Before we all jump on the "he-said-she-said" bandwagon, keep in mind that IAC (Tinder's parent company) has confirmed that Mr. Mateen did send harassing messages to Ms. Wolfe:
The rest of the allegations are unproven, but the allegation that Mr. Mateen harassed Ms. Wolfe is, for all intents and purposes, 100% factual. There's no reason to defend this guy.
> Mr. Mateen went on to say that he didn’t want boys trying to date Ms. Wolfe due to her co-founder status, and that being a female co-founder of Tinder was 'slutty' because it is
an app people use 'to hook up.'
On a tangential note: it's interesting to see the very weak bargaining on her part on pages 64-65, where she's trying to talk to Sean Rad about her equity. Textbook wrong way to approach it for both parties. He should've been soft, to encourage her not to sue, and she should've been the one with a hard edge, seeing as how she was effectively being driven out of the company she helped co-found.
Wolfe might not even need to show that Tinder/IAC knew if she can show that Mateen invoked his supervisory authority to demote Wolfe from co-founder status. In such cases, where the harasser uses official authority to effect a tangible employment action, the company is vicariously liable for the conduct of the harasser, without any further showing by the plaintiff.
If she can't show a tangible employment action, the company can avoid liability by showing that it acted reasonably to prevent or correct the harassment, or that she acted unreasonably by e.g. not complaining to someone higher up. Showing lack of knowledge would be a good start, but they could also show they tried to take corrective measures when they found out. Of course if the text messages are true, some of those angles might be foreclosed...
> * Mateen did send some "inappropriate" messages to Wolfe (Tinder has, bafflingly, acknowledged this publicly).
It is very unusual to see a company actually acknowledge an allegation like that. But do you think it was a bad idea to do so?
Obviously it has legal ramifications. They're literally admitting guilt.
But Tinder/IAC will have to work to do to demonstrate that they care about having a healthy workplace culture. And this seems like a good way to lend credibility to the fact that they take that responsibility seriously (instead of just FUD-ing the victim with a vaguely worded statement).
It hurt to read that, because part of me was scared that she was about to permanently bargain away things that were owed to her. It seems she merely resigned and didn't accept any settlement, so she dodged that bullet.
EDIT TO ADD Anyone who feels treated unfairly: don't sign any offer without legal advice. A contract needs, among other things, to have consideration[1] to be binding. If they give you $100 if you agree not to sue for sexual harassment, you could be up a creek.
I agree with you. What I really dislike though is how this kind of hate begets more hate. I was surprised to see so many downvoted-into-oblivion comments so soon after submission. There's already foul name calling, and hints of intolerance.
So on top of "there's no reason to defend this guy", I don't think it is constructive to attack each other here in such negative ways.
Edit for clarification: Now that there are 80+ more comments it seems more constructive. There were quite a few in the first ~20 that were pretty sour.
The reason that I downvote most (not all!) of those comments is:
1. They emphasize a culture of doubt about these accusations, which may discourage people in a situation like Ms. Wolfe's from stepping forward. On the other hand, the accused people in power really don't need our help to defend themselves.
2. They're formulaic, repetitive, and uninteresting. Most could probably have been written by a misandry chatbot. They don't bring any new ideas to the table.
And while I try hard to be diplomatic when I write critical replies to those comments...I can empathize with those who are a little harsher.
I don't know about the US, but in the UK the situation regarding (1) is the reverse. In the recent scandal, the (student) president of Oxford Union was publicly accused and arrested because of rape allegations. He was subsequently found innocent and one of the victims apparently made up the whole story, but in the meantime a lot of influential people have cancelled their talks at the Union and his name is smeared for life, while there have been no negative consequences (yet) for the lying accuser - she can't even be named publicly!
Apparently, this has spurned a conversation in the UK media whether the names of people accused of sex crimes should be kept confidential until they are found guilty, in order to avoid ruining innocent people's lives.
I agree on the point that allegations aren't true 100% of the time. And it is tragic when someone's reputation is irreparably tarnished as a result of a false accusation.
But it's important to keep in mind that the vast majority of rape accusations are true[1], and this likely carries over to accusations of sexual and gender-based harassment as well.
Statistically, it makes sense to give the accuser the benefit of the doubt. I'd rather unfairly tarnish the reputation of a small minority of the accused, than attack the reputation of the accusers (the vast majority of whom truly are victims of a terrible, heinous crime).
This doesn't mean that the accused shouldn't get a fair legal trial. But I think it does affect how they should be treated by the court of public opinion (until they are exonerated, in the rare cases where that actually happens).
Hm... how about treating both the accuser and the accused fairly and respectfully? E.g. by not revealing identities of either one of them until the case proceeds to trial.
It sickens me that you think people "should" be treated by the court of public opinion in any way.
I upvoted you, but, do we have to choose? Do we have to decide that one side or the other is lying? Can we treat accusations seriously without destroying the accused, and treat the accused's rights seriously without destroying the accuser?
EDIT It's said how comments here are flipping back and forth between black and grey like I was watching some sick checkerboard of humanity.
(I've actually been upvoting most of this conversation!)
I think we're actually on the same page -- I don't think personal attacks help at all. The whole point of Hacker News is to have interesting discussions, but personal attacks are not really very interesting.
And, I think (and I think you'd agree) that we have to take the victim's claims seriously so that we can learn more about how this happened and how we can avoid empowering someone like Mr. Mateen to carry out such reprehensible behavior in our own workplaces. That's the discussion that's worth having.
EDIT: Just wanted to add...this case is somewhat unique in that IAC has literally confirmed that Mr. Mateen sent harassing messages to Ms. Wolfe. I posted my first comment not because I wanted to attack Mr. Mateen, but because I'm getting tired of the typical flood of "oh this is just yet another unfounded accusation against some poor founder" FUD comments on these stories.
False allegations of rape are fantastically rare and the people who make those false allegations are almost always prosecuted, and convicted, for it. Everyone recognises that false allegations are immensely harmful - to the man who has been libled; to other women making allegations; to other women who do not make allegations because they fear not being believed.
> the people who make those false allegations are almost always prosecuted, and convicted, for it
Not really, at least not here in the UK. The Crown Prosecution Service generally doesn't consider it in the public interest unless it's a particularly serious case. For example the most recent case involved a barrister making the accusations and the guy she'd accused being jailed amongst prisoners who'd somehow gotten the idea he was a pedophile[1]. (Those kind of rumours tend to get people brutally mutilated or murdered by other prisoners - kind of a big deal.) Even then, women's rights campaigners protested against the conviction and accused the police of harming rape victims by bringing the case to court.
My assumption (perhaps wrong) was not so much that false allegations are fantastically rare, but rather that unreported and/or dismissed cases of rape are shockingly common, and that therefore giving the benefit of the doubt to the 'claimant'(?), at least when the facts are unclear, is a good approach.
That said, I'm generally hesitant to express myself based on those assumptions, but I still question them (and those of others).
Do you have any links/research that shows that false allegations are 'fantastically uncommon'? Because I've heard too many accounts of people claiming false allegation to just assume you're right.
False allegations are far from being fantastically rare.
You also have to acknowledge that when you have a rape accusation, there isn't a boolean result(either the allegation is false, or it's true and this results in some penalty). It's a broad spectrum, with only around a third of the cases resulting in conviction.[1]
Of the 136 cases of sexual assault 8 (5.9%) were coded as false reports, 61 (44.9%) did not proceed to any prosecution or disciplinary action, 48 (35.3%) were referred for prosecution or disciplinary action, and 19 (13.9%) contained insufficient information to be coded (see Table 2).
I hate to be that guy but if you suspend some one to investigate serious allegation you don't blurt out "he did it" before the investigation is complete and you have disciplined the employee.
to misquote alice and wonderland "Trial first then the sentence"
Thank you the point which all the down votes on my comment seemed to have missed! no wonder sv and start ups seem to have HR disasters every other day - they seem to lack even basic understanding of employment law and best practice.
IAC can what it likes but disclosing this while its own investigation is still in progress could lead to him getting a better result than he deserves ie he might say my employer did not follow the rules so I am claiming unfair dismissal and win compensation.
They were "harassing"? The very conjecture that is to be investigated.
As an example, if I send a text to my girlfriend and co-worker that says "I'm gonna plow your fields tonight", it is a fact it was sent, was sexual but harassing? That is contextual.
"Justin Mateen joined Tinder as Chief Marketing Officer, a position that made him Ms. Wolfe’s direct supervisor. Within two months after he became an employee, in November 2012, Mr. Mateen began pursuing a romantic relationship with Ms. Wolfe."
IANAL but AFAIK if I send a mail to you it's not private and can totally be accepted as evidence in a court of law.There is no notion of privacy in sending a mail,a text message,... the only thing that would not be admissible is if I recorded a conversation between us without telling you you are on record.
the only thing that would not be admissible is if I recorded a conversation between us without telling you you are on record.
Doesn't that vary by state? IIRC in some you can record anything you're involved in while in others everyone involved has to agree (or at least know?). Or maybe this was about getting sued under privacy laws rather than admissibility...
Ignoring the romantic relationship, check pages 6 and 7 for how multiple officers didn't want a "girl" to be seen as a co-founder. It's not as salacious but the allegations, if true, move things out of the "one rogue manager" territory.
AFAIK, the Tinder guys were not the ones with a leaked Fraternity leadership e-mail that clearly exposed them as misogynistic douches with little sensitivity outside their bro-ubble.
That said, Tinder and Snapchat are two peas in a pod, eh?
"Through that process, it has become clear that Mr. Mateen sent private messages to Ms. Wolfe containing inappropriate content." <http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/06/30/tinder-sexual-...
The rest of the allegations are unproven, but the allegation that Mr. Mateen harassed Ms. Wolfe is, for all intents and purposes, 100% factual. There's no reason to defend this guy.