conventions

A smear and harassment campaign

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged conventions fandom PenguiCon on by

Penguicon 2024 disinvited SF author Patrick Tomlinson after he was targeted by a major online harassment campaign. Yes, that’s right. Penguicon disinvited a program participant for being the victim of harassment. He discusses the convention’s actions on his website, and I’ve confirmed much of what he said from other sources.

What the convention did to him is known as the “heckler’s veto,” though “heckling” is far too mind a term for the stalking campaign against him. It’s often a technique organizers use to get rid of someone they don’t like or find inconvenient. USC cancelled its valedictorian speech by Asna Tabassum because of vague “safety concerns.” The administration never said what dangers concerned them or who, if anyone, was making threats. The Provost’s statement cites “security concerns that rose to the level of credible” but nothing more specific. It subsequently cancelled all commencement speeches. The message USC unintentionally delivered was that threats work.
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Analyzing the 2024 Worldcon code of conduct 4

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged censorship conventions fandom science fiction on by

A lot of science fiction conventions have codes of conduct that put severe restrictions on speech. They aren’t always enforced, and never fully and consistently, but they can be an excuse to embarrass or eject someone a concom member doesn’t like. For instance, Balticon pulled a program participant out of a panel and subjected her to humiliating treatment for vaguely defined violations of its speech code. The con apologized but dumped all the blame on one volunteer.

Conventions need to say what behavior is acceptable and unacceptable, but we have to look closely at each one’s rules to see how much it values open discussion. So let’s get a look at the Glasgow Worldcon’s rules.
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Kampala in 2028 is looking worse 1

This entry was posted in Commentary News and tagged conventions fandom Uganda on by

It’s no fault of the Kampala in 2028 bid committee, but the prospect of a Worldcon in Uganda in 2028 looks more frightening than ever. The Ugandan Constitutional Court has upheld critical portions of a 2023 law that criminalized homosexuality, allowing the death penalty in some cases. This would put some attendees in worse danger than they faced at the Chengdu Worldcon.

As the Freedom from Religion Foundation warns, the ruling “has disastrous consequences for LGBTQIA-plus Ugandans.” I don’t know why they repeatedly used that ever-growing letter salad, when the targets are specifically gays (or gays and lesbians, if you use the former just for men), but that’s just my obligatory jargon nitpick. The point is that con attendees might be in deadly danger just by being there.

I’m sure the bid committee didn’t want this to happen, but SF/F conventions in authoritarian states can put their members at serious risk. Better to hold the con somewhere else.

There are risks everywhere, of course. A man was recently arrested for making a bomb threat against a Michigan hotel while it was hosting a furry convention. The same hotel was threatened during last year’s con, which makes it likely the con was the target.

Samantha Mills repudiates 2023 Hugo

This entry was posted in News and tagged censorship China conventions fandom science fiction on by

Samantha Mills, winner of the 2023 Hugo Award for “best short story,” has repudiated her award in the light of the censorship scandal. She wrote:

Looking at the information we currently have, it’s hard for me to conclude anything other than: I shouldn’t have been on that ballot. …
 
I spent this morning logging into my various accounts and taking “Hugo” out of my bio. There are almost certainly going to be places it was printed that I miss, so my apologies for that. Here’s the most embarrassing one: my novel already went to the printer and it has “Hugo winner” on the cover. Fucking mortifying!

Update, Feb. 23, 2024: Adrian Tchaikovsky has repudiated his Hugo. “I cannot consider myself a Hugo winner and will not be citing the 2023 award result in my biographical details, or on this site.”

The Hugo cover-up

This entry was posted in Commentary News Writing and tagged China conventions fandom science fiction on by

It’s out in the open now: Legitimate Hugo Award candidates were disqualified because of Chinese censorship. A collection of internal email, posted on Document Cloud, shows that the committee reviewed “anything of a sensitive political nature.” Dave McCarty was specific about the reasons:

In addition to the regular technical review, as we are happening in China and the *laws* we operate under are different … we need to highlight anything of a sensitive political nature in the work. [Ellipses in the original]

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