This post may not be all I have to say on the subject of the Spoutible data breach, but this is my home so I’ll start here. No punches will be pulled.

If you’ve visited my blog at all in the last several months, you’ll know I’m a regular Spoutible user, it’s my primary social media site now. I know the site, I know a bunch of the other people who hang out there, I’ve tried many of the features if not all.

I am not a person who created an account and never used it. So please keep that in mind, and keep that question in mind when reading the lamentations and the gnashing of teeth from people who haven’t spent a collective 30 minutes on Spoutible.

This morning I am angry, I am seething in fact, at things I have seen that imply that this, by all measures, very minor data breach is somehow the worst thing that has ever happened in the history of the internet, or that Spoutible CEO Christopher Bouzy has been something less than transparent.

Few things disgust me quite like dishonesty, and both of those assertions are patently dishonest.

First, data breaches are part of life on the internet. Peruse this list, I dare you to try to think of a site and then not find it among those that have been compromised at one time or another. Are you surprised by some?

Well that brings me neatly to the second point which is few sites disclose as quickly and as thoroughly as Spoutible. Christopher was notified at around midnight; about 12 hours later he was telling us, in an audio Pod, what had happened and what he’d done to fix it. In between there was an announcement on Spoutible and the site sent out emails with the announcement.

Within hours.

Not days or weeks or months or years. Hours.

The data affected was largely information likely already compromised for most users in other breaches, though some encrypted data may have also been visible. Here is Troy Hunt’s write up of his view on the situation. I find the title a little hyperbolic, “spurted” hits my ear wrong but that’s a matter of writing taste and that’s not why we’re here.

Hunt did compliment Bouzy on his reaction time and steps taken. Honestly if you’ve ever gotten one of those “oh by the way you were hacked three years ago, maybe change your password or something” emails, you get the stark contrast.

And here’s where we make my own headline not hyperbolic. I’m skipping all the debate about “serious” or “not serious” and all the terminology about a breach vs. a hack and going straight to reaction.

White male techbros are allowed endless oodles of room and grace to get things wrong. They rarely apologize for it, they more often blame others, and through it all they are allowed to launch more exploding rockets and sell more trucks that can’t handle a little snow.

They can flirt with white supremacists and give platforms to people who actually are white supremacists and then get angry at advertisers for not wanting their ads served next to white supremacy.

They can be called to testify before Congress to account for the harm done to children on their sites through the alleged sale of drugs and essentially say “oopsies, sorry about that,” and that seems to be the end of the matter entirely, oh well, children will be children, what’s a techgod to do about that.

White male techbros can fail and fail and fail again and yet somehow the validity of everything they have done or paid other people to do or perhaps pilfered from other people who couldn’t do anything about the pilfering remains pristine in their temples they build for themselves while everyone hands them the bricks.

But let one human error arise under the watch of a Black CEO and you will suddenly learn that all of Internetladia was perfectly secure, nary an email address nor phone number nor encrypted piece of data had ever before been unearthed.

A white techbro is a success when surrounded by failures. A Black CEO’s mountain of successes fall under one human mistake.

There is a difference in how people address Christopher Bouzy, the tasks they believe it’s appropriate to ask him to undertake, and what they think a small hiccup in a pretty remarkable road actually means. Demanding perfection on an online site is ludicrous.

Take another look at the list of sites with breaches above as a reminder.

As you see people huff and stamp their feet and complain and talk about a site they ignored until this moment, ask yourself the important questions. Did they do this when twitter was hacked? Facebook?

The endless stream of sites above?

Humans are human and will make human mistakes. If you have gotten this far in life without a single one, I am curious to meet you but also vaguely repelled by you.

But let’s not pretend that Christopher Bouzy is receiving the same treatment any social media CEO would get. We tell the truth on Spoutible and the truth is a lot of people cannot stand the idea of a site without bullies succeeding, a site where marginalized voices can speak unencumbered, a site imagined and executed by a Black man who has a vision for social media that will reform the entire landscape.

That’s what scares them. A corner of this planet where they hold no power.

This is a long one for this site, but as an actual user of Spoutible, I’m not going anywhere. This incident only confirmed what I already knew: even in the face of inevitable issues, Christopher Bouzy deserves the trust we have in him.

Have a fierce Monday, clearly I will.