AbleGamers is a charity that I have some familiarity with. I actually spoke on a panel for AbleGamers in 2012 at PAX, when I also accepted the award for Accessible Mainstream Game of the Year on behalf of the SWTOR team. Their mission has always been noble, and from my viewpoint does three things:
- Help raise money so that kids with disabilities can buy peripherals allowing them to game.
- Help raise awareness among developers that design choices can limit their game’s reach among those with disabilities.
- Help the differently-abled identify games that can be played with people despite their disabilities.
Designing with disabilities in mind is often put off way too late in the development cycle of the game. It’s often easy to do if you include factors early in development, but hard when you factor it in late. Common examples of things that should always be included but aren’t include: colorblind-friendly UI design or alternate mode (8% of males are RG colorblind – this is significant!), ability to remap literally any command to allow for alternate control mechanisms, and including close captioning and not depending on audio cues for key playability. You know, all those things in the options menu that you never turn on.
Anyway, I think they’re good guys, so when I heard that they were the target charity for a porn stream with GamerGate, I was disappointed and surprised. Maybe not too surprised – charities can’t always be too picky where the checks come from – but still.
Anyway, it turns out the people setting up the charity drive forgot to tell AbleGamers that gamergate was involved.
On December 5 2014, we received an email requesting permission for a charity event from an associate of Mercedes Carrera. The email had very few details other than “Would you be okay if a porn star raised money for your cause and donated it to you?”
As a sex positive organization, our immediate response was “Absolutely. We would be honored to be chosen….”
In doing our due diligence we discovered the event organizer was putting together a GamerGate stream that would “for now” be “a charity stream” because they “cannot mention that it is a GG stream as it might shy away BZ (Brazzers) and others.”
AbleGamers became concerned by the lack of transparency in the original emails having made no mention of GamerGate. We became further alarmed as the post continued adding “GamerGate [h]as just weaponized porn.”
AbleGamers backed out of their commitment once the #GamerGate link was made apparent. They made it clear that they consider themselves as not taking a stance in the battle.
AbleGamers is a group of diverse volunteers from many different backgrounds. All of our volunteers have their own personal feelings on GamerGate and what it stands for. However, as an organization, AbleGamers is 100% neutral.
This did not stop some loose cannons in #GamerGate from letting their displeasure for being rejected known. Shortly after the announcement, AbleGamers website was attacked or DDOSed. They attacked noted awesome person and Gamergate nemesis Randi Harper for offering her help with DDOS mitigation, and then claimed it was probably her that did it. Veiled threats that this could all be over if AbleGamers would play ball. And then GamerGate decided that AbleGamers was a stupid SJW charity that wanted to limit artistic freedom anyway. They accused devs who supported AbleGamer’s decision of ‘sabotaging a charity’. One talked about investigating AbleGamers for Tax Fraud. And then they accused AbleGamers of faking DDOSing themselves because after the attack, it reverted to a blank white page.
Yes, the website is back up. Yes, its blank. No, we don’t know what happened after the DDoS. We can only tell you what our host tells us.
— AbleGamers Charity (@AbleGamers) December 7, 2014
And then, of course, is just the wall of fucking outrage, where Gamergate en masse sea lioned AbleGamers for their decision, and pretty much missed the entire point and, at times, made shit up wholesale about AbleGamers stance. Keep in mind, this is a charity that was utterly uninvolved with GamerGate until THEY attempted to reach out to AbleGamers to be a charity recipient. And keep in mind that AG didn’t speak out AGAINST GG, they just declared their desire to not be involved in the fight.
If you want to support AbleGamers, I encourage you to donate to them directly here.
well, this is so sad. a lot of people wanted this to work. just like the TFYC indigogo campain, there were so many obsticals in the way, DDos being an aweful similarity. if the dynamic in whitch they can operate in a supportive manner has changed I am not sure of what they will resort to. this is bad. if the more radical voices of gamergate gain in popularity then the worst has jet to come. there has to be some sort of fire detention.
Do you have any evidence that it was a DDoS attack? No you haven’t, because it wasn’t DDoS attack and evidence shows it, so don’t lie Damion. http://theralphretort.com/truth-behind-ablegamers-ddos-attack/ Just another basless accuations.
And your headline is even more disgusting and not true. You might want to look at what people with disabilities have to say about charity who doesn’t want their money. GG isn’t beating up on gamers with disabilities because many of us ARE disabled. But of course, this wouldn’t fit to your narrative.
Oh, Ebolachan says they weren’t DDoS’d, guys, guess this whole thing is invalid. Also they should have totally used Cloudflare. That just shows how inept the admin for this website promoting a charity is.
It is admittedly hard to tell the difference between a DDOS attack and being slashdotted — particularly since “DDOS” seems to be commonly used to mean “my website is down for some reason” nowadays.
Yeah, exactly. AbleGamers has no real idea what happened, or if they do, they’re not saying. It’s just that their website went down.
Hrm — actually, it looks like Ablegamers has evidence that it was from a block of ten IP addresses, which very much indicates it was a DDOS attack. (Most slashdots take more than ten buildings…)
And a GG representative issues an apology saying in part, sorry for the DDoS, but we’re decentralized and shit happens. And thanks to theralphretort for disseminating reports, even though the one linked in this here thread was about Ebolachan saying it wasn’t a DDoS because he’s totally a legit NOC engineer, yo.
Also, the ‘weaponized porn’ was taken out of context. Whatever. At least Ablegamers took it well.
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sj1ib2
Why can’t the gaters who have money to donate just donate the money anonymously? The only reason that would be impossible is if there was never any real charitable impulse and the whole thing was just intended to be used as whitewashing PR.
You’re basically saying ‘why have charity drives? Obviously everyone who wants to give would be giving privately’. Pretty sure charities would refute that.
No, what I’m saying is what I said. There are gaters claiming that money has been “taken” from AbleGamers because AG refused to accept it under the aegis of a whitewashing public-relations stunt. This is only true if the only reason gaters would donate was the public-relations stunt.
It wasn’t really a GamerGate thing, to be honest. There would have been GG support because of Mercedes Carrera’s involvement, and it probably would have been added to the list of shit GG donated to, but ultimately, it would have been people paying for access to a porn stream, and the profits from that stream being donated to AbleGamers.
The stream is still happening, but I think the target is now a scholarship for STEM. Mercedes used to be an engineer, so it kind of fits.
The reaction was confusing. I think disabled GGers were pissed more than anyone else, because they knew the funding wouldn’t be helping them anymore. A lot of the rest was confusion about why the site was down. Claims of the DDoS were regarded as questionable, since everyone knew that at the very least, the shit wasn’t organized on /gg/ or KiA. It’s similar to how a lot of people react to being falsely accused; “You’re lying” is easier to believe than “you’re mistaken” when people are mad. When you’re part of a large group, it’s even harder to believe that anyone around you could be a big enough ass hole to DDoS a charity, especially one that benefits many members of said group.
I’m still confused by the whole thing, but I donated personally, because they seem like a good organization. The sealioning just happens when you have a large number of people interested in something. I don’t think there’s a good way to avoid it.
Well, I don’t speak for all disabled people, but I am disabled. I’m fine with AbleGamers opting out of getting involved with GamerGate. I also think that GamerGate should absolutely be honest about their involvement with things rather than attempting to dishonestly trick people into getting involved.
AbleGamers is a really great charity, and everyone who may have donated still has the option to do so. I would like to know why GamerGaters apparently only wanted to donate when it might benefit them. Do gamers with disabilities only matter when it benefits GamerGate?
There are only two things that benefit Gamergate.
1. Chaos
2. Noise
Anything else leads to conflict resolution, and that is anathema to a mob.
So first, GamerGate claimed that Randi doxed them. Then, GamerGate claimed they doxed themselves. Then GamerGate claimed that no dox happening. And now, as per John’s link below, GamerGate is apologizing for rogue GamerGater doxing. Who is throwing around baseless accusations? (Incidentally, I did say ‘attacked or DDOSed’. It is indisputable that, shortly after the announcement, GG threw something at Ablegamers that took down their web service)
Also, what is disgusting is the way that GG turned on an independent organization who was COMPLETELY UNINVOLVED with Gamergate-the-scandal, once AbleGamers spurned their shady and deceptive attempts to set up the charity stream. With this, GamerGate no longer is just attacking SJWs and people who have declared them opposed to GamerGate, they are actually picking targets, and then bludgeoning them with a stick if those targets decide not to immediately side with GamerGate. And in this case, the target literally is a charity for disabled kids.
Felicia Day, regardless of who doxxed her was attacked afterward by gatemergate, BECAUSE she was doxxed.
“Do you have any evidence that it was a DDoS attack? No you haven’t, because it wasn’t DDoS attack and evidence shows it, so don’t lie Damion. http://theralphretort.com/truth-behind-ablegamers-ddos-attack/ Just another basless accuations. ”
Gee who to trust? The charity or a gamergate aligned schlock-tabloid site? descisions descisions…
“You might want to look at what people with disabilities have to say about charity who doesn’t want their money.”
People can still donate. AbleGamers just doesn’t want to be used as a shield by gamergate. If folk genuinely wanted to doante to AbleGamers cause they would do however all this bitching and whining because AbleGamers won’t take donations from gamergate reveals that the donation was a PR attempt, as does the torrent of abuse and bile gamergate subsequently poured on AbleGamers.
“GG isn’t beating up on gamers with disabilities because many of us ARE disabled. ”
So it’s a pure coincidence that shortly after rejecting gamergate AbleGamers comes under attack? This happens way too foten to be a coincidence so, if you beleive that, fancy buying a bridge?
What this illustrates, most of all, is how even #GamerGate moderates have no understanding of consent and why it’s important. That’s why they don’t see sea lioning as problematic, if not outright harassment. That’s why they have no idea why a charity, approached in, well if not in bad faith, at least under shady pretenses, might want to avoid the whole ordeal. That’s why they think that “SJWs hate porn, so we’ll weaponize that against them”. Because they can’t understand the difference between a ‘parody comic’ involving sex with an ideological opponent and sex work performed between consenting adults. Time and again, they show that they have no understanding of why the feelings of the other party are important and why not having consent to an interaction is a problem IN AND OF ITSELF.
DDoS eh?
Must be why the other 7 sites hosted on the exact same IP suffered zero outtages.
psst narrative http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sj1ib2
Eh I think this all speaks more to the disorganized nature of GG than anything else. I mean, I don’t know for a fact that a GG supporter/s put together a DDoS attack but it is certainly possible. I would say even likely.
Does this speak for everyone that is a supporter of GG? No…………and yes, it does, because they have no organization. Hence why they can’t interact with another organization like this charity on a coherent level.
Also just the fact that GG is trying to use charities to ‘win’ internet arguments speaks to their lack of any focus. What did any of them think they would achieve by this? Make a few memes showing they support disabled gamers? What does that have to do with their issues?
There are certain aspects of GG that I sympathize with but it is stuff like this that makes me keep a good distance from it.
On another issue, frankly I did not know anything about this AbleGamers or their purpose till now. Seems like a good cause.
Also my much more limited experience in software dev then your own Damion has still taut me that thinking of elements in the design from the start is much easier than trying to insert it at the end. I agree that game devs should consider this stuff early in development.
Whether or not the doxing was done by a devout, ‘named’ gamergater or was done by a rogue group (as some claim) is certainly up for debate. What is not up for debate is that, if the Eye of Sauron that is GamerGate falls on you, bad shit will happen to you.
Also, what’s also not up for debate is the endless rivers of shit thrown at AbleGamers via twitter and on KiA by known and named GamerGaters – i.e. Sea Lioning. When aimed at women, this tactic often takes nasty, sexist tones. Any one sea lion post is not harassment, however, the brunt of a full sea lion experience definitely feels like it.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B4abjpVIAAAfJj9.png
Wow, is that the GG narrative about this? It’s weird to see the delusions.
AbleGamers didn’t refuse money from GG — they refused to be used as a clandestine weapon by an organization that lied about who they were because they knew even porn sites wouldn’t have anything to do with them at this point. They simply declined to take place in a fundraiser to which they were invited in bad faith. GG has — as far as I know — yet to offer them a cent, and again, to the best of my knowledge, they have turned down no actual offerings, just the opportunity to take part in a fundraiser based on lies and misinformation.
GG is naturally spinning it to try to make themselves look good, which is essentially how they react to everything. So yes, we are glad you didn’t victimize AbleGamers, and disappointed that they have been attacked and slandered for refusing to play the part written for them. And disappointed that they didn’t get to have a fundraiser because GG couldn’t act in good faith towards them. Hopefully they have other plans that don’t require working with someone who misrepresents themselves.
I still laugh that they know thought it was better to not let on that they were part of GG to that haven of social justice feminism, Brazzers.
From a professional liar and spinner I wil take it as a compliment. You project your faults in GG way too much.
I can’t tell if you’re disingenuous or deluded. So well done on that?
Every last person in GG is still able to donate as much money to AbleGamers as they want, on their own, individually.
Hell, if it matters so much to you, why not all do it anonymously? If it’s something you genuinely care about, surely the only thing that matters is that you guys give to help a charity that aids disabled gamers, right?
Or is it important that GG’s name be attached? Is it important that the world know that GG, as a community, is donating?
If the answer to that last part is “yes,” then this is what we call weaponized charity. Where the point isn’t the donations, it’s the PR boost for your movement.
http://i.imgur.com/fT5lAF2.jpg
“Nice charity you’ve got there. It’d be a shame if something happened to it. But we’re not targeting you or anything.”
Saddening, but unsurprising.
It’s not like this is the first time this has happened…