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JonCole

"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

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The blindness inherent in his final comment is astounding:
 

...but please understand that the people that send these are looking to do maximum damage to as many people as possible. Think very carefully before enabling their behavior.

 

Because it's the victims who enable them, not the rest of the gaters.

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Also, I question the assumption that people are just doing horrible things to get attention. It's become such a truism that people bring up all the time, but as far as I know there is no evidence for it.

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How to Victim Blame, by TotalBiscuit

 

(If thefncrow already posted this too I'm starting a hashtag campaign.)

Shut Up and Take It, the TotalBuiscuit Guide to Dealing with Harassment.

Because the police have traditionally been a shining beacon of providing support to women.

The blindness inherent in his final comment is astounding:

 

Because it's the victims who enable them, not the rest of the gaters.

 

Maybe he's just been reading up on recent police responses to assaults on women. I mean, after all, a victim looks like a victim.

 

Also, in more seriousness, I am stunned by how many (male) Twitter personalities have observed the harassment being perpetrated on Twitter against women and decided that the correct response is to tell these women, "Oh yeah, that happens to me sometimes. Just walk it off." How has receiving hundreds of death threats daily been normalized for these people? How is this normalization not the social issue of the year?

 

Also, I question the assumption that people are just doing horrible things to get attention. It's become such a truism that people bring up all the time, but as far as I know there is no evidence for it.

 

I agree. I almost suspect that we've all concluded they just want attention because what else could any reasonable person expect to get from their behavior in that situation.

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I only took a cursory skim of that article but it's definitely really lame. I actually think it's weirdly part of the Ferguson-esque issue of police militarization - so strange to see a PD suggest that potential victims be "hard targets". Their advice is basically the same that you might read in a military thriller where the main character is practicing counter-surveillance techniques.

 

I actually think it's broadly good advice just posed in the worst possible way. I think it's generally a good idea for people to outwardly show situational awareness when for instance walking around in the dark, not because "don't look like a victim or else you'll become one" but because keeping your eyes down with earbuds in your ears literally does make you look like a good target for crime. That doesn't just apply to women, it applies to anybody.

 

I also don't think it applies to preventing ANY kind of crime. That kind of "head on a swivel" counter-surveillance stuff might keep away a petty thief who just wants to pickpocket you, but it's sure are shit not going to stop someone who is determined to do something.

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The non-Patrick portion of Giant Bomb finally came out and said something on the Bombcast, and it came across as kind of limp.

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I guess it is progressive for the gamergate-consensus to move all the way to "If women didn't want to receive threats, they wouldn't be talking publicly about the ones they receive." from "The threats never happened and are fabricated for attention." I'm not sure, they are realizing that other people exist at a pace so slow, it's hard to tell which direction they are moving in.

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However, I do take some issue with the notion that because hate groups can coalesce around anything, what they actually coalesce around is not germane to the broader discussion. To bring it back to my academic specialty, it's almost universally agreed that the sub-Roman kingdoms from the fifth century onward would eventually have been united under the rule of a single one, which just happened to be the Franks. The fact that it could easily have been the Burgundians, the Lombards, or the Visigoths doesn't diminish the historical interest in knowing why it was the Franks. Likewise, the fact that it is more or less inevitable that misogynistic hate groups mobilize on the internet under some banner does not diminish the social interest in knowing why one of those banners is video games.

 

I'd been thinking about picking back up this part of the thread while working this morning, trying to order my thoughts on it. These tweets echoed a thought I had already been having.

post-33601-0-15977400-1413401613_thumb.jpg

 

I feel very much like I'm just poking in the dark with these statements and questions.  I'm not meaning to sound like I'm making any grand judgments here (if anything comes off that way). 

 

Games have, unquestionably, become more macho and aggressive, more and more heavily tapping into the kind of rhetoric that revolves around jock culture, and that's only increasing with the rise of e-sports.  The misogyny, hate and violence that can show up in sports fandom seems to have a lot of parallels with the gaters.  Though perhaps that's just that this kind of hatred always looks the same, regardless of the context that surrounds it. 

 

People tend to associate the idea of gamers (and comic book fans) as being social outcasts or loners as being an inherent part of gamer culture.  But no real parallels exist with the men who are fans of sports.  These are often guys with families, jobs, real life social circles.  But the same blame, bad logic and vitriol will permeate the online discussions about women.  Similarly, you'll see men raging about how untrustworthy and unethical women are, while blissfully tuning into ESPN every night, unquestioningly loyal to a corporation that constantly acts unethically. 

 

I suspect we're all familiar with the good and bad of religion when it comes to espousing hate.  When it is religious people aiming their hate at women, again you don't have any of the social parallels that are commonly associated with gaming and comics fans.  Even on the opposite side of religion, you have all the shitty examples of how men in atheist/agnostic communities have treated women.  They don't even have any religious bullshit dogma to fall back on to justify their actions. 

 

Are there any traditionally male areas (professional or hobby), where women have been easily accepted and welcomed without this kind of bullshit?  It might be more enlightening to find an example of a sub-culture where this didn't happen, that never created a breeding ground from which something like gg could be born.  Off the top of my head, none are occurring to me.

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Thanks for the suggestions! I like Bjorn's idea of sending students down the internet rabbit-hole, but I'll probably let the instructor decide if she wants to go that way. I think it will be a useful discussion. Yay?

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I haven't listened to it yet, but I imagine it is limp - although obviously nothing is ever permissive enough.

It is very weak, assuming the one time I've heard it mentioned in the first 80% or so of the podcast is the only mention. They only really talk about harassment while not really addressing GG as a whole at all. The most harsh thing said might be from Jeff, who qualifies an argument with something like "even if you think their criticisms of journalism aren't fucking ludicrous like I do".

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What about publicizing it? Informing people in general of what's going on?

 

I don't think publicizing it is something you should or shouldn't do, necessarily. It's a personal decision. That said, I'd imagine following the advice of the aforementioned law enforcement/FBI on such matters if offered is also a good idea, but as far as I know the FBI hasn't said made any statements about not publicizing threats.

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Publising it has advantages, in that it might encourage others that have been suffering silently to speak up. Awareness is important. You might not win over anybody, but just reminding the people that are with you that there's a problem that still needs to be addressed can be helpful. Basically the same as the Planned Parenthood political phone calls that were brought up in another thread.

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To lighten the mood a little, Chainsawsuit.com put this webcomic up, which seems to resonate:

 

20141015-perfectcrime.png

 

Also, a Twitter version of Eliza, a chat bot originally created in 1966, picked up on the Gamergate hashtag yesterday. Gamergaters have been engaging her ever since.

 

Ignoring the last page and a half, the following totally just made my night:

 

post-6403-0-81244800-1413418649_thumb.jpg

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I don't think publicizing it is something you should or shouldn't do, necessarily. It's a personal decision. That said, I'd imagine following the advice of the aforementioned law enforcement/FBI on such matters if offered is also a good idea, but as far as I know the FBI hasn't said made any statements about not publicizing threats.

 

Yeah - this I think is the thing. Both Gamergate (inasmuch as Gamergate can be said to say anything), in a PSA poster they created, and now Totalbiscuit have said that the advice from law enforcement is not to share the fact that you have been threatened, but neither has said where this advice actually comes from. And, of course, in a situation where most of the death threats seem to be directed at female critics of Gamergate, that would also have the effect of concealing that fact.

 

Boogie actually went a step further and appealed to journalists not to report when women shared the threats they were getting, but I'm not sure he'd thought through the implications of that statement...

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Yeah - this I think is the thing. Both Gamergate (inasmuch as Gamergate can be said to say anything), in a PSA poster they created, and now Totalbiscuit have said that the advice from law enforcement is not to share the fact that you have been threatened, but neither has said where this advice actually comes from. And, of course, in a situation where most of the death threats seem to be directed at female critics of Gamergate, that would also have the effect of concealing that fact.

 

Boogie actually went a step further and appealed to journalists not to report when women shared the threats they were getting, but I'm not sure he'd thought through the implications of that statement...

 

GG has actually gone further than that.  They tried to create an online petition asking Patreon to ban the accounts of anyone who publicly reported being threatened.  Just take two seconds to think about that, because it's a fucking mind-boggling request.  "You mentioned how you'd been sent death threats, so now we're taking away this stream of income you had."

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I haven't listened to it yet, but I imagine it is limp - although obviously nothing is ever permissive enough.

 

I re-listened to it. They never use the word Gamergate, identify anyone involved as anything other than "game developers," or mention how deeply misogynistic GG is. It's possibly the weakest possible denunciation they could have made.

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Yeah - this I think is the thing. Both Gamergate (inasmuch as Gamergate can be said to say anything), in a PSA poster they created, and now Totalbiscuit have said that the advice from law enforcement is not to share the fact that you have been threatened, but neither has said where this advice actually comes from.

 

It's weird to me that this is a thing, especially since I know I've seen a lot of news stories that are "FBI/Police investigating death threats against [person]" with comment from the FBI/police. If they're the ones to sometimes announce that death threats are happening and definitely a thing, I don't really see how anyone can take the grossly un-nuanced position of "don't talk about them" when it's obviously something that merits a nuanced reaction. I could understand taking the position "don't talk about your death threat immediately" in a kind of "it could provoke a person who is obviously mentally unstable" kind of way (it's easy to poke holes in, but it's at least understandable), but it's so often just an admonishment to never talk about your death threats.

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GG has actually gone further than that.  They tried to create an online petition asking Patreon to ban the accounts of anyone who publicly reported being threatened.  Just take two seconds to think about that, because it's a fucking mind-boggling request.  "You mentioned how you'd been sent death threats, so now we're taking away this stream of income you had."

 

Meanwhile there's a Patreon for 8chan.  I don't even want to link to it.

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8chan has a raid forum where Zoe Quinn's personal information, including phone numbers of her family, are posted. This information has been up for months. The administrator of the raid board refuses to remove the personal information and instead will sticky any personal information posted for the purpose of harassment:

 

PecVcI7.png

 

The administrator of 8chan also refuses to do anything about it:

 

 

ci6flF2.png

 

(this one is not my screencap, i didn't favorite/retweet this)

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An image of a black Mudkip with a Soviet emblem on it is probably the most "pathetic internet movement" iconography possible.

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