SXSW Interactive changes tune, announces day-long Online Harassment Summit

SXSW Interactive director Hugh Forrest called the earlier cancellations a mistake in the announcement: “Earlier this week we made a mistake”.

Obviously, cancelling panels in the face of harassment and threats (one of which, specifically about dealing with harassment and threats) was not a popular move.

But the decision to cancel the panels drew backlash from the panelists and other SXSW participants including BuzzFeed and Vox Media, which both threatened to boycott the event if the panels were not reinstated.

Now, SXSW is planning a day of programming dedicated to the topic. “While we made the decision in the interest of safety for all of our attendees, cancelling sessions was not an appropriate response”. And Arthur Chu, the Jeopardy fixture/anti-harassment advocate who had pitched his own SXSW panel about online culture, claimed in an essay for the Daily Beast that SXSW refused to protect him and others against harassment in the comments’ section of their panel’s pitch page, even when the comments grew defamatory. Caroline Sinders, the organizer of the cancelled anti-harassment panel “Level-Up”, said that SXSW never disclosed that when it approached her with the possibility of the all-day, face-saving summit.

Said Forrest: “It is clear that online harassment is a problem that requires more than two panel discussions to address”.

She added: “I am proud to join such a distinguished list of speakers and thank SXSW for their willingness to listen and for taking a role in keeping the internet open to everyone”. “If people cannot agree, disagree and embrace new ways of thinking in a safe and secure place that is free of online and offline harassment, then this marketplace of ideas is inevitably compromised”.

Explaining his initial decision to cancel both panels, Forrest said at the time that “maintaining civil and respectful dialogue within the big tent is more important than any particular session”.

Organizers now plan a day-long Online Harassment Summit event on March 12 that will be live-streamed online.

Cyber abuse was the subject of one of the two panel discussions no longer set to occur during the festival.