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ANDREA DAQUINO firsthand in the tech industry. industry. tech the in firsthand experienced she problems the of some solve to try to out set she when happened what shares entrepreneur An !oadblocks WUDAN YAN !eview THE ing users more control over giv by harassment online targets that Party Block called company a were. still companies top at teams technical many homogeneous how revealed that database in a public responses engineering teams. She collected their how many women worked on their for to share tech data companies on calling post blog circulated widely a published she’d Pinterest, at neer Valley’s diversity issues. As an ! engi Chou was working to expose Silicon 35 Innovators Under 35. At the time, our of one as Tracyhonored Chou Review Technology MIT 2017, In affect them: it’s easier to knowto easier it’s them: affect directly that rally problems on work natu founders solved. of Aget lot problems what influence factors those how and funding and ups the structural issuesaround start and have come to recognize some of to move on and do something new. about 1,000. It felt like time for me had it when left and employees 10 about had it joined when Pinterest I companies: smaller to against up are her like entrepreneurs what and sector tech the in change make to takes it Francisco, to learn more about what San in based is Chou,who with in check we Here, target. a been has she which of harassment online of sort the including " industry tech the in firsthand experienced she’s problems the of some fix to wants its first paying customers in January. and mentions. The service signed up feed their in appear tweets which About a year later, Chou started started a later, Chou year About I’ve worked for so many startups Chou company, new her With W I’ve always been drawnbeen alwaysI’ve I Pinterest. spoke, left just had last we hen . 6/9/21 11:18AM 85 ! ! ! 86 Change

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what’s important or what could phone line that I shared with my people are at the bottom, because be improved by technology. family. I was also on some of the that could very likely be you if you In thinking about my next blogging platforms, like Xanga and were born as anybody tomorrow. steps, I thought about products LiveJournal. They were nice outlets You’d want to design a much more I’ve worked on and checked that at the time. equal world. That got me thinking against questions like, Do I care Pretty early on, though, some! I didn’t like that the world was so about this? Is there something to be Tracy Chou on one set up an anonymous Xanga unequal and so many people were made that can be commercially via! the cover of our page dedicated to hating me. I much less lucky than me. 35 Innovators ble? There are lots of really import! Under 35 issue think it was someone from school, That feeling has made me take ant issues that will not be solved in 2017. because it referenced things from the privilege that I have and pay it naturally through a startup. high school. A lot of it was hat! forward to make the world a little I ended up on Block Party, ing on me because I did well aca! more just. I went to Stanford; I’ve which pulls together a few differ! demically. It didn’t bother me as worked at companies that people ent threads from my background. much at the time as it did when I within tech find credible. So I can I’ve worked as an engineer at vari! got older and looked back on it. try to amplify more voices or dif! ous social platform companies, and Back then, I thought this person ferent perspectives. I’ve worked on monitoring, moder! was just insecure and jealous. I When I decided to pursue Block ating, and increasing the quality of thought it was a bit sad and messed Party, I did a bit of research and content, and figuring out how prod! up that someone would write full talked to others who have worked uct design influences community posts dedicated to trying to take in anti!harassment, and to people behavior. Not only did I build mod! me down. who were building solutions, to eration tools at that reviewed I didn’t report it. Who would I understand what the market was content quality, but I also took puni! have reported it to? It didn’t even like. Not a lot of companies under! tive actions against people who cross my mind to go to my school stood the true user experience of violated the site’s policies. and report it. And I didn’t neces! dealing with harassment"it felt I’d also spent a lot of time look! sarily want my teachers or school like many people were approach! ing at how the lack of diversity and administrators to see the page ing this problem purely from a representation in teams meant that either, since it was pretty hateful business angle, because they didn’t products were built in a skewed content. know what it was like to experience way. For instance, nondiverse teams My parents didn’t raise me to it themselves. Some people were of people who generally don’t get be someone who was outspoken building machine!learning models targeted with abuse and harass! and challenged the status quo. I to detect toxic content and thought ment don’t tend to build protections definitely wasn’t encouraged to that would solve the problem. against that in their apps. speak up against the system in As someone who deals with The last part of my background any way. Like many other children this, I understand the emotional that led me to Block Party was of Asian immigrants to the US, I impact much more. There are just getting targeted more with grew up believing that this is not certain things that are emotion! harassment. Over the last year, I’ve my country, and my parents and I ally distressing to read even if definitely gotten more anti!Asian are here trying to find opportuni! they’re unlikely to be flagged by harassment online. Some of it was ties for ourselves. We didn’t have an algorithm. For example, I once truly targeted at me by individuals, a safety net. I grew up more with received a long message from a and other times I would attract a head!down mentality of do good man which essentially said, “You trolls just by having a presence work, work hard, and try to make it. should smile more and then you’ll online. My dad, who’s an engineer, gave be more attractive.” I got online very young, and at me a philosophical thought exper! That message bothered me first the internet was a fun way iment when I was quite young: If for a few weeks before I realized to connect with friends. I was on you could be reborn as anybody in how gaslighty and inappropri! AOL Instant Messenger, which the world tomorrow, how would ate it was. The impact was very was a better way to chat with my you design the world today? You emotional, and the meaning of friends in high school: I didn’t have wouldn’t want to design a world the message"not to mention the a cell phone, and I couldn’t hog the that’s vastly unequal, where most anti!feminist and regressive point

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of view within!goes deeper than After YC rejected me, I raised inbox was overflowing with harass" what would be picked up by any WITHIN 10 some follow"on funding to extend ment. It was ironic that if I build algorithms. OR 15 MINUTES my pre"seed funding, about $1.5 anti"harassment software, I just get My challenges in getting fund" OF THE AMA million. That might feel like a good harassed for it. ing for Block Party started when I chunk of money in some markets, I have a stalker!an online applied to be in the winter 2020 STARTING, but it’s not enough to hire engi" harasser who has moved into real" class for Y Combinator, an accel" TROLLS neers, which means I had to be a lot world stalking!which made me erator dedicated to funding early" TOOK OVER more creative with how I built the more fearful. I wondered, will stage startups. In , if product!I had to build it myself. these trolls dox me or do some" you’re looking for a credential, Y THE THREAD, There’s no chance Block Party thing worse? When I’ve gone to Combinator is one of the better PRESENTING would have even gotten to where file police reports on my stalker, ones you can get. I applied, iron" BAD-FAITH it is now if I were not myself a very I’ve felt gaslit. The police make ically, because I anticipated that strong engineer. notes like “Victim believes suspect YC!which is made up of mostly ARGUMENTS Last summer, as part of Mozilla’s is obsessed with her,” which under" white men who wouldn’t neces" AND BURYING Fix the Internet incubator, I was cuts the truth: I get thousands of sarily understand the problems I ALL MY asked to do a Reddit AMA in an tweets from this person. He would wanted to take on!would be very effort to grow Block Party. I ini" fly to where I was. He has entry and skeptical. My thinking was that if ANSWERS. tially pushed back on that because exit records at the airport nearest I had a YC stamp of approval, that my first reaction was: Reddit is the to me, and told me what motel he could dispel some of the skepticism troll farm. At some point, I talked stayed at when he was trying to find around my product. myself out of my initial instinct. I me in San Francisco. I went to the YC campus in thought, maybe it won’t be so bad! Someone who works in private Mountain View, California, for my I’ve seen some good AMAs! security once told me one of the best interview. They put applicants in But within 10 or 15 minutes of the things you can do in that situation is different rooms with a panel of AMA starting, trolls took over the to flip your mentality into one that’s interviewers, and each room had thread, presenting bad"faith argu" very proactive: think, if you were a list of the interviewers printed ments and burying all my answers. the stalker, what would you do? outside. When I went to my room, I They were like, “Look, she’s too That helps you frame your defenses. saw that list of names and thought, afraid to answer the questions.” Shifting your mentality to being “This isn’t going to be good.” Of the I had answered, but my answers proactive means you have agency four names, three were white men. would just get buried or disappear. and it’s really helpful. Because if you The interviews were only 10 By the time the Reddit moderators feel like you’re helpless and under minutes long, and my panel started locked the thread many, many hours attack, that’s very debilitating. by asking what I was building. I later, there were thousands of com" As unpleasant as my experiences said, “Block Party is building con" ments, the majority of which were have been, I treat this all as user sumer tools for dealing with online awful, terrible things. It was a really research for Block Party. harassment and gives people more traumatic experience. I want online harassment gone, control over their online experi" Then there were a couple of and if I can be a part of solving this ence.” And the question I got was threads on 4Chan that referenced problem!whether that’s with Block “You said this is a consumer prod" the Reddit AMA, which led 4Chan Party or not!I’m happy. I’m taking uct, but consumer implies mass and Reddit trolls to launch an attack all the experiences that I’ve had in market, and this is a very niche on Block Party. They submitted a product engineering, working with problem. Right?” bunch of applications for our waitlist Silicon Valley companies, working The rest of the interview was through a sign"up form and created on platform companies, and my own pretty much like that: a strong asser" hundreds of accounts with my name experiences with harassment and tion followed with “Right?” The and profile photo on Substack and hopefully turning it into something whole tone of the interview was: posted racist, misogynistic con" positive. ■ online harassment was a small prob" tent. For a couple of weeks, it was Wudan Yan is an independent lem that’s already being solved, so a nightmare everywhere I went journalist based in Seattle, why are you working on this? I came online. I couldn’t even log back Washington. out of the interview livid. on to Reddit because my Reddit

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