I'm really glad they ended with this. The "explanation" that there's some tiny pool of women speakers that they have to compete for is such bullshit and it was nice to see that the article didn't...
Meanwhile, actual women developers who exist in the world right now continue to exist.
I'm really glad they ended with this. The "explanation" that there's some tiny pool of women speakers that they have to compete for is such bullshit and it was nice to see that the article didn't do some sort of faux-neutral presentation of all this bullshit
Eduards Sizovs, the organizer behind the Devternity and JDKon developer conferences, admitted that at least one woman speaker’s profile was ‘auto-generated.’
The Primeagen uploaded a segment from his stream where he learns about this and digs through the Twitter threads. https://youtu.be/D3O76gDdNFQ The video starts out with jokes about catfishing but,...
The Primeagen uploaded a segment from his stream where he learns about this and digs through the Twitter threads. https://youtu.be/D3O76gDdNFQ The video starts out with jokes about catfishing but, as he pokes further and realises it was a marketing scheme, it's clear there are bigger ethical issues. I'm generally surprised at the quality of some of discussion with that Twitch chat. But bear in mind that it is still a Twitch chat so some comments are... questionable.
The most damning part of this, which Primeagen talks about in the video, is in Eduards's response to the accusations and how they conflict with the public git logs for the conference website. You quoted "Eduards [...] admitted that at least one woman speaker's profile was 'auto generated'" — but it's worse than that, he's contradicted himself and indirectly admitted to intentionally using the fake profile to advertise:
[The fake profile] should not be there, as it’s gotten there by mistake (it’s auto-generated, with a random title, random Twitter handle, random picture). I noticed the issue in October, but my busy mind suggested delaying the fix until we finalize the program because 1) it was not a quick fix 2) it’s better to have that demo persona while I am searching for the replacement speakers, 3) and the persona isn’t part of the schedule anyway. So it can wait, no harm, only good intentions.
Worse, the change logs for the site are plainly visible in GitHub and contradict Eduards's claims. The titles don't look random to me, a new fake profile was added in October, and it obviously was a very easy fix. The lack of ethics implied in that point (2) is extremely concerning let alone the misogyny discussed in more detail in the Verge article.
I don't know how to feel about this. On one hand, it's hilarious. The efforts this person went for so long, to me, speak to something greater than a simple need to sell tickets and make profit....
I don't know how to feel about this. On one hand, it's hilarious. The efforts this person went for so long, to me, speak to something greater than a simple need to sell tickets and make profit. It's so completely strange I don't think I'd ever trust this person to do any task that wasn't so simple it had no room for deception. If I ordered a coffee from him, would he create an elaborate identity such that I thought the person who took my order was different from the person who made my coffee?
On the other, the claims of a sexy coding account make me uncomfortable (I was not able to see the account). If you've got an OnlyFans and you write code, you do you. But when you are pretending it does feel weird, like me doing what I do professionally is filtered through a sexy lens even when the point is not meant to be sex.
The other thing that struck me as funny is that I think if you work in tech as a woman, you're pretty comfortable with lack of gender diversity. For a long time at my role, I was the only female tech resource out of ~30 tech resources, and when I started I might have been 1 of 3 overall at a company of ~50. So I feel like these fake profiles really are just marketing for the sake of a diverse veneer and not even marketing to get women to feel more comfortable about presenting.
edit: I did manage to access the Instagram. I wouldn't say it's... very "sexy" but the person in the pictures is attractive and the focal point in every image is this attractive person. There were some "sexy" tops. On one post, ironically enough, the top two comments are men commenting that she is inappropriately sexualizing programming. There are uh, layers here...
I'm really glad they ended with this. The "explanation" that there's some tiny pool of women speakers that they have to compete for is such bullshit and it was nice to see that the article didn't do some sort of faux-neutral presentation of all this bullshit
The Primeagen uploaded a segment from his stream where he learns about this and digs through the Twitter threads. https://youtu.be/D3O76gDdNFQ The video starts out with jokes about catfishing but, as he pokes further and realises it was a marketing scheme, it's clear there are bigger ethical issues. I'm generally surprised at the quality of some of discussion with that Twitch chat. But bear in mind that it is still a Twitch chat so some comments are... questionable.
The most damning part of this, which Primeagen talks about in the video, is in Eduards's response to the accusations and how they conflict with the public git logs for the conference website. You quoted "Eduards [...] admitted that at least one woman speaker's profile was 'auto generated'" — but it's worse than that, he's contradicted himself and indirectly admitted to intentionally using the fake profile to advertise:
https://x.com/eduardsi/status/1728422017417032140
Worse, the change logs for the site are plainly visible in GitHub and contradict Eduards's claims. The titles don't look random to me, a new fake profile was added in October, and it obviously was a very easy fix. The lack of ethics implied in that point (2) is extremely concerning let alone the misogyny discussed in more detail in the Verge article.
His second (and currently latest) response shows he really doesn't understand why people are upset: https://x.com/eduardsi/status/1728447955122921745
I don't know how to feel about this. On one hand, it's hilarious. The efforts this person went for so long, to me, speak to something greater than a simple need to sell tickets and make profit. It's so completely strange I don't think I'd ever trust this person to do any task that wasn't so simple it had no room for deception. If I ordered a coffee from him, would he create an elaborate identity such that I thought the person who took my order was different from the person who made my coffee?
On the other, the claims of a sexy coding account make me uncomfortable (I was not able to see the account). If you've got an OnlyFans and you write code, you do you. But when you are pretending it does feel weird, like me doing what I do professionally is filtered through a sexy lens even when the point is not meant to be sex.
The other thing that struck me as funny is that I think if you work in tech as a woman, you're pretty comfortable with lack of gender diversity. For a long time at my role, I was the only female tech resource out of ~30 tech resources, and when I started I might have been 1 of 3 overall at a company of ~50. So I feel like these fake profiles really are just marketing for the sake of a diverse veneer and not even marketing to get women to feel more comfortable about presenting.
edit: I did manage to access the Instagram. I wouldn't say it's... very "sexy" but the person in the pictures is attractive and the focal point in every image is this attractive person. There were some "sexy" tops. On one post, ironically enough, the top two comments are men commenting that she is inappropriately sexualizing programming. There are uh, layers here...