So, this is a voluntary thing, doesn't involve any certification, has no actual enforcement, and only exist in about half the US states or slightly less.

You're confusing certification with the status of a benefit corporation. Certification has no legal enforcement power other than revoking certification; OTOH, under the model legislation it just takes 2% of stockholders to initiate a benefit enforcement proceeding against a benefit corporation and have court enforce the public benefit provisions of its charter. (Your state may vary -- it looks like in NJ any stockholder can bring such action.)

So long as it exists in the state where Ello is incorporated (which is apparently does), it doesn't matter that not all states yet have benefit corporation legislation.

Yes, benefit corporations are new. If I was going to bet my life on questions of how courts will treat them I might be wary. But as a general matter they seem like they could be a useful way to reign in privacy violations by tech companies by providing a legally enforceable guarantee of behavior.

Well, you've not given a meaningful link since it's the same slashdot article we're all reading right now.

My bad on the HTML. I meant this.

Exposing corruption is not trolling.

Some mentally ill slut fucking her boss is not evidence of corruption.

No one wants to touch "gamer gate" because you people are cringe-worthy. We were gaining traction against the SJW co-option of internet media, but then you dumb autistic fucks ruined it with your conspiracy theories and harassment.

It sounds good in principle, but is it really legally binding in any sense?

Yes. A corporation's charter is legally binding on it, and "benefit corporations" are a distinct type of legal entity.

In a Pew Research Center survey of 2,849 Internet users, one out of every four women between 18 years old and 24 years old reports having been stalked or sexually harassed online.

But if one actually follows the link, one reads that "Overall, men are somewhat more likely than women to experience at least one of the elements of online harassment, 44% vs. 37%. In terms of specific experiences, men are more likely than women to encounter name-calling, embarrassment, and physical threats." [emphasis added]

That blows are rather large hole in the thesis which the poster and many others seem to be implying, that internet harassment is primarily rooted in misogyny.

This is not to in any way justify the harassment of women. But if you want to know why there's a backlash, part of the cause (not a justification, a cause) may be the ongoing distortion of the facts about violence and harassment.

Because what the world truly needs is you telling women how they are and are not allowed to dress.

GP poster did not say anything about restricting how women are allowed to dress. He spoke about looking at women.

How about this: women (and men) get to wear whatever they like. And men (and women) are allowed to look at each other (in public, not talking about peeping toms here) as much as they like. It's your body, you get to put what you want on it. They're my eyeballs, I get to point them whatever direction I want. Autonomy and agency for all, hurrah.

If you think that the way a random woman is dressing in public means she wants to have sex with you, you're an idiot. If you think the way a random man is pointing his eyeballs in public means he wants to rape you, you're an idiot.

You gain no privacy or right-mindedness by not letting mail "stay" on their servers.

The law disagrees. Stored e-mail is different than e-mail that passes through a server.

Thx for the informative digression. :-) On the airwaves in the States we have heard plenty of broadsides against "Africa," likewise against Muslims everywhere. It gets old.

Nah the Tea Part is the PERFECT name for these people. The original tea party was a astroturf protest instigated by wealthy tea importers who looked to lose business thanks to their businesses being made obsolete by a direct sales model combined with a *lower tax*.

England thought they had found the perfect solution: their too-big-to-fail tea company would see increased profits thanks to direct sales and the Americans would get lower prices and reduced taxes.

Instead a bunch of self interested 1%'ers spun something ostensibly *good* for the people into an "evil plot to take your money!" to distract from the fact that they were actually better off with the tea tax.

The fact that they blamed a disadvantaged minority group for their own actions is just icing on the cake.

The parallels are eerie.

You are intentionally being an idiot (I hope it's not natural). A "know-it-all" is not a manly thing, it's annoying. And dickish. And puts people off. Most know-it-alls don't in fact know it all.

Not a manly thing? They literally call that policy "Operation Eliminate the Macho Effect". And by the way, italics indicate sarcasm.

So am I the idiot, or are they? (I suspect the largest idiot is a third party.)

Stop pretending it's a gendered issue.

Mal.gif

The legacy of Bell Labs kind of runs contrary to this idea, because they were not only paid to come up with ideas, but also told to come up with ideas that would be profitable.

And yet C and Unix came about because someone wanted to play games.

How much mail do you really send that you are still buying stamps?

Outside of a dozen or two holiday cards, maybe three or four pieces a year.

I realize lots of businesses still send things out usps, but they are probably printing their own postage at this point anyway and not using actual stamps.

I've yet to see a solution suitable for home users.

Yeah I would say "OMG YOU ARE A STUPID ____" is endemic to the tech industry. I'm definitely guilty of it. Within half an hour you can have two people do it back and forth in half jest. But it's also true of nerdy girls in school and nerdy boys. Nerds are generally the victim of mocking so to be superior gives them an opportunity to take it out on others. It's not helpful--but it is understandable.

It is a waste of precious resources to turn a woman into a computer programmer when she's a lot more valuable as a mother.

Ha ha! What a great satire of a shitheaded sexist troll you've done here. I especially like the bit about how any distraction, disruption or stress could cause a miscarriage. My doctor, a black belt in karate who trained up until her 8th month, would get a real belly laugh out of that. And my sensei, the EE, would surely get a chuckle out of the implication that she wasted her life by not being a baby machine. Keep polishing the satire and you could have a real career here.

(Assuming, of course, you're not serious. Because no one that stupid could survive.)

These aren't just whatever, "it's just people making choices". It's clearly social and political influence.

you also shouldn't care about us people trying to effect social and political changes.

We're not supposed to care about your deliberate interference, but you're allowed to care about the choices women make, because society got in their heads and made them make the wrong choices?

Normally I don't care. But people like you are not trying to eliminate the sexism (probably because your assertions of it are vastly overstated), but trying to change the nature of the field to make it more friendly to stereotypes about women, without any consideration as to whether these changes will actually improve the field and the skillset of CS graduates.

Read this article about one presumably successful effort.

And let's look at the assumptions these efforts make, and their solutions.

"The first class you take is a weed-out class, and they are shocked by the fact they don't get any women at the end."

CS is too hard for women because, despite growing up with computers, they never learned how to program before. Lighten the intro courses to be less "weed out".

"Know-it-alls in any section are told to cool it so no one is intimidated."

Women are intimidated by knowledge and enthusiasm. Don't show off. It's too... manly.

"Along with changes to the introductory courses, Mudd works hard to keep women interested in the field."

Women need to be pandered to to keep them interested.

"Women and men work through problems in very different ways"

Women's brains are different. But still, ignore those troglodytes who said women are naturally less inclined to be interested in abstract machines.

"They bemoaned middle and high school math teachers who didn't engage or inspire."

More pandering is the solution. Nevermind the boys who never got that encouragement either. (High school CS curriculum was a joke twenty years ago, and it still is.)

Is coddling women going to make them better programmers? Who knows, maybe it will. But don't pretend you aren't coddling them.