Believe me. I have to live with the fact that I tolerated this behavior and enabled a ton of harassment for way too long when I had the ability to stop it. Making a post like this in hackernews I guess is my way of trying to make things right.
So many people told me I had it wrong and I didn't listen.
Looking at the positives here though: it's a sign of progress and maturity that you recognize you made mistakes that unintentionally aided bullies, and that you're trying to help others not make those same mistakes. So few people are willing to admit things like this.
It's Popper's classic Paradox of Tolerance: to maintain a tolerant society, we have to be intolerant of intolerance.
So many people told me I had it wrong and I didn't listen.