Imagine a tech conference having no CFP, as they reach out to speakers directly. They successfully attract some of the most heavy hitter men speakers in tech, and 3 women speakers.
— Gergely Orosz (@GergelyOrosz) November 24, 2023
Now imagine my surprise that 2 of those women are FAKE profiles.
They do not exist.
Nada.
It's not often (read: ever) that I get to post about drama from my country, but this one is hot off the press and I think you guys might find interesting.
Full info is in the nitter thread, but here's a quick rundown:
QRD
Eduards Sizovs is some bloke that organizes and runs several international tech conferences, of those the two that are important to this are DevTernity and JDkon, though there are others
Apparently the organizers of these events do not accept applications from potential speakers, but instead reach out to people they are interested in, thus creating this more of a closed group of speakers.
Well, now as it turns out, there are fake speakers that are signed and advertised at these conferences (and have been in the past). In reality, they are merely fake online personas created by Eduards, and have never actually appeared at any of his events. Currently 4 such personas have been identified, all of them being women.
Here's Alina Prokhoda, a speaker at the upcoming DevTernity conference with prior experience at WhatsApp and Microsoft MVP who has been identified as a non-existent person who has never worked for those companies:
And here's Anna Boyko, with the same issues
Besides these there's also Julia Kirsina who worked as Uber's software Architect in Estonia, despite Uber not even having such division in that country, and there's also Natalie Standler who (didn't) work at coinbase.
Eduards has pushed back against the notion of him creating fake speakers by saying that a single fake was added by accident, but was quickly proven wrong when it was shown that these 4 fine ladies have been signed up to his conferences on 5 different occasions in total, and yet have given 0 speeches, without anyone ever seeing them in person.
This caused the organizer to go into full damage control mode as other, actually real speakers started pulling out of the conference after being informed of the controversy
But how could this happen? Surely someone would've noticed that these people don't exist?
Well, as it turns out, while the people themselves are fake, they have a very real online presence- we're talking several different social media accounts with over 100k followers, actively posting motivational quotes about girls who code, all while hiding behind what are likely AI-generated pictures of women. In short, Eduards has been quite successfully running several catfish accounts pretending to be women
Even Kiwifarms' LFJ gave her opinion on the matter, which is a complete moment which just shows that fricking everything and everyone is connected
So now for the big question: why would he do it?
Well, the guy who broke this story speculates that the reason behind why every fake persona is a woman is that Eduards, the organizer, has been trying to up his DEI compliance to attract bigger fish to his conferences by making them seem more inclusive than they really are, and probably to get some gibs/shoutouts from the organizations that promote such nonsense in the first place. Oh, and of course to milk attendees who pay... up to 800$ to attend? WTF people?
Well, now he's been caught and his entire life's work will likely go down the drain. Sucks to suck
So what's your opinion? Is the dude based for duping r-slurs, or is he an r-slur himself for thinking no one would find out?
I would like to apologize if this is a bit clumsily written because I'm a bit out of my comfort zone here trying to write about shit I have no understanding of off twitter, but I wanted to do it quickly so none of you strags manage to snitch it first
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Snapshots:
ghostarchive.org
archive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
Julia Kirsina:
ghostarchive.org
archive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
Natalie Standler:
ghostarchive.org
archive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
4 fine ladies have been signed up to his conferences on 5 different occasions in total:
ghostarchive.org
archive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
social media accounts with over 100k followers, actively posting motivational quotes about girls who code,:
ghostarchive.org
archive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
speculates:
ghostarchive.org
archive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
They said the thing!
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
What if they're the owner of a company that makes lotsa money?
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
Holy shit the lack of self awareness lmao
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
He's a narcissist. He knows it applies to him.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Banking on someone who he can have "girl talks" to ruin the career of pointing it out, probably.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
The irony of Liz Fong-Jones calling others fake women
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Those 2 fake foids are khohols
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
LFJ isn't even a real person
No birthday? No assured birth year? Just a broad estimate?
NOT VERIFIED AS REAL.
The only other people I know in this position are the Liver King and Genghis Khan, but at least Genghis was born infinity years ago before they invented wikipedia
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Are YOU a real person though?
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
no because I forgot my birthyear too and only have a 4-year estimation span
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
anyone remember this
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Lol her face
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
what's with internet freaks and nobody knowing when they were born
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
imagine pretending to be a woman haha who would even do that haha
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
Real matrix moment
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
LFJ is wrong. This doesn't make women have to try 100x harder. If they were trying hard already then they wouldn't need a man to add fake women to attract women to the industry, they'd be doing it on their own
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
In LFJs dream world, tech conference organizers would have to pay mediocre women danegeld to attend as diversity hires. They now have to be at least better than AI generated content.
I know the phrase is overused, but maybe women should learn to code.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Universities already do this and the women typically drop out. They're fawned over and given everything, including simps that'll help them with their work. The only non-neurodivergent women you see in computer tech are "managers", marketers, and HR who grift like crazy.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
It does happen sometimes, my younger sister got a cs degree,didn't (I think) have simps and is actually pretty competent
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
these chicks are smoking hot too
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
Besides every tech conference has like 3 female(male) speakers already which surely attract other female(female) speakers
(I feel like I'm buying speaker cables writing this comment)
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
Supply rises to meet demand.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
The parasite has acquired a metaparasite.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
they're fleecing the companies who pay for their employees to attend these things
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
I suppose that does make more sense. Still 800$ per person is really steep just to listen to people talk, even if they are professionals in their trade
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
It's not that steep when you add up all the other stuff like airfare, lodging, and opportunity cost
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
It's 800 to attend an event where not only are you face to face with other influential people in your industry (or potential industries you'd like to get into) but also that actively excludes poorcels.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
The dollar sign goes before the numbers
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
LFJ just mad he made up fake women when he could have called her
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
Cryptards are rslurred scammers, example the millionth.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
This is the world these people built.
Tech autist thinks his conference needs diversity so who creates fake women to fill the slot.
It's dumb of him, but the people complaining are the same people who complain about the conferences not having women in tech.
So darned if you do, darned if you don't.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
Answer: r-slur, why not just invite some random real women?
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Because this is a shitty scam conference and nobody with any credibility wants to speak at it.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Any random woman, why not any random woman? A homeless woman that uses a cellphone, who would dare question her legitimacy to speak at the conference?
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
actually that might work and would be hilarious
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
conferences need the appearance of women speakers, they don't need actual women speakers. nobody noticed the women speakers were fake because nobody cares.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
I would love to see what other people dig up about this. I suspect they just cancel these calls last minute or schedule it to a small room and pretend it's full. I find it highly unlikely that absolutely nobody would notice and raise a stink, though the 800$ pricetag might filter out most parasites who would care.
@rakrakaon
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
If you pick the right topic and the right name for the talk, you can have no one attend.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
I'd be a hoot if they had their "speeches" packed out with fake attendees too to make anyone with suspicions unable to get into the talk
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
The guys in on it reserve the room and have a party. The "speaker" is a hooker.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
Yeah this is very ed, the only mistake was using attractive women instead of uggos - that makes the fakery too obvious
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
As the saying goes; there are tons of women in STEM - there just aren't many of them.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
The people attending generally don't care about the gender of the speaker, only the quality of the talks. Only doing the diversity box-ticking on the website is a fairly smart idea.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
Maybe I'm just an r-slur here, but what was the plan for when they actually spoke at the conference? Was it all online and he was just going to hire some random foid and give her a script?
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Nobody would have attended their panels. It's the perfect scam.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
It's an in-person event, but I assume that 1. there's little interest in hearing from these foids in particular cause they're literally who, and 2. those few that do attend to listen are probably given some excuse as to why the speakers couldn't make it. Maybe they missed their plane, or have covid, or whatever. It's not unheard of for people to not be able to make it to these kinds of events, and since the organizer has been doing this for at least 3 years he probably devised some working formula
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
Based implies a level of r-slur so yes, this is pretty based
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
no it doesn't it implies ignorance
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
The opposite of based is not r-slurred, it is cringe. I deem this scheme to be both based and r-slurred.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
I'm mostly annoyed that this is even necessary tbh. LITERALLY just have good devs who gives a shit what s*x they are?
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
looters with a righteous conviction that they're doing it in the name offairness
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
Diversity measures like this are the main reason that many women and minorities are not taken seriously in the tech industry - because people often suspect (sometimes justifably) that they only rose through the ranks because of DEI
Of course, they lack the self-awareness to realize that they are their own worst enemies. In the short term, DEI benefits them, even if it completely undermines their credibility in the long term
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
You're a non-mayoid?
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
What that human nature law that states when people are given an exact amount or percent of ‘X' to meet they will just game the system to meet it instead of actually trying to meet the goal organically?
Seems like a lot of these DEI initiatives end up this way in general.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Hiring managers can't find enough women and "minorities" for these engineering positions and universities can't get and/or keep women in the programs. They're not interested or cut out for it. The ones you see are marketers or managers doing non-technical talks or very neurodivergent women. IIRC, the BBC even couldn't meet their own self imposed diversity quotas for actors despite scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Yeah I was thinking of Goodhart's Law
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
Goodhart's Law. "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
lol those are clearly AI generated photos too. At least try to make it believable
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
where's the "based r-slur" poll option
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
one implies the other
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
Feminism and its consequences have been a disaster for the English language.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
I don't get it
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Should be male and female speakers. This is one of those situations where it isn't an incel red flag to say "female".
In the grizzly darkness of the far future, there is only moid seethe.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
Feminists cry about the word 'female' as a noun so much, and plenty of feminists are stupid and misinterpret their own theology, so they now also hate 'female' as an adjective. The whining spreads out, so you see some people avoid using 'female' as even an adjective whether consciously or subconsciously.
Here's just one example from 2016: https://time.com/4300170/female-word
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
It was obvious when all the coding foids were conventionally attractive.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
What is the difference between conventionally and unconventionally attractive. Was this term solely added to appease brap-farmers? Are they this powerful?
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Pretty but not in the gigastacy way.
braphogs aren`t attractive in any way, so they're not contemplated by this terminology
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
That chick sneedman posts in all his threads is unconventionally attractive
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
so just the politically correct term for mid? @TR
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
relatively mid but good at a niche. Imagine if the weasel queen was a 5/10 instead of 2/10.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
it's only stupid if it dosen't work
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
I respect the hustle
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
imagine faking being a core contributor to an open source project, as if the entirety of that lie doesnt exactly contradict the fact that the claim can easily be verified or disproved by anyone. what a dumb frick.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
It being easy to disprove is not necessarily a problem if nobody bothers to check
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
It's just like with the security of open source software, it doesn't matter if it's open source if nobody actually reads the code to see what it does.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context