As the temperature around GamerGate continues to fade, the various forums and threads about the subject have been cooling. Many people around the industry seem to be warming to the idea that the worst is finally over. KotakuInAction is slowing, GamerGhazi is encouraging discussions of other topics, NeoGAF is looking to let its gamergate thread die without replacement once it hits max length.
Zoe Quinn, on the other hand, reminds us that for some people, it’s not over. Abusive shithead behavior towards her and Anita long precede GG, and there is no real sign that will end in the future. This is probably true of many of the prime targets of GG, including Brianna Wu, Leigh Alexander, Grace Lynn, Mattie Brice, Chloe Sagal and Randi Harper, all of whom can’t pretty much say anything without getting Sea Lioned to oblivion if not worse. And often, its way worse, as in lose-your-faith-in-humanity worse. Zoe’s take reminds us that for a small, select few, it isn’t just about throwing spaghetti on a screen and hoping you don’t piss off 8chan, it’s instead about lawyers and legal dates and leaked legal documents, it’s about trying to explain to cops what the fuck twitter is, and its about having a number with the FBI so your regular contact there can add more shit to an open file.
There is a vile scum in and around the games industry who seem to spend their time looking for targets like these. They existed before GG was a thing. They happily used GG as an excuse and a cover for their bad behavior, making a mockery of all those who joined in the movement because of an earnest belief in the problems of games journalism. And these assholes will still be doing it long after GG is a distant memory. Kathy Sierra’s story came to mind – it took a jail sentence to stop the constant, slow torture of her career, her internet presence and her sanity.
So yeah, things are mostly better but there are still some lost souls outside the castle walls who , and its not clear what really can be done for them. If there is any solace to be had, it is that more people than ever are aware of the fuckwittery that happens out there is going on, and they’re making at least lip service to finding ways to make things better. The IGDA has, the ESA has, Blizzard has, Sony has, Intel has, Namco has, and so on, and so on, and so on. Will they still care in 6 months, when this whole kerfuffle is a distant memory?
I don’t know. That just does not seem like enough.
The reason it won’t end, is that this is no longer about LW or ethics in gaming journalism. Just as the battle of Sommes was no longer about Arch Duke Ferdinand.
This has become SJWs vs. Gamers. It’s a culture war with no possibility for understanding or compromise. Go to the Steam page for Hatred to see just how bad it has gotten.
Gamers are many, they are technical, they are patient, and they can vote with their wallets. And since they have been slandered for decades by the likes of Jack Thompson, they are not going to cry uncle at the sight of Anita Sarkeesian.
Except it’s not SJWs vs. Gamers. It’s a subset of Gamers vs. a different subset of Gamers. To white-wash the culture issue by deliberately excluding the “SJWs” from the Gamer sub-culture is to be ignorant of the world around you. Whereas Jack Thompson was an easy way to present a unified front because he was a threat to all gamers, Anita Sarkeesian is not. The Gaming identity is currently split between folks who think she raises some good points, and others who believe she is attacking their identity with the intent to destroy it.
To add further, the fact that folks are splitting SJWs and Gamers into mutually exclusive identities speaks loudly of the attempt to make their opponents “the other”. It’s a classic divide and conquer strategy to capitalize on people’s latent xenophobia to prop up their own argument, resulting in dehumanization of the opposing force and making it easier to discard arguments of people who you do not identify with.
You see it in politics with Democrats vs. Republicans and you see it with Science vs. Religion, to name a couple of big examples. It does nothing to further the discussion in one way or the other, but continues to polarize and widen the divide. Which I mean, if that’s one’s intent, congratulations. But it’s not helpful to having a constructive discussion, for better or for worse.
I think he means “Gamers” like referenced in Leigh’s piece — not people who play games (which is essentially everybody), but the neckbearded misogynistic parent’s-basement-dwelling trolls that she suggested we not consider the archetypical “Gamer” in her reactionary article.
Keep telling yourself that. But once we start voting with our wallets, and make Hatred a massive commercial success, the AAA companies will realize Anita is a liability, toss her aside, and stop listening to stupid SJW nonsense.
If you seek out a mental health professional, they might be able to help with your delusions and persecution complex.
I expect Hatred to be as much of a success as Postal was, considering it sounds like pretty much the same game for pretty much the same audience. I’m not sure, though, considering I know enough to know that it doesn’t sound like it’s a game for me. I’ll just go back to playing Saints Row and mowing down pedestrians for kicks, like a reasonable SJW, thank you.
If you think Hatred actually looks like a fun game, more power to you. But it looks like shit. If you want to spend money on a game just because it’s about a psycho murdering people, that’s your prerogative.
GG only has a population if you count sock puppets. And they don’t have disposable income.
I, for one, on behalf of gamers, welcome Anita and her voice. I don’t agree with everything she has to say, but I welcome her voice.
Why? Because I’ve listened to what she’s actually saying, and not the idiot responses to it, so she doesn’t actually bother me. Just because you can’t keep yourself from pearl-clutching when you hear about someone criticising something you like, doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t.
You are not “Gamers”.
That voice? You mean her lies about Hitman Absolution, her stealing other peoples YouTube videos, disabling comments on her videos.
She is an extremely shady character. No surprise she’s become a saint to the SJW crowd. I wonder if the creator of Vivian James had her in mind, when he made something 180 degrees different from Anita.
Hey, you’re the ones that sainted her. Don’t blame us. I have no obligation to believe any word she says (although, honestly, much of what she says is blatantly obvious to anyone who has played video games for any amount of time. If you haven’t noticed that ‘save the girl’ plots happen insanely frequently, then you have not played a lot of games.)
‘Lies’ about Hitman Absolution that take doing a single search on youtube to find out are actually true.
‘Stealing’ content from videos that at one time were themselves considered such egregious violations of copyright that games companies tried to shut them down. Not to mention that the ‘stolen’ gameplay footage belongs to the games companies, not the youtubers, and would be covered by copyright law to use without attributation anyway.
Removing comments? Well, yeah, when people have had two years to see all the threats and abuse that has been thrown her way and yet still resort to already disproven lies and false accusations in response to a post explicitly calling that behaviour out, rather than actual substantive rebuttals to her arguements, then, yeah, removing comments is a good idea, akin to taking away metal knives from Psych patients who can’t be trusted with them.
We (gamers) had a chance to engage with Sarkeesian in a proper, adult manner, and we blew it big time. Thanks buddy.
“disabling comments on her videos.”
You must hate TotalBiscuit then.
As to the rest of your bilge it’s pretty clear you haven’t watched a single one of her videos seeing as you’ve just regurgitated thunderfoots feces. Watch them yourself and you’ll quickly realise that she’s doing something that’s not at all radical and has been done in regard to most, if not all, other forms of media.
One difference between TB and AS, at least TB tried, and still has other ways in which he is open for discussion. He said he closed comments, and then mentioned that he was reachable on a subreddit.
There is a slight difference.
He also publicly gave his reasons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDTspUNj-4w here.
(Tbh, I have not looked enough into AS to see if she did the same, but from what I understood, the only way to reach her is using twitter. Which imho is a horrible way to communicate with people, esp if you want to provide context, balance, timelines etc. And the twitter stuff mentioned there only adds to the harassment/bullshit going around. ).
And I understand both people TB, and AS (and feministfreq) are looking for a different userbase, and TB needs to engage with his userbase. While AS less so.
Full disclosure: I do follow TB on youtube, and not AS/FF.
There’s really nothing that says that any writer or thinker needs to engage in silly Internet slap fights, and thousands of writers and thinkers happily post their missives online with little or no ability for readers to directly post publicly to them. As one obvious example, Andrew Sullivan doesn’t allow comments on his blog – and his readers are actually thankful for it!
Anita’s critics have proven time and time again that it is impossible for her to keep a comment thread open without it being filled with the most hateful, anti-feminist bile imaginable – we aren’t talking about criticising her points, we’re talking rape and death threats, among other things. Debate of her writings and videos, sadly, has to happen farther away from her for it to provide any actual value to the debate.
The fact that some people think that they are OWED a comments feed on videos or articles blows my mind, particularly when the prevailing consensus on many particular sites (such as YouTube) is ‘never read the comments’.
So what you’re saying is that GamerGate-the-hashtag has been fully coopted to be about a small subset of gamers vs. those who have progressive, feminist or ‘SJW’ ideals. Funny, I’ve been saying that for a long time.
You and your little fan club do NOT speak for the majority of gamers or game developers. At all. Not even close. Also, game developers have given Anita *awards* for her insights into how to make more diverse games and broaden our markets.
We are not small, and we do speak for the majority of gamers.
The SJW crowd are on the wrong side of history.
“we do speak for the majority of gamers.” Only if you No True Scotsman ‘gamers’ into meaninglessness.
> we do speak for the majority of gamers.
Thanks for the laugh
You most certainly do not. Of my circle of gaming friends (and I’ve been at it for 10+ years, so it’s more than a few people,) I can think of one person that has mild GG leaning – and that’s b/c I suspect he hasn’t looked too deeply into it.
(And just in case you were wondering, said friends are relatively diverse in their political and cultural leanings. So don’t argue that it’s because I’ve surrounded myself with SJW’s for the last 10+ years. Unless by SJW’s, you mean good, reasonable people. In that case, maybe I did.)
Yep same here, even the guys who I thoguht would be behind GG wanted nothing to do with it as they quickly realised that GG was self-defeating and toxic.
Hurin you do not speak for all gamers and I wish you and your ilk would stop proclaiming that you’re speaking for the rest of us. You’re not.
I can’t think of a single person I know who has shown any semblance of even having heard of Gamergate.
I’m sure there must be one or two that have, just that absolutely none of them have ever brought it up in conversation or written about it, as far as I can tell.
I love your posts. They really bring arguments unseen before.
For the record, no one should object to gamers voting with their wallets. In fact, I champion it, given how many games are on the market. If you think you want to buy one, educate yourself first, then make an informed decision.
THIS is the objectionable shit. THIS is what’s being done in the name of GG, when it well could be done for any other reason tied to “lulz”.
https://storify.com/a_man_in_black/baphomet
I know this is nitpicking on my part but I can’t help but laugh at the fact that you chose to use LW instead of naming who you are referring to. Literally Who is a very special euphemism. It isn’t just a nickname, this is a code word created to viciously attack a bunch of women while being able to falsely claiming that the conversation is “definitively” not about the targets, is just a “figment of SJWs’s imagination.
You chose to use a euphemism the same way neo-nazis use “international bankers” and you except to be taken seriously.
Here a hint, if you express yourself in a way that strongly hint of dishonesty, you argument will suffer.
Do you not know that was a deliberate choice, mocking GamerGate?
It’s not dishonesty. Read his other posts about the topic – he’s extremely informed.
What you call “SJWs vs gamers” is actually just “idiots vs a slightly different set of idiots.”
GGers don’t have any more claim to being gamers than anyone else, and most of these online SJWs do absolutely nothing to advance social justice, they merely use social justice as an excuse to berate people on social media.
All in all, they’re slacktivist.
“There is a vile scum in and around the games industry ”
I agree, it’s the ones that sleep around for support and coverage, abuse other people and then act as victims and the “journalists” that only converse within their small niche and ideology, lie and misrepresent and lie some more and couldn’t give less of a shit about their audience or industry. That is why GamerGate will never be truly dead and the people that they pissed off and pissed on the past several months, including by people like you and your colleagues at BioWare like Patrick Weekes and David Gaider, will still be there when the next opportunity will arise and you’ll have to try and start smearing them all over again.
I don’t have to smear anyone. All I have to do is to let comments like yours speak for themselves. Here, you condone the abuse that Zoe got, further the blatant and easily disproven lies about her coverage, drastically misrepresent the nature of the games press, and promote the laughable claim that game developers and journalists who are speaking against GG don’t care about the industry. The thing is we do care. That’s why I’m speaking out.
GG will be around for a while, I agree. However, it’s opportunity for being a force for good has long passed, as the moderates have been chased out by people who… well, spout out bullshit like you have right here.
You know, if you weren’t so pedantic as to call people supportive of gamergate ‘lost souls’, you might actually engage in actual discussion. But it’s pretty clear you’re only interested in preaching at this point.
The only kind of “discussion” to be had with those who still think GG has a positive point is the kind that any sand moderator would have locked down for pointlessness. GG has no goals other than:
1. Noise
2. Chaos
This is no longer a mystery to anyone.
3, Harassment
4, Character assassination
5, Ruining careers
6, Negationism
7, Revisionism
8. Anti-feminism
9, Racism
10, Protect pedos and Nazis
“Pedantic” I do not think it means what you think it means. Unless you intended to charge Damion with being meticulous and precise.
On closer reading, it’s not clear to me that he is in fact referring to gamergate supporters as lost souls left outside the castle walls. I’m not sure what the castle is in this metaphor. Who is it protecting?
I read that as “lost souls” referring to GamerGate’s primary targets (Quinn in particular).
>apparently expecting GG supporters capable of reading comprehension
Oh, Tim. Your optimism is a shining example for all of us.
I read Zoe’s last piece. No matter what she did, she definitely doesn’t deserve that, but also I want to point the fact that the so called “progressives” using her game as spearhead of what they think games “should” become have brought a lot of unwanted, negative attention on her. So I think the “progressive” or “tumblr-aligned” side of this conflict is not clean-handed about Zoe’s harassment.
The real reason of Depression Quest raising to the spotlight IMHO wasn’t any exchange of sexual favors but it being pretty convenient to the “progressives”, that rallied to it as a banner with total disregard to the consequences it would have on Zoe’s life and well-being.
The Kathy Sierra incident and others similar (the harassment of Anita, Mattie Brice, etc.) show that this modus operandi isn’t even constrained in time and space to GamerGate, more like a trend in all Internet that has been in unfortunate growth.
Damion Schubert, as a long time game designer, thinking of the whole internet as a MMO, what do you think of the relative easiness to do nasty, potentially life-threatening actions (like doxxing, or SWATting) as a “cheat” or “hole” in the rules of the internet? Thinking again of it as a MMO, and knowing that you were involved in one of the MMOs with the most positive communities around (SW:TOR), how could you help to protect Zoe, Anita and others? What can the average internet nobody, like me, do to deter that harassment? (And please don’t point that piece by Leigh Alexander to me, I think things have escalated a lot for the worst since she wrote it).
A good rule of thumb: Try not to read too much Tumblr if you want informed opinions about what is and is not proper human relations.
Hang on: did you seriously just blame “progressives” for other people’s vile behavior by saying they knew/expected Zoe would be attacked for having her game promoted by them?
Are you seriously acting like this kind of inexcusable BS on the part of hateful people is the norm? ‘Cause I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to red flag that as some extremely transparent apologia.
“She doesn’t deserve what she got, but blame progressives, they’re the reason people started acting like monsters toward her!” Yeah, no.
Read carefully. No I don’t blame “progressives” for the attacks on Zoe. Hatemongers are responsible for it. But I blame “progressives” for using DQ to further their agenda when the climate of harassment started, putting Zoe more in the target of the hatemongers. I blame the “feminist” community of Tumblr for waging a war against 4chan, Reddit and other sites with total disregard to collateral victims. I blame 4chan/8chan/SA/GNAA for continuing the war and escalating it until reaching life-threatening levels.
And yes, in an unpoliced community, sociopathic behaviour is the norm. That is the reason for the existence of a group of people sociopathic/hardened enough (but also empathetic enough) to act as a buffer and protection between the wild outside and the unhardened people inside the community you belong to. Traditionally that hardened group were men, but in this age of gender role changes and global online communities, who will assume the role?
Wow. That’s some pretty bizarre reasoning. It’s like “I don’t blame Rosa Parks for the lynchings committed by the KKK. I blame the KKK for that. But I do blame Rosa Parks for trying to sit in the front seat of that bus to further her agenda, knowing that the KKK would use it as an excuse to target other people. And I blame Lyndon Johnson for waging a “war” against the KKK with total disregard to collateral victims. I also blame him for escalating the “war” to life-threatening levels by deploying the National Guard (to protect students on their way to school.)”
I mean, really now. You can do better than this.
You’re thinking of “Game of Thrones”. Yes, that’s the best way to protect yourself from the Lords of the Iron Islands or the Wildlings, but it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. When you’re dealing with Internet trolls, you don’t need to drive them off with fire and steel. You just need to make sure that your community moderation polices are being enforced, so that the trolls will go off somewhere and troll each other. 90% of the Gamergate problem is that Twitter hasn’t been able to figure out how to do effective moderation.
Rosa Parks decided to put herself in the line in the battle against racism. She wasn’t thrusted to the frontline by other political actors, and there lies the difference.
Depression Quest had gathered negative attention for being made in Twine. At that point, before the Eron Gjoni post, many so called “progressive” game sites and blogs championed it as a spearhead of what they believed games should be in the future. That left many people wondering what had Zoe done to get this level of coverage, what in turn fitted perfectly with Gjoni’s post that offered an explanation and a narrative that was later used by 4chan’s latest installment of its war against Tumblr feminists: #gamergate (after #freebleeding, #bikinibridge, #endfathersday and #whitescantberaped, as documented by Zoe herself). So my point stands, the spotlight put by so called “progressives” on Depression Quest facilitated the escalade of online violence. At that point Zoe only cared about making games, not to be involved on any online war, so the unwanted spotlight that her game had was unconsensual to her.
I don’t get any of your references because I have never seen any episode of Game of Thrones nor read any book of the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series. But I know something: In an online community the number of possible interactions (and thus the number of negative/harassing/threatening interactions) grows geometrically respect to the number of users. Moderation is good for small online spaces, but for global communities like Twitter it just doesnt scale at all. Also, most of the internet swallowed the rhetoric of sociopaths: “attention whores”… “begging for it”… “just for the lulz”… etc. Yes, Internet as a global community is barbaric at this point (like your fantasy novels), because sociopathy poses a significant advantage on the Internet, and as Zoe also pointed out, if we as internet users don’t solve the global community problem, governments will, and then say good bye to the free internet.
What a crock. Zoe’s Depression Quest was a magnet for hate months before gamergate, because some people get offended bc of games that ‘aren’t games’. Anita hasn’t ever mentioned Zoe in a talk. Hell, the people who keep bringing up Zoe, 90% of the time, are GamerGaters.
As for your second question: arrests.
Please read my answer to Chaos-Engineer on how so called “progressives” pushed Zoe to the wolves. Also as addendum, “call out” culture (in reality, shark mentality that allows mobbing of anyone that doesn’t show a perfect and ideologically pure online persona), championed by Tumblr activists, provided certain background of legitimacy to the harassment of Zoe.
SWATting is illegal and punishable by jail because it involves abuse of law forces, but doxxing is “legal”, and even if it weren’t, eventually sociopaths will find a way to do harm without breaking the written law because of technicalities. I’m sure you worked extensively with situations like that, of people that “followed the stated code of conduct” of online games to the letter but used loopholes and technicalities to grief other players.
Can an online community without an effective moderation system (like Twitter) deter sociopaths from harming others?
More importantly, would Twitter be so popular with sociopaths if it was moderated effectively?
Or, would people be less apt to behave like “virtual sociopaths” on any medium that was moderated properly?
These are academic questions. But your previous statement is still specious. ZQ was not that famous before her ex posted his tell-all. Only then did a much larger morass of people start paying any attention to DQ at all. It also begs the question about how much traffic “progressive” sites that gave DQ kudos when it came out, got before GG goons decided to go back in time to find anyone who ever gave it credit for being significant at all.
It’s a free game, and it’s not supposed to be fun. Sure, ZQ was looking for attention when she put it out there, but the attention for making the game and for supposedly being some kind of Mata Hari Evil Ex Girlfriend are not the same kind of attention.
One of the most delicious ironies in the whole GG tantrum was the way GooberGraters mimiced the very same “SJWs” they hate.
Well, maybe not since it’s actually so normal for activists to copy from their opponents, but it’s also normal for said activists to totally blind to their own similarity to the people they despise.
I mean … getting in a tizzy over an article that says ” are Dead” is just stereotypical SJW behavior. It was more though. They copied/appropriated SJW vocab and techniques …. they copied every behavior that makes SJWs annoying and only changed the IdentityGroup on whose behalf they were used.
Basically, they are GJWs. Everybit as self-righteous and annoying as SJWs … but for a less worthy cause.
Damion If anyone on anyside broke the law he or she should be arrested and the victims are not only the poor poor people glorified by media in perpetual martyrs a fact you overlooked.
Your blogpost looks like a Kotaku article or a Polygon one. While some would see that as a compliment I think you know its not one from me.
You are a talented developer im sorry you became so bitter and tainted by the issue.
Im pretty sure also theres nothing we can say to each other that will change our stances. But i do wish for better days ahead for everybody and at least that will not me accused of something I hope.
You forgot to sign off, “Thank you for your time.” Or is that only for Twitter?
What I’ve learned from responses to this article (yours along with others, including those on Twitter) is that a lot of people have poor reading comprehension. That, or I’m a poor writer.
What I said in this article was that GamerGate is cooling but is not over, and that the true assholes who use GamerGate as a cover for harassment actually existed long before GG existed, and will exist long after GG HAS cooled. How I covered the latter statement should have made it clear that GG is, to some degree, getting a bad rap from the actions of assholes who have conspired to make the lives of Anita and Zoe, among others, a living hell.
And this has been interpreted to be me slamming all GGers as harassers and declaring GG dead. Which is, you know, kind of the OPPOSITE.
This is part of the reason it’s difficult to take GG seriously. Those who actually do believe and care about GamerGate as a movement for journalistic ethics or whatever should be angry and spend their time attacking the people who make GamerGate look awful with their actions and associations — you know, DISAVOWING, for example, the doxing and swatting attempts. This happens when a politician goes rogue, or a cardinal becomes an apostate. GG, on the other hand, aims all of their rage at the people who hold up the mirror.
No Damien what you want is accept blame for what we did not do and clean the internet for you because you defined it as our responsability. Not gonna happen.
And you will get the same respect and be taken as seriously as you take us. Its pretty simple.
Meanwhile the media witchhunt is doing wonders. Congratulations.
Who is “we”?
https://storify.com/sadcrow/admin-of-warns-randi-harper-about-all-the-illegal
https://storify.com/a_man_in_black/baphomet
Here’s a “we”. Is this you? Because that’s done for GG reasons.
We wont answer to guilty by association or allegation. This is my we . Deal with it.
That’s not how it works. It’s not up to you guys, it’s up to the people observing you guys. The human brain can only track so many individuals before it gets overwhelmed. So it gloms people together who choose to self-identify into groups: gamergaters, republicans, catholics, whatever.
When Ted Cruz talks, the Republicans have to answer/deal with it. He’s actually quite a thorn in their side. When some dipshit in Al Qaeda shoots up a humor magazine, all of Al Qaeda is going to be treated as a dangerous animal. And they should.
You can choose not to answer, but if GG won’t acknowledge or attempt to stop the shitty stuff that is done by their more zealous members, then sorry, GG is definitely going to be painted by those actions. The Media didn’t destroy GG’s reputation. GG’s worst assholes did.
If I respected the MSM outlets at this point I migth be worried about that.
Im here defending freedom the speech and civil rigths of gamers while most of the most vocal against GamerGate are defending corrupt lazy media outlets for ideology and sexistt/racist histeronics and protecting Dead games journos marketing branch of industry who never should have gotten this bad.
You are forgetting on how effective we are on spreading information. And we are not getting smaller, nor stoping anytime soon.
Everything you wrote Damion applies to you and your side as well. You guys just doxxed someone and I see few if any trying to stop or condemn it.
Please don’t spew more “anti-GG isn’t a side” BS either. You have your own hashtags, your own Reddit sub-groups. You very much are a side to outside observers, and your side has plenty of your own Ted Cruz types.
What you seem to be missing is that reputations on both sides are in the garbage. Sane people are laughing at both groups. Most anti-GGers don’t realize it because they’ve retreated to a tiny hugbox where everyone is named “butts” but it is very much happening. You’re all fucking ridiculous hypocrites.
>What I’ve learned from responses to this article (yours along with others, including those on Twitter) is that a lot of people have poor reading comprehension. That, or I’m a poor writer.
You are too nice. I think you didn’t mention the obvious possibility: GGers, like any hate group, is profoundly dishonest. When they write about FemFreq, they want to shut Anita by any means. Since they have nothing legitimate, they falsely claim that she ask for censorship. The fact that ggaters try to censor her is irreverent to them, they just want to silence her. Gaters threaten her to scare her into silence and they they call her a professional victim to hurt her credibility to, again, silence her.
Is it likely that they understand, they just want to crate a false counterpoint in hope that readers will believe that you are mistaken, effectively muffling your voice. That not unlike climate contrarians or tobacco companies operate. They don’t try to be right, they try to win by using any cheats and any low blow that they get away with.
Like any hate group, you should assume malice instead of stupidity. I know, is is usually best to assume the contrary but I think that ggers had proven in numerous occasions that they are actively malicious.
—
I don’t think that they can really disavowing the “doxers” and “swatter”, ggate would be nothing without them. They may issue nonapoligies to protect themselves while they try to blame the victims, they can’t reject terrors tactics since they serve at least two purpose. 1) It scare their opponent. 2) They more vile thier acts, the more harm they can cause their opponents when they pull the “anti GG is as bad” gambit. Just look at Dan Olsen, this is seriously scary stuffs.
Sort of like how FreeBSD girl is now shunned for her doxxing, and how that girl who filed false police reports is also shunned?
Oh wait, rather than being shunned people are pimping FreeBSD’s Patreon. Lol?
It’s pointless to ask other people to do what your own in-group refuses to do. GG pays some lip service to shunning harassers and doxxers, but it’s completely fair to say that it’s just lip service and that GG creates and atmosphere that encourages doxxing and harassment.
The same is true of anti-GG zealots. They never met a doxxer, harasser or abusive personality they didn’t like as long as it’s on their side. Hell, on your own forums John Henderson is incredibly abusive and personal to everyone who disagrees with him, and mocked a woman who said she got death threats because she was on the wrong side.
GG isn’t willing to clean up its own house. You aren’t willing to clean up yours. Same as it ever was. “Do as I say, not as I do.” Boring.
Actually, I mocked the woman because she sounded like a sock puppet.
I was wrong to do that.
You’re still boring, though.
She didn’t sound like a sock puppet at all. She only sounded like one to you because you hate women who disagree with you and need a convenient excuse to attack them.
Pro-tip: people who actually care about things like harassment and abuse don’t laugh at women who report them.
Doing it wrong bro.
I don’t need to claim I’m against harassment because I just don’t harass people. (No, I’m “harassing” you now dumb dumb) People like you need to repeat it constantly precisely because it’s so obviously false. You think you can abuse people all the time, say “I’m totes against abuse” and somehow get a pass.
That’s not how it works.
Not a true statement. You are baiting me. Go away.
It’s a very true statement.
The woman used the same handle she uses on Twitter. Her Twitter account pretty clearly indicates that she is a real woman.
There was no reason to believe she was a sockpuppet except that you needed a flimsy excuse to justify your misogyny.
You can find zero examples of me mocking women who report death threats. You aren’t the good guy here, sorry bro.
FreeBSD girl’s “dox” was hardly on the level of what comes out of 8chan daily. She also explicitly said that some people send her contact information they’ve dug up, and she deletes it.
As opposed to Based Hotwheels, who posts the information of people who reported child porn.
God, you GGers are so predictable.
No, you’re the predictable one.
You put “dox” in quotes to make it sound like it wasn’t a doxx (spoiler: it was), say “well the other guys dox worse” and make excuses.
Why should I give a shit if 8chan is worse? Killing and eating another person is worse than punching them in the face of apropos of nothing – and?
You guys are so hypocritical it’s laughable. You advocate a zero-tolerance policy for threats harassment, doxxing, etc – as you should – but then when someone points out that you’re doing those exact things you have an infinite number of childish excuses.
“Someone else did something worse.” Are you fucking 5? Because that is 5-year-old logic.
You’re either against doxxing or you aren’t – none of this “well sure we doxxed someone but someone else doxxed someone more” shit.
You post too much for how contemptuous of what you don’t care about. Everyone’s a loathsome amoral hypocrite but you? Bait less, go ride your bike. I’m not your bro, either.
Thank you for acknowledging that Trolls continue to hijack all the movements and continue to dox, swat, and harass both their supporters and their opponents just for sick kicks.
So another doxxing today of a GG person by one of the “good guys.”
The outrage from anti-GGers shunning one of their own is deafening. So many people pointing out that doxxing is wrong…people like…uh…yeah!
Shanley has literally nothing to do with GG?
1.) Milo, dishonest prick and sublimely corrupt journalist that he was, was obviously contacting her for a hit piece.
2.) *Despite the above,* she was eminently wrong to publish that, and I condemn her wholeheartedly.
3.) She has nothing to do with GG other than being a woman who criticizes sexism the tech industry. This is dishonest (part for the course with GGers, but even so). If it were someone like Randi Harper, Brianna Wu, you’d have a point. But you don’t.
But it was Harper as well. We already went over that, and you already made excuses for it.
You have an excuse for everything. “I’m against harasssment, abuse, threats and doxxing.*”
* =
Not against threats when the victim can be dismissed as a sockpuppet
Not against doxxing if my in-group is doing the doxxing
Not against abuse if the person being abused deserves it, as unilaterally decided by me
Not against anything my in group does as long as some other group on earth has done something worse in the course of human history
That it? Wow, what a strong moral stance!
Is it really so fucking hard to just condemn doxxing across the board?
“But I I condemn all doxxing that means condemning some of my allies, which means the turrists (and sane, non-sociopathic people) win! I can’t give them the satisfaction!!”
Grow up.
“*Despite the above,* she was eminently wrong to publish that, and I condemn her wholeheartedly. ”
No you don’t. You’re posting that under a false name in a random forum comment nobody, including her, will read.
By the way, when you call me a GGer all you do is make yourself look even more stupid and dishonest. It’s like calling anyone who disagrees with you a KKK member.
Doxxing is wrong and idiotic. It’s wrong when GG does it. It’s wrong when you do it. This is not a GG talking point, this is what the vast majority if sane people believe.
The fact that you believe being against doxxing across the board is a GG position is quite sad – and also unintentional praise of GG.
Oh and LMAO apparently it was his public work number that he has for anyone to contact him??
Don’t get me wrong, she still shouldn’t have published it, but holy shit, it doesn’t even remotely compare to the shit GGers fling. Typical.
Look, everyone you mentioned has a Patreon/Donationbutton, they are professional victims, they bank on it.
Aggravate the beehive -> Scream harassment -> @patreon $$$
Hmmm…
Gamergaters aggravate by sending out harassment/rape threats, then they scream bias when the world says “Hey, these guys are a loathsome hate group”, and — hey, look, patreons!
Yup, looks like you’re right. Gamergaters are professional victims.
If you think people are giving them money solely because of their drama level, then you not only have contempt for the individuals with Patreons, but everyone who gives them money.
And if that’s your position, have a nice day. I’m not even going to ask, “So what?”
No we actually think people give them money because they are one or all of the following : Naive, ideological blind , poor her advocates and the corrupt throwing media shrines for clicks and cover ups. People are free to make bad choices and we are free to call as we see it. Deal with it.
That’s called contempt. One thing to have it for Anita, another to dismiss everyone who gives her money as one of what you just described.
Hate to tell you this, but as long as they have an entry on Encyclopedia Dramatica, they will be harassed to no end.
So saying games can make someone a murderer we are against but saying games can make someone sexist we are for? Pff how about people can just play what they like whatever the content and if you don’t like said content then don’t play it. Problem solved.
But progressive will never go for that, because progressives love shaming people and feeling superior.
IMO, GG is stupid, SJWs/progressives are stupid, and this whole ‘we got to stop the SJWs from taking over’ crowd is stupid. They are just games.
If you want to get all political there are much more complex and important matters.
If any form of entertainment was a trigger for someone to act out in real harm to real people and things, then that someone had a lot more tendency for violence than is being considered. Games don’t make people be violent by themselves any more than they make people be racist or sexist.
HOWEVER, the portrayals of violence, sexism, racism and other Bad Things that the real world will constantly struggle with, is relevant and is worth talking about in much less obtuse terms than the above.
Everything involving people is political. If games have a culture, then they have politics, too.