Her contributions to the exchange were certainly unprofessionally hostile (“I don’t have time for this.”), but in and of itself that sort of behavior isn’t a real problem. The actual problem is that as a person with a large following, her hostility precipitated harassment by her followers that ultimately drove Lecun from Twitter. For someone on the receiving end there isn’t a meaningful distinction between whether someone harasses them directly or whether they incite harassment by others.
From what I’ve read about Gebru and this situation it doesn’t seem implausible to me that had she identified the reviewers she would have named them in a public venue and characterized their criticisms as being driven by discriminatory bias or an intent to suppress her work. Obviously nobody is going to present criticism, regardless of whether the criticism is legitimate, if that is a possible consequence.
From what I’ve read about Gebru and this situation it doesn’t seem implausible to me that had she identified the reviewers she would have named them in a public venue and characterized their criticisms as being driven by discriminatory bias or an intent to suppress her work. Obviously nobody is going to present criticism, regardless of whether the criticism is legitimate, if that is a possible consequence.