract.
I read the Handmaid's Tale several years ago and didn't enjoy it (I doubt you're supposed to enjoy it, but you know what I mean).
Again my understanding of liberal feminism is "don't scare the horses menfolk" and "we are cool girls". Radical feminism I honestly don't know much about. I think Germaine Greer is very interesting and so often misquoted or taken out of context. Someone like Dworkin I know nothing about, I find her a bit scary to be honest but maybe that's just some internalised homophobia in me because of her presentation. Don't shoot me for the last bit, I'm only being honest.

Looks like that's about the size of it Datun.

*despite this

Have I got this right? The co-founder of Twitter is seen photographed with an individual who has shown an extensive interest in the menstruation of 10-year-olds. And anyone who criticises, or highlights this fact, appears to be deleted/shut down by the platform invented by said co-founder?

And, this being plastered from one end of social media to the other, the co-founder says nothing???

Here is one essay that I remember ...

ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3966&context=flr

This is US in focus. Here's another that is less so (a secondary text) - but not available free.

www.cambridge.org/core/books/the-return-of-feminist-liberalism/the-feminist-critique-of-liberalism/B40B2F6BBCFF5BB72A2492ACB24CA303

I have never seen anyone try so desperately hard to act like a woman - and fail so miserably.

All that's missing is him in skimpy pyjamas having a midnight pillowfight with his BFFs. You know, like how we all do when we have our girlie sleepovers?
(apologies for the horrific mental image)

Flying - I'm at a disadvantage because my library is all packed up right now. I'll do some searching on-line, but to begin with I think you have considered a false dichotomy - and 'all or nothing' between repression and libertarianism (which is not the same as liberalism). Remember too that 'in the old days' (70s and 80s) radfeminism developed in opposition to liberal feminism. I'm not a radfem and I take Atwood's critique of radfeminism (the Handmaid's Tale was a critique of radical feminism) very seriously - but I'm also not a liberal feminist.

I'm not confusing the above at all (although I'm not sure what you mean by liberal identity). I'm drawing on feminist scholarship in the 1980s that critiqued liberalism and some of its core foundations
What were the criticisms, in brief? Just so I can understand where you are coming from. I'm always willing to learn and to stand corrected!
I always considered freedom of speech to be a positive, sunlight being the best disinfectant etc. Islamic societies are very censored, for example, and have bans on nudity, pornography (ineffective ban obviously) and some countries have police or government departments devoted to promoting virtue. Would I like to live in those countries Vs the US which allows almost unlimited free speech? Nope. Do I agree with some of the stuff that gets published in the US? Nope - but I have a right to disagree with it.

That's it, a friend of mine has a photo of her and Andrew Morton taken in similar circumstances. I'm pretty sure if she was a creepy weirdo who was using that image to imply AM knew her and approved of her creepy weirdness, he would being responding along the lines of 'sorry, dude, I don't have the foggiest who are'.

Saskia yes, I agree it's an oldish photo and he probably did muscle in.
As you say though, they need to be seen to publicly distance themselves from this person. I'm wondering if there is anyway to demand a statement of such?
Imagine if a photo like that featuring a member of the royal family showed up?
I think a statement would be forthcoming.

Yep many people get their photos taken with celebs at conferences and conventions. Sometimes they pay for it too! My friend has her hugging Jason Momoa as her fb proofile pic. She's not on his xmas list though and it cost her an extra $200 on top of her entry ticket......

I'll be charitable and suggest The Person Who Must Not Be Named (TPWMNBN) tagged onto that photo and is now milking a tenuous association for all it's worth. However, it is still not a good look for Biz Stone, especially in light of the actions Twitter have taken against people who upset TPWMNBN.

If I was the founder of such an influential business I think I'd be doing my utmost to disassociate myself from TPWMNBN.

Unbelievable.

Maybe kiwi farms should widen the remit of their digging. What right minded person would want to be photographed in such company? Especially a person who is cofounder of such an influential business?

I get frustrated as people no longer understand the concept of liberalism and believe it to mean neoliberalism or this idea of a Liberal identity (which isn't liberal in nature at all)

I'm not confusing the above at all (although I'm not sure what you mean by liberal identity). I'm drawing on feminist scholarship in the 1980s that critiqued liberalism and some of its core foundations (for example the notions of 'contract' and 'rights') and/or the way that liberal ideas were embedded in the law. Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin were in this territory, but so were other feminist theorists less often recognised by radfems such as Carole Pateman and Zillah Eisenstein.

And alternatives to liberalism are the friends of women?!

Censorship by those in control inevitability means men.

Liberal democracy generally is about a social consensus across the population so does include women in that.

I get frustrated as people no longer understand the concept of liberalism and believe it to mean neoliberalism or this idea of a Liberal identity (which isn't liberal in nature at all).

In the most rudimentary liberal terms yes. But remember that this is the same underpinning of liberal feminism and of neoliberalism and it's the same ideology that is used to defend pornography. I'm not so sure that liberalism is women's friend.
I don't think liberalism has to be women's friend, it should be the neutral default

I don't think that liberalism is necessarily neutral.

I'll also be interested to see if all the screenshots of his disgusting obsessive fantasies are left up. The people just RTing them at him are doing well

It'll be interesting to see if the co founder of Twitter allows that photo, with its implied association, to remain.

In the most rudimentary liberal terms yes. But remember that this is the same underpinning of liberal feminism and of neoliberalism and it's the same ideology that is used to defend pornography. I'm not so sure that liberalism is women's friend.
I don't think liberalism has to be women's friend, it should be the neutral default.
This is disingenuous at best. Laws prohibiting & criminalizing certain acts are not very effective deterrents. They allow offenders to be prosecuted & perhaps punished after they've committed criminal acts, but they do not prevent or eliminate such acts from happening in the first place. Far from it, especially in the case of sex offenses committed by males against females.
Which is why making pornography illegal doesn't work without robust enforcement of that law. In fact any law prohibiting something is pointless without robust enforcement. I dislike the impact of pornography and wouldn't mind censorship returning (although we'd need a huge workforce to deal with the volumes!) I don't see pornography as free speech. It's a product that has been created. If I used machine tools to create firearms and sold them I couldn't rely on the argument that I was producing "art" and stopping me producing illegal firearms was an attack on my freedom of speech.
I'm very pro free speech. Even if it's nasty, hurtful etc. Libel laws should stay as they are in the UK, and untruths should not be published. Apart from that, rock on.