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JonCole

"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

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Here's the guy in charge of the Escapist (known online as Archon and the guy who reached out the GG people) interviewing Adam Baldwin: http://www.everyjoe.com/2014/10/06/news/interview-adam-baldwin-gamergate-politics-ranger/

 

Thanks for pointing that out, I wouldn't have seen it otherwise.  Good thing that this isn't a movement connected to right-wing political thought in any way.

 

Adam: In the educational programs, in elementary schools, in colleges, they teach a curriculum of being “change agents.” They teach you to “be the change you wish to see in the world.” So you get these game journalists, journalists in general, who want to change the world by invoking social justice, which really just means “have the government be bigger, take more money from people, and institute fairness quotas”— or whatever the hell they define fairness as that day! But that’s what they’re doing, and they’re caught out, and they don’t like it. They don’t like sunlight.

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Last night I directly engaged GG for the first time in a couple weeks on Twitter. It was almost nearly a big mistake. I couldn't find anyone for a LONG time willing to discuss what was going on in good faith. Most of the replies were ridiculous defensive shit, including one guy who told me to stop "harassing" him because I was replying to him (not even close to aggressively). My favorite though was a guy who just kept using talking points at me. I gave him a pretty long set of tweets that were evenly worded about misunderstandings and such, and I just got preaching in return.

 

It bums me out to think that the first guy you mention will probably add his "story" to what seems like the most popular and effective centrist position right now, "Both sides are guilty of attacks and harassment." It's been frustrating to see #GamerGate gradually recognize that the harassment that almost entirely sustains their movement is also their biggest obstacle to acceptance and decide to level the playing field with unproven and unprovable claims of DDOSing and doxxing by people opposed to #GamerGate. I mean, as far as I can tell, there's no evidence for it at all, right? Not even firsthand testimony? There are the Fine Young Capitalists' exploded claims about Zoe Quinn, there are "open" sites like 4chan banning discussion, and what else? People disagreeing with them, is that what they think harassment is? Maybe there are examples of people from #GamerGate being driven from their homes by death threats, except I don't think I've even seen a single death threat directed against them, so...

 

I really hate how calling out harassment and abuse against you yourself is somehow being a "victim," but vaguely alluding to alleged harassment and abuse four or five people removed is a legitimate position.

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I feel like an asshole talking about GG's effect on me, since it's laughably insignificant compared to those being harassed, but even as a freelancin' dude writing about shitty games for babies, it has interfered with my ability to make money—at least, it has interfered with my ability to do so with my conscience intact. The idea of having a crisis of conscience in regard to writing about these damn video games seems absurd, but there we are!

 

I pretty much can't tear my eyes away from twitter lately. It's like an intravenous drip of hopelessness and anxiety, and I can't concentrate on anything else.

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I pretty much can't tear my eyes away from twitter lately. It's like an intravenous drip of hopelessness and anxiety, and I can't concentrate on anything else.

 

That's something I've been trying to find the words for.  There is a rubbernecking element to things like this that I'm distinctly uncomfortable with, and I mean that in regards to my own behavior.  On one hand, I think it's important to pay attention to this stuff, discuss it, and if possible, take some action.  But on the other, do these types of things become a kind of emergent entertainment for me?  Am I in part paying attention to it for the same reason I might tune into a daily soap opera if I was into those?  For the drama, the emotion?  Is some part of my animal brain getting kicks from my own emotional reaction to these things?

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Last night I directly engaged GG for the first time in a couple weeks on Twitter. It was almost nearly a big mistake. I couldn't find anyone for a LONG time willing to discuss what was going on in good faith. Most of the replies were ridiculous defensive shit, including one guy who told me to stop "harassing" him because I was replying to him (not even close to aggressively). My favorite though was a guy who just kept using talking points at me. I gave him a pretty long set of tweets that were evenly worded about misunderstandings and such, and I just got preaching in return.

Then fiiiiiiinally one GGer actually spoke to me. We talked about the idea of GG starting a website they can manage and police to show people they're serious about condemning harassment and such. He argued it'd be an echo chamber at first, but I told him it'd start that way certainly but would catch notice if it was policed into being a positive discussion zone. The only thing he had over on me was that if it was a small site startup it'd be prone to DDoS and other kinds of attacks, which have been going on during this shit.

It still feels like the decent people have abandoned trying to make the GG tag legit. And when I say decent people, I mean they're still mistaken / wrong about shit going on.

This is interesting to me cause it shows that they'd actually rather be scrappy, unclear, and politically invincible than articulated and organized.

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...There is a rubbernecking element to things like this that I'm distinctly uncomfortable with, and I mean that in regards to my own behavior.  On one hand, I think it's important to pay attention to this stuff, discuss it, and if possible, take some action.  But on the other, do these types of things become a kind of emergent entertainment for me? ...

I wonder about that, too. I'd feel better about it if I were channeling that energy into positive action. Then I could at least regard myself among the warriors, fighting the good fight. But no, my contribution is to sit around getting indigestion about it.

 

I'm a social justice wimp.

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Summary of the memes and tweets that are relevant to Brianna and her husband leaving their home last night. 

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It bums me out to think that the first guy you mention will probably add his "story" to what seems like the most popular and effective centrist position right now, "Both sides are guilty of attacks and harassment." It's been frustrating to see #GamerGate gradually recognize that the harassment that almost entirely sustains their movement is also their biggest obstacle to acceptance and decide to level the playing field with unproven and unprovable claims of DDOSing and doxxing by people opposed to #GamerGate. I mean, as far as I can tell, there's no evidence for it at all, right? Not even firsthand testimony? There are the Fine Young Capitalists' exploded claims about Zoe Quinn, there are "open" sites like 4chan banning discussion, and what else? People disagreeing with them, is that what they think harassment is? Maybe there are examples of people from #GamerGate being driven from their homes by death threats, except I don't think I've even seen a single death threat directed against them, so...

 

I really hate how calling out harassment and abuse against you yourself is somehow being a "victim," but vaguely alluding to alleged harassment and abuse four or five people removed is a legitimate position.

 

Not that I want to defend the bullshit position of "both sides are guilty of attacks and harassment", but there was some case of a pro-GamerGate guy's work getting a call explaining what their employee/partner was up to resulting in him being put on leave.

 

Hardly death threats, though..

 

EDIT: I wish I could find the tweets now, but searching through this shit-infested hashtag is just too depressing.. :(

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I would fire a pro gamer-gate person without blinking an eye. They have shown either unwillingness or inability to prioritize the comfort of those different than themselves. That would be a pretty essential skill for anyone I employed.

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Oh, yeah, absolutely.

 

But someone finding out where he works to then call and complain about his online behaviour might be construed by other GatorGators as harassment. I don't agree, but I still think it's a bit creepy and am baffled as to how this person thought doing something like this would be helpful in this situation.

 

But this is without any evidence as to what happened and zero knowledge as to who this mysterious person was. For all we know, this was a person who already knew this pro-GG'er and just decided he/she couldn't take more of his obnoxious rambling.

 

Anyway.. it was just an example of what they might be using as ammo for their "we get harassed too!" argument, that came to my attention the other day.

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The Escapist piece is interesting because of all the things that weren't picked up on by Gamergate, against the things that were, in re: the quality and ethical issues around games journalism.

 

For example, it appears to have been written by the general manager and publisher of The Escapist, Alexander Macris, but is ascribed to "Escapist Staff" - which seems like it would be a pretty useful disclosure, because of Macris' staunch support of Gamergate and regular engagement with gaters, and because generally "staff" means people who report to the editor, not people to whom the editor reports.

 

(More generally, publishers are usually very cautious about contributing editorial to a publication at all, much less unnamed, because the role of the publisher is to ensure the operations of the publication are able to continue - which often involves negotiations with advertisers and sponsors. However, in this case "publisher" may be an honorary title - it's not clear what Macris' duties at Defy Media are, however.)

 

That, for me, helps to explain why the critical voices - like Greg Costikyan, Tadgh Kelly and Damion Schubert - get the rote question form, whereas the Gaters get customised questions, and also the general tone of the questioning. And it puts Greg Tito in a very difficult position...

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I would fire a pro gamer-gate person without blinking an eye. They have shown either unwillingness or inability to prioritize the comfort of those different than themselves. That would be a pretty essential skill for anyone I employed.

Yeah depending on what he was doing it might just be a case of seeing a totally reasonable consequence for his shitty behavior.

 

I find it really funny that they've been so active about appropriating the language and terms of progressive movements while both completely missing the point on all of them and decrying any and all progressivism. It makes it hard to lend any credence of reports of harassment against gaters (women or otherwise) when they've demonstrated a total lack of understanding as to what harassment actually is. That sucks though because I'm sure it's happened a few times and I don't want to doubt people who speak up about it, but all the disingenuous shrieking and sockpuppet accounts make it impossible to do otherwise.

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Owen Good of Polygon has been acting like a big stupid asshole today. He's doing the whole false equivalence "the anti-ggs are just as bad as the ggs!" thing.

 

The corker is this insanely tone-deaf reaction to the backlash:

 

JthHirU.png

 

And he still shows no empathy for the people who, you know, actually need to feel safe.

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It's been frustrating to see #GamerGate gradually recognize that the harassment that almost entirely sustains their movement is also their biggest obstacle to acceptance and decide to level the playing field with unproven and unprovable claims of DDOSing and doxxing by people opposed to #GamerGate. I mean, as far as I can tell, there's no evidence for it at all, right? Not even firsthand testimony? There are the Fine Young Capitalists' exploded claims about Zoe Quinn, there are "open" sites like 4chan banning discussion, and what else? People disagreeing with them, is that what they think harassment is? Maybe there are examples of people from #GamerGate being driven from their homes by death threats, except I don't think I've even seen a single death threat directed against them, so...

 

Not that I want to defend the bullshit position of "both sides are guilty of attacks and harassment", but there was some case of a pro-GamerGate guy's work getting a call explaining what their employee/partner was up to resulting in him being put on leave.

 

Hardly death threats, though..

 

EDIT: I wish I could find the tweets now, but searching through this shit-infested hashtag is just too depressing.. :(

This Tumblr, cataloguing anti-GamerGate harassment, was linked to in one of the comments on this open letter to #GamerGate that Rab Florence wrote recently (Incidentally, a Tumblr of harassment coming from GamerGate was linked to in another comment. Compare and contrast the two!). There's a massive anti-feminist screed in the middle of it, which can fuck right off, but aside from that there are two types of 'harassment' that stand out: Gaters claiming they've had people contact their employers to try to get them fired (Maybe this was the guy you were thinking of, BigJKO?), or people making broad, and often jokey statements about how they want to kill all Gaters. The later forms of 'harassment' tends to look like this: Two people wondering if Gaters have gone back to school; Mike Sacco calling Gaters 'goddamn impressionable children'A guy joking about punching a hypothetical person. And here's FartToContinue thinking 'rich white man-children' is racism. Seriously, this guy.

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Owen Good of Polygon has been acting like a big stupid asshole today. He's doing the whole false equivalence "the anti-ggs are just as bad as the ggs!" thing.

 

The corker is this insanely tone-deaf reaction to the backlash:

 

JthHirU.png

 

And he still shows no empathy for the people who, you know, actually need to feel safe.

The bigger crime is him saying that non-GG folks are "seeking reasons to get angry." I would say that women (or people they know) being driven from their homes due to threats received is pretty worthy of getting pissed off.

 

Of course then he does the "what about ME" shit, which infuriates me on a personal level (which I won't get into; I have a shitty family member and I'll leave it at that).

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Danielle's not allowed to punch colleagues, is she.

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I'm not gonna bring this sorta thing up to her on Twitter or here on the forum, and nobody else really should either. It'd be unfair and too pressuring.

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Gaters claiming they've had people contact their employers to try to get them fired (Maybe this was the guy you were thinking of, BigJKO?)

 

His language suggests to me that there may have been a history of problems involving his personal inability of working with a female supervisor.

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Polygon and Kotaku both reported the story.

 

Kotaku's is significantly better than Polygon's, which is a turnup for the books. How shitty must you be if you can't even clear Kotaku's low bar?

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His language suggests to me that there may have been a history of problems involving his personal inability of working with a female supervisor.

From the language in the quoted email it doesn't even sound like it necessary was someone calling in. For all the information we have, it's just as possible his boss saw him tweeting GG support and was like "...no."

I know if I worked at a game studio, there's a decent chance I'd surreptitiously check my employees twitter presence at a time like this to see what was getting out there.

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Props on the sealion!

 

Polygon and Kotaku both reported the story.

 

Kotaku's is significantly better than Polygon's, which is a turnup for the books. How shitty must you be if you can't even clear Kotaku's low bar?

The Polygon article is fine, but way too distanced. At this point I just want them to go full-on Social Justice Warrior, because GamerGate already assumes that they are; not doing this just comes across as trying to mitigate damages. It's surprising that Kotaku, a site that I will probably always associate with coverage of Japanese games where you touch girls' boobs, is the one to actually step up and do this, but then I guess they've been at the centre of this shitstorm since the start.

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