"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

[Henroid]

Meanwhile,

 

 

[Merus]

So I just had a fun discussion on Twitter with someone extremely angry at Cine for having an opinion on TotalBiscuit. He accused him of complaining about marginalisation while not knowing anything about it, which I thought was amusingly ironic and said so. Apparently he wasn't sure what I meant, so I figured I'd see how long it took for him to work it out. I'd got back from a friend Miss Manners' Guide To Excruciatingly Correct Behaviour, and I thought I'd engage in that spirit.

 

With a little prompting, he brings up the issue of there not being enough voices of people of colour in gaming, which piqued my interest. He agreed that it was a big problem that gamers seemed to be really hostile to people of colour sharing their opinions.

 

At this point I couldn't take the suspense anymore, and explained that Cine was an American Hispanic, that this guy opened with accusing him of not knowing anything about marginalisation when that was part of Cine's daily life, and that by dismissing his experience, he was saying that Cine's views on gaming culture aren't welcome. He was contributing to a problem that he recognised was a problem but didn't realise he was a part of.

 

When I came back from hanging out my washing, he'd deleted his account and all his tweets.

 

And that's the story of why I didn't make a storify of the exchange. Edit: I do have the emails Twitter sent me though. Maybe I'll make a storify tomorrow.

 

I don't think I've ever won an internet argument so hard the other guy deleted their account. Miss Manners is on to something.

[JonCole]

It's possible that he deleted the tweets and changed the Twitter ID of his account, I've seen it before from people who are shamed after saying dumb shit. That won't help you with your Storify, but just a fun fact I suppose.

[Merus]

It's possible that he deleted the tweets and changed the Twitter ID of his account, I've seen it before from people who are shamed after saying dumb shit. That won't help you with your Storify, but just a fun fact I suppose.

 

It's possible, but he's also changed his name and deleted a tweet from two weeks ago approving of Cracked in reply to Zoe Quinn. So either he's been super-thorough, or he just deleted his account.

[Bjorn]

So a guy who loses his shit and start screaming profanities at a bunch of people then posts a bunch of emails and Facebook discussions with his own name redacted, but everyone else's included.  Nice.  And if anyone involved dares name him, the 'gaters will start screaming about doxxing.

[BigJKO]

He didn't do a very thorough job of redacting his first name, though, which is mentioned several times in other's replies to him. :-/

 

Where in the holy hell did his accusations of being called a rapist come from, anyway? Reading through the thing, Leigh said no such thing at all?

[Bjorn]

He didn't do a very thorough job of redacting his first name, though, which is mentioned several times in other's replies to him. :-/

 

Where in the holy hell did his accusations of being called a rapist come from, anyway? Reading through the thing, Leigh said no such thing at all?

 

He completely attributes some of Greg's early posts to Leigh, where Greg argues that people choosing to self identify as gaters are standing elbow to asshole with digital terrorists, so it's impossible to tell one from the other, ergo, all gaters support death threats through adopting the label.  And as previously said, yeah, Leigh comes in and he becomes 10x extra shitty in attitude immediately. 

 

The whole Koster thing sent me down a rabbit whole of gaters accusing Leigh Alexander of being a frothing crazy hateful racist (which was a new one for me).  Tracking it down, it appears to be related to a couple of tweets where she uses the term hood rat.  Thing is, she's mixed race/ethnicity (which I only know from having read some of her pieces discussing that specifically).  Not that being mixed race is a free pass to say shitty or racist things...but the two or three tweets they've found are hardly condemning proof that she's a racist, particularly not when her background is one that draws on multiple ethnicities (including African American).  Just seems like the gaters are desperate to show how everyone they hate is actually, secretly, a terrible and hateful person as well.

[Dewar]

I've never even heard the term hood rat before. 

[Synnah]

So a guy who loses his shit and start screaming profanities at a bunch of people then posts a bunch of emails and Facebook discussions with his own name redacted, but everyone else's included.  Nice.  And if anyone involved dares name him, the 'gaters will start screaming about doxxing.

I was confused by the title of that imgur page; 'Games Industry Attacks #GamerGate'? At first I thought it was made by a Gater, but when I started reading it I assumed it had to be ironic, because that's absolute opposite of what was happening in it. But you pointing out that only that guy's name was redacted brought it how that he was the one who posted it. It's bewildering how he invents all of these so-called attacks on him; He says he's being accused of rape, when all Greg said was that #GamerGate made rape threats against certain women (Provably true). And god, his reaction to Leigh is disgusting. And there are so many factual inaccuracies in his massive screed that I just want to make a big list of them, but what would even be the point?

[syntheticgerbil]

I've never even heard the term hood rat before. 

[cyrix]

Yeah he specifically hates Leigh (his own words): http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2hwlpj/here_is_a_leak_of_jimmy_wales_talking_about/

 

He posted this himself (along with some emails of him haranguing Jimmy Wales about the GG article on Wikipedia being too "pro-SJW") for some reason I can't understand.

My.  God.

The cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, and persecution complexes required of that man (Boy?(literally or figuratively)) and plenty of users in those reddit comments are just astounding. It's especially sad to see people in the comments rightly point out how ridiculous he was being only to then follow that up with shit like "That's what the SJWs are trying to get you to do man! To makes us all look bad!" conspiracy nonsense.

This whole ordeal has just made me really sad.

[Cleinhun]

I made a mistake. I read some posts on r/kotakuinaction and now I can't look away and I want to die.

[Gormongous]

My.  God.

The cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, and persecution complexes required of that man (Boy?(literally or figuratively)) and plenty of users in those reddit comments are just astounding. It's especially sad to see people in the comments rightly point out how ridiculous he was being only to then follow that up with shit like "That's what the SJWs are trying to get you to do man! To makes us all look bad!" conspiracy nonsense.

This whole ordeal has just made me really sad.

 

Your response got me to click on that link. I don't even know what to think. His conviction that "Social Justice Warriors" are a cohesive and coordinated movement with a distinct agenda, rather than just a bunch of people with progressive social and political values, has led him to act like a paranoid maniac even towards people sympathetic to him. How do you even engage with someone who is not only on a witch hunt, but believes himself to be part of a small group of non-witches that remain in a society that's been taken over by thousands upon thousands of witches?

 

Honestly, near the bottom of the initial post he begins to sound like someone who is struggling with mental illness that is being exacerbated by his deep identification with #GamerGate. I wish there were a way to engage someone like that, but negative proof is a hard thing to come by.

[Nachimir]

Where in the holy hell did his accusations of being called a rapist come from, anyway? Reading through the thing, Leigh said no such thing at all?

 

It comes from him misunderstanding complicity. Greg raises that he (the gater) is complicit with a movement that includes people who make these kind of threats and are abusive, and he takes that to be an accusation that he's personally doing these things, rather than ignoring/tacitly supporting them.

 

I think misunderstanding of complicity is one of the biggest problems in GG. Supporters seem to think "I'm sincere, therefore this accusation of astroturfing is bullshit", "I don't make threats and neither do the people I know, therefore this movement is not abusive", etc.

[Gormongous]

I think misunderstanding of complicity is one of the biggest problems in GG. Supporters seem to think "I'm sincere, therefore this accusation of astroturfing is bullshit", "I don't make threats and neither do the people I know, therefore this movement is not abusive", etc.

 

It's a movement about accountability that doesn't understand accountability, a movement about ethics that doesn't understand ethics, a movement about respect that doesn't understand respect... I could go on.

[Nachimir]

It's a movement about accountability that doesn't understand accountability, a movement about ethics that doesn't understand ethics, a movement about respect that doesn't understand respect... I could go on.

 

 

I've stopped engaging, because that seems like the best way to make it stop. Even very sincere, calm, clever people like PixieJenni are ending up getting abuse heaped on them (her ability to engage calmly for so many weeks is amazing to me). When people with issues well outside of GG are getting involved for PR, and others are then doing stuff like posting a syringe full of something to Milo (much as he's a scumbag, and was described to me by one journalist as "a real fucking piece of work"), then it's all too mental and has attracted too many sociopaths and opportunists from various angles.

 

Gaters see anyone arguing for social justice as complicit with people doing that sort of stuff to Milo, yet through their own sincerity feel remote from the abusive people at 4chan who were documented starting GG as a movement while revelling in rape threats/fantasies.

 

Demarcating clear sides at this point seems unproductive. Much as we told gaters "Don't associate or be complicit with abuse, and if you care about press ethics wait for this to blow over then bring it up", trying to push things like, say, the documented fact the campaign started with targeted abuse then astroturf over the top feels like it'll be a more productive and impactful thing once GG loses its momentum. They're not making any of the inroads with advertisers and sponsors they thought they were, it's not targeting any actual corruption, it'll ablate the more sensible followers and leave a few cultural trigger words in its wake. I thought that momentum loss was going to happen weeks before now though

[Mangela Lansbury]

They're not making any of the inroads with advertisers and sponsors they thought they were, it's not targeting any actual corruption, it'll ablate the more sensible followers and leave a few cultural trigger words in its wake. I thought that momentum loss was going to happen weeks before now though

 

It's one of those movements that thrives on people engaging with it, which is why it's just not worth commenting on anymore to me. It'll be background noise for a while, but once they realize no one's paying attention to their utterly vile tantrum, they'll stop.

 

You know, until the next Tropes vs Women in Video Games video, anyway.

[aeolist]

It's one of those movements that thrives on people engaging with it, which is why it's just not worth commenting on anymore to me. It'll be background noise for a while, but once they realize no one's paying attention to their utterly vile tantrum, they'll stop.

 

You know, until the next Tropes vs Women in Video Games video, anyway.

That's the part that really gets me. This will die down and then just keep flaring up again every time a new video comes out, or a new article from Leigh Alexander, or a new game from Zoe Quinn.

 

I'm honestly concerned that it's going to take a physical assault on someone by one of these maniacs before people come to their fucking senses.

[Nachimir]

If that assault happened, gaters would just deny any association in exactly the No True Scotsman way they do already. GG is at a point where people can condemn abuse and harassment, but their goals can also make them highly biased over which abuses they turn a magnifying lens or blind eye to.

[Bjorn]

The persecution complex if the gaters is maybe one of the most privileged, bullshit things I've ever seen.  Which was brought into stark contrast for me yesterday.  I went to a meeting about the intersection of sexuality, gender and politics in the upcoming election.  There was a woman from Planned Parenthood there.  The office she works out of has been shot at before.  Years ago one of their facilities had to be moved because it had been firebombed. The woman I met routinely has to engage with people who hate her, as she works with the state and local government on women's health issues. She sits on panels with the same people who protest their clinics and call her a murderer. Every single year multiple laws are introduced whose sole purpose is to limit or shutdown their clinics.

And then gaters are screaming about how they're being dehumanized and persecuted by the feminist illuminati.

[BusbyBerkeley]

That is exactly what bugs me the most. My sister used to work at a women's shelter and has countless stories of how fucking shitty life is and can be and these fuckers are mad that girls want to play video games. Its insane that they aren't laughed at by everyone anytime they talk. Thank fucking Christ that you all are sane.

[Flynn]

I made a mistake. I read some posts on r/kotakuinaction and now I can't look away and I want to die.

 

There are so many times I think, this is a troll post right?  This is someone trolling gamergate by parodying it?  And then it gets a 100 upvotes.  

[sclpls]

If that assault happened, gaters would just deny any association in exactly the No True Scotsman way they do already. GG is at a point where people can condemn abuse and harassment, but their goals can also make them highly biased over which abuses they turn a magnifying lens or blind eye to.

 

Yeah, I mean just this year when Elliot Rodger went on a shooting spree, and his manifesto was full of the exact same rhetoric you see on MRA forums, that didn't cause anyone to stop and rethink anything, so I strongly suspect the same thing would be true here.

[sclpls]

Okay good, I'm not the only one who noticed that the guy's tone changed when Leigh joined the conversation. And she did so without slinging shit; she mentioned that people were missing the point she made in her " 'gamers' is dead" piece (which is one of the thing I've fought hardest to clarify with GG supporters).

 

The thing is, the bile that gets directed at Leigh is nothing new. She's had to deal with this sort of toxicity since forever. She is like the matador's red flag for shitty dudes.

[Henroid]

 How do you even engage with someone who is not only on a witch hunt, but believes himself to be part of a small group of non-witches that remain in a society that's been taken over by thousands upon thousands of witches?

I'll let you know after I speak to my mother post 2016 when a different president takes office.