Fwiw this sort of thing was definitely a component of why I didn’t go to Manifest and was initially on the fence about LessOnline. The number one factor was just how busy I am, but I would definitely feel more comfortable going to events like that if there were a stronger policy against racists/fascists/nazis/white supremacists/etc.
(To be clear, for LessOnline we didn’t invite anyone who I think even remotely fits that description, I think? It’s plausible we missed something, but like, actual racism is totally the kind of thing that would have caused me to remove someone from the “blogs we love” list, if it was part of their blogging.
Manifest runs a much stronger “just invite people who are popular and share interests, with less regards for why they are popular” policy, which I think has a bunch of stuff going for it, but definitely produces a very different selection of speakers as I think is apparent from looking at the invited speaker lists.)
Fwiw this sort of thing was definitely a component of why I didn’t go to Manifest and was initially on the fence about LessOnline. The number one factor was just how busy I am, but I would definitely feel more comfortable going to events like that if there were a stronger policy against racists/fascists/nazis/white supremacists/etc.
(To be clear, for LessOnline we didn’t invite anyone who I think even remotely fits that description, I think? It’s plausible we missed something, but like, actual racism is totally the kind of thing that would have caused me to remove someone from the “blogs we love” list, if it was part of their blogging.
Manifest runs a much stronger “just invite people who are popular and share interests, with less regards for why they are popular” policy, which I think has a bunch of stuff going for it, but definitely produces a very different selection of speakers as I think is apparent from looking at the invited speaker lists.)