Over the weekend, the Boston Magazine (edit: whoops, not the Globe) did an article which paints rather convincingly the image that GamerGate Firestarter Eron Gjoni is, in fact, the ex-boyfriend from hell. You know, as if ‘directing an international hate mob onto his exes’ girlfriend with malice and glee’ wasn’t enough.
Over the past several months, Gjoni has been working on a sequel to “The Zoe Post.” When I spoke to him in February, he had created a quick-and-dirty follow-up, which he described as “a full unminced explanation of why” he wrote the original, perhaps packed with even more of Quinn’s private information, and God knows what else. He was worried that he’d get thrown in jail for violating the restraining order, and so had set the sequel, like a time bomb, “to auto-publish if I don’t disable it 24 hours after any court date.”
Helpful tip: lots of people have had their hearts broken. Lots of people have dated people who they think are crazy, evil, or otherwise bad news. However, if you find yourself planning to do something like the above, willfully ignoring a restraining order, you are the bad guy. Period. Of course Eron doesn’t see it that way. Eron is offended that the writer doesn’t seem to care that the Zoe Post is provably true (according to Eron) – look at the Facebook logs! Dear Eron: that’s actually not the relevant part of the story. The fact that Eron did not try to deny anything in the article having to do with the malice he wrote the original Zoe Post, nor the plans he outlined above, establishes that Eron is completely oblivious to the effects of his actions. And, for example, why a court was utterly justified in their actions against him.
In related news, I wrote last week that the Honey Badgers were kicked out of the Calgary Expo. They are now trying to fundraise so they can sue the Calgary Expo for their removal. Funny thing, though, is that their affiliated men’s group, A Voice For Men, has NO PROBLEM kicking out elements they find disruptive from their own conference. As pointed out by We Hunted the Mammoth:
They keep saying, “No feminist better try coming here!” Local police have dispatched four officers, and the conference attendees have deputized even more security from their own ranks. “Security” wears black polo shirts, and there are a lot of black polo shirts, but since the line is slow, security decides to sweep us all in with a request to return for a “check.” Nobody does. Only one feminist later attempts entry, an activist who goes by the handle “Dark Horse Swore.” The black shirts eighty-six her.
Hypocrisy is nothing new to any game-related discussion, but those following this odorous hashtag really do take the cake with the completeness of their projection and lack of self-awareness. To wit, take a look at this graphic that was being passed around today on twitter, which is basically a full primer of the hypocrisy that is what is left of the very tiny GamerGate fringe group. A response to the points on the graphic.
1. (SJWs say) “You disagree with me? I will destroy your livelihood then”
Said the group who attempted to end the careers of Ben Kuchera, Nathan Greyson, Leigh Alexander, Sam Biddle among many other journalists, as well as try to engineer the firings or trying to organize boycotts against game developers who have spoken against their point of view, including myself, David Gaider, and CJ Kershner.
2. (SJWs say) “Please show support and donate to my Patreon.”
Here’s the Honey Badgers asking for money for their legal defense for the right to invade a private organization’s group for the express purposes of disrupting it. Here’s Eron asking for money for the legal defense of his god-given right to continue launching hate mobs at his ex-girlfriend. Here’s the Patreon for the Sarkeesian effect. Here’s Liana K’s patreon. Here’s Sargon of Akkad’s. I actually don’t care about ANY of this – I find that kickstarter and Patreon are perfectly acceptable ways for people who have ideas that are not necessarily mass market to find an audience and make a living. I do find the hypocrisy of attacking one side or the other for it.
3. (SJWs are) Openly racist.
The evidence cited here is pretty cherrypicked and thin. Much thinner than, say, how the White Supremacists of Stormfront see kinship with gamergaters and see it as a recruiting opportunity. Or KingOfPol going into full-on Holocaust Denialism in a GamerGate-themed podcast. Or that bloke on the Sarkeesian Effect spouting racist shit between begging people for money. I know, I know, these guys are rare nutballs who don’t speak for all gamergators. Funny how that logic applies on THAT side of the table.
4. (SJWs say) Sexism against men doesn’t exist.
A nice equivalent here is listening to gamergators try to say that sexism and threats of women in the games industry does not exist. Such as when they accused Anita of not ACTUALLY calling the cops, or when they accused Brianna of not feeling so threatened she felt the need to flee her home, or when they pretty much accused Zoe of making everything up.
5. (SJWs say) It’s okay when I do it!
Oh, where to begin. With how GamerGate excuses the extreme polemics of Milo, as well as disgraced former game journalists like Pinsof, because they happen to agree with them? Or how they happily make black lists of media sites and game companies to avoid or boycott, but then get the vapors if anyone on the other side says the word ‘blacklist’? Or how they hammer on the press for making even minute mistakes, but have no problems themselves leaping to conclusions and using Encyclopedia Dramatica for a source?
6. (SJWs say) <Unpopular groups> don’t deserve free speech.
This is the group that is literally rooting for the demise of sites like Polygon and Rock Paper Scissors because those sites have politics that they disagree with. This is the group who decided that maybe Jack Thompson, who actually DOES want to ban some video games, may have a point, solely because he disagrees with Anita, who merely wants to culturally critique them and see them improve. The people arguing for greater feminist representation in vidya games aren’t arguing for an end of video games, but there are definitely gamergaters who are arguing for an end to anything that may be considered academic or cultural criticism of video games — because lordy me, a game designer might actually read one of these and listen!
7. (SJWs) Won’t allow open discourse.
Hahahahahahaha! This is the gang that attempts to effectively shut down social media for anyone who attempts to disagree with them via dogpiling , and openly cheer when they manage to do so so viciously that the stated individual flees Twitter or, in some cases the industry. Gamergate doesn’t even allow much open discourse INSIDE THEIR OWN GROUP, as people who find themselves deciding to not toe the party line quickly find themselves torn to shreds.
8. (SJWs) use ‘internalised’ unironically.
Okay, you got me on this one. Seriously, who gives a fuck? I could make an entire fucking bingo card of stupid catchphrases that KotakuInAction uses unironically or otherwise incorrectly.
So, they’re just another bunch of jihadis not sticking to the ideals they claim to uphold. Really just the same old story, and I’m not at all surprised that the society-of-pointy-hats have joined hands with them. But just like the pointy-hatted-ones, they’re the boring last-gasp of a group that had thought that they were some kind of pure, glorious, representation of something, now finding out that that something is not just going, but gone- and gone so quickly, because it only really ever existed in their minds.
Or, Eron is an abused ex-boyfriend who now has his first amendment rights being violated by his abuser and isn’t very happy about it.
This isn’t a fucking joint custody case where the court can put limits on parental speech in order to promote cooperation in the life of the child — it’s an unconstitutional gag order that lets you say ridiculous bullshit about Eron while he can be held in contempt of court if he’s not careful about what he says in his own defense.
As for the hypocrisy, so what? It doesn’t make the accusations untrue, it’s mostly false equivalency you are making, and your thoughts are simple deflection.
I’m not responsible for death threats on Brianna Wu, even though someone is apparently making them.
I don’t read Jezebel anymore because I don’t want to read the stupid bullshit that they write. I’m not the one trying to destroy, for example, Orson Scott Card’s career in fiction because of his personal political activities. I’m not the one trying to limit your ability to fund the causes you want just because I don’t like them.
Comparing mass deletions and overuse of banhammers with twitter dogpiling is patently absurd.
A handful of people now think Jack Thompson had some reasonable views. That’s not quite the same as trying to get people prosecuted, kicked out of events, and kicked off of college campuses, for “hate speech.” I assume your at least with it enough to realize that “hate speech” laws are a thing, and many in this country would like to get rid of the first amendment so that we could have them here.
Free speech implies taking responsibility for what you say. Nothing you say should go without consequence. Harassment is not protected speech. Violation of a court gag order is not protected speech.
The gag order is itself a violation of the first amendment.
Harassment is already illegal.
An unfettered marketplace of ideas is the very principle upon which many of our protections under the first amendment are based. If you support that principle, and not just the law, that means you don’t try to put barriers between that person and the people who do want to hear. If you say “lol 1A doesn’t apply” every time someone gets privately punished for speech you don’t like, you simply don’t believe in that bedrock principle.
“The gag order is itself a violation of the first amendment.”
What if the gag order is meant to suppress harassment?
The gag order goes well beyond preventing harassment, and the rationale that it decreases rather than increases harassment is absurd.
In particular, this whole drama between Quinn and Mike Cernovich (whom I am not a fan of) wouldn’t exist without the gag order. Hell, I would hardly have anything to say about Quinn absent the gag order.
Eron Gjoni has proven that he does not know where the line between harassment starts and ends. This is evident with his talk of releasing a time bomb. For what its worth, I think the guy is stupid enough that he may likely end up in jail in the next twelve months.
If you have issues with the gag order, then clearly you’ve never actually dealt with a relationship where gag orders and restraining orders have become necessary.
Yes, and the gag order being placed on Eron is designed to prevent him from engaging in any more harassing behaviors. Dude, the man wrote an angry, biased screed against an Ex, and then attempted to entice some of the most… active… forums on the internet to read and engage with it, with the intent purpose of destroying her career, reputation and sanity. He’s pretty much SAID AS MUCH. This is textbook harassment, and no matter what the fuck you think that she did, Eron’s response is a textbook example of ‘way too fucking far’.
At any rate, the only word that I have to go on that Zoe is as bad as Eron says is Eron himself. Gee, a complete psychopathic nutjob who posts online screeds about his ex thinks that his ex was unjustified in rejecting him. His actions pretty much prove the opposite.
And as the article pointed out, Penny Arcade and SomethingAwful shut the threads down almost immediately.
You are fabricating motives to make his actions fit as “textbook” harassment. Those weren’t his motives. He didn’t personally harass, issue fighting words, or intentionally incite unlawful activity. There is no harassment by Eron. No constitutionally unprotected speech.
Dude, he unearthed private email and distributed them to some of the most vile communities on the Internet, many of whom have a history of harassment behavior, and when EVEN THEY rejected the article, he went on it on the own, ginned up the anger engine on #burgersandfries, and continued AND STILL CONTINUES to try to make her life hell. He openly flirts with crossing the border into bypassing a lawfully obtained restraining order.
This is cyberstalking. It is not protected speech, nor should it be. There are many arguments about GamerGate that are dubious or merit some level of debate. Whether or not Eron is a supreme asshole of the highest order, and whether or not Zoe is justified in getting a restraining order, is not in question, and the fact that you think it is means you’ve lost all your moorings on the issue.
No, it’s not cyber-stalking. If it is, report it to a fucking district attorney. Or, stop misrepresenting things that he did so that you can pretend they are illegal.
Zoe did already. Did you read the Boston Magazine article that was linked?
Lots of people have had abusive exes. Most of them manage to deal with this situation WITHOUT trying to outdo the abuse on a fucking worldwide atomic level. The fact that anyone thinks that Eron is in the right is exactly why most people consider to be GamerGate a repellant world view.
“The only reason people think GamerGate is a hate movement is because of biased reporting from the agenda-having mass media!”
Which is funny, because I hate GamerGate because how I see them acting on Twitter, 8chan and KotakuInAction as well as the actions of their beloved figureheads like Milo, Mark Kern and Gjoni.
I don’t know what you’re personally doing, Daniel. However, since you’re being so defensive about it, I can tell you that #Gamergate most assuredly WAS attempting to jump onto the Sad Puppies bandwagon, which was directly about punishing authors for their political beliefs.
Mass deletions is not censorship – it is called standard board moderation. Fun fact: in some states, you can be SUED if you run a board and let defamatory shit and doxing information sit on your forums for too long. And this goes beyond the fact that personal attacks on private individuals (which was what all of the #gamergate talk was in the early days – a sewage of attacks on Anita and Zoe) is not a level of discourse that most board moderators want to keep on their site. People who run private forums get to decide what is appropriate conversation there. Sorry, that is ALSO free speech.
Also, private conventions can kick out whoever the hell they want. You don’t have a constitutional right to go to the NAACP convention in klan robes – they will kick you out. AVFM obviously agrees, given how aggressively they kick out feminists attempting to cover THEIR events.
Sad Puppies is about punishing authors for their political beliefs? Horseshit. It’s about judging work independent of the author’s beliefs and not too heavily on the political beliefs conveyed by the work itself. The merit of the work. Larry Correia promotes the quality works of anyone, while Arthur Chu publicly offers to pay people to vote against Larry’s work. But Larry’s the one fucking punishing people for political beliefs.
I judge SJWs by what journalists and prominent activists do and say. You judge Gamergate and Sad Puppies based on the dumbest nobodies you can find.
Yes, I hate SJWs because they prominently seek to undermine the first amendment, the second amendment, and the fifth amendment. They have prominent supporters of these goals. Prosecute hate speech. Steal your guns if you are merely accused of misdemeanor domestic violence. Kick you out of school if you are merely accused of sexual assault, with no right to confront your accuser or call witnesses on your behalf. If you can find prominent and widely influential gamergaters with ideas as insidious as these, present them.
No, I haven’t dealt with people who need gag orders. People have a first amendment right to talk about their own life experiences. Zoe Quinn isn’t one, either – hers has been entirely counter-productive and now Eron just wants to say what he has been forbidden to say. Should he move past it? Sure. His original intent was to expose her hypocrisy to the social justice community itself, of which he was a member, not to stir up a bunch of raving misogynists.
” It’s about judging work independent of the author’s beliefs and not too heavily on the political beliefs conveyed by the work itself.”
It’s about judging works that conform to certain beliefs that the Sad Puppies hold to be important / true / valuable and denigrating other beliefs that the Sad Puppies hold to be untrue, worthless, and false.
All art is political. Authoritarian regimes understand this exceptionally well, which is why they crack down on all mass media and consumer content, not just content with an obvious political message.
“Yes, I hate SJWs because they prominently seek to undermine the first amendment, the second amendment, and the fifth amendment. ”
The dominant interpretation of the Second Amendment has changed radically in the past 40 years. It may surprise you to know that for the first 150 years of the United States’ existence, cases and challenges brought against the Second Amendment were virtually nonexistent. Gun restrictions and laws, meanwhile, were plentiful. Most towns in the so-called “Wild West” had gun restrictions far in excess of modern-day in America, and the idea that everyone walked around packing iron at any given point in American history is a fallacy. Many people owned guns for hunting and on the frontier, but perpetual open carry is a Hollywood fiction.
The idea that SJWs are anti Fifth Amendment is hilarious.
Now what about the First Amendment?
You do not have an absolute right to free speech.
First, speech may be restricted in what is termed “Time, place and manner.”
Writing in the case Schenk v. United States (1919), Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote:
“The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic. […] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.”
You do not have the right to incite “immediate lawless action.” (Brandenburg v. Ohio).
You do not have the automatic right to so-called “Fighting words,” when said language is used in a manner that is inflammatory and injurious.
The First Amendment explicitly does *not* protect what are deemed “true threats.” See Watts v. United States and Virginia v. Black.
The First Amendment applies only to government actions. You (and I) do not have a unilateral right to speak on forums, in businesses, or in private places. You can be asked to leave or have your posts removed by any owner for violating the rules of the establishment.
Finally: The First Amendment does not protect you from the consequences of your speech.
Keep telling yourself that.
And that’s the finest legal analysis I’ve ever seen. Just a mess of quotes from a treatise or Wikipedia article with no relevant analysis.
So, if I want to stay within my rights, I can’t tell a lie that incites a panic, I can’t intentionally solicit criminal activity, I can’t threaten people, and there’s some incredibly narrow restriction on some actions that could cause an immediate breach of the peace. And people have private property rights. Of course. Now what’s your point?
Also, art is more than its message. That’s the point of Sad Puppies. Quality includes the message but goes beyond it, and isn’t dependent on the name on the cover. But keep spouting platitudes.
As for you ramblings about the Second Amendment, again all platitudes.
Apparently you missed the point about when the guns are meant to be taken — you know, before the accused has a right to a hearing.
But you’re welcome to just quote a bunch of fifth amendment cases without comment as some vague implication that due process is at the top of concerns for modern feminists.
Except, of course, that he actually understands what the first amendment is and what it covers, and you clearly don’t. The courts have clearly defined exceptions to free speech over the years, particularly to speech which is injurious or which can incite a crowd to violence. You choose to ignore all of that because it messes with your pretty little world view.
If you want to be a first amendment absolutist, start by understanding what the fuck it is.
No, Sad Puppies was about one of the most odious men in Sci-Fi (Vox Day) organizing a slate of people to vote for who all conformed to his political views, in an attempt to deny the awards to authors who he and those like him deemed to be too SJW. It is also an enormous disgrace to the field of Sci-FI, with many of the people that the Sad Puppies nominated refusing to take part in the award. And Vox Day is such an asshole that even the KiA community has come to realize he’s fucking radioactive.
No, Social Justice Warriors such as Anita and myself do not seek to undermine the first amendment. We seek more dialogue, and we seek some level of change, but it is the other side of the equation who is working actively on silencing opponents. As for the second and fifth amendment, you are now showing yourself as someone not worth taking seriously, as that has pretty much nothing to do with the debate here.
The fact that you’ve developed such hatred about issues you don’t really seem to understand is pretty much exactly the cornerstone of why #GamerGate ultimately failed to get any traction outside of the nether regions of the internet. You gamergaters don’t know what you’re talking about, but you sure don’t let that stop you from trying.
I absolutely understand the first amendment. I’m just smart enough to know that just rattling off types of unprotected speech don’t constitute an argument. You have absolutely no reason to believe that I don’t understand it beyond your own continued misuse of legal terms.
And you don’t even know who has been the leader of the Sad Puppies for 3 years now. Here’s a hint: it’s Larry Correia. Vox Day doesn’t even pretend to be part of the same group as Correia.
I think you’re confusing Sad Puppies — an ineffective movement that has been trying to use a slate to control which works are given Hugos for several years now, and managed to get one item on the ballot* — with Rabid Puppies — which dominated the ballot, is run by a sexist and racist shitbag, and is essentially trying to destroy the Hugos. Sure, the leader of Rabid Puppies is friends with the Sad Puppies guys, to the point where they pretend to be part of the Evil League of Evil together (presumably tongue-in-cheek), but they’re not the same thing. (They’re distancing themselves from him now, mind.)
* I believe there was one item on the Sad Puppy list that wasn’t on the Rabid Puppy list, but plenty in reverse. There’s plenty of crossover, so it doesn’t necessarily look that way. I might be wrong in this, though.
No, I haven’t fucking ignored the exceptions to free speech regarding incitements to violence. I just pay attention to just how narrow those exceptions are. You have to read a fucking case opinion, not just a simple rule of law from a treatise.
Here’s a tip: most free speech exceptions are explained in the context of explaining why the facts of a case don’t meet the exception. Read Brandenburg.
If you want to know the kinds of shit you have to say to be convicted of incitement to violence, look up Hal Turner.
As for Vox Day, he has a separate campaign from the Sad Puppies and an entirely separate slate of recommended nominees. Fucking read Larry Correia’s website and look at the Sad Puppies slate of recommendations before you spout off more ignorant bullshit.
And I’m not a free speech absolutist. I just know the exceptions and fundamentally believe the principles underlying our first amendment jurisprudence are largely applicable in private discourse. As in, unlike Arthur Chu, I don’t try to get my political opponents kicked out of the restaurants they would choose to congregate in. Is the depth of your opinion merely “hey, the first amendment doesn’t apply in private restaurants”?
You are the only person on this page that has brought up Arthur Chu.
Who else don’t you like and want unfettered excuse to call out whenever you feel like it, as an expression of your freedom?
Can we acknowledge that there is little established case law that addresses the nature of speech on the Internet, and how it can be used to harass? Brandenburg v. Ohio was about a publicized Klan rally in the middle of a city in 1964. That’s ancient in terms of what’s happened in society since then.
Think about what’s possible now, using the Internet. Or does none of it actually matter or cause harm, because it’s the Internet?
I poked fun at Arthur Chu specifically because (1) he’s been shown to have attempted to literally buy votes for the Hugo nominations in order to keep his political opponent from winning, (2) just last night he tried to have gamergate supporters kicked out of a restaurant, and (3) he’s actually a paid political writer. So, he’s just the giant troll that illustrates 3 of my frustrations with many SJWs – (1) total hypocrisy (about the goals of the Sad Puppies in his hatred of Larry Correia), (2) genuine antipathy for freedom of association and expression, and (3) a person with those views who actually actually gets paid to express them and isn’t some nobody on reddit. Plenty of gamergaters represent much of what I hate about internet activism, but I couldn’t name any of them except maybe Mike Cernovich. I think Vox Day is a shitbag but I haven’t paid much attention to the content of his gamergate and Hugos related activism and don’t feel any need to apologize for how much of a general shitbag he is otherwise..
Yes, I’m happy to acknowledge that there is little case law regarding free speech on the internet. But the principles are largely the same with regard to what the government can do.
Don’t ignore the requirement of intent when it comes to incitements to violence. I gave the example about Hal Turner. He openly called for political assassinations, identified targets, and posted their home addresses. That’s (1) intent (which was a little harder to prove merely because of Turner’s history as a government , (2) a genuine risk, and (3) imminence. That’s incitement to violence.
So, if we want to say that what Eron did is actually unprotected, I would have to see genuine arguments, not bare assertions, that (1) he intended that people harass Zoe, (2) that his revelations caused an imminent risk of unlawful activity (i.e. that he personally posted her contact information). If you want to argue that his actions are “textbook harassment” then demonstrate how he personally meets that definition of harassment.
You’ll have a hard time convincing me that this is the world anyone but the most unapologetic trolls wanted.
I’ve already asked it once before, but I didn’t see an answer from you.
Did you read the Boston Magazine article linked?
Because, well, Eron sounds like a genuine push-button creep with an axe to grind on his ex-girlfriend, who dug up a lot of dirt on her sex life and cuckolded himself. I don’t know what the point of such a post would be other than defamation, except that we’re dealing with the mind of Eron, and his motivations are all but inscrutable. He is a demented man.
I don’t much like gag orders either, but he has one, and has flaunted it on a regular basis, for no reason that makes sense, other than, he really wants to hurt his ex girlfriend.
I want an Internet where people aren’t afraid to say what they want without getting dogpiled and shamed for it. That ought to be criminal in the same way terroristic threats are criminal. But we aren’t there yet in terms of case law and law enforcement methodology.
So, last question again: Do you think harassment on the Internet matters at all, because it’s the Internet and you don’t care? Or are you just pounding principle?
Daniel – let’s start by saying that the bar for restraining orders are much, MUCH lower and have long been vetted by the courts. The restraining order is the lesser step before hauling people into jail. They are common and most certainly constitutional. Also, the courts are getting much, MUCH more ammunition to deal with these cases due to laws being passed specifically to deal with cyberbullying and revenge porn, amongst other fun trends in the 21st century. It turns out that shitbags posting bitter shit about their exes is NOT a particularly new problem, it’s just that Mr. Gjoni drove it into overdrive.
That being said, he is treading on thin ice. He is clearly helping post private information about a private individual, feeding it to abusive people – hell, SHOPPING IT AROUND on known sites where antisocial fuckwits live, he admits embellishing elements to make it better reading, and he is not only not backing down from helping them in their cause, but boasting about posting more information in direct contradiction to his lawfully established restraining order. I’d say that I hope he has a good lawyer to get him through all this, but to be honest, I really don’t.
Also add police officers to the list of people whose jobs are justifiably put at risk by their expressed public opinions. I absolutely do not want someone paid to protect a community they do not respect.
Damion,
I think you overstate the clearness of the constitutionality of a gag order in this situation. Judges give unconstitutional orders all the time and they sometimes get away with it.
http://popehat.com/2012/05/29/brett-kimberlin-and-aaron-worthing-censorship-and-retaliation-through-lawfare/
“Kimberlin claims, and the judge apparently accepted, that he received death threats as a result of Aaron’s blog posts. I have no faith in the word of a crazed and amoral convicted perjurer, but it wouldn’t surprise me. The internet is full of jackasses, and many of them feel very strongly about politics. But a blogger can’t be held responsible for how trolls and assholes and the easily agitated react to a discussion of a public controversy. The old and familiar standard should govern: was the speech likely to create, and was it intended to create, a clear and present danger of imminent lawless action? Nothing Aaron wrote comes close to satisfying this standard.”
It takes more than assertions and embellishments to prove the Eron’s activity meets that standard. And he never admitted to embellishing anything. Try to stick to facts and not misrepresentations made by other bloggers that misrepresent Eron’s words.
Daniel,
To review, your arguments are that gag orders are almost always unconstitutional, and you don’t think his actions warrant the judge taking such action.
I’ll take the first assertion as a given. However, the gag order is in place, and Eron keeps giving interviews and shopping his cuckolding story around to whoever will hear it.
Is there no possibility that he’s doing this spitefully? Should he be allowed by law to say whatever he wants to whoever he wants about his ex-girlfriend’s character?
LOL
Literally no sane person can look at the events of the past eight months and conclude that Eron isn’t the abuser here.
Nobody’s saying Zoe’s a perfect person, relationships are messy business and cheating is wrong. But that ignores Eron’s own controlling/abusive behavior during their relationship (insisting on access to her email, backing out of a planned RL date to talk on Facebook so he could catalog the conversation) as well as ignoring the fact that he *intentionally sicced the internet on her over a five-month relationship.*
Eron Gjoni is not the victim here.
You clearly don’t understand what Free Speech is. Educate yourself and try again.
Damion, have you had a chance to read ‘The Lucifer Effect’ by Philip Zimbardo?
It’s not gaming related per se but is a full and detailed account of the Stanford Prison Experiment in the early 70s by the aforementioned Philip Zimbardo.
I’d recommend it as it gives an interesting description on the powers of anonymity, dehumanisation and situational systems to turn normal people into twisted parodies capable of acts outwith anything they themselves would have thought themselves possible of.
I think it is very relevant to the evolution of harassment on the internet linked as it is to easy anonymity and depersonalisation of the victims into objects worthy of such vitriolic abuse.
I think you mean “odious hashtag,” Damion. Though I’m sure most of them are plenty odorous as well 😉
Just commenting to say that the Boston Globe and Boston Magazine are not connected at all. Boston Magazine is a separate publication.
Fixed, thanks!
You do understand that the argument made at here comes down to: GGers is as stupid as the SJWs they hate.
Attacking the other side doesn’t exonerates “yours” from being hive minded, censorship happy, and trying to get people fired.
I didn’t read all of the article. I’ve read snippets and commentary on it. The order is pretty specific and Eron does have a little bit of opportunity to defend himself without violating it.
He apparently has some things he wants to say in case he gets the gag order lifted or if it ends up that he’s going o jail, anyway. Unless what he has to say involves a website that gives information from a GPS device that he secretly embedded in Zoe Quinn’s skin, I have no idea what harm would come of it. Until he releases it, I’m going to doubt that he would do that.
As for internet harassment, I don’t like it. I’m more interested in due process, though, and want to be careful about how we define harassment. I don’t think internet dogpiling meets the standard. I think, ethically, dogpiling some random person on twitter is different from dogpiling someone with half a million followers. I don’t think dogpiling ought to be criminal. I think much of what we rightly call cyberbullying is already illegal. I don’t think that what Eron did is or should be illegal — I think that what some gamergaters have done is and should be illegal. Again, I think you need to compare what someone says (and whom they say it to) with the facts of Brandenburg and with the facts surrounding someone like Hal Turner.
I want a world in general where people are comfortable speaking their minds without having their personal lives invaded, and unless they are politicians or paid opinion columnists, I really don’t think people should have fear regarding their professional lives, either. And I don’t think people should be in fear that the people around them will be harassed to put pressure on them to recant their opinions. Contacting targets, their employers, their acquaintances, their customers, their advertisers, etc., is all bullshit as far as I’m concerned, if it’s done only to punish someone for their political advocacy. Long before Gamergate, it’s been a tried and true sleazy Progressive tactic, equaled only by whiny parents trying to censor comic books and rock music.
Are paid opinion columnists fair game to get their personal information and alleged sex histories published for the world to see?
Is it ever wrong to do something that isn’t technically against the law?
Have you ever heard of “ratfucking”?
What would make you think I support any sort of real harassment or intimidation?
I think idiots shoulder be paid to write. I think cops who don’t respect their communities shouldn’t be paid to protect it. And I think idiot politician shouldn’t have jobs.
I think plenty of things that are legal shouldn’t be done. That’s why I think it’s lazy and smug to argue that something is okay merely because it’s not restricted by the constitution.
But, the issue of what ultimately is protected is important, so I’m going to correct someone who incorrectly calls something “textbook harassment” or “incitement to violence” or who think that common one-to-one restraining orders make one-to-many restraining orders all peachy keen.
If we could set aside for a moment whether Eron has a legal right to post the follow-up, note that the contents of the follow-up are all speculation by the author of the article. Eron simply says it will further explain his actions, while the author goes on to speculate that it will contain all sorts of awful things.
“What would make you think I support any sort of real harassment or intimidation?”
Your posts questioning whether Eron Gjoni is trying to harass or intimidate anyone, and questioning the legality of court action against him.
You really should just read the entirety of that Boston Magazine article. It’s really, really important that you do this.
I read most of it. The editorializing got a bit tiresome. I still think he’s never done anything illegal, though plenty of people have crossed the line into harassment.
The closest the article got to whether Eron may have intended all of this, is the statement, not quote, that he was supposedly 80% certain that harassment would result from this. Even if he actually said that, which I have reason to doubt, that’s still not enough to prove intent.
As for your above question: should Eron be able to say whatever he wants to whomever he wants about his ex-girlfriend?
He probably should be legally allowed to say just about anything short of defamation or posting her location or contact information. Should he do it? Probably not. He shouldn’t do anything beyond what’s necessary to defend his own character, which is all that he claims his follow-up is for.
Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratfucking
Why is this particularly relevant to my interests?
“Contacting targets, their employers, their acquaintances, their customers, their advertisers, etc., is all bullshit as far as I’m concerned, if it’s done only to punish someone for their political advocacy. Long before Gamergate, it’s been a tried and true sleazy Progressive tactic, equaled only by whiny parents trying to censor comic books and rock music.”
You should read about Ratfucking.
But why?
I understand the dirty tricks and sabotage have a long history in political debates. I was just talking about harassment campaigns.
However, on that topic, it was probably stupid, or at this completely historically short-sighted, of me to say that harassment of employers et al is equaled only by the idiocy of the PMRC or that it was only a tactic among progressives before very recently. I’m sure harassment campaigns to get people fired have a long history, long before progressives had any political power and they were themselves the targets. It just seems that in recent years it has been predominantly a tactic among progressives. They have turned the tactics used so often against them in the past as their own silencing tactics.
Now Gamergate uses the same tactics. The progressives among Gamergate have never had problems using these tactics. The conservatives among gamergate have tired of being the targets of these tactics. And I’m sure there are some genuine misogynists who had themselves engaged in these tactics to silence feminist opinion on the internet.