Jon Pretty was cancelled in April 2021 by two ex-partners and 23 professionals from the Scala community over allegations which were shocking to the people who read them. The allegations, in two blog posts and an “Open Letter”, were not true.

These publications had a devastating effect on Jon, on his career, and on his personal life, which he wrote about last week - see https://pretty.direct/impact , and which he has barely started recovering from.

There was probably lasting damage done to the Scala Community too.

Here are two submissions on Jon Pretty, one from 2021 when the cancellation happened, and another from this year when it became clear who the wrongdoers really were. It is really interesting to compare the nature of discussion between the two threads:

2021 My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26961482

2025 The untold impact of cancellation https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44755644

ETA: Here's another thread:

2024 Jon Pretty wins in court against sexual harassment claims by Scala community https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40169578

If Jon believes he has been defamed he should pursue it through the courts. It looks like he is UK based and the UK has very friendly defamation laws. I don't agree with how easy it is to pursue people for defamation in the UK but this is a model case for what these laws were designed to prevent.