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JonCole

"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

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Just, damn it. Blatant hypocrisy is an effective strategy, I'll say that much. 

 

It's an extraordinarily effective strategy. Time and again, we've seen that simply being the first party to make accusations, even if the accusations literally apply only to said party and not to anyone else, let alone the accused, is maybe the most powerful rhetorical tool for #GamerGate and its sympathizers. Looking at the posts about Coffin above, it's unbelievable (and unbelievably hypocritical) for them to attack him with allegations of inventing a wife and family, leaving him with the impossible onus of negative proof, but once shame as been wholly discarded, there are no limits. It's like Colonel fuckin' Kurtz lecturing about defeating the enemy by becoming more monstrous than they can bear.

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Yeah, except the Germans in WW1 discovered just how fucked you are when you hand your enemies propaganda fuel. If they hadn't been so monstrous, they wouldn't have pissed off Randi Harper, and if they hadn't done that the GGAB wouldn't have existed. GG was contained largely because they were so willing to be monstrous that it was easy to say you were against them (see GamerGhazi).

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Yeah, except the Germans in WW1 discovered just how fucked you are when you hand your enemies propaganda fuel. If they hadn't been so monstrous, they wouldn't have pissed off Randi Harper, and if they hadn't done that the GGAB wouldn't have existed. GG was contained largely because they were so willing to be monstrous that it was easy to say you were against them (see GamerGhazi).

Yeah, true. If the goal is hearts-and-minds, then the scorched-earth policy of hypocritical harassment is the worst thing ever, which is a big part of why #GamerGate managed to turn itself into a hate group on the fringe relatively fast. But, for some, it's total war, in which case the total annihilation of a given enemy, regardless of material or psychological loss, is what's considered a victory, and it's working marvelously well for those (probably more cynical and hateful) people.

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Shall we just name him King Shit of Turd Island then forget about him forever?

 

Talking about TB feels like being trapped in some nightmarish eternal news cycle.

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Yeah that's the thing isn't it: the people left in GamerGate are clearly not getting better.

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It's an extraordinarily effective strategy. Time and again, we've seen that simply being the first party to make accusations, even if the accusations literally apply only to said party and not to anyone else, let alone the accused, is maybe the most powerful rhetorical tool for #GamerGate and its sympathizers.

 

Like the general acceptance that Ted Cruz can run for president of the U.S. despite being undisputedly born in Canada with a Canadian citizen (at the time) father.

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Yeah that's the thing isn't it: the people left in GamerGate are clearly not getting better.

 

That's true, but the reason I've withdrawn from almost all discussions about GG (like, everywhere, not just here) is the obsessive and relentless focus on figures like TB. Given how he and his audience respond, it feels like he and his words are not a target through which any of the social/internet/abuse/harassment problems forefronted by the emergence of GG can be resolved. Unlike other prominent gaters and sympathisers who aren't fundamentally embedded in or tied to video game audiences, and thus have moved on to an extent, he's there to stay. Focus on prominent individuals also feels like it's contributing more to maintaining "August never ends" than ending it. Amongst their awful habits, those who already have ignorantly or purposefully sicced legions of followers on targets with .@'s are unlikely to have any road to Damascus moments.

 

There are people doing really good work, like Randi and Crash Override. Outside of directing people to that, it feels like the best I can do is signal boost people who need it, criticise myself, keep a weather eye on GG, and watch the backs of everyone involved in events I'm running. There's always guff and dead ends in group discussion, but on the back of the above my brain has started vehemently and automatically sidelining discussion of TB as irrelevant. I cannot recommend that habit strongly enough.

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Like the general acceptance that Ted Cruz can run for president of the U.S. despite being undisputedly born in Canada with a Canadian citizen (at the time) father.

 

It's off-topic, but he was an American citizen at the time of his birth, which is all the constitution requires. It's no different than John McCain being born in Panama and still being eligible to run for president.

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It's off-topic, but he was an American citizen at the time of his birth, which is all the constitution requires. It's no different than John McCain being born in Panama and still being eligible to run for president.

 

While you're absolutely right, I think this was brought up in the regard to hypocrisy though, mainly the one that Obama is a Kenyan Muslim & that Ted Cruz is an American patriot. One was born in the US to a US citizen and one was born in Canada to a US citizen, but guess which one has been hounded for proof that he's eligible to be president.

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While you're absolutely right, I think this was brought up in the regard to hypocrisy though, mainly the one that Obama is a Kenyan Muslim & that Ted Cruz is an American patriot. One was born in the US to a US citizen and one was born in Canada to a US citizen, but guess which one has been hounded for proof that he's eligible to be president.

 

The whole "is Obama actually eligible for presidency" line of trolling is a fucking national shame.  Hopefully people will remember it for what it was - thinly veiled smear campaign largely driven by racism.

 

But yeah this is going off topic.

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I think it's still relevant, in a way. The kind of mentality that demands to see Obama's birth certificate is pretty similar to the same mentality that GG built itself on: even though it's what conspiracy nuts say they want, if Obama made his birth certificate public, it wouldn't change any of their minds. You could see that exact mentality in action when Zoe shared all the Burgers and Fries screencaps and GGers dismissed them as fake/irrelevant.

 

Zoe did some actual fucking ethical journalism and GG failed to recognize it even when they were smacked in the face with it.

 

 

 

 

(seriously, the Obama thing is dumb as hell. You need a background check to work at fucking Wal-Mart, of course they're going to make sure the President is a US citizen)

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... if Obama made his birth certificate public, it wouldn't change any of their minds.

 

He did, it didn't :)

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Sorry, yeah, I was using it as an example of rank hypocrisy, as in one case it was pure false (and irrelevant) speculation, but in their case (the people making an issue of it) the exact situation they're theorizing about is stated fact. 

 

Plus, everything Tegan and Jennegatron said, like saying your primary concern is ethics while stalking a person and having police invade their home. 

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The problem with pointing out hypocrisy is that you can end up accidentally adopting the same mentality that first offended you, which I was reminded by via my father this weekend who essentially said "we should really be hammering more on Ted Cruz being born outside the country, since Republicans did it so much to us with Obama". There are more than enough reasons to discredit Cruz without having to stoop as low as bottom-feeding scum like Donald Trump.

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I've heard rumours that most of Congress also hates Ted Cruz. If there's any truth to that rumour, and his colleagues in the Senate decide that now is the time to kneecap the fucker, we're in for fun times. Remember how powerful ol' Michelle "Crazy Eyes" Bachmann was until she had to try to appeal beyond the bat-shit crazy demographic and people actually started to believe those who were pointing out she was batshit crazy?

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I have mildly mixed feelings on A Man In Black, but this is a doozy:

https://storify.com/a_man_in_black/the-baldwin-went-down-to-georgia

And to clarify, my mixed feelings come down to me being somewhat uncomfortable with callout culture. I follow him and Sarah Butts because they are excellent sources for exposing both gross and (darkly) hilarious moments within GG. But sometimes I feel that they either read too much into things, or pick statements with not enough context to be conclusive.

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I have mildly mixed feelings on A Man In Black, but this is a doozy:

https://storify.com/a_man_in_black/the-baldwin-went-down-to-georgia

And to clarify, my mixed feelings come down to me being somewhat uncomfortable with callout culture. I follow him and Sarah Butts because they are excellent sources for exposing both gross and (darkly) hilarious moments within GG. But sometimes I feel that they either read too much into things, or pick statements with not enough context to be conclusive.

 

I don't follow him anymore because he is bloody exhausting. I can't stand the threads of thirty tweets in a row. Just write a blog post and link to it, man.

 

Storify is both useful in this regard but also infuriating, as it seems to empower people to have these massive twitter threads. There's a core of users that think this is great and transmedia in action, but it's a very, very poor way of communicating a point.

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I don't know how anyone can dedicate their lives to keeping up with GG. At all. 

I also don't think it's necessary to poke the bear either. 

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I've heard rumours that most of Congress also hates Ted Cruz. If there's any truth to that rumour, and his colleagues in the Senate decide that now is the time to kneecap the fucker, we're in for fun times. Remember how powerful ol' Michelle "Crazy Eyes" Bachmann was until she had to try to appeal beyond the bat-shit crazy demographic and people actually started to believe those who were pointing out she was batshit crazy?

That's good, because besides his worthless crack about Net Neutrality being the Obamacare of the internet, I'm really worried about all these Republicans taking over to dismantle Obamacare. That's fine if they want to, I can't afford Obamacare even though I want to have healthcare, but I can't afford any of the plans monthly currently (even though they are somewhat reasonable). But what bothers me is all of these people just want to tear apart the only plan to get rid of "socialism" or something and not actually do anything to fix healthcare prices and how your life is just crushed should you have a major medical problem. Or just semi-major. Then it just goes back into the hands of your employer to maybe provide you something okay or terrible for a price you might not like, which you can still do. I fail to see how Obamacare takes away anyone's freedoms. Anyway I guess this doesn't belong in this thread.

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The problem with pointing out hypocrisy is that you can end up accidentally adopting the same mentality that first offended you, which I was reminded by via my father this weekend who essentially said "we should really be hammering more on Ted Cruz being born outside the country, since Republicans did it so much to us with Obama". There are more than enough reasons to discredit Cruz without having to stoop as low as bottom-feeding scum like Donald Trump.

 

I think this is a fair take, and I don't think progressives/democrats should be seriously hammering him on this as a genuine reason he couldn't be president, but I think he should be asked to address it in comparison to his rhetoric on citizenship. There are less-white families that are being ripped apart by INS for this same issue. The right is currently trying to eliminate "birthright citizenship." 

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I don't know how anyone can dedicate their lives to keeping up with GG. At all. 

I also don't think it's necessary to poke the bear either. 

 

I absolutely agree. I guess If that's your thing, well, ok, good for you. There are a lot of things I will never understand about the world and this is just one more of them.

 

As to poking the bear- In the case of GG, what is to be gained? Logic is ineffective when arguing with them and, in general, most of them just follow the lead of whatever mob they happen to be in at the time. They tend to lack the self awareness necessary to feel shame for the pain and weirdness their little cult has wrought; so appeals to basic humanity are out. All in all, they behave just like your standard, garden variety conspiracy theorists and fanatics- so wrapped up in their own delusions of being the only sane people in a world where everyone is against them that they can't let themselves believe anything else. 

 

Honestly, If I wanted to be reminded that a pretty decent portion of humanity gets their rocks off on the suffering and torment of others....wait, why would I want to be reminded of that, that's terrible.

 

(note: this is my opinion on the form of interaction that A Man In Black and others are using which I see as different than standing up for and supporting the people GG target with their nastiness.)

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I don't follow him anymore because he is bloody exhausting. I can't stand the threads of thirty tweets in a row. Just write a blog post and link to it, man.

 

Storify is both useful in this regard but also infuriating, as it seems to empower people to have these massive twitter threads. There's a core of users that think this is great and transmedia in action, but it's a very, very poor way of communicating a point.

 

Storify is really weird and I don't know what I think about it. People like A Man In Black essentially write for Storify more than for Twitter, if you get what I'm saying. And the result is a weirdly paced medium-length article where you get to see how many Twitter people liked each individual sentence.

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