If you’re a feminist holding an event, and you don’t want to have recordings of that event posted online without your permission by MRAs, it looks like your only option is to ban anyone and everyone associated with A Voice for Men from the premises. AVFM “activism director” Attila Vinczer has made that very clear.
Earlier this month, you see, Jaclyn Friedman – feminist writer, speaker, founder of Women, Action & The Media (WAM!) – gave a talk at Queens University in Kingston, Canada, followed by a panel discussion.
A number of Men’s Rights Activists associated with everyone’s favorite hate site A Voice for Men showed up with cameras and other recording devices, as they do.
The organizers made clear that there was to be no filming or recording of the event.
They had security remove Steve Brule, an MRA-sympathetic “documentarian” who’d shown up with his camera gear. Organizers had every reason to worry about Brule and his camera: in the past, footage from Brule has been used by AVFM to dox feminist students. Nevertheless, he cried foul, saying that he promised the security guards he wouldn’t film the event –honest! — and, absurdly, claiming that he had been discriminated against as an “old guy.”
But organizers let in other MRAs, apparently on the condition that they not record any of the proceedings.
Well, I guess we now know how much those sorts of promises are worth. Today, A Voice for Men posted a recording of the event. Vinczer explained that
I herewith revoke my word not to record the Jaclyn Friedman What’s Feminism Got To Do With It public event. Had security not violated my Charter Rights I would never have had to take the steps I did to preserve those rights.
His accusation?
On April 7, 2014, a group of five men and one woman were denied access to a public feminist event at Queen’s University for absolutely no reason at all. Security trampled on Charter rights of these Canadians.
But then in his next line we learn that four of these people, including him, WERE ultimately allowed to attend the event. (Presumably the fifth was Brule.)
So four of these people were unfairly denied access to something they were not actually denied access to, and a fifth was denied access because organizers and students didn’t trust him not to record the event.
And so, in order to protest a man being kept out of an event because people were afraid he would secretly tape the event, AVFM is … posting audio that someone secretly recorded of the event, after promising not to record it.
So that’s irony number one.
As for irony number two, well, according to Vinczer, posting the audio of the event is necessary because
The public has a right to know what type of damaging and dangerous rhetoric is being spoken to highly impressionable young adult minds.
But guess what? The event wasn’t actually secret. It was actually BROADCAST LIVE AS IT WAS HAPPENING.
And for anyone who missed it, it’s ARCHIVED ONLINE HERE. Go to April 8 at 8pm (or, as they have it, 2000 hours). Ta da! The sound quality is better than AVFM’s recording, as well.
Besides sound quality, the other difference between AVFM’s recording and the officially broadcast one is that AVFM’s includes the panel discussion afterwards, which, as the radio station that broadcasted the event noted in a tweet “we were not permitted by the panelists and event organizers to record & broadcast the panel discussion due to safety concerns.”
In other words, the organizers wanted students to be able to ask questions without worrying about being publicly identified on the internet by MRAs — because MRAs, particularly those associated with AVFM, have a longstanding practice of singling out college feminists for harassment online.
So good on you, AVFMers, for making life a little easier for potential harassers.
Also, in the comments on AVFM, we see this wondrous little exchange.
Wait, a feminist telling women to exploit their sexuality for money? That seems … odd.
And that’s because she isn’t doing that at all.
Which brings us to irony number three: If you actually go and listen to that portion of Friedman’s talk, you will see that she isn’t issuing marching orders to her feminist sisters. In fact, she’s describing the traditional, patriarchal, female-sex-as-commodity notion of sexuality. She’s very clearly describing a model of sexuality she, as a feminist, finds troubling, not one that she endorses.
But just as the folks at AVFM have trouble telling the difference between a secret event and one that was literally broadcast to the world, they also have trouble telling the difference between feminism and the complete opposite of feminism.
Congratulations, AVFMers, you’ve once again demonstrated to the world that you are both liars and idiots.
EDIT: Added several paragraphs noting that the AVFM recording included the panel discussion and audience questions.
EDIT 2: On Twitter, AVFM “assistant managing editor” Suzanne McCarley seems to suggest that Attila Vinczer’s argument that he had to post the audio because the public “has the right to know” is pure bullshit: AVFM, according to her, posted the audio simply because it was forbidden to post the audio.
Here’s her tweet:
@DavidFutrelle It wasn't secret, silly. It was forbidden. Much more exciting.
— Suzy McCarley (@SuzyMcCarley) April 22, 2014
So is she trying to make excuses for AVFM not knowing that the audio of Jaclyn Friedman’s talk was already online, or is this the truth? Funny thing is, either way, the folks at AVFM look like asses.
They probably assume that the college radio station would edit the broadcast to make any feminists involved look better, because huge femicommunazisocialist conspiracy and all that shit. Nothing you hear is true unless it comes directly from an MRA!
Okay, guys, I’m writing a large post documenting what happened in AMR. Hold on, it’s going to take a while.
MISANDRY! Checking assumptions is women’s work!
They’re confusing feminists with the government conspirators from Mitchell and Webb.
CORRECTION: I posted a comment earlier saying that antifeminist Janice Fiamengo had been shouted down at Queens University, but she wasn’t; she delivered her talk.
She was however shouted down at the U of Ottawa.
The AVFM recording includes the panel discussion that the radio station wasn’t allowed to broadcast. The station tweeted at the time: “Unfortunately we were not permitted by the panelists and event organizers to record & broadcast the panel discussion due to safety concerns.”
This post is going to be caught in moderation due to the high volume of links. Sorry about this David.
This is basically what happened:
Yesterday, someone submitted a video of the University of Toronto protest (the one where we got introduced to Big Red, who was later doxxed and harassed by MRAs) to /r/videos.
Then this string of comments happened. A MRA who previously was gilded over 40 times for an anti-feminist dogwhistle that praised the /r/MensRights subreddit posted a screed that claimed that SRS and AMR posters were at the event and essentially blamed both SRS and AMR for what happened. They then linked to both SRS and AMR, which lead to a series of comments being angry that AMR exists. There were some posts outright calling for a raid of AMR (as seen in this snapshot link).
At around 10:00 AM PST, I get up and notice a few people calling users c[slur]s and r[slur]s. I quickly banned them, but wondered why I was doing so much moderation actions so early. I was not aware of the brigade to come then.
At 10:35 AM, I get on Skype. Turns out that a friend of mine had been asking for me on Skype, and he told me that he needed to see me urgently. The following transcript then occurred:
This was my first notification that there was going to be a brigade, by a friend who has faced brigades on a subreddit that he moderates (which is much bigger than AMR) and who knows when a brigade is about to start. He found out about it because the thread got linked to SRD’s Instant Relay Chat, and because he knows that I’m a moderator of AMR, he sought to get my attention as soon as possible so that I got a heads up.
By then, some of the AMR regulars have noticed that the brigade was starting to happen. In response to someone noting how “bridgey”, I posted the warning that my friend gave me:
AMR noticed the shout out at /r/videos and said hello. Another user noticed the mass downvoting and made a thread. The official “hey guys, we’re being brigaded!” announcement thread was posted shortly after.
Then everything exploded.
For eight hours (10:00 AM to 6:00 PM PST), all active AMR moderators were on alert, banning people coming to brigade and shit up the subreddit and mass approving all comments and posts due to the massive spamming of the moderation queue. But the brigade kept coming and coming, and with no signs of letting up.
In the meanwhile, SRS was facing their own brigade (SRS threads hit: [1] [2] [3]). However, it was not as severe as what happened in AMR.
This is the aftermath of the brigade, shortly after I put the subreddit to private.
At around 5:00 PM PST, I began to quickly add as many AMR regulars as approved submitters as possible. I messaged the other moderators and told them what I was going to do, and they agreed (or at least didn’t contest it). Some of the people who were being put on the approved submitters list saw it and figured out what was going to happen. Others who received the notices were told what was going to happen.
Initially I was going to pull the plug at 8:00 PM PST. But then this happened.
After the mod queue was being spammed with hundreds of reports for what was the fourth or fifth time that day, I decided it was enough, and pulled the plug, closing the doors of the subreddit and effectively shutting down the brigade.
The aftermath thread was put up here, where the rest of the community was told what happened. Soon after, someone notified us that the /r/videos thread that started it all had been removed. By then, however, it was way too late.
Here’s a selection of comments out of many more that were removed during the brigade, as well as a sample moderation log about an hour and 10 minutes prior to shutdown. And here’s the moderation mail of the same period.
We are currently chilling and adding as many regulars as fast as we can back to the subreddit—the process is still going on, with people messaging both the moderators as a group and myself personally (and presumably the other moderators as well) for approval and asking questions about what happened.
In the meanwhile, some of the other anti-feminist subreddits have noticed, and are currently celebrating, in the belief that we have shut down for good, or are openly mocking us for locking down the subreddit. One user even claimed that the brigade never happened; many others cheered the brigaders and said that AMR got “a taste of their own medicine”—conveniently forgetting that ./r/videos is a default subreddit of over five million subscribers while AMR only has a little over four thousand and five hundred subscribers.
By contrast, /r/MensRights has over eighty thousand subscribers.
AMR will be reopening their doors on Tuesday. So all links to AMR will be visible then.
Thanks, Autie Alias for the info; I updated the post.
And thanks Alice for that explanation!
But cassandra! We all know no means yes! /s
You’re very welcome, David!
Well, here’s an interesting development: On Twitter, AVFM “assistant managing editor” Suzanne McCarley seems to suggest that Attila Vinczer’s argument that he had to post the audio because the public “has the right to know” is pure bullshit: AVFM, according to her, posted the audio simply because it was forbidden to post the audio.
Here’s her tweet:
https://twitter.com/SuzyMcCarley/status/458474521729585152
So is she trying to make excuses for AVFM not knowing that the audio of Jaclyn Friedman’s talk was already online, or is this the truth? Funny thing is, either way, the folks at AVFM look like asses.
Get back to us when you’ve graduated from Huggies pull-ups to grown-up undies, Suzy.
[Fibinachi wakes up after a 16 hour crash]
[Dickers around, eats muffins, has breakfast coffee, checks The Internet]
“Oh. Well I can probably write something about this”
[Stares blankly at the screen for a good half hour, mentally trying to puzzle out some kind of joke or rhyme]
“Erh, maybe… if… like aliens? No, that’s the web show. Uhm. Satire? No… I can’t… uhm… I guess possibly if… no that doesn’t make sense either”
[Despairs slowly]
“Come on, brain. What we if made up some kind of rhyme, like the Jabberwocky? No, dammit, that makes more sense than this… Argh!”
[Despairs]
I have got literally fucking nothing. You are so, so right, mildlymagnificent. And Suzy is like: “Ah! It’s not secret, it was forbidden!”
I… you just… “Let’s do something just because we have been told not to, that’ll show the world we’re serious about such things as ethical treatment of people and rape statistics – which we all know are issues which have nothing to do with the issues of consent and personal boundaries and permissions”
David. I want to take a moment to commend you on reading things like this without having your brain literally dribble out your ears in an attempt to escape the complex, interlocking spirals of contradictory inanity this entire mess creates.
No problem! I figured someone here was wondering why AMR links suddenly stopped working as of recent. 🙂 They should work tomorrow.
So, I wonder how these people feel about how you’re not allowed to record court proceedings (you know, unless you’re the stenographer)? Those are public, the government runs them. They are bound by laws such as the constitution. This event was private, they had every right to not allow recording.
Why aren’t they complaining about the public’s right to know in courtrooms?
I knew it was Dan Perrins who shouted at the beginning of the talk. He’s really creepy and won’t stop nattering at me on Twitter because he wants feminists to join with AVFM to find Danielle’s attacker. Yeah, like I’m gonna join up with a bunch of misogynists that victim blamed her and are now trying to look like they care. It’s just a media stunt. I refused to write about it for that reason.
At 1:06:00 on the ‘secret taping’ you can hear Attilla pointing out a woman trying to identify her.
At least now we have some evidence that MRA’s can’t be allowed into events because they don’t follow the rules. Talk about entitlement. Jeesh.
Sorry for double post but I wanted to let Alice know that I’m a part of /amr and my handle is joyintorah18. I don’t use reddit and really don’t know all the bells and whistles so if she had to block people she can rest assured I’m a member.
TIA Alice
So do MRAs like, actually literally think they’re at war? Like, they’re spies or something by going to this event?
What I want to know is why the: “I herewith revoke my word not to record the Jaclyn Friedman What’s Feminism Got To Do With It public event. ” means anything.
“Recording is not allowed at this event”
“Okay, I won’t record”
[Records in secret]
“Bye”
[Goes up, uploads recording to the internet]
“I herewith revoke my word to not record”
But by recording, that word was already invoked. I know of no magic spells that can be cause such causality infringing malarky nonsense to erupt just near everywhere, as if words had individual existence outside of the universe. This is some straight up chaos magic type stuff, here.
Am I missing something? I’m sorry to sound like an ass, but is it some particular canadian or american thing? Post fact removing of verbal agreements means no culpability? I just… wow.
Disgusting how these MRA’s took up so much space at the talk. OMG
“I hereby revoke my word” – because you had your fingers crossed behind my back? Cos you muttered “feign I” under your breath?
And “We only did it cos you meanies told us not to?” Seriously? Well, I have some swamp ground I absolutely forbid all you people from digging a huge pit and burying yourselves in. The shovels are in the shed.
These people are actually legal adults, are they? I mean, holding drivers’ license, able to vote, considered competent to deal with the day to day grownups?
Fibinachi, you said it:
“David. I want to take a moment to commend you on reading things like this without having your brain literally dribble out your ears in an attempt to escape the complex, interlocking spirals of contradictory inanity this entire mess creates.”
THIS.
Like with sex, it’s all about the lack of consent to them.
Is Suzy Mr. Elam’s provider?
His financial provider? No. I cna’t remember what Elam’s girlfriend’s name is, but it’s definitely not McCarley.
Ah well. I’m sure Mz. McCarley takes care of some other necessary service for him and his…. organisation.
Amazing that he’s got these seemingly competent women around him fulfilling meaningful roles while maintaining that men don’t need women but women depend on men for survival. Amazing that anyone’s self esteem is low enough to stick around while someone says stuff like that about them!