"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

[BadHat]

Lot of drama happening right now surrounding these tweets by Brianna Wu:

 

 

I can kind of sympathize with how people might be balking at this considering Wu's position when she was still being heavily targeted (assuming she still isn't?), but so much of the blowback is completely unproductive. It's all hurt feelings and bruised egos and it doesn't look like there's any potential for it to go in a remotely positive direction. I don't for one second think that anyone still being harassed over this shit is bringing it on themselves or whatever, but I don't know that it's fair to demand support from Wu after everything she's been through. Then again, maybe it's not totally unfair to expect her to use her visibility in a responsible way? Really it's hard to discern what to take away from this through all the personal drama, or if I should even be paying attention to this in the first place. It's getting to a place where it feels less informative and more perverse, especially when places like kotakuinaction are already quotemining it, trying to dissect everything and divide it into neat little boxes, never mindful of the actual flesh and blood people caught in all this machinery.

 

Favorite two things of the last couple days: 1) Intel is BIGOTED towards white men 2) 8chan going down for a couple hours was CONFIRMED to be a DDoS attack from Brianna Wu

 

Circling the drain now

 

Also: trying to play "gotcha" with Dan because he might have vaguely implicated himself (but not really, for anyone with reading comprehension). These people are literal children.

 

[Problem Machine]

I honestly don't doubt that Brianna Wu still gets tons of shit... hell, she's hired someone basically solely to handle harassment and related issues, hasn't she? If she says she thinks the energy expended on fighting gamergate could be better spent elsewhere, I'm inclined to cede to her experience.

[Undeadpool]

"It's not men's fault, it's the ruling class."

Who do these people think the ruling class are? Do they genuinely believe that there's only a small group of people dictating the rules of how society works and everyone else is prey to their whims?

I mean these are guys who are drinking the Bill Maher kool-aid and taking it to UNHEARD of levels.

 

They seem to genuinely think that "Beautiful, ephemeral, intelligent woman married to a dumb fatass" is complimentary and pandering TO THE WOMAN. That right there could have entire classes taught about misunderstanding how power dynamics in society work. (Or I'm misunderstanding your post, I kinda feel like it could go either way...but I feel like the point still stands)

[Undeadpool]

They just don't fucking get it, do they?

Or they do and they're willingly spreading misinformation. I never know whether to pity them or think they're scum.

I mean did you SEE the comments in that blog quoted around page 132? The one Klepek linked to that had some great, objective facts about why "the movement" never gained the traction they like to pretend it did?

MOST of the top comments (which I think are chronological, not vote based) were about how this was "yet another article reporting on incidents with no citations" (there were plenty of citations) and once again HILARIOUSLY misusing Occam's Razor ("Which is more likely? That thousands of people are leading a campaign of misinformation and harassment or that these bitches are just doing it for attention? CHECK. MATE.") I mean it'd be hilarious if it weren't so infuriating...

[Nachimir]

Roosh published, a breathless, apocalyptic pro-GG piece that turned out to be entirely lifted from an old anti-communist screed, with "John Birch Society" replaced by GG and "communist" replaced with SJW:

http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/01/08/roosh-vs-game-site-reaxxion-tricked-into-publishing-an-old-john-birch-society-pamphlet-as-a-gamergate-manifesto/

 

Given the motives of the group of people who started GG, I'm thinking it might be sincere and the writer didn't expect to get caught.

[Merus]

About the same level of nuttiness in the John Birch Society and GG, too

[Apple Cider]

I think Brianna's phrasing is a little off-putting but I would love it if people would kinda move on at this point - not even on the big stuff, because I think it's still good to keep up with that, but generally people who keep doing things like talking to them all the time, especially in a way that's public to everyone in their TLs? It's like, come on already. You don't have to ignore it, certainly, but I have gotten quite a few gaters in my mentions and I do nothing but block. There's literally no need to engage with them. At all.

 

I don't know, it's been better for my sanity to have people talking about it less and actually focusing on things that interest them or generally just not having twitter being 24-7 discussion about shitheads.

[JonCole]

GG has given rise to a surprising amount of my feed doing the every reply to a GGer is .@-reply so that everyone can see it. I have no idea why they think I need to see every part of their argument, but it basically defeats the purpose of blocking GGers because I still have to see half of the discussion and be reminded that the other person exists. So I've just been liberally muting anti-GGers and blocking GGers with intent to unmute in a couple months once everyone comes to the general conclusion that the very public aspect of this "fight" is over and it's more about supporting people who continue to be attacked without engaging the bad guys.

[Brodie]

I think Brianna's phrasing is a little off-putting but I would love it if people would kinda move on at this point - not even on the big stuff, because I think it's still good to keep up with that, but generally people who keep doing things like talking to them all the time, especially in a way that's public to everyone in their TLs? It's like, come on already. You don't have to ignore it, certainly, but I have gotten quite a few gaters in my mentions and I do nothing but block. There's literally no need to engage with them. At all.

 

I don't know, it's been better for my sanity to have people talking about it less and actually focusing on things that interest them or generally just not having twitter being 24-7 discussion about shitheads.

 

This has bothered me for a while now so I'm glad to see that someone else feels the same way. I actually unfollowed Brianna a while back due to my feed being clogged with her engaging with GG people. I have always found it cringe inducing to watch someone attempt earnest communication with people who are actively trolling them. Drives me crazy. There is just nothing to be gained there.

That said, I'm glad that level-headed people try to reach out and educate in situations like this, I really am, because my desire to interact with anonymous internet jerks is non-existent. 

[Nachimir]

I had to unfollow pixiejenni for the .@'s. Not that I don't admire her persistence and calm politeness in the face of GG's horror, but her account just filled my feed with gater stuff constantly.

 

The Brianna stuff from earlier: I can see her point but think it was a bad approach. Better to move on to the more constructive things she's advocating than make statements that can be read as "Ok everyone, this is over now! Everyone move on to something else!"

[Vainamoinen]

Roosh published, a breathless, apocalyptic pro-GG piece that turned out to be entirely lifted from an old anti-communist screed, with "John Birch Society" replaced by GG and "communist" replaced with SJW:

http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/01/08/roosh-vs-game-site-reaxxion-tricked-into-publishing-an-old-john-birch-society-pamphlet-as-a-gamergate-manifesto/

 

Given the motives of the group of people who started GG, I'm thinking it might be sincere and the writer didn't expect to get caught.

Actually, I'm also pondering how this came to pass. I mean, LOOK AT THE ILLUSTRATIONS in that article. There's really not much doubt that the autor is talking about communism.

The demaskation is indeed delicious in any case.

Oh great, and now I'm reading articles on donotlink. God almighty the kid bastards on there.

[Apple Cider]

I think the .@ nonsense works occasionally, sparingly if you are having a conversation thread that you want others to see. But yeah, endless engagement is clogging and it forces everyone to see shit they don't want to, especially using the tools they have available. I honestly think education efforts are moot, always have been, because I feel like GG's intent (back when they weren't GG but rather the forces outlined in #yourslipisshowing) has always been to sow discord, cointelpro feminists and generally be horrible. But people get caught up in this feeling that if they don't engage, that everything GGs say about them is true. Even if they specifically say it JUST to get a rise out of people.

 

They walked into every fight thinking I'm less than human, I don't need to try and prove that I am, they won't ever believe it.

[Vainamoinen]

I'm trying again and again, but it IS useless. Mostly because you're starting from zero every time. People are flaunting the usual bullshit around, the not-all-men and the reverse sexism and the supposed scientific standards and the quantification, the "you don't have to do that in the game" and the "you can do that to the male characters as well", and they are doing it each and every time in full knowledge of the upcoming counter arguments.

Camus wrote that you'd have to imagine Sisyphus as a happy human being. Obviously talking to gamergate people is less fun than pushing rocks.

 

The whole reason for identifying tropes in any narrative media is to have a shorthand for describing and talking about the story experience. If the shorthand is not accepted, the discussion isn't going anywhere. There's no progress in analysis. It always stays on the most basic level. As such, I consider gamergate directly opposed to knowledge.

 

Sure you could criticise the trope definitions and their applicability, but gamergate people usually start at the Damsel in Distress trope, as if it neither existed nor was used in any relevant quantity in video games. And that's just petulant child material, justifying Alexander's harsh assessment of gamer culture almost immediately.

[Apple Cider]

It is useless. They don't want to be convinced, or helped, they literally want to waste your time. That's their aim - they want to use their latent feelings of hatred for you to steal your actual hours away from you. There is literally no good faith here. Their efforts are to derail, delay, disrupt. I don't have time for that.

[Deadpan]

forces everyone to see shit they don't want to

 

That's slightly stretching it then, isn't it, unless they are actively dragging you into those conversations. I definitely hear what you're saying about engaging them, I've stopped a long time ago and had to unfollow folk like Jenni Goodchild a couple of times because she made me go back in there when I saw something exceptionally silly, but I'm also not super comfortable with setting hard and fast rules for what needs to be done about x or y. I mean, more power to you if you want those things out of your life, definitely use whatever tools you have to be rid of it, I just think that it can be useful even if you don't instantly convince any gaters to drop their crusade.

 

One thing to consider is that they are making those conversations visible for the benefit of observers. That's a bit of a problematic aspect of Twitter I guess, the way we often treat arguments there more like bloodsport than conversation, where you enter the arena mainly to score meaningless zinger points against the other side and ride the high of your own side's favs and rts(which I am not a fan of catching myself doing, but I guess if it helps others cope it's still somewhat okay). There is a way to do it productively though, I think, to walk people who are passively sitting on the sidelines through the arguments you commonly get. Maybe it seems weird that anybody worth talking to should be on the fence about GG, but it wouldn't put it past them to (ignorantly but not actively maliciously) think that "that one point they made was kind of okay" or "Didn't they run that charity thing too?" and that can be a way to show them why that's bullshit even if they are wary enough of the open misogyny of the movement to not want to ask those questions themselves.

 

There's also the question of when exactly these arguments bear fruit, because in my experience of learning from discussion, it almost never happens during the actual argument. Nowadays I guess I'm generally mature enough to admit that I don't have all the answers and I might have to mull that one over for a bit, thank you for your time, but plenty of times in my forum past that'd just start a spiral of increasingly verbose posts insisting that it's like this, and then days or weeks or months later the argument comes back to bite me in the butt, and I begrudgingly admit to myself that they totally had a point there. Which is to say I know from my combined experience of internet arguments and coming around on feminism that just because you don't convert a guy on the spot doesn't mean you haven't planted the seed in his mind, that will eventually grow into a beautiful tree. Maybe I'm being overly kind by assuming that some of these people are on even a remotely similar plane of emotional maturity, but I think it's still possible. I hope so.

 

Two cents on why I don't think it's pointless to waste your time arguing, if you feel like you've got time to waste. Though I strongly support your decision to do what is best for yourself <3

[Vainamoinen]

Even more so, engaging in a discussion with gamergate will actively prolong the conflict. And from what I've seen, "the conflict" essentially means the hopeless attempt at stopping a cultural development that will happen anyway, quite a bit delayed compared to other narrative media, but still. Video games WILL grow up as an art form, and they can do hardly anything against it besides wail, moan, doxx and swat.

 

Now to get the "Into the Stars" makers to remove the godawful high heels from their female characters on the last space ark of humanity...

[Apple Cider]

I'm not really pushing for some hard and fast rule, there's literally no way I can enforce people NOT talking to these people (hence why I make full use of mute, unfollow) but from my personal opinion, as an esteem internetologist, feminist and long-time harassee, my folk wisdom is that these people in particular are specifically here to waste your time vs. trying to argue about anything in good faith.

[Brodie]

Well, the GG morlocks paid actual money for a dildo and then sent it to Chris Kluwe. Because that'll show 'em.

It is now being auctioned off for charity. 

 

People, I'm torn. 

 

While it might be that I would be overjoyed if they were to clump together like a Katamari and then roll into a volcano, at this point they are serving as a perfect example of why changes need to be made in our culture. They are like a weakened strain of a cultural disease and, maybe, they will eventually be consumed like some sort of vaccine. Or something. I dunno. I'm done for the day. 

 

Cheers, dear sane people! May all your enemies be as clueless as Gamer Gate.

[Bjorn]

Waitaminutehere...if I irritate gg enough, they'll mail me a dildo? I mean, who doesn't need an extra dildo laying around, even if it's just for decoration (cause I'm not going to use one that some stranger sent me in the mail).

Here's a reddit post that collected a bunch of Twitter links about the dildo (reddit link is safe, Twitter link, obviously NSFW). And here's the eBay auction itself (again, NSFW). That auction will probably be killed within the next day or two, as it violates the community guidelines. Even as an autographed item, it probably has to go in the semi-hidden Adult category.

Edited to add:

And yep, got killed within a few hours:

[Deadpan]

I'm not really pushing for some hard and fast rule, there's literally no way I can enforce people NOT talking to these people (hence why I make full use of mute, unfollow) but from my personal opinion, as an esteem internetologist, feminist and long-time harassee, my folk wisdom is that these people in particular are specifically here to waste your time vs. trying to argue about anything in good faith.

 

Cool then, I hope I did not appear disrespectful.

[GavinTheAlmighty]

As a side note, there was an actual issue about journalistic ethics that broke in Ontario just yesterday.  The Toronto Star reported that Global TV (for our international friends, Global TV is a big national TV station) suspended lead anchor Leslie Roberts because it came to light that Roberts is part-owner of a PR firm whose clients were frequently featured on-air, interviewed, and provided positive press by...Leslie Roberts.  Oops.

[Nachimir]

Waitaminutehere...if I irritate gg enough, they'll mail me a dildo? I mean, who doesn't need an extra dildo laying around, even if it's just for decoration (cause I'm not going to use one that some stranger sent me in the mail).

Here's a reddit post that collected a bunch of Twitter links about the dildo (reddit link is safe, Twitter link, obviously NSFW). And here's the eBay auction itself (again, NSFW). That auction will probably be killed within the next day or two, as it violates the community guidelines. Even as an autographed item, it probably has to go in the semi-hidden Adult category.

 

Hah!

 

Wait. JuiceBro's 15? I thought he said he was 37. 

 

----

 

That's in douche years.

[tegan]

I'm honestly surprised it was just a normal dildo and not some horrifying Bad Dragon number.

 

 

 

(you probably shouldn't Google that)

[Bjorn]

Oh, no need to google, that's what bookmarks are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Vainamoinen]

People, I'm torn. 

 

While it might be that I would be overjoyed if they were to clump together like a Katamari and then roll into a volcano, at this point they are serving as a perfect example of why changes need to be made in our culture. They are like a weakened strain of a cultural disease and, maybe, they will eventually be consumed like some sort of vaccine. Or something. I dunno. I'm done for the day. 

 

That's what I orginally thought. But the problem with people who aren't particularly certain what they are fighting for, who are protesting one thing and mean another, they are primarily a destructive force. And not particularly vulnerable to embarrassing exposure.

 

Thankfully, game designers are mostly giving a shit about gamergate. The public's interest in indie devs is much the same as before gamergate. The problem is that they are stemming a tide of hate on twitter and elsewhere, and that is a very stressful thing that may well have an influence on their creativity.

 

As to the larger developers and the largest publisher, gamergate doesn't approach them in any disrespectful way. I find that continuously baffling. Warner Brothers legally coerces Let's Players into positive coverage. There's an article or two, John Bain tweets "let's not have that any more", Jim Sterling quite illegally quotes verbatim. Gamergate isn't interested. Ethics in journalism? Fuck you. At the height of gamergate in August, Valve introduces their "Curator" service. I can not but think of this as an extreme conflation of publisher and press. The monopolist publisher unashamedly controls the mechanics by which video game customers are attributed their press. Does that strike anyone here as ethically mmmmmnnnnjabitsketchy? Gamergate doesn't give a shit. Never ever would they attack the big dealers. Since their suckup letter, even Electronic Arts is best friends with gamergate. The hypocrisy boggles one's mind.

 

Video game journalists unfortunately have the tendency to be scared shitless by the gaters. The result are rather arbitrary 'rules' they impose on themselves, many of which are contrary to what games journalism actually is (everything but an objective source about the VG hobby) or completely senseless in the context of video game journalism (as opposed to, say, political journalism). That is something gamergate people have in fact 'achieved', and when you look at how Aurini talks about gamergate's "victory conditions", you cannot but think of the movement as oppressive.

 

Quoting Hadley Bennet, Aurini vocally supports:

 

We want to capture or secure commitments from 3/4ths (or whatever number deemed feasible) of gaming journalist sites that they’ll be apolitical in their coverage and reviews of video games. We want them to sign a statement on ethics in game journalism and to immediately remove journalists who demonstrably violate these terms. Owing to violations of journalism ethics, we want retroactive removal of violators X, Y, Z, etc. from your gaming sites.

 

Get that into your brains, people. A bunch of totally clueless losers wishes to define what 'apolitical' means for diverse gaming sites, and then goes on to assume the authority to put journalists out of a job based on that clueless definition of the apolitical. Only one possible goal of gamergate, but a widely respected one. And, of course, a blatantly fascist one. Assuming control of the free press in order to achieve, yes, a political goal.

 

In short, I have no real concerns about game devs and publishers, but gamergate's oppression of the video game press must not continue, and if fighting helps, fighting it should be.