Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
If you have an email ending in @hotmail.com, @live.com or @outlook.com (or any other Microsoft-related domain), please consider changing it to another email provider; Microsoft decided to instantly block the server's IP, so emails can't be sent to these addresses.
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
Thoughts on the Zoe Quinn controversy, "Gamergate", the "death of gamer culture", etc.
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
...death threats don't count as harassment?
These threats sound similar to those sent to a professor who supported GG about a few weeks ago, yet no one no one anti-GG condemned it.
Either both sides call each other for their harassers equally, or agree that claiming one harasser for each side representing the whole side is stupid and publicly acknowledge they do not support harassment in any way.
Some game developers released their thoughts on the consumer revolt.
So... She reported that people doxxed her and then shortly afterward she received death threats? People doxxed her and then she received death threats?
Like, do you honestly not know how cause and effect work?
"Anti-GamerGate" is not a movement. Just because you're a member of the KKK doesn't make everyone who's against you a Black Panther. (And no, I'm not saying GamerGate is like the KKK).
If GamerGate doesn't support harassment, they're doing a piss-poor job of making that known. Every time someone gets harassed their very first response is to spin some kind of conspiracy theory about how it was either faked, cherry-picked, or otherwise not their fault.
GamerGate, simply put, is scared shitless of being held accountable for the actions of its own members.
Some people like Miracle of Sound aren't supporters but they find the harassment is disproportionate. Are they right wing too? Doesn't framing the revolt as a left-vs-right conflict dishonestly represents it in a simplistic manner when plenty of people from all political orientations have joined, or maybe it's because they don't want any political agendas in video games. Maybe journalists' are getting scared their distraction techniques via constant attempts at claiming harassment don't hold water when the advertisers leave them without a platform or a job. Because mention of the specific people anti-GG claim prove GG is a harassment campaign have been dwindling.
GamerGate isn't entirely right-wing, at least not politically, but from a social left-versus-right viewpoint a lot of it is centrist at best or right-wing at worst.
GamerGate from the very beginning has had very strong anti-feminist undertones, and one of the most common complaints that you'll hear from supporters is about "cultural marxism", which is used by social conservatives to attack the idea of "political correctness."
Just yesterday there was a thread on 8chan's /gg/, one of the central hubs of GamerGate discussion, which not only repeated many of the same "cultural marxism" complaints but also praised /pol/, 4chan's wannabe Neo-Nazi board.
@8chan thread
Hmm, they're trying to get HotWheels to try to obtain the IP of the doxxer. At this point I just want clarity. Is it bogstandard for-the-lulz doxxing, is it goons, or is someone literally so disturbed that they think this will result in pity publicity? What's the usually timespan for FBI investigations on cybercrimes(if they're even going to take this seriously)?
@interviews
I like Oakheart's the best, he lays the finger on the communications issue(I mean, even look at this thread we have points where we're talking past each other).
@political spectrum
Everybody does a piss-poor job of denouncing harassment. Non-commital one sentence disclaimers, followed by either the reaction "oh shit, you idiot, this is bad PR" or "yes, but when we do it it's not part of a large privilege-backed cultural apparatus so false equivalence". It's also much more productive to look at this from an liberty-vs.-security perspective with regards to the politics, methinks.
But that's the thing, anyone can say they support gamergate, it's absurd to hold a decentralized mob for the actions of individuals.
For a new generation. And for treating actual reported harassment as mere "claims."
The whole doxxing this is unfortunate, I agree, some assholes are trying to rile up the situation for shits and giggles, and I will never support that. Both sides have been targeted (although disproportionately) because it can be used as a distraction. GG are focusing on the advertisers because taking away the jobs of unethical publications is their end game, wasting effort on doxxing is just asking for felonies, and any person who does this regardless of side deserves to face criminal justice.
I think that there are some honest people trying to get social mileage for good causes out of this, but honestly I think it might be better for both sides' good people to let this die and then try to start over with a fresher, cleaner slate.
As has been observed, this basically seems like unruly mob politics right now.
I still see the debate as false equivalence. What kind of ethical problems are there in game "journalism" that isn't something that's a normal part of the job? (including highly opinionated editorials, investigative reports, collaborations)
Also, I'm curious as to why the "Video game reporting" thread I set up to discuss these issues only garnered a few posts (albeit with users that don't frequent this thread). I made it precisely to detach the discussion from the GamerGate baggage.
That's the insidious thing about GamerGate. They thrive on anonymity specifically because it shields them from so much criticism. This essentially means that all kinds of people within GG can do horrible, horrible things and nothing can ever be done about it because it's so difficult to "prove" any wrongdoing on their behalf.
Everybody motte-and-bailey's all the goddamn time. Enforcing rigour is fucking hard(especially if the bulk of the debate proceeds via opinion editorials on slanted sites and on Twitter: there's so little neutral ground).
Not only that, anyone who desperately wants to be on the neutral is going to get shit on by the side who has that "for us or against us" mentality. Twitter is not a great place to discuss sensitive topics or judge who against who or who represents what side.
There are some circumstances where remaining "neutral" is effectively the same thing as remaining complicit in wrongdoing.
You are either for or against binary thinking, no exceptions.
lolBy standing for nothing you stand for the status quo and thefore are guilty by association. Sorry no, that's not nuanced at all.
If I wanted to be guilt-tripped into following an ideology, I'd not be a lapsed catholic. At least they have the pimping robes and hats.
I don't feel like this is a situation where remaining neutral is being complicit, but yeah. There are situations where that happens.
I'm sorry, but when a female game developer is forced out of her home by threats, I'm sure as hell not going to remain neutral to the side that forced her out.
Dude, right now it's like, the best time to be Catholic, the pope is all hip and cool and stuff, and they are reconciling with the orthodox, so you'll get all that cool aesthetic too.
Don't worry man, I'll most likely get married with another catholic in a catholic wedding, hooray for conforming to social norms.
Threats cannot force anyone to do anything, even less threats that are not backed by anything. In order for such threats to be remotely credible, the person making them should care immensely for the cause, have the resources and physical posibility to go through with them and also be crazy and or stupid enough not to realize that it would be completely counterproductive.
They are empty threats, annoying, for sure, even distressing if constantly repeated, and most certainly wrong, but they really don't amount to much. Just as the Gamergaters are making too much out of some good old cronyism within the indie scene, you're making too much out of what basically are mid tier pranks.
Telling someone that you know where they live and are then going to rape and kill them is not a "mid tier prank." And keep in mind this was right after someone on 8chan posted Brianna Wu's personal information.
That's exactly what it is, without the motive, resources and insanity required (as in, all three are required) to follow through, they're just very rude prank calls.
Death threats are a crime, Noimporta. They're punishable by law, and are considered severe enough that the FBI can become involved if you make them.
I'd actually gotten permabanned from TV Tropes about 7 years ago for threatening to track down someone's IP address and kill them, and Fast Eddie had apparently messaged the FBI over them. It was far and away one of the scariest fucking experiences in my life. Needless to say it was also a major wake-up call for me, and since then I've not only changed the handle I've used but also wiped myself clean of my past online identity.
What I'd learned from that experience was that yes, death threats over the internet are a huge deal, and that minimizing them or writing them off as "prank calls" is simply not okay. It's a serious fucking deal that can have major consequences for all parties involved.
hey look i found a comic about noimporta
Dismissing all internet death threats as baseless is stupid, as is taking all of them seriously. You can easily draw a comparison with meatspace death threats. Two scenarios which I've been in: random drunks on a night out who threatening to stab you or beat you to death are easily dismissed if you can spot that the tone and posture is just braggadouchio. The guy who is alone, in a crowd, but clearly unhinged and just a few wrong words short of blowing a fuse doesn't even need to word the threat to imply that he'll keep beating you until you stop moving. Both have clear signs you can look out for, and which experts can easily instruct you on.
Internet toxbox+involvement from people who are probably genuinely unhinged+peer validation makes the risk more significant, although I doubt a dangerous individual would keep it at 7 tweets instead of pouring on a stream of bile until their DING DONG BANNU'D.
^^What was your posting pattern towards the person you threatened before making the threat, and on what ground did you make the threat, if it's not too incriminating info to supply?