1. Rarst

    I don’t know the story behind the ‘friendly and consensual sexual banter’ (as someone called it) of those tweets so I’ve got zero context on how the conversations led to Joost saying things like

    Since I was the one who characterized the exchange like that (in earlier comment here on Tavern), I’d like to reiterate that it’s trivial to look up tweets form that time period and see that the other party in conversation was very much shooting naughty tweets back.

    Yeah, it wasn’t wise and mature behavior in public. But it was two consenting adults talking.

    And people went out of their way to imply that it was not and attacked women who disagreed with that narrative.

    I am not harping on this to protect Joost, he doesn’t need my protection in any case, being a powerful figure he would be just fine in any case.

    I just have keen sense of being bullshited and it got pretty clear that attack on event just wasn’t in good faith. Hijacking real and serious issues for personal whatever–that–was is gross.


    • David Cohen

      You seem a little ignorant about the entirety of the situation being discussed here. It’s not about old creepy sex Tweets Joost tweeted to women while he was married. It’s not about hiring Playmates at their SEO events. It’s about 10+ years of sexism, abuse, and harassment in the industry that has been enabled and silenced by the most powerful industry leaders. If you care to know more, read this: https://medium.com/@gisele_navarro/dear-seo-industry-we-need-to-talk-about-elitism-and-sexual-harassment-23a338e56e73

      For years, people like Rand Fishkin, who is closely aligned with Joost/Yoast has been writing about the sex abuse, objectification, and harassment of women: https://www.reddit.com/r/bigseo/comments/7g5mpt/howdy_rbigseo_im_rand_fishkin_cofounder_of_moz_ama/dqhbxuk/

      So, anyone who continues to make this about “old tweets”, or “old SEO event videos with Playmates”, or “Dirndls”, or slapping some disingenuous statute of limitations argument against dealing with known and documented abuse issues is being a fraud and intellectually dishonest.

      And beside, what kind of self-proclaimed male feminists would knowingly want this content of theirs all over the internet for anyone to find? Seems idiotic for people who claim to be male feminists and 100% against misogyny and objectification of women to party with Playmates and plaster it all over the internet.


      • Rarst

        You made this about old tweets and videos. You literally spent days spamming event’s hash tag with that and just that.

        So if you want to call yourself a fraud and intellectually dishonest person over them — you are welcome to I suppose.


  2. Miroslav Glavic

    “partying with promotional models”, at many WordCamps, that are weekend long…the party is on Saturday and not Sunday. Many of those parties (not just WordCamps) are at a local pub/bar or restaurant.

    What is wrong with partying? English is not my first language. For me it’s being at a club, at the VIP table, some going to the dance floor, others in the VIP tables drinking a beer (or whatever alcohol). Countless tech events and seo events have parties.


    • David Cohen

      Not sure where or how the idea that “partying” is under attack here or has anything remotely to do with women who have stories and claims of being abused, harassed, and objectified at events and by particular people.

      What is under attack is hypocrisy, secrecy, manipulation, gaslighting, and other forms of abuse to silence women who are victims and to 100% avoid the accountability and responsibility of saying you are one thing but behaving like the opposite.

      If you went to a WordPress, SEO, or tech event that was run by self-proclaimed male feminists and at the after party, a bunch of hired Playmates or strippers rolled into the party, what would you think? Maybe something’s off here?

      And who’s making claims of known abuse or harassment in the industry? Some of the most prominent and well-known leaders of them all: https://www.reddit.com/r/bigseo/comments/7g5mpt/howdy_rbigseo_im_rand_fishkin_cofounder_of_moz_ama/dqhbxuk/

      More from Rand about conference harassment: https://jacobstoops.com/blog/interview-with-rand-fishkin-co-founder-of-moz-and-sparktoro/

      Yes, when the pressure is now on for the same person to speak up and act up, he’s calling it crap: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dzt9ZvhX4AAz34r.png:large

      Why in the world would a self-proclaimed male feminist tell a woman and feminist everything she’s saying and doing here is crap? https://medium.com/@gisele_navarro/dear-seo-industry-we-need-to-talk-about-elitism-and-sexual-harassment-23a338e56e73


  3. WPezDeveloper

    I’d like to give the guy the benefit of the doubt but a year or two ago JdV blocked me on Facebook for questioning the quality of his SEO plugin’s code. In the wake of a series of WSDs, it was hard to imagine why such honesty would upset him that badly.

    Is he qualified for the position? Probably.

    Does the WP Community deserve better? Yes! Certainly, there’s got to be a better choice somewhere. #YoastCon isn’t his only reputation problem, is it?


    • David Cohen

      I’m the director of marketing at a software company. I’ve been a digital marketing director at various tech-related companies since 2009. I’ve also been an account executive and global relationship manager at a large marketing SEO where my largest client was a then Fortune 25 company.

      So as a marketing director and peer to others in my world, especially male leaders, it makes zero sense to keep the Playmate party videos and weird sex tweets to women on Twitter live on the internet for the whole world to see. Not just my opinion – but it also looks really bad when the person deletes all of the content after days of mounting pressure to address it all.

      It also looks like pure hypocrisy to rebrand yourself as a male feminist and leader of women’s rights and empowerment yet have all of this questionable misogynistic and objectification content out there for any woman to see and judge.

      But to continue the lie that this is some attack on YoastCon, Yoast’s CEO, the company, individuals, etc. is fraudulent and PR diversion tactic from the core issues, like those being discussed with intellectual honesty and integrity here: https://medium.com/@gisele_navarro/dear-seo-industry-we-need-to-talk-about-elitism-and-sexual-harassment-23a338e56e73


  4. Ant Ekşiler

    I am not defending the tweets, but judging someone for a photo at a poker event is childish.

    Why would someone’s personal life interest you? It’s a SEO conference ffs.


  5. Louis Reingold

    I’d love to see some coverage of Yoast vs the newer SEO plugins.

    In Oxygen we had to make a BIG effort to integrate it with Yoast (the API was not fun), whereas with SEOPress it’s essentially one line of code to integrate.


  6. Mark

    Am I the only one who finds it shocking that a company scrubs more than 75% of its past tweets?

    That must have been an account with heaps of garbage produced by one JdV.

    Lesson learned: make a new company account instead of borrowing the one of the owner.

    Lesson learned: if it is not worth reading back in 10 years, don’t write about it at all.

    Lesson learned: if you turn your name into your company name, you’d better be 100% sure you have a pristine online past.

    Lesson learned: your past will catch up with you sooner or later


Comments are closed.

%d bloggers like this: