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#GAMERGATE: The Threadening [Read the OP] -- #StopGamerGate2014
- Thread starter besada
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The hashtag itself has very a limited capacity to show actual harassment. Many of the 'fuck offs' you see are in response to target harassment outside of the main conversation. It's not like people are saying "You should suck all the dicks! #gamergate".
For example, I was participating in the discussion on twitter yesterday and was responded to by a guy who, without using the hashtag, proceeded to tweet at me about how awful my writing is and how bad my podcast is and how I'm an attention whore.
You aren't using twitter wrong, you just aren't the target of the harassment being talked about.
This image has been well put together and really helped me understand the message that some are trying to convey.
For me I would say I put my support where my enthusiasm goes. I used to use sites like IGN, Kotaku and Polygon but eventually felt their articles didn't compare to sites like NeoGAF where you could get the views of 100's compared to the views of 2/3 individuals. I don't know if these sites are corrupt but when given the choice of one persons opinion over many, the consensus usually helps me get the better idea. I say usually because ultimately we're all different and it's hard to find a rock of consistency of someone's opinion matching your own.
I like that The Escapist are now taking a stance and making a change. Bold actions like that make me more inclined to read a sites content. Personal attacks online are an entire issue that needs fixing in itself. There's a lot of issues in this one #gamergate trend. I hope that all these issues do no get diluted in this one statement.
I have faith in GAF especially when I see them turn down tickets to E3 from publishers , even when there are no strings attached. Positive actions reinforce positive thinking which reinforces positive behavior. If more review sites start focusing on what they can do rather than anything negative, then hopefully that con only help.
For me I would say I put my support where my enthusiasm goes. I used to use sites like IGN, Kotaku and Polygon but eventually felt their articles didn't compare to sites like NeoGAF where you could get the views of 100's compared to the views of 2/3 individuals. I don't know if these sites are corrupt but when given the choice of one persons opinion over many, the consensus usually helps me get the better idea. I say usually because ultimately we're all different and it's hard to find a rock of consistency of someone's opinion matching your own.
I like that The Escapist are now taking a stance and making a change. Bold actions like that make me more inclined to read a sites content. Personal attacks online are an entire issue that needs fixing in itself. There's a lot of issues in this one #gamergate trend. I hope that all these issues do no get diluted in this one statement.
I have faith in GAF especially when I see them turn down tickets to E3 from publishers , even when there are no strings attached. Positive actions reinforce positive thinking which reinforces positive behavior. If more review sites start focusing on what they can do rather than anything negative, then hopefully that con only help.
A few things:
a. You can get advertisement from different fields than the one you are covering right now. In a way, doritos and mountain dew is amazing for that. Better them than Activision or Ubisoft. (It is more complex than that, of course).
b. The best we are gonna get is the insane reign the few big publishers hold over gaming? To shape the views of millions, to hold reviews hostage unless a satisfactory score is met? To spread non-news as news? it is not an occasional sprinkle of PR content fabricated as news, it is the majority of news being nothing more but press releases. Completely the opposite.
c. There is nothing wrong with a paywall. In life, someone will pay for what is being made. if it is not you, me, us, or them, then the advertisers, or the publishers. And they will demand more than quality content in return.
Readers not paying shit means they have no power over the quality of the writing. If they demand more quality, more integrity, they have to buy it.
I dunno, it seems like the only solution is just to pay attention. If a reporter consistently says or does things you don't like or trust, stay away from his/her work. Find reviewers whose tastes you agree with, and find journalists who seem honest and transparent. Anyone who genuinely cares about this stuff should be paying close attention to bylines, and if you feel like a journalist/reviewer or outlet burns you or is shady in some way, there's no shame in calling them out. That's one thing sites like GAF are very helpful for: calling journalists out and keeping them honest.
benicillin
Banned
I can't imagine what it must be like to be a developer watching all this unfold. I would probably feel really disheartened to see the audience of people I'm making something for devolve into an endless shitstorm of fear and hate-mongering. I think Patrick Klepek said a lot of developers he talked to at PAX were afraid to say anything about it because of harassment, getting doxxed, etc.
It's not all in the hashtag, /v/ actually tells people not to do that since it would make their agenda too transparent.
Most of the harassment is shit like this, where people who are perceived as "pro-SJW" get hassled apropos of nothing.
I thought for a long time about whether or not to reply to you because I assumed that you must just be a troll but... maybe you're genuinely confused. Looking at it from your shoes... why would video games need an Anita Sarkisian? We're just making and playing silly games right?
"Oh, there is a brothel in Bioshock" isn't indicative of anything in a vacuum of culture or other pieces of media. But when almost every game has it's "Oh, there is a brothel in Bioshock" moment then it can point to an overall illness in development and marketing of our games.
This is familiar territory to everyone who's participated in the "Tropes vs. Women" threads here on NeoGAF but I'm going to assume that you don't actually read those threads or watch the videos she produces. Video Games needs someone to point out how ridiculous it all is because for the longest time we've protected ourselves from cultural critique based on our censorship fight in the 90s. Anita's work isn't about censorship though, it's about awareness.
Also, what does Leigh Alexander have to do with it? :lol
Objectively Bad Opinion
Member
Ok, I understand. I haven't been using Twitter that long (few weeks) and don't follow many actual people-- mostly just (non-gaming) news and tech right now... and to be honest I doubt I will end up using twitter for anything else. As a platform for actual discussion Twitter seems worse than 4chan. I mean, at least on 4chan people won't follow me around every post I make.
But if the hashtag doesn't have any capacity to show actual harassment, then why the calls for dropping it? It seems like most of the harassment is people on both sides setting themselves up for or being baited into making sick burns/witty one-liners. Which would happen no matter which tag people use (along with the actual harassment which to be honest probably existed before the tag and will persist for long after).
So the calls for dropping the tag as if it's been 'tainted' seem disingenuous.
I've seen some #GamerGate supporters claim on twitter that we don't need games media any more as we can get information directly from developers and publishers. When I pointed out to one of these people that this would only give companies more control over their messaging, I was told that "There's no bias/politics involved. It's dev. at it's purest." It's staggering to think that some people don't think developers would be biased when reporting on their own games.
Another point I've seen raised is that we can just rely on youtube personalities. When I suggested to someone that they read a Eurogamer story which focuses on the problematic relationship between youtubers and games companies I was told: "Yeaahhh I'm not about to go on a gaming journalists click bait".
The lack of critical thinking is quite something.
MikeXXIeaf
Banned
The opposition seems like those kids who couldn't join a club, so instead of just starting their own they got an adult to force the other children to let them play. In my opinion, if you want better representation in video games then get together with people who feel the same and make those games. The same goes for those who want gaming "journalism" that isn't filled with culture-vultures out to make a quick buck. Create the sites.
The other night I had a "conversation" with a #GamerGate proponent on Twitter.
He asserted that it was all about corruption in the gaming journalism, specifically indie gaming. I asked why they hadn't made as big a deal about it when ads took over front pages and reviews for the related game were fishy, and he said that people did get upset but that was the big companies and to be expected, and that indies should be pure. I mentioned that protests over the big companies never involved doxing, rape or death threats. He said "those people aren't us". I asked him why they don't distance themselves from those people...
Here's where it got interesting.
He told me that I'd never been cheated on or emotionally abused, so I "wouldn't understand", then admitted that it was cathartic for him to see all of these things happen to Zoe and Anita.
I told him that yes, I've been cheated on and emotionally abused too, and that I'd dealt with that shit in private rather than involving the whole internet.
He got angry, told me to get off my high horse, and immediately reverted to the go-to "it's about corruption in gaming journalism" line.
Pretty much what I expected from #GamerGate.
He asserted that it was all about corruption in the gaming journalism, specifically indie gaming. I asked why they hadn't made as big a deal about it when ads took over front pages and reviews for the related game were fishy, and he said that people did get upset but that was the big companies and to be expected, and that indies should be pure. I mentioned that protests over the big companies never involved doxing, rape or death threats. He said "those people aren't us". I asked him why they don't distance themselves from those people...
Here's where it got interesting.
He told me that I'd never been cheated on or emotionally abused, so I "wouldn't understand", then admitted that it was cathartic for him to see all of these things happen to Zoe and Anita.
I told him that yes, I've been cheated on and emotionally abused too, and that I'd dealt with that shit in private rather than involving the whole internet.
He got angry, told me to get off my high horse, and immediately reverted to the go-to "it's about corruption in gaming journalism" line.
Pretty much what I expected from #GamerGate.
This is a ridiculous argument to make. All that critics like Anita are doing is pointing out the things they don't like about some video games. You know, the thing that happens all the time on gaf and the thing that games reviewers do for a living. Whenever you see someone criticize an aspect of a game do you tell them to just make games themselves? What if you don't have the expertise and money to make a game? How easy do you think it is to make a AAA game?
davewiththeid
Neo Member
Right, that's why I said at the very least you'd have to diversify your ad clients more than most game publications can/do. Though you're not outright eliminating the possibility of making those clients mad with your editorial content, you're at least reducing it, thereby strengthening the wall between departments.
Sadly, yes. I don't think reader habits (gobbling preview coverage, jumping on the first reviews) can sustain differently yet. Also, my characterization of the current model was that it's largely regurgitated PR, so I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with me about there.
I agree! I work at a site with a "paywall" (we prefer "subscription model").
I think we're in agreement on this? All I was communicating is my skepticism that they will buy it.
The reality is any movement like this can easily be co-opted.
Look at something like Occupy. It started out as a protest around wage fairness and other reasonable salient things.
Then within 30 days it had just become another WTO protest with some fuzzy anti-capitalism schtick.
I think that is why these sorts of idealistic movements are always going to run into issues, they can be co-opted by someone who initially appears to be allied with your movement, but actually has their own agenda and because they are willing to go further than you will get the attention.
Look at something like Occupy. It started out as a protest around wage fairness and other reasonable salient things.
Then within 30 days it had just become another WTO protest with some fuzzy anti-capitalism schtick.
I think that is why these sorts of idealistic movements are always going to run into issues, they can be co-opted by someone who initially appears to be allied with your movement, but actually has their own agenda and because they are willing to go further than you will get the attention.
MikeXXIeaf
Banned
There's an entire force of people who agree with her though. If they're so high in numbers, and aren't just a handful of people with an agenda, then they should create their own opportunities.
Because the harassment is stemming from the hashtag movement. In fact, most prominent people don't even have to mention it for a reaction to occur. If you look at the tweets from people who are harassing you can see that they are actively participating in #gamergate, every time I've been targeted (I've experienced extremely impotent harassment due to being very vocal in my condemnation of #gamergate) I check to see if the person has been involved in the overall "movement" and it always turns out to be the case. The same can be said for others being targeted as well.
THAT SAID
I have had some really interesting and surprisingly civil discussion with #gamergaters over the past few days.
Delusibeta
Banned
A few miscellaneous thoughts.
1) I really want to know the demographics of the readership of the various gaming websites. IGN tends to get pilloried for them bragging that their readership is 75% men, but I'll be genuinely unsurprised if Kotaku, Polygon, Gamespot, Eurogamer et al would have similar or higher proportions of men. This also would be stuff their respective advertising departments would know and would tell to any potential advertiser.
2) I agree with the Slate article in the OP, with the caveat that it's been going on for years now and it's only fairly recently (rumoured Future downsizing, Gamespot's job losses, Polygon investing in clickbait instead of decent features) that the effects are starting to kick in. Games journalists are basically redundant these days when we have YouTube, Twitch, social media and forums (although forums have been a thing for decades, so *shrug*)
3) With that said, games journalism has been a running joke for ages. Monkey Island 2 had an easy difficulty setting designed "for video game reviewers", for example.
4) Harassment remains a proven and effective method of driving people off the internet.
5) People will continue to harass and doxx over disagreements of opinion on the internet.
6) If I was Twitter, I would be promoting the forthcoming filtered tweets as an anti-harassment measure. Add a "filter responses" tick box as an option, which when activated fires an algorithm which tries to filter out harassing at-replies. Give lots of disclaimers of false positives and false negatives, of course, but at least make some noises about trying to combat the harassment problem on the service.
7) Of course, 6) won't stop people doxxing people and harassing them the old fashioned way, but at least it would make it a bit harder than @[target] [threat].
1) I really want to know the demographics of the readership of the various gaming websites. IGN tends to get pilloried for them bragging that their readership is 75% men, but I'll be genuinely unsurprised if Kotaku, Polygon, Gamespot, Eurogamer et al would have similar or higher proportions of men. This also would be stuff their respective advertising departments would know and would tell to any potential advertiser.
2) I agree with the Slate article in the OP, with the caveat that it's been going on for years now and it's only fairly recently (rumoured Future downsizing, Gamespot's job losses, Polygon investing in clickbait instead of decent features) that the effects are starting to kick in. Games journalists are basically redundant these days when we have YouTube, Twitch, social media and forums (although forums have been a thing for decades, so *shrug*)
3) With that said, games journalism has been a running joke for ages. Monkey Island 2 had an easy difficulty setting designed "for video game reviewers", for example.
4) Harassment remains a proven and effective method of driving people off the internet.
5) People will continue to harass and doxx over disagreements of opinion on the internet.
6) If I was Twitter, I would be promoting the forthcoming filtered tweets as an anti-harassment measure. Add a "filter responses" tick box as an option, which when activated fires an algorithm which tries to filter out harassing at-replies. Give lots of disclaimers of false positives and false negatives, of course, but at least make some noises about trying to combat the harassment problem on the service.
7) Of course, 6) won't stop people doxxing people and harassing them the old fashioned way, but at least it would make it a bit harder than @[target] [threat].
I've read similar stuff, but it was more of "yeah they'll be biased, but at least they'll be honest about it"
I think the main issue is that gaming sites tried to push their own agenda. "You either agree with us, or you're a monster". When in history has that ever worked?
The argument is that it's coming from a lot of the same people. The instructions you find on /v/ specifically tell people to keep the hashtag "clean" to maintain the illusion that this is about corruption in the press, rather than just a big excuse for being shitty to people. They've done a good enough job of staying "on message" that some people have actually come to believe that it's a completely sincere cause with no ulterior motives.
The #GamerGate 'movement' wasn't co-opted. It was toxic from the very beginning and initially focused on abusing Zoe Quinn.
Yeah definitely, but this "movement" wasn't co-opted while it was well underway - it was from the start rooted in the misogynistic harassment of women in games and it was a continuation from the whole Quinn + Sarkeesian harassment.
That doesn't mean that the supporters who want "better" games journalism are misogynistic or support those who are, but the movement was from the start influenced and tainted by misogynistic. Moreover, everyone who was a target of Gamergate happened to be women who hardly even are paid anything for the contribution they make to video game culture.
Oh, I entirely agree.
It came from a place that was clearly aimed squarely at Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkesian, and the branding of journalistic integrity came about because it sounds a whole lot better than the initial tact of just attacking them.
But playing devils advocate, you can't expect a movement to not become something more extreme than it started.
Well, how about we co-opt that movement to turn it into positive?
Like this:
This image has been well put together and really helped me understand the message that some are trying to convey.
For me I would say I put my support where my enthusiasm goes. I used to use sites like IGN, Kotaku and Polygon but eventually felt their articles didn't compare to sites like NeoGAF where you could get the views of 100's compared to the views of 2/3 individuals. I don't know if these sites are corrupt but when given the choice of one persons opinion over many, the consensus usually helps me get the better idea. I say usually because ultimately we're all different and it's hard to find a rock of consistency of someone's opinion matching your own.
I like that The Escapist are now taking a stance and making a change. Bold actions like that make me more inclined to read a sites content. Personal attacks online are an entire issue that needs fixing in itself. There's a lot of issues in this one #gamergate trend. I hope that all these issues do no get diluted in this one statement.
I have faith in GAF especially when I see them turn down tickets to E3 from publishers , even when there are no strings attached. Positive actions reinforce positive thinking which reinforces positive behavior. If more review sites start focusing on what they can do rather than anything negative, then hopefully that con only help.
Impossiburu
Neo Member
This is sort of what I've been thinking lately. I'm not entirely sure I could summarize the arguments on both sides accurately at this point in time, and I've been following allowing from the sidelines since it started.
What, exactly, does each side want to happen at the end of the day?
I'm just unsure if this isn't a larger problem anymore. If it's a politics issue whereby any issue created is immediately co-opted into something terrible, it makes anything aside from grassroots organization guaranteed for failure. But there's no big organization to shout at here. No Wall Street, no Washington, nothing to march on. These issues do need discussion though, because in the vacuum, we end up with some pretty wretched shit.
If the accepted narrative is that progress is impossible, that's legit frightening; especially if you want to work in the industry (or already do work in it).
Ah yes, the dreaded 'agenda'. It's perfectly fine for writers to have opinions about social issues. If you don't like it then don't read their work. It's not as though there aren't a myriad of articles that focus purely on the mechanics of games.
I personally haven't seen anyone be called a monster so it would be good to have a specific example.
Still an overall poorly worded message the media all decided to push at the same time. Not only was the origin of it poorly presented, but everyone jumping on the same message at the same time did not help. Especially when, there has already been tension between the media and the consumer over the last couple of years (whether legitimate or not, there has been criticisms of the press from the consumer side, and this mistrust of them has been boiling under the surface).
This IMO is just indicative of how the media botched these social messages all along. Instead of trying to educate the audience that they needed to understand, they clubbed them over the head. They had a very us vs. them mentality, and either you accept what I say is true, or you are the enemy. Now, while I do agree with their actual stances, that's not how you try to convince someone to come to your side. So really, this played into the already strained relationship between consumer and media.
It's why it became so easy for many to see Leigh's piece as just another example of the media being corrupt. When in reality, these articles were NOT aimed at the majority of gamers (it wasn't aimed at them), but was a backlash against the minority of gamers waging war on them for having an opinion/criticism. Still, while I understand their larger points about the gamer identity, it was such an arrogant thing to try to push. That I'm really surprised it was attempted. I want to say it was a misstep out of frustration. Wouldn't you be angry if you were constantly being threatened with rape/murder and harassed everytime you have an opinion or criticism of this hobby? Wouldn't you be sick to your stomach and tired if you couldn't even enjoy your own hobby? Not surprised at all that they ended up pushing their audience away and into the hands of the MRA like minority group of gamers that are disguising this as a campaign against corruption though.
I've seen people using Alexa statistics for this aspect of the argument. Alexa is nowhere near perfect, mind you, but it's still considered an industry standard with regards to monitoring traffic, page ranking, search engines, and so forth.
Here's the Alexa data on Kotaku, for example: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/kotaku.com
I don't know how the gender/age/access info is obtained, mind you, so I can't be 100% sure about that. I do know that there are many marketing teams in a lot of corporations that can and will run with the Alexa data as a starting point for looking into what needs to be done to push the information on a site.
This has been around for awhile, too. And it's not just a thing on women. Off the top of my head, I can think of two very public men who have been harassed frequently- one of whom let it empower him more instead of let it chase him off: that was Jack Thompson. Regarding Jack Thompson, there's an interesting article I saw out there a couple of days back, comparing the sort of threats that were directed at him to what has been directed at Anita Sarkeesian. Then he also pointed out that there seems to be a double standard, as a LOT of people more openly encouraged the trolling and harassment of Thompson during the time of his whole "reign."
The other, while not game related, comes from a fan circle that I would say is equally enthusiastic for what they love (Doctor Who), and it was that Steven Moffat was chased off of twitter because of death threats, as well.
As long as there's an anonymity aspect of the internet, things like this will continue- especially since it's really damn hard to police. We'd probably see far fewer people doing Swatting, for example, if the police could catch them easier.
I think discussing Twitter harassment policies and measures to curb it is a relevant discussion, but let me know if it is not relevant to the thread.
Brenda Vance writes that:
And there's the case of Mikki Kendall who "race-swapped" her Twitter avatar to a white dude while still tweeting the same social issues related to Black people in the US. It is a really interesting (and sad) interview that is definitely worth a listen
Because the "biased and corrupt" component is closely linked with Quinnspiracy junk while major publishers remain the elephant in the room.
Well,
Change can happen through reasoned thoughtful discourse.
Whether or not you like Tropes V Women, that's more or less what that is. Most of the respondents to Tropes have been frothing personal attacks against the messenger or tangentially unimportant things (she stole that video, she's not a gamer) that don't actually address her argument.
Mass protests by their very nature are intended to be disruptive and force someone's hand vs. trying to change someone's mind. They can be hyper effective when used properly, but the issue right now is one side is attacking the people who set the discourse and are further entrenching them into the side they are already on.
Mass protests are also probably a poor strategic move when the other side is already viewed as a repressed class, because no matter how calm the mob appears, they appear to be further repressing a class that is viewed as repressed and marginalized.
Well reasoned counter arguments and long-form articles going viral would be more effective in this instance. It's what Tropes effectively has done. Made a decent, calm argument with supporting evidence and had the echo chamber give it an audience.
Someone could do the same thing for the #gamergate side of things, but so far it's not really happening. It's just a bunch of people screaming at clouds.
SerTapTap
Member
RE: twitter changes: harassment is primarily direct @ mentions, filtering the main timeline is going to do absolutely nothing about that. Also twitter has a pretty shitty history RE abuse; see also them showing RTs from blocked accounts, their attempt to let blocked accounts still RT/@ mention you, their slow inclusion of an actual report abuse button, the incredibly convoluted process of reporting abuse (try the report abuse button, the form is a real doozy).
Yeah, this is why I shy away from being associated with any "movement" no matter how much I agree with them; all it takes is one "leader" of the movement to do/say some stupid shit and suddenly everyone associated with it looks bad.
Yeah, this is why I shy away from being associated with any "movement" no matter how much I agree with them; all it takes is one "leader" of the movement to do/say some stupid shit and suddenly everyone associated with it looks bad.
I'm actually surprised Twitter hasn't taken bigger steps to ban harassment. Unlike Reddit or 4chan, they don't live under this image of being a "free" community. And since it's one of the most popular tools of communication now, it just seems insane they don't suspend/ban accounts based on harassment.
Might just be a case where as long as they are getting more people tweeting they don't care what is being said.
Might just be a case where as long as they are getting more people tweeting they don't care what is being said.
Yesterday I tried reporting a fake Kotaku account and not only did they make me go through pages of forms, they asked me to scan in a copy of my business card. Scan in my business card! Just to get a Kotaku impersonator taken down. Twitter is such a terrible company.
SerTapTap
Member
I've honestly never dared submit an abuse report form. I just see that "are you the person being harassed" field and I know when I say "no" it's going straight to the trash. Even Youtube's solution, which could be a placebo for all I know, would look a lot friendlier. That form just does NOT want you to submit it.
I hope you're right. But with Lime's reporting of a lot of minority voices leaving the stage, I'm really worried about where we go from here. I hope at least some businesses and individuals can publicly resolve to working towards ameliorating the worst of it.
You're saying the "gams journalism is biased and corrupt" narrative didn't exist before the "quinnspiracy"? Because people have been claiming that for ages.
Harlock
Member
I dont agree with you.
The current form of criticize games is point everything like misogyny. You get a game with exaggerate art style like dragon's crown and people say this is misogyny.
This is not cultural critique. It is cultural nitpicking.
Sure, but Dorito Gate didn't cause this level of vitriol.
The trigger event was clearly the pent up frustration over Tropes punctuated by the Quinnspiracy which was the hashtag just prior to gamergate.
I would think that this might be an issue of the sheer amount of traffic twitter gets per day. The current statistics show that there are 5,700 tweets per second, with a whopping 500 million tweets per day.
Look at the number of people are used for moderating on reddit, and I'm not a 4chan frequenter, so I can't quite say for sure it has that kind of traffic on a daily basis. Especially as twitter is used by so many people. Gamers, politicians, celebrities, PR firms, etc etc.
That kind of amount of traffic is going to most definitely need some sort of automated system, and considering how many bots I've encountered on there (and it's a whole lot), and from personal experience, you can be engulfed in trying to deal with the spam and clear it out, especially because it can also possibly compromise private data if you're not careful about it. Of course, twitter is a large company, but we can't make assumptions on how large their support team dedicated to this specific thing are, in the end.
EDIT:
I will state the same as above. The number of people actively using Twitter means that they have to increase security immensely in cases like this. While it may be obvious to us that an account is an impersonator, they have to remain impartial and deal with it in an unbiased manner.
I think the Medium article in the OP, Keogh's article, and Liz Ryerson have all done a good and reasonable job at delineating the Gamergate situation.
Unless you mean a proponent of Gamergate should write a calm and collected article?
Yet if they went away tomorrow game publishers and media would be flipping out for how to reach a large percentage of their audience they just lost. It's an evil you have to live with... for now.
At least the bias was out in the open then.
That image still coopts the conversation, even if it was well meaning. Just keep the top half, that was real and happened. The bottom half is a seperate (and weak) debate stealing the oxygen from the conversation as it began. It should happen elsewhere, not together.
Lalalandia
Member
At least all this stuff is finally separated from the Rab Florence mess which was an actual attempt to muzzle a media outlet using legal threats rather than a paranoid mess built on personal failings and bad MS paint diagrams. When did bad MS Paint diagrams become the standard method of communication for conspiracy theories?
I feel this whole GamerGate thing is a trojan horse for all the things so many folks are desperate for it not to be about misogyny and driving voices that challenge the status quo out. I've been in many of the games journalism threads arguing about the need for greater transparency and how gifts need to be eliminated not given to charities, raffled off or any other form of 'I took it but...' defence yet there just isn't anything here. The only thing any of the 'evidence' presented supports is that reporters know the people they report on, a statement of such stunning banality I'm surprised anyone took the time to create elaborate 'A Beautiful Mind' level connection maps.
Reporters need to know the people in their field to report on it, how close they are and when that starts to represent an issue is the central theme of journalistic ethics. We read Entertainment Weekly because it's reporters know everyone in Hollywood, I read the Economist because it's journalists have access to world leaders to actually ask questions. Are either of those two news sources above reproach? Hell no but I'm not about to demand they hire staff members who have never met the people they report on, I've never met them either and if I wanted to know what someone who doesn't know anything knows I have a bathroom mirror. I'm not constructing a straw man here perhaps you feel some chumminess goes too far maybe they've exchanged to many smilies via twitter but guess what cultivating business or press relationships involves being insincere to quite a large degree. The warm tweets and complimentary remarks are mostly sincere but we all have to roll a few logs to keep contacts friendly and open to sharing (or buying in my case, I'm involved in sales).
We are spending too much time trying to understand those who are vilifying our community by their actions rather than making it clear that they will not be a part of this community if they continue them. There's nothing here, go home.
I feel this whole GamerGate thing is a trojan horse for all the things so many folks are desperate for it not to be about misogyny and driving voices that challenge the status quo out. I've been in many of the games journalism threads arguing about the need for greater transparency and how gifts need to be eliminated not given to charities, raffled off or any other form of 'I took it but...' defence yet there just isn't anything here. The only thing any of the 'evidence' presented supports is that reporters know the people they report on, a statement of such stunning banality I'm surprised anyone took the time to create elaborate 'A Beautiful Mind' level connection maps.
Reporters need to know the people in their field to report on it, how close they are and when that starts to represent an issue is the central theme of journalistic ethics. We read Entertainment Weekly because it's reporters know everyone in Hollywood, I read the Economist because it's journalists have access to world leaders to actually ask questions. Are either of those two news sources above reproach? Hell no but I'm not about to demand they hire staff members who have never met the people they report on, I've never met them either and if I wanted to know what someone who doesn't know anything knows I have a bathroom mirror. I'm not constructing a straw man here perhaps you feel some chumminess goes too far maybe they've exchanged to many smilies via twitter but guess what cultivating business or press relationships involves being insincere to quite a large degree. The warm tweets and complimentary remarks are mostly sincere but we all have to roll a few logs to keep contacts friendly and open to sharing (or buying in my case, I'm involved in sales).
We are spending too much time trying to understand those who are vilifying our community by their actions rather than making it clear that they will not be a part of this community if they continue them. There's nothing here, go home.
Yet we didn't have a hashtag until the Quinnspiracy thing blew up. Why now? It's like suddenly caring about political corruption after a politician goes to lunch with their friend while ignoring the corporation that bought them a private jet and a house.
- Status