"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

[Dewar]

Yeah I also used to watch some WTF Is... videos before this shitstorm, and I will give him this pass. He has talked about actual issues in journalism and consumer rights on a number of occasions. It's arguable whether or not his attitudes were actually valid and well thought out, however almost no other high profile advocate of gatergate can actually say they have had a voice on "ethics" that didn't have something to do with anti-feminist temper tantrums.

 

But all this crap about trying to absolve himself from death threats and doxxing just because GG is a leaderless formless hashtag than anyone can use is a complete and total cop-out. If GG has no leadership, no manifesto, no stated values, goals and methodology outside of "it's about ethics in games journalism" then nobody gets to decide what is and is not the responsibility of GamerGate. If you want to be the voice of GG you need to have the responsibility as well. Otherwise you're just trying to have your cake and eat it.

 

The thing is, he doesn't want to be the voice of GG. He sees himself as a moderate and is apparently completely unaware of his bias on the whole thing.

[Denial]

Nah, he's all-in on Gamergate now. Tweeted about how nobody except Gamergate was respecting his moderate opinion, so they must be right. Not perhaps in quite so many words.

 

In other news, I confess to having LOLed at this:

 

[Bjorn]

Bjorn - there's a KiA thread here - basically, RogueStar posted account information from the original hack of Polytron on Twitter. Someone pointed out that he had uploaded a version without all the contact details blanked out, to which he replied something like "oops, my bad!". I popped over to Twitter to see if I could find the originals, but his thread is... busy.

 

Thanks, I was tired last night and having a hell of a time finding anything besides the crazy that was going on in his main timeline. Oh, and surprising no one probably, he's a big fan of Return of Kings:

Someone in the replies tells being they are being "intolerant" of other ideas by criticizing Rogue for liking RoK. Uh huh.

And here's a thread of Quinn and Boogie being decent human beings to each other and having empathy for what each has experienced.

 

And holy crap, that Milo tweet is side splitting hilarious. 

[Nachimir]

… well I guess it only took Milo two months to notice. Hope someone redoes that fan art GG battle picture.

 

Yeah I also used to watch some WTF Is... videos before this shitstorm, and I will give him this pass. He has talked about actual issues in journalism and consumer rights on a number of occasions.

 

Somewhat related to that, it's interesting to see that LewieP has been a vocal detractor of GG since the start. He's not only said he's on the side of consumers before, he's occasionally told journalists, developers  and retailers to go fuck themselves in service of that.

 

It's about emotional truths for gaters. The Huk piece linked a few pages back is one of the most insightful things I've read on it, particularly this bit talking about cult mechanics tied to superficial identity politics:

 

But when it comes to gamergate, finding any single kind of point to lock onto in terms of the viewpoint is impossible. Really. It's like trying to tango on quicksand. Every time you go behind the claim you hit another lie, another thing someone will say you don't understand. And unlike any organized group, there is no central ethos to reference at the core. Which just means all organizational statements or inclinations can be disavowed. The vast majority of the movement is actively harassing women? "nope! They're just the minority and not part of what we're really about." for anything that can be used to reveal gamergate for what it is and what it is doing is not part of the true movement. Those harassers? They are just minority trolls. Never mind that hulk can tell you from the hundreds of responses that's not the case. Point out that the movement is only frequently targeting women? "nope! It's about ethics and that's incidental." in this environment, all disagreements become personal attacks. It all becomes a moving goal post. The "truth" of virtually every single step is a shadow of something that cannot even be conceived, maybe even by the perpetrators themselves. Because the one thing hulk cannot get any single one of them to do is outline something positive they are accomplishing that doesn't make it seem like they are trying to eradicate feminist influence in gaming. Instead, they just cling so desperately to the those positive words they say they  represent and lash out against any and all threats. The end result is you can't even get to the nugget of disagreement on the world view.there is no world view. There is only the attack and the response.

 

Which, in case you are unaware, is the standard operating procedure for cults, behavioral programming and more organized organizations like scientology.

 

Now... If all this trouble were just relegated to the tower of babel version of the internet, then this would normally be no problem. The potency of outsider opinions are most often helped by the fact that they disorganized, distant and separate. But the problem with the potency of gamergate is that all those who fervently argue that this is not about sexism are then somehow able to bind their efforts into a fist to attack female developers / female writers instantly, along with the companies that support them on any level... And hulk's pretty sure that many of them don't even realize that's exactly what they're taking part of.

You have to understand how problematic this is. It's almost thought to be impossible. What has essentially happened is that we have taken a cult behavioral approach to discussion and philosophy - normally a really difficult thing to instill into people and requires isolation, direct programming and full-on cultural separation - and turned it into something that has been casually learned on the internet's proverbial streets through the organic process of being a part of video game's most toxic subculture.

This is one of the scariest things hulk has ever seen.

[Smart Jason]

I used to watch some of TB's videos and listen to his podcast until I decided that I wasn't comfortable supporting someone with politics I had a problem with (because he could be dismissive of sexism as not a problem in a #notallmen way). But I think the main reason he's involved with GG is because he's always has a big consumer advocacy ideal. He complains about Steam being shitty to their consumers with relatively no chance for refunds and lack of accountability.

 

I'm guessing that he wants the purported goals of GG to come to fruition, the ethics blah blah blah. I think that could be an interesting conversation but not at the expense of keeping GG alive. I guess he either is unable or unwilling to take a step back from GG and fully understand them rather than just his blanket presumption of them being the 'right side', which is pretty common for how he operated when I consumed his stuff.

 

Bear in mind that TotalBiscuit, in his efforts to be "pro-consumer" and a watchdog and all that, played a major part in the beginnings of GamerGate months ago by being the first major voice to publicize allegations of impropriety between Zoe Quinn and Nathan Grayson. He's never had to apologize for the consequences and damage that's caused - as you can hear from his podcast with Stephen Totilo, he's still maintaining that there was something there worth investigating - even though it was clearly a non-issue that snowballed into a larger hate campaign. I don't think it's libelous to call TotalBiscuit a narcissist. There are so many screencaps and quotes from him ranging from incidentally mentioning that he and his network are one of the largest in gaming on YouTube and are untouchable, to the downright venomous in which he attempts no veneer of humility when interacting with the audience he'd ironically pose to represent.

 

I'll never see TotalBiscuit as someone who got swept into GamerGate as someone who believed in the purity of their message. He made an extremely irresponsible video, publicizing the private lives of Zoe Quinn and Nathan Grayson without due research or forethought to how his legions of fans would react - and ever since he's been too proud to accept the indictment that this should have never been an inciting incident in the first place (and one which irrevocably soils the entire movement). It's only by the sheer grace of chronology that a day later Leigh Alexander said, in response to the harassment that he indirectly wrought, that gamers are dead, and then things started falling into place as they have, did he get to purport himself as a moderate.

[Bjorn]

#readergate
 

 

 

 

[Bjorn]

[JonCole]

[Dewar]

Wow, that is quality right there.

[eRonin]

readergate3.JPG

 

Gamergaters need to pack up and move to the moon, since nothing on Earth will satisfy them. Oh wait, the dogecoin community already claimed the moon, and we don't like bullies and misogynists.

[Denial]

Meanwhile, an absolutely fascinating insight into the internal politics of Gamergate's leading citizens in this account of the discussion around the Denton "leak" by Brennan.

[Merus]

Boy it's going to be wild when they start wondering if the Zoe Post is similarly filled with distortions

[Justin Leego]

And here's a thread of Quinn and Boogie being decent human beings to each other and having empathy for what each has experienced.

Yes! Group hugs at last!!!

[syntheticgerbil]

There are so many screencaps and quotes from him ranging from incidentally mentioning that he and his network are one of the largest in gaming on YouTube and are untouchable, to the downright venomous in which he attempts no veneer of humility when interacting with the audience he'd ironically pose to represent.

Not one of the largest, the largest. Absolutely vast in what channels the network owns and then add to that, that it's parent company is Disney. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maker_Studios The Disney part tends to never be mentioned and unless maybe some of those concerned parents rallied Disney, keeping it called Maker kind of keeps a nice wall between them.

 

I'm sure all of this controversy is extremely good for the business, whether they have a bunch of channels at odds with eachother and some members spewing hate speech. At the end of the day, the ad money continuously flows to Maker which flows to Disney. Sucks we all had to even click on that TB podcast to hear Stephen Totilo. There is no reason for the parent company to end TB's behavior.

[JonCole]

"The Gamer Bill of Rights" - http://news.genius.com/Kelly-maxwell-the-gamer-bill-of-rights-annotated

 

Dumb. I particularly like the bit where only people predisposed to like a game should review it. Basically, Gone Home SJWs shouldn't review Bayonetta and Bayonetta manchildren shouldn't review Gone Home. Or something like that.

 

Disclaimer: I don't actually feel like Bayonetta fans are polar opposite to Gone Home fans or even that Bayonetta is regressive, I'm just using it for the sake of rhetoric.

[Dewar]

"The Gamer Bill of Rights" - http://news.genius.com/Kelly-maxwell-the-gamer-bill-of-rights-annotated

 

Dumb. I particularly like the bit where only people predisposed to like a game should review it. Basically, Gone Home SJWs shouldn't review Bayonetta and Bayonetta manchildren shouldn't review Gone Home. Or something like that.

 

Disclaimer: I don't actually feel like Bayonetta fans are polar opposite to Gone Home fans or even that Bayonetta is regressive, I'm just using it for the sake of rhetoric.

 

I understand the point they're trying to make. It frustrates me at times when I see a FIFA 2015 review by a person who doesn't understand Soccer for instance, or a Final Fantasy review by someone who hates JRPGs. Giant Bomb in particular is guilty of this, but I kinda know what I'm going to get now when I tune into one of their sports game videos. Making it a blanket rule, however, is silly because there is some use in seeing how a person who doesn't understand soccer might interact with the FIFA new user experience. Also, it's obvious that my example isn't what they're targeting with that statement.

 

Still, if it really went both ways and they'd have to shut up about Gone Home, it might be a fair trade.

[SecretAsianMan]

"The Gamer Bill of Rights" - http://news.genius.com/Kelly-maxwell-the-gamer-bill-of-rights-annotated

 

Dumb. I particularly like the bit where only people predisposed to like a game should review it. Basically, Gone Home SJWs shouldn't review Bayonetta and Bayonetta manchildren shouldn't review Gone Home. Or something like that.

 

Disclaimer: I don't actually feel like Bayonetta fans are polar opposite to Gone Home fans or even that Bayonetta is regressive, I'm just using it for the sake of rhetoric.

 

That was just plain ridiculous.  Those aren't even rights.  Half of them contradict each other.  And pretty much all of them contradict GG.

[CollegeBaby]

I don't think it's a good idea at all to only have games reviewed by an uncritical target audience. It just sounds like a disaster feedback loop where the same games get made over and over again and no fresh ideas are brought to the table. Basically the mess that gaming has got itself into in the first place. It also doesn't reflect the variety of the gaming audience at large and provide game developers room for growth when the only people giving feedback are the dyed-in-the-wool fans.

 

I think it's better to foster a variety of critics/publications with different voices and perspectives, and the customer is treated with the intelligence to find which voice best reflects their taste in games. For example a Jeff Gerstmann review of the lasted console FPS is useless to me because in my view he has bad taste in shooters.

 

The rest of "Bill of Rights" is basically "I don't want people telling me that games have social responsibility as cultural artifacts." Fine. Watch a TotalBiscuit video instead.

[Dewar]

Well yeah, but that just comes back to the crux of the argument with GG. "If you don't like it, don't read it" doesn't seem to be acceptable to them.

[Bjorn]

*Background checking image*

 

Has anybody been paying attention to what KiA and 8chan have been doing about the Austin woman who was running for city council? It's fucking nuts, and they are completely blind to how they manage to act in EXACTLY the way that people expect them to act. I'm not going to link to any of the discussion about her, because most of them include links to a fucking online dossier on her. This is one of the crazy things. So doxxing is the most evil sin of reddit right? Do that shit, and get nuked. Oh, but spend hours assembling a multimedia dossier on a person, including pictures (some nudes), excerpts from forums, the history of their social media accounts? No fucking problem! Post away, that's fine. They make sure that they include multiple pieces of information that may indicate that she's worked in a couple of different adult industries...because...ethics? Fuck, ethics are hard, how do they work again? A lot of this appears to have been gathered by someone(s) in Austin because she's a D-list celebrity down there, but the gamergaters have latched onto it and expanded it with their expert background checking experience.

Then there are the sadly hilarious replies to her. A bunch of messages about how she's not "allowed" to speak about or for gamergate. She replied to one of those pointing out that a leaderless movement who claim to accept all doesn't get to pick who speaks about it. Then there was another thread about how it was fine if she talked about it, but she really needed to have a long conversation with one of the men of gamergate so that he could explain everything to her and make sure she understood.

Of all the people who have weighed in on gg pro or against, I haven't seen anyone who ended up with the sheer volume of information presented about them like I have this woman. Fucking gg doesn't even know who some of their thought leaders are, like I'm pretty sure some of the youtubers have managed to stay mostly anonymous, and gg doesn't seem to question anything they say.

[Dewar]

Here's an article about her campaign from a reputable source at least.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/11/04/a-female-politician-is-running-for-office-on-the-gamergate-platform/

 

Sounds like she was fed a few biased documents and didn't know what she was jumping into, then just decided to ride the wave.

[Bjorn]

Here's an article about her campaign from a reputable source at least.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/11/04/a-female-politician-is-running-for-office-on-the-gamergate-platform/

 

Sounds like she was fed a few biased documents and didn't know what she was jumping into, then just decided to ride the wave.

 

The reading I've done about her, at the minimum she's an interesting character of the type that Austin produces, which is fine. And if I was voting for her, some of the info dug up would be worth knowing (but only a fraction of what I've seen).  But the interesting thing to me was how she was handled by KiA and 8chan compared to how they handled other people who have wandered into gg.

[Twig]

Wait, so, unless I'm missing something, GG is attacking her after she started supporting them?

 

Weird. (Also sad. Guess that's what she gets for being a woman? Or do they just dislike the fact that she's trying to "use" GG as a platform? Well, definitely the woman part, at least.)

[Bjorn]

Wait, so, unless I'm missing something, GG is attacking her after she started supporting them?

 

Weird. (Also sad. Guess that's what she gets for being a woman? Or do they just dislike the fact that she's trying to "use" GG as a platform? Well, definitely the woman part, at least.)

 

Yep, and the info dumps on her are justified by claiming she's a secret troll who's only showing support to eventually make them look like dumbasses. You know, because the collection of lying, opportunistic, inflammatory, racist, misogynistic, rape apologist, holocaust denying, homophobic, body shaming supporters they have been getting are no big deal. But the way they react when they think a woman might make them look silly...that says something, doesn't it?

 

Edited to add: I forgot homophobic and body shaming

[Henroid]

Blizzard more or less called GamerGate out as a bunch of bullshit artists trying to mask their hate, at the opening of BlizzCon. GamerGate took to saying "They weren't talking about us" and almost immediately official Blizzard sources were saying, "Yes we were."

 

So y'know, expect more of GooberGate's crap in response.

 

Also, on the WoWhead website (guide / data site for World of Warcraft) a lady just mentioned the opening statement being critical of GamerGate, and she is now getting a ton of harassment and hate mail. How the fuck, that was fast.