Maria Sefidari Huici to step down

[Vigilant]

wikimedia-l

After ~ 8 years on the Board of Trustees at the Wikimedia Foundation - a
long time! - I have notified the Board that I am stepping down as Chair and
trustee, effective end of day today.

I suspect she knew the upcoming election would have some pretty pointed questions about her and her spouse and the Frammageddon.

The incoming CEO needs to order a forensic audit of the previous 5 years.

[Beeblebrox]

Aren't you just a little bit disappointed though? I feel like you were probably looking forward to that.

[Vigilant]

Aren't you just a little bit disappointed though? I feel like you were probably looking forward to that.

Either way suits me.

I know that the stuff I dug up about her inherent conflict of interest with Laura Hale and Hale's grifting would prove fatal if it were allowed to be brought up. The board elections would have proved extremely embarrassing and she knew it.

They just extended the drama by a year with the election postponement.

Everything that Maria and Katherine worked to get done will likely be torn up and/or quietly abandoned by the next administration.

[Anroth]

Aren't you just a little bit disappointed though? I feel like you were probably looking forward to that.

Not really, its much better to audit people when they arnt looking over your shoulder. Its almost impossible in some orgs to have a decent investigation into wrongdoing while the person is still there. Often you want them gone so you can actually find out wtf they were up to.

Plus when they refuse to answer questions you can have all sorts of fun with that.

[Vigilant]

María_Sefidari (T-H-L) needs to be updated.

It should also have a section that talks about the Laura Hale/Frammageddon.

[ArmasRebane]

María_Sefidari (T-H-L) needs to be updated.

It should also have a section that talks about the Laura Hale/Frammageddon.

I doubt there's any reliable sources for that.

There's plenty of non-nefarious reasons to step down, although doing so in an "effective tomorrow" timeframe certainly doesn't look great...

[Vigilant]

María_Sefidari (T-H-L) needs to be updated.

It should also have a section that talks about the Laura Hale/Frammageddon.

I doubt there's any reliable sources for that.

There's plenty of non-nefarious reasons to step down, although doing so in an "effective tomorrow" timeframe certainly doesn't look great...

The previous post of hers, just prior to her resignation post, on wikimedia-l set the date for the board elections.

If anyone thinks these things aren't related, they haven't been paying attention.

[Vigilant]

Lest we forget

[Vigilant]

How deep did the rabbit hole go?

[Poetlister]

Worth noting that she' says she's been asked to take on a consultancy role, so she isn't exactly making a clean break.

[Vigilant]

Strangely enough, there are few well wishes from the community for Maria in response to this annoucenment.

Almost exclusively WMF sycophants and ne'er-do-wells.



I suspect Teh Communitah is thinking more along the lines of "Don't let the door hit ya' where the good lord split ya!' "

[Bezdomni]

Maria,

You personify the movement. It has been an incredible privilege to get to know you and
work with you. Thank you for being a free knowledge warrior!

It was Coleman, as I recall, who first publicized that recent NYT wiki-weds story on the same mailing list.

[Vigilant]

So, in very short order, the WMF has lost:
* CEO
* Her 'chief of staff'
* COO
* Chairman of the Board of Directors

None of these are going to be easy to fill with qualified candidates.

WMF Human Resources are notorious for doing a worse job than the Flow engineering team.



Who is actually in charge right now?
What becomes of all of the pie-in-the-sky wokeness proposals like uCoC(k) and 'equity'?

[CoffeeCrumbs]

One could argue that since they didn't have qualified people in those slots to being with, replacing them effectively is quite simple!

[Poetlister]

We critics are in a bind here. Do we bemoan the power vacuum or do we rejoice in it, given what we thought of the former powers that be? Do we press for the reinstatement of Jimbo as Chairman and nominate Larry Sanger for CEO? (That would really be a popcorn situation.)

[Midsize Jake]

We critics are in a bind here. Do we bemoan the power vacuum or do we rejoice in it, given what we thought of the former powers that be?

The "power vacuum" isn't so interesting in itself, if you ask me — though if anything, the WMF will probably operate much more efficiently and rationally while the power vacuum is in place. The proximate cause of the power vacuum (if any) and how they handle the process of bringing people in to fill the power vacuum would seem to be the interesting subjects here.

And as for that first thing, IMO it's easy to assume that all these people are leaving now because they believe they've mostly fulfilled their overarching "equity" agenda, they know that the whole thing might fail in the near-to-medium term, and they're trying to put as much distance career-wise between them and that potential failure as they can. But I don't know if that alone would explain this many top-level people leaving all at once. There's probably something else going on here... it just isn't super-obvious what that is.

[No Ledge]

it's easy to assume that all these people are leaving now because they believe they've mostly fulfilled their overarching "equity" agenda, they know that the whole thing might fail in the near-to-medium term, and they're trying to put as much distance career-wise between them and that potential failure as they can. But I don't know if that alone would explain this many top-level people leaving all at once. There's probably something else going on here... it just isn't super-obvious what that is.

They were all bullied into leaving?

[Zoloft]

it's easy to assume that all these people are leaving now because they believe they've mostly fulfilled their overarching "equity" agenda, they know that the whole thing might fail in the near-to-medium term, and they're trying to put as much distance career-wise between them and that potential failure as they can. But I don't know if that alone would explain this many top-level people leaving all at once. There's probably something else going on here... it just isn't super-obvious what that is.

They were all bullied into leaving?

More likely fleeing a potential lawsuit or prosecution by Federal or State Attorney General.

[Randy from Boise]

So, in very short order, the WMF has lost:
* CEO
* Her 'chief of staff'
* COO
* Chairman of the Board of Directors

None of these are going to be easy to fill with qualified candidates.

When was that ever an objective?

RfB

[Eberone]

We critics are in a bind here. Do we bemoan the power vacuum or do we rejoice in it, given what we thought of the former powers that be? Do we press for the reinstatement of Jimbo as Chairman and nominate Larry Sanger for CEO? (That would really be a popcorn situation.)

I'd pay good money to see the reinstatement of Jimbo as Chairman and Larry Sanger nominated for CEO.

[Bezdomni]

...Who is actually in charge right now?

Langley. (§)

I've also heard it's their serial 990-signer, the chief legal beagle the tides brought in, and somebody else... possibly not communications. CTO, CCO positions still seem to be covered though.

What becomes of all of the pie-in-the-sky wokeness proposals like uCoC(k) and 'equity'?

Let them make charts!

[Vigilant]

The executive assistant is in charge?

lmao

[No Ledge]

I thought he meant Langley, Virginia (T-H-L) aka the George Bush Center for Intelligence (T-H-L)

[Anroth]

The executive assistant is in charge?

lmao

Well exec assistants usually know where all the bodies are buried....

[Poetlister]

The executive assistant is in charge?

lmao

Well exec assistants usually know where all the bodies are buried....

Some exec assistants are better than their bosses.

[CoffeeCrumbs]

The whole mess continues.

From Maggie Dennis on Wikimedia-L

Hello, all.

I hope and trust that everyone is keeping well during these times!

I’m Maggie Dennis, Vice President of the Community Resilience &
Sustainability group of Wikimedia Foundation, within the Legal department.
I wanted to announce with pleasure that Maria Sefidari has agreed to
consult with the Foundation on Movement Strategy and the ongoing Board
evolution for the upcoming year. Many of us know María from her role as the
chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, from which she
provided invaluable leadership in governance, oversight, and fundraising.
Others may know her from her volunteer work as User:Raystorm
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Raystorm>, in which she has a broad
range of experience.

María, based in Spain, commenced her assignment with the Foundation this
week. We intend to tap into her expertise and knowledge of the Foundation
to support a successful implementation of the Movement’s Strategy and to
tap into new opportunities. (With her Board work, she will be supporting
Quim Gil’s team with the Board election and helping Margo Lee in improving
onboarding, documentation practices, and training.) María will report to me
as part of our Community Resilience & Sustainability group. I’m excited
that she accepted our offer for a more hands-on assignment, particularly
given how important all of the work she’ll be supporting is. With more
than 15 years of Wikimedia experience, her contributions in the next phase
will be a tremendous benefit to me and my team as we continue settling into
our own work on Movement Strategy.

Those of you who are involved with Movement Strategy are used to seeing her
at related meetings and still will. I anticipate María will be joining
one or more of the Movement Strategy global conversations
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movemen ... e_15,_2021>
this weekend. Advertisement alert: maybe you can, too? Here’s more detail
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movemen ... e_15,_2021>!
I myself will be attending at least one of those sessions and look forward
to seeing some of you there.

People object. Board lickspittles give conflicting accounts of unethical behavior.

[Midsize Jake]

People object. Board lickspittles give conflicting accounts of unethical behavior.

Based on what I'm seeing so far in that thread, I'd say pretty much everybody objects.

According to Glassdoor.com (and please note that Glassdoor may try to get you to register and provide some PII just to see this info, if you actually click on this), WMF contractors usually make about $35 an hour. I'd assume Ms. Sefidari could realistically claim about 20 hours a week for something like this, so that's a fairly decent income boost if it doesn't take too much time away from something more lucrative.

I'm not saying she couldn't be useful to them in this capacity, though, and I suspect most Wikipedians would say that she would be, or at least could be — even considering what happened two years ago with the whole Fram business. But to state/restate the obvious, it does look bad, especially for an organization that relies on so much of its work being done for free.

[Vigilant]

Wow. Just wow.

That is some skeevy shit that violates all conflict of interest guidelines.

Chris Keating nails it

Hi Amanda,

Thanks for the detailed comments. However, still, this doesn't really help
that much.

From your email it seems that over several months the WMF has created a new
role which just happens to be ideal for its outgoing Chair to fill, and
indeed could scarcely be filled by anyone else because it so closely
relates to the Board's priorities.

If this is allowed to happen then it raises serious questions about whether
Board members make decisions about the WMF's priorities in order to create
consultancy posts for themselves. As it happens I don't believe that is
what has happened here, but one could be forgiven for drawing that
conclusion. There is a clear appearance of a conflict of interest. And
there is a real risk of undermining the credibility of pretty much any
decision the Board might take in future, if people - the community, donors
or the media - start to believe that those decisions are being taken
because Board members will be eased into paid positions to implement them.

No amount of reassurances that conversations happened in a particular order
can avoid this. The letter and indeed the spirit of the WMF's conflict of
interest policy may have been followed. But the object of the WMF's
conflict of interest policy has not been achieved, quite the opposite. One
can follow a policy and end up making the wrong decision, and that's what's
happened here.

Thanks,

Chris

[Vigilant]

People object. Board lickspittles give conflicting accounts of unethical behavior.

Based on what I'm seeing so far in that thread, I'd say pretty much everybody objects.

According to Glassdoor.com (and please note that Glassdoor may try to get you to register and provide some PII just to see this info, if you actually click on this), WMF contractors usually make about $35 an hour. I'd assume Ms. Sefidari could realistically claim about 20 hours a week for something like this, so that's a fairly decent income boost if it doesn't take too much time away from something more lucrative.

I'm not saying she couldn't be useful to them in this capacity, though, and I suspect most Wikipedians would say that she would be, or at least could be — even considering what happened two years ago with the whole Fram business. But to state/restate the obvious, it does look bad, especially for an organization that relies on so much of its work being done for free.

She's a fool if she's charging less than $200/hour.

[Vigilant]

lololol

WMF's General Counsel everyone.....................

Amanda Keton General Counsel, Leadership Team

Amanda Keton is General Counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation.

Prior to joining Wikimedia, Amanda was General Counsel of Tides Network, a national public foundation deploying donor-advised grants and investments to build a world of shared prosperity and social justice. While in that role, she worked with the Wikimedia Foundation to establish the Wikimedia Endowment, a permanent source of funding to support the Wikimedia projects and mission in perpetuity. She also served as Head of Tides Foundation and People Operations and the CEO of Tides Advocacy, the policy affiliate in the Tides family of organizations. Before her work at Tides, Amanda worked for Ernst & Young providing nonprofit organizations with consulting, advisory, and compliance services.

Amanda currently serves on the Network for Good Board, which supports companies and organizations to target, retain, and engage donors through a variety of services. She previously co-chaired the Board of Directors for the San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Community Center during a period when they tripled their affordable nonprofit rental space and co-located service providers to help the Center’s program participants thrive in San Francisco. She also formerly served on the Board of Directors of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California and Equal Rights Advocates.

Amanda completed a Master of Arts in Education while teaching middle school and wrote her thesis on why culturally and linguistically diverse students opt out of gifted and talented programs. She is a member of the California State Bar and graduated with a Master of Laws in Taxation cum laude and Juris Doctor from the University of San Diego School of Law. She is based in San Diego.

Grifters at the trough.

FFS, wikipedia, you guys have the worst 'leaders'.

The IRS's FinCEN should be looking at your books.

[No Ledge]

There were some curious questions being added to the list for the WMF board candidates that left me wondering what I was missing, until I saw this thread.

This throws a serious kink into what I'd previously expected would be Dariusz' breeze to reelection.

Of course, nothing is certain with that, as this board has powers that Donald Trump only wishes he had.

[No Ledge]

So, in very short order, the WMF has lost:
* CEO
* Her 'chief of staff'
* COO
* Chairman of the Board of Directors

None of these are going to be easy to fill with qualified candidates.

WMF Human Resources are notorious for doing a worse job than the Flow engineering team.



Who is actually in charge right now?
What becomes of all of the pie-in-the-sky wokeness proposals like uCoC(k) and 'equity'?

So I guess it's Amanda Keton and the Tides Foundation that are in charge now. And, not so fast. The former CEO and the former Chair of the Board still seem to have a lot of influence, so even if they're not "officially" in charge, they de facto still are.

[Poetlister]

Maybe the Board wanted Maria to step down and this was the bribe that was necessary to get her to agree. Could this be in breach of the rules for the governance of non-profits? If so, it's a matter for the appropriate authorities.

[Vigilant]

So, the most corrupt member of the board, since Jimmy had his WMF credit card revoked for getting a Russian 'massage' on the company dime, has managed to secure themselves an opaque, no-show mob-style job and the current management of the WMF are baldly refusing to reconsider their decision in the face of unanimous opposition.


LMAO!!!

The Hasten-the-Day crowd couldn't have scripted this clusterfuck any better if they'd been consulted ahead of time.

[Poetlister]

There has been a lot of opposition from senior figures including Florence Devouard, who recalls the fuss when Eric Moeller left the Board and was made deputy director.

[CoffeeCrumbs]

On some level, I'm impressed with the chutzpah displayed here. This wasn't some cleverly disguised gray-area chicanery, they basically *proudly trumpeted* internal self-dealing and had General Counsel happily announce too bad, so sad, nothing they're going to do about it.

[Without Comfort]

It's certainly a tacit admission on their part that they don't have the resilience or forethought to handle leadership changes. Every org loses leaders. You're supposed to prepare and build competencies within the org. Your strategic plan is a failure if you're relying on one person to implement it, or even know how. I suppose hiring the former leader to fix the glaring omission they had themselves messed up is another way to go...

[Vigilant]

9:14 p.m.

"Moving forward" would involve directly addressing and fixing this shocking
example of board malgovernance, not corporate-doublespeaking about the
future in a way that avoids any and all culpability and transparency for
this gross ethical lapse. This doesn't need to be "explained" to us; it
needs to be remedied. Preferably with pen, paper, and farewells for the
pushers of this latest débâcle.

Best,

Dan

[Vigilant]

Who knew that getting your chief legal counsel from the company you were sending millions in donation monies to would end up looking so bad?

Swine at the trough.

[Poetlister]

The Wikimedia Foundation is hosting an office hour featuring Chief Financial Officer Jaime Villagomez and General Counsel Amanda Keton, two of the transition team guiding the Wikimedia Foundation during its executive transition. It will also feature guests from the Wikimedia Foundation’s Board of Trustees (BoT), to be determined over the next few days, and Community Resilience & Sustainability Vice President Maggie Dennis. The main purpose of the call is to discuss questions related to Wikimedia Foundation executive transition, including the retention of María Sefidari as an advisor to Movement Strategy and supporting and onboarding the expanding BoT. Come with your questions or feedback, and let’s talk! You can also send us your questions in advance.

This office hour will be on June 29 at 15:00 UTC

Meta

The "community" is so restless that the WMF had to call a meeting. I am sure that some people here will want to attend or at least send in questions. Risker can be added to the list of notables expressing disapproval.

[Emptyeye]

So, acknowledging that en-wp <> wikipedia, and the US <> The World, does the WMF holding this meeting at basically "Early work hours, Tuesday morning" in the US strike anyone else as them trying to do the bare minimum of "fulfilling the optics of making it look like we care about what community has to say without having to ACTUALLY care about what the community has to say, by scheduling the meeting at such a time that most of the community can't make it?" Or is it just me?

Maybe that should be one of the questions sent in in advance!

[No Ledge]

"Early work hours, Tuesday morning" in California is when they usually like to do online meetings to maximize participation.
That's later in the morning or noontime on the east coast, later in the afternoon in London, early evening in eastern Europe, etc. It's after midnight, next day in Sydney so they're the ones who have to stay up past their bedtime.

[No Ledge]

They could run a second office hour later in the day to accommodate Wikipedians in Japan, Australia and India.

[Vigilant]

In spite of their bullshit office hour/apology tour, they do not care one scintilla what Teh Communitah thinks.

This is bukakke theater at its finest.

[Poetlister]

From our old friend Andreas Kolbe.

Adam,

I understand that you would like to see María provide advice, but this is a
volunteer organisation – everybody, WMF paid staff excepted, works, and
contributes their expertise, for free. That includes board members. And I
fail to see why a board member who – according to Form 990 data at least[1]
– has in most years worked an average of 2 hours per week for the WMF can
not be expected to provide her advice on the same basis.

Even if the Form 990 information were for some reason a gross
underestimate, I am absolutely certain that there are many Wikipedians who
have spent as many and more volunteer hours on their contributions – be it
writing outstanding articles, like SlimVirgin did for many years, or
volunteer work on various committees – than the average board member. Who
pays them?

Think about it. You can have some volunteers be more equal than others,
make them the recipients of financial favours, but it is not a recipe for
harmony, and for good reason. And if you head an organisation that relies
on volunteer labour for almost its entire process of value generation, you
should be prepared to work for it as a volunteer.

Andreas

[1] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprof ... 03803/full

[Emptyeye]

So Vig's point aside, which I read as confirmation of my thesis that "The WMF doesn't actually care what the community thinks, but has to go through the motions of looking like they do", what I'm hearing is that they schedule the meetings at this time to maximize participation from around the world. Which, well, see my initial questions. Maybe it's because I'm from the US, but to me , while en.wp <> Wikipedia, it probably IS responsible for a substantial portion of what happens within the Wikipedia movement, whatever that is. And I imagine most of the people from en.wp would would voice their concerns about this would be too busy, you know, working on Tuesday to be able to attend.

Then again, maybe my perception of the Wikipedia Power Editor is completely wrong--indeed, I think I've seen it noted that people who edit Wikipedia to the degree that you'd consider them a "Wikipedia regular", if they have jobs, have jobs that afford them a lot of free time to, well, edit Wikipedia during work.

[No Ledge]

So Vig's point aside, which I read as confirmation of my thesis that "The WMF doesn't actually care what the community thinks, but has to go through the motions of looking like they do", what I'm hearing is that they schedule the meetings at this time to maximize participation from around the world. Which, well, see my initial questions. Maybe it's because I'm from the US, but to me , while en.wp <> Wikipedia, it probably IS responsible for a substantial portion of what happens within the Wikipedia movement, whatever that is. And I imagine most of the people from en.wp would would voice their concerns about this would be too busy, you know, working on Tuesday to be able to attend.

Then again, maybe my perception of the Wikipedia Power Editor is completely wrong--indeed, I think I've seen it noted that people who edit Wikipedia to the degree that you'd consider them a "Wikipedia regular", if they have jobs, have jobs that afford them a lot of free time to, well, edit Wikipedia during work.

Of course, of course I edit Wikipedia during "normal work hours"! Why do you think I keep asking for coffee refills?

So, I guess K. Maher's "volunteer compensation model" is that disadvantaged people like the former Board chair can just waltz into paid jobs doing nothing more special than the rest of us do, while we still can't even get free coffee.

[Vigilant]

Genderdesk loses her mind.

TL;DR - Someone without a penis is being called on the carpet.

My favorite quote

TBH, and realistically, the chances of this are not the best, but I would like to see WP sue someone on behalf of LH; the diehards will not believe it is Fake News until that happens.

I'm fairly certain that neither Maria Sefidari Huici nor Laura Hale nor the WMF want to entertain discovery.

P.S. GD seems to have triggered the swivel-eyed loon who has been ranting and flinging feces around his little subreddit zoo.

[Poetlister]

Maggie Dennis says categorically "I want to address and firmly deny rumors that any Board member has ever attempted to influence Trust & Safety (T&S) to take office action (including warnings) in relation to any behavioral investigation." (See full text below.) This is of course the lady that a prominent member of this board wants to see in an even more senior role at WMF.

Hi, everybody.

It’s Sunday, and there’s a lot of meetings today, and I wrestled with
whether to say this without necessarily having the full time to think about
all the ways I could say it wrong and potentially make misunderstandings
worse. We’re having a meeting on Tuesday specifically to discuss issues of
concern to people around this consultancy. But I’d like to openly address
the suggestion that María may have influenced a Trust & Safety case here.

First: it is against policy (and it is a policy I helped write and support
whole-heartedly) to talk about the specifics of Trust & Safety behavioral
investigations in public in order as much as possible to protect the
privacy and dignity of all involved. Public in this case includes even
among staff, most of whom have no need to know when a case is even under
review. We do discuss these cases with some volunteer groups who have
signed non-disclosure agreements, but even that is limited. Only recently
have we created a body who can review Trust & Safety case files on
appropriate appeal.

Given this policy, I’m going to have to be uncomfortably vague, but I want
to address and firmly deny rumors that any Board member has ever attempted
to influence Trust & Safety (T&S) to take office action (including
warnings) in relation to any behavioral investigation. (See the Meta page,
which includes a list of the individuals
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Global_Ban_Policy>.) I know that my
saying so isn’t necessarily going to reassure folks. Some may think I’m
deluded, and some may think I’m lying, but for me silence on this point is
unacceptable.

Neither María nor any other trustee ever exerted any influence over any
Trust & Safety case. The Board does not provide guidance on how cases
should be handled unless asked (which is rare). Even executive staff do not
weigh in on Trust & Safety recommended approaches until an investigation
itself is complete and has been reviewed by an attorney.

I know this because I’ve been involved in one aspect or another in Trust &
Safety’s behavioral investigations since 2012, when we imposed our first
Foundation ban. Over the years, we have created a process by which
behavioral investigations may be launched by request from anyone; Trust &
Safety staff review all requests, no matter who makes it, to determine if a
request is within their mandate. If it is, they open a case.

Speaking candidly, in the 9 years I’ve been involved in this, I have seen
bias when issues touch on treatment of staff members or Board members or
those who are close to them. But it is a bias against taking action that
might make it look like the Foundation is trying to silence legitimate
criticism. Those of you who handle behavioral issues on our projects are
very aware that “trolls” are not our major problem. People who are hostile
with no reason are easily taken care of. The problem is when people who go
on the attack may have reason (even if only partial) to be unhappy. It’s
hard to address the way people approach problems independently of those
problems. It’s hard to say “You have a point, but you can’t handle it that
way” without some people seeing you as trying to avoid the point. But there
are some approaches to problems that are unacceptable. Staff, Board
members, and those who are close to them deserve reasonable protection,
too.

The involvement of anyone close to María in a behavioral investigation has
only been speculation by some in community. That makes it questionable for
me to say this, but I think it’s important to say: it is true that one of
the several people who reached out with concerns about Fram had a
connection to a member of the Board. This did have an impact on the case.
The impact it had was that Fram was given two warnings (about a year apart)
before we took office action instead of the more common one. (Fram has
acknowledged receiving warnings
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... an_of_Fram>,
otherwise I would feel very uncomfortable noting this myself.)

Whether consulting with María at this moment and in this way is appropriate
or not is a discussion we will have on Tuesday. However, it disturbs me to
know that some people claim María acted inappropriately in regards to a
Trust & Safety case when I know better. Granted, I was on leave when the
final office action was enacted, but I was not on leave in the months and
years that preceded it and was not unaware of the discussions surrounding
that case. I wouldn’t feel very good about myself as a person if I didn’t
push back on that misimpression of her behavior in that case and explain
that (I fully and honestly believe) any bias goes the other way.

As uncomfortable as it will make me, I will not respond to other questions
about this case in this venue, with this audience, although (as always) I
am happy to talk about Trust & Safety’s general approach with people and
will do so at other opportunities.

Best regards,
Maggie

[CoffeeCrumbs]

"Trust me, I totally didn't do anything wrong!"

People with authority and an incentive lie will *gasp* inevitably lie. Companies that have such turmoil and abuse of power charges and want to make a good-faith effort to demonstrate the truth tend to relent to independent commissions. This one just TOTALLY PINKY SWEARS WE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG.