"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

[Bjorn]

#NotYourPizza

 

:clap: :clap: :clap:

 

 

Fucking TJWs -- Topping Justice Warriors

 

I'm dying reading through this. 

 

They is also why SJWs from outside the "gaming" community are jumping in. It actually makes me sick when I think about it.

[Gormongous]

They is also why SJWs from outside the "gaming" community are jumping in. It actually makes me sick when I think about it.

 

Not to get punch-drunk with cynicism, but I love that getting the mainstream media involved is a "disgusting, juvenile tactic" but letter-bombing a site's advertisers is totally legit. I have no doubt whatsoever in my mind that, were they in the position of right-thinking people, they'd see it perfectly fine and find something else to complain about instead.

[Merus]

Well obviously everything they do is legitimate because if it wasn't legitimate they wouldn't do it. Because they're principled.

[SuperBiasedMan]

I sent out a tweet to the hashtag (can we start calling hashtags horsebags? I think the word is kinda dumb) asking what the movement has actually achieved if they don't see the harassment as part of their movement.

They mostly seem to say they got ads pulled, they have sites changing ethics policies and they started a conversation.

 

This mostly just made me more annoyed with the sites that have supported gamergate in any capacity and also worries me that this is going to be a ridiculously long drawn out death of GGers, because the entire event has basically just turned them into a societal group. They feel like a marginalised community, so to them it's not that they've seen a lot of progress, they just think they need to keep working on it to overturn their hugely unfair characterisation.

 

I've gone back and forth from thinking I should and shouldn't engage, because obviously the discussion has not changed anyone's mind. But maybe it's better to distract them from worse targets and also show that I'm actively not supporting it.

[Nachimir]

I think showing support and solidarity to those who are likely to be harassed is important. I was silent for a week or so in the hope GG would go away, but it won't on that basis, and silence just makes the targets of harassment feel less supported and more vulnerable.

 

Today, the FUCKING DAILY MAIL ran story about #glittergrape in which they very bluntly positioned it as a harassment campaign targeting women in the games industry. GGs response was to accuse the DM of being "SJW controlled media".

[Paul Smith]

Wrote this on Neogaf in reponse to similar questions about how to help this sorry situation and it sank without a trace. So I thought it was about time I registered here. Hope you find this advice useful.

 

 

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Won't someone please THINK OF THE GAMERGATES

 

They are being unfairly targeted in all this. Their intrinsic gamergate identity was hijacked by bad people of the internet in order to harass innocent females.

 

Gamergates love and respect females. Some of them are themselves female! But they have had to watch helplessly as people pretending to be gamergates drove first one, then more females out of their homes. Nothing can describe the horror these gamergates feel at this, yet their agony is compounded by clueless media or online commenters who indiscriminately lump them together with their oppressors.

 

That's awful! What can I do to help?

First, educate yourself on what a gamergate is, and how to tell if a gamergate is genuine. All gamergates are born with a telltale mark, or hashtag, which they use to form bonds and communicate with each other. If you see someone doing something nasty on the internet but they do not bear this mark, do not blame the gamergates! It is probably just someone who is being grumpy, because they are on the internet and the internet makes you grumpy.

 

If you do see the mark, it is a little trickier. You will have to carefully read the words that are being written and judge them in their proper context. Is the purported gamergate responding to someone else who said something nasty about gamergates? If so, cut them a little slack as they are dealing with a whole lot right now! But if they're saying bad things about a female, it's likely this isn't a gamergate at all, but instead a BAD INTERNET PERSON. Bad internet people like to cause trouble for gamergates and also for females and by pretending to be gamergates they can cause all the trouble they like! Unfortunately it is trivially easy for bad internet people to do this, so be vigilant.

 

Can anything be done about these bad internet people?

The most important thing you can do is educate others about gamergates, and call out any instances where you suspect a bad internet person is pretending to be one. Above all, be calm and patient.

 

For instance, someone says that gamergates are misogynists (that's people who hate females). Don't lose your cool! Educate them on the gamergate hashtag, and that anyone saying bad things about females is no true gamergate but instead a bad internet person. If they persist, be firm! Ask for evidence! Where are the telltale hashtags? Which supposed gamergate said the bad thing, and where, and when? If they don't provide evidence, you have exposed their lies! But if they do, it's even better as with the information we've given you you'll be able to expose the bad internet person's deceptions.

 

It's outrageous that I haven't heard of this!

Sadly, gamergates are heavily discriminated against and misunderstood, and this is especially evident in the mainstream media. Journalists will not investigate the realities of the situation when they can more easily write sensationalist headlines demonising gamergates.

 

There are a few allies out there - a real life Hollywood actor, a journalist from the prestigious Breitbart organisation, even a female person who calls herself a feminist! The latter is especially good news as it is well known that when you have a feminist-identifying female on your side it is impossible to say or do anything bad to other female people.

 

But gamergates have one more ally who's even more important - you! Yes, by lending your support and educating others you will help achieve a future where all people on all sides of this mess will join together in condemnation of the bad internet people, whoever they are, and all females will be at peace again knowing the gamergates love them. We can do this. Together.

[SuperBiasedMan]

I'm going to assume not one of them has ever read the Daily Mail.

 

 

 

EDIT:

I almost missed that SmZA's post was satire,

 

The latter is especially good news as it is well known that when you have a feminist-identifying female on your side it is impossible to say or do anything bad to other female people.

 

almost.

[Denial]

And, of course, Vox Day joins Gamergate.

[Merus]

Wouldn't put it past him to do it to spite John Scalzi but yeah your reactionary campaign has really rounded up the usual suspects hasn't it guys.

[Synnah]

Wrote this on Neogaf in reponse to similar questions about how to help this sorry situation and it sank without a trace. So I thought it was about time I registered here. Hope you find this advice useful.

 

 

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This really needs to be read in the style of a '50s Public Information film.

 

Zoe Quinn carried out an AMA on Reddit last night. I imagine she had some pretty serious moderator backup; it all seems to have been pretty civil and constructive, which is awesome. And there was this, which sort of drives home the reality of her situation in quite a brutal way.

[Bjorn]

This really needs to be read in the style of a '50s Public Information film.

 

Zoe Quinn carried out an AMA on Reddit last night. I imagine she had some pretty serious moderator backup; it all seems to have been pretty civil and constructive, which is awesome. And there was this, which sort of drives home the reality of her situation in quite a brutal way.

 

Tons there to talk about, but I want to pull this quote out from Quinn, from this question.

 

Which is a weird thought eh? We have so many "angry video game" review personalities, but no one cried bias there. Why cry bias when it's love and not rage being passionately expressed?

 

This reinforces something I've been trying to communicate for a long ass time. Women are consistently painted as the "emotional" gender, and yet I often see so many more men being irrationally emotional. It's just that the emotions they show are almost always anger, rage, jealousy, etc. Men (#notallmen) tend to be incredibly blind to certain emotions, perceiving them as being rational reactions when they are emotional reactions, which is one of the things that makes actual rational discourse near impossible with some people.

[Twig]

I am a man and I have no emotions so this checks out.

[shammack]

I think showing support and solidarity to those who are likely to be harassed is important. I was silent for a week or so in the hope GG would go away, but it won't on that basis, and silence just makes the targets of harassment feel less supported and more vulnerable.

 

I did the same thing but was eventually pressured into saying something about it by everyone saying I'm an asshole if I don't, but I do think it was a mistake (or would be if anyone cared what I had to say). While it is important to show support, I definitely think we're prolonging this by continuing to respond to it. They think that people's anger means that they're "winning." If they weren't still inciting strong reactions I believe they would have gotten bored and had to go take a nap weeks ago.

[Twig]

I did the same thing but was eventually pressured into saying something about it by everyone saying I'm an asshole if I don't, but I do think it was a mistake (or would be if anyone cared what I had to say). While it is important to show support, I definitely think we're prolonging this by continuing to respond to it. They think that people's anger means that they're "winning." If they weren't still inciting strong reactions I believe they would have gotten bored and had to go take a nap weeks ago.

This is pretty much why I keep ping-ponging on how I feel about handling this shit. (Though it's less other people saying I'm an asshole and more me feeling like an asshole because I embrace any excuse to hate myself.) On the one hand, they looooooooove the attention, and I think it's undeniable that a significant number of them don't actually care about "ethics in journalism". They just want to watch the world burn. On the other hand, it drives me insane that it's happening and I hate seeing people I actually like being attacked and harassed out of the industry.

 

So I never actually know what to do.

[JonCole]

My personal stance has been to not engage with GGers, but engage with friends and allies. Don't respond to GGers because their minds can't be changed and all they're getting out of your interaction is satisfaction. Respond to friends and allies if you deem it appropriate, as your words can at least give them strength.

[shammack]

(Though it's less other people saying I'm an asshole and more me feeling like an asshole because I embrace any excuse to hate myself.)

 

(to be clear, I'm referring to sentiments like this, not to anything directed at me specifically, but yeah, that too)

[tegan]

They just want to watch the world burn.

 

I've been deliberately avoiding using Batman references to describe this situation because of those two guys with the Bane quotes in their mission statement video thing (whatever happened to those guys?), but now that we're opening that kettle of worms: "You squeezed them, you hammered them to the point of desperation. And in their desperation, they turned to a man they didn't fully understand."

 

(...I guess that can be either Milo or Weev. Take your pick. Gamergate's been good at picking representatives that nobody would ever want to be associated with)

[Twig]

Is that a Batman reference???

[Bjorn]

I think another thing you can do is engage with people in your personal life about it. I've made some posts on Facebook, which introduced some people to this shit. In one case, a former co-worker who has a teen son ended up having a talk with him about gg, feminism, misogyny in games, etc. Some of it was stuff that she already tries to talk to him about, but this gave her a new entry point to that conversation. And I have rl gaming friends who pay little to no attention to online gaming culture, and I've introduced them to the works of Sarkeesian and Quinn, increasing their audiences. One of those guys pointed me towards this Kickstarter (Girls on Games, a book edited by someone my friend has met, as he used to be in the tabletop industry). While I missed the pledge deadline, now I've got it bookmarked to pick it up once it's out.

It's all little stuff, but I guess I hope that it ultimately helps keep both myself and people I know informed and taking positive steps in all the little ways we can.

[tegan]

Is that a Batman reference???

 

[Twig]

Yes I'm aware it's IN batman but I'm sure I heard it long before Batman.

[sclpls]

Good breakdown of how gamergate is a hate group here: http://jezebel.com/gamergate-trolls-arent-ethics-crusaders-theyre-a-hate-1644984010

[Gormongous]

Good breakdown of how gamergate is a hate group here: http://jezebel.com/gamergate-trolls-arent-ethics-crusaders-theyre-a-hate-1644984010

 

Really excellent, and also another way of seeing historically and sociologically how #GamerGate is nothing special as far as reactionary movements go.

 

Near the end, she talks about how she would have been happy to have legitimate answers from the people who defaced her survey, but they are too afraid of any new perspectives and opinions that they can't control. I think it would have been worthwhile for her to take the analysis one step further. Even though they ridicule the so-called "SJW" for something similar, the persecution complex of #GamerGate means that all speech is politicized speech to them. In short, you're either for them or against them. It's a Manichean worldview that allows for no other type of expression. They mostly lack the experience to understand how academic standards and peer review enable research to be relatively unbiased, because if they were in that position, they'd manipulate the data to support their viewpoint. That's what they've already been doing for months, given the chance. So, in an environment where all speech is construed as having political content (and in an environment where the existence of that content damages the credibility of their viewpoint and their movement) the only choice is to silence the opposition, because as long as the opposition is allowed to keep speaking, it will continue to spread its politics and thereby threaten the existence of #GamerGate. There's no way this could have turned out for them except total war.

 

I got a little ill typing all that.

[Problem Machine]

This reinforces something I've been trying to communicate for a long ass time. Women are consistently painted as the "emotional" gender, and yet I often see so many more men being irrationally emotional. It's just that the emotions they show are almost always anger, rage, jealousy, etc. Men (#notallmen) tend to be incredibly blind to certain emotions, perceiving them as being rational reactions when they are emotional reactions, which is one of the things that makes actual rational discourse near impossible with some people.

This is something I've had to deal with a lot myself. I spent a big part of my early life telling myself I was calm and collected, that I wasn't ruled by fear, etcetera. Telling yourself things like that can feel like it's working, because it makes the named emotion go away, but the actual feeling underneath that emotion remains, and becomes impossible to name since you've killed all your words for it. I'd end up just getting tired instead of scared or angry because I denied the existence of that emotion.

 

Denying emotions doesn't make you strong, it just makes you beholden to forces you've rendered yourself incapable of understanding. That's why these GGers are so endemically incapable of self-insight: Their identity rests on being logical and unbiased, which makes actually examining their own logic and biases impossible.

[tegan]

Yes I'm aware it's IN batman but I'm sure I heard it long before Batman.

 

Nope! From Batman.

Maybe it's one of those things like how many people believe "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" comes some important historical figure and not from Star Trek II.

 

 

 

Sigourney Weaver did some interviews in the wake of Alien Isolation and ended up kind of accidentally hitting the nail on the head.

 

“I’m sort of both thrilled about being, having played, a kind of iconic character, but I wish it weren’t such a lonely feeling. Because I do feel that women are so incredible. It seems to be hard for Hollywood to come up with good just sort of straightaway--straight, true women characters that they don’t try to make, you know, ‘sympathetic’ or something. That’s always the kiss of death,” she said. “When a person will try to write you to make people feel something for you instead of just letting you get on with it, it can be a kiss of death. It takes talented people in all these different fields to come up with good men and women characters. There’s so many great examples in the world of powerful, interesting personalities that I hope it’s more--perhaps if more women choose to enter this field of creating games, that will happen. I just think that, as someone who doesn’t know that much about games but thinks they’re great, I just feel like there should be games for everybody, for everybody’s taste. I am sure it will happen.”