"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

[Synnah]

Genuinely really happy about this turn of events. And it sort of highlights what kind of mickey mouse operation these guys were running if the person they were targeting was able to quietly observe them and gather evidence this whole time. Who knew an IRC room could be so insecure?

 

 

gee uh it must suck to be that guy

[feelthedarkness]

Legend status confirmed. 

[feelthedarkness]

gee uh it must suck to be that guy

 

Yeah, unwanted attention must be unfun.

[MrHoatzin]

As angry as I am, I guess I'm not as sarcastically angry as MrHoatzin:

 

 

(he is running afoul of Poe's law, guys, calm down)

 

God, in five minutes I had dozens of notifications and people piling on me and was all like, oh shit, what did I do now?? Epic sarcasm fail.

 

Horrifying that this—THIS!—is indistinguishable from the shit that gamerghazi scum have actually been saying.

[Twig]

Horrifying that that's pretty tame compared to what was actually happening. (Maybe still is? I don't know.) ):

[Nappi]

Nice, epic vindication!

 

God, in five minutes I had dozens of notifications and people piling on me and was all like, oh shit, what did I do now?? Epic sarcasm fail.

 

What? Sarcasm doesn't transmit well over the internet?

[tegan]

Zoe's stream of "here is an accusation people laid against her" followed by a screencap of 4chan assholes talking about how they intentionally made shit up/misdirected people just keeps going and going.

 

 

After the stupid Bane shit, I'm so glad someone made this much better comparison.

 

 

 

 

So! How much do you want to bet that neither TFYC, TotalBiscuit, or anyone else involved apologize for allowing themselves to be duped into making Zoe's life miserable for this whole time?

[Justin Leego]

Hoatzin, you have to retweet your own tweet before it becomes sarcastic.

[MrHoatzin]

What? Sarcasm doesn't transmit well over the internet?

 

I kno! You wouldn't think it, but this is totally so! Let me explain...

[Merus]

So! How much do you want to bet that neither TFYC, TotalBiscuit, or anyone else involved apologize for allowing themselves to be duped into making Zoe's life miserable for this whole time?

 

I have no money and also it takes someone with significant moral fortitude to apologise to someone else when they also feel like a victim. They got played like a fiddle, and I think it's revealing how gullible the YouTubers got when the spectre of journalistic integrity got raised. There are a bunch of new people on my list to not take seriously; it'll be a long time before I assume that Jesse Cox is speaking from a position of clarity, for instance.

[feelthedarkness]

I will bet that the sad lesson taken from this is that future ratfucking will need to be done in secret/private channels, so people will really need to be extra vigilant about future claims. 

[tegan]

[Bjorn]

I will bet that the sad lesson taken from this is that future ratfucking will need to be done in secret/private channels, so people will really need to be extra vigilant about future claims. 

 

It may not help, but at least we can always point back to this to show the level of organization that some of the 4chan folks are willing to go through to fuck with a handful of people. 

[MrHoatzin]

It's impressive how effective the astroturfing was. So little is needed to raise the ire and conscript insecure demographics whose privileged status is being eroded. Practical Fascism 101.

[GraysonEvans]

The thing that upsets me the most about all of this is it should never have been an issue.

 

This whole thing has raised some questions about games journalism which is fine but everything surrounding it was extremely childish and disgusting. I am glad you guys are all every rational and are able to have a nice conversation about it. I hope this is the last time something like this happens because it is super fucked up. For reference when all of this stuff hit my mom called me to ask me about it, which is super gross and not cool.

[Undeadpool]

That might go to explain why it seems to have dried up INCREDIBLY quickly, though I somewhat dread the police doing little to nothing since it's an internet crime against a non-mainstream celebrity. Which would only EMBOLDEN these freakshows.

 

God, in five minutes I had dozens of notifications and people piling on me and was all like, oh shit, what did I do now?? Epic sarcasm fail.

 

Horrifying that this—THIS!—is indistinguishable from the shit that gamerghazi scum have actually been saying.

 

There are a couple of political forums I frequent (less and less of late) and I see the same thing ALL the time. THAT'S how low the level of political discourse has sunk both on the internet and in America in general.

 

Also: talk about Poe's Law, Zoe's ex may be the LEAST self-aware man on the PLANET.

[Henroid]

It's gonna be a weird next-couple-of-days seeing how much backpeddling goes on.

 

One of the biggest give-aways for this, to me, was how easily people into the hashtag were back-patting and high-fiving each other in such huge volume. I've done enough Twitter interaction to see what actual hashtag use, even for more popular media like Kardashian level shit, actually produces. Most responses I'd get over GamerGate would have a few people retweeting / favoriting them. Nobody honestly into something would go through that much effort. Like if it was one or two tweets, that'd be different. Like the Ferguson stuff, only the most profound of revelations would get such high-volume of response.

[GraysonEvans]

Also I think it is worth saying, I am sure most of you know this but some people don't. Making games is really hard, takes a lot of time and you tend to close yourself from people who don't make games. So your only real chance at relationships is with other games people. When you spend all of your time traveling or working on your game you need to be close to people who do the same. Also everyone I have become close with in games have been the sweetest people on the planet. 

[Bjorn]

Edit: the biggest losers here, I think, other than all the people who were senselessly attacked of course, are the gaming enthusiast websites. We've seen that they're neither willing to make their ethical stance clear, nor stand by their writers. People who were tricked by 4chan into #Gamergate are going to be looking askance at those websites and their lack of response. People horrified by #Gamergate will remember how those websites stayed silent, or posted mealy-mouthed thinkpieces, when generalist sites like Badass Digest and The New Republic took strong and clear stances.

 

Or that generalist newspapers published clear, unambiguous op-eds from writers taking a stance on the issue.  I'm particularly annoyed at the near total silence from Joystiq and (I think?) Polygon, the two sites I am most likely to read.  I've seen one post from the 'stiq.  I haven't been on Polygon much through this, but it doesn't seem like they have written much.  Justin McElroy has been talking about it on Twitter, as has Ludwig Kietzman.  But I haven't seen anything out of Chris Grant.  Before Idle Thumbs, those are the guys and their fans who got me to care about games journalism and brought me into online gaming communities as a participant.  It's beyond disappointing that none of them appear to be writing professionally about this (unless I've missed something, in which case I retract my disappointment).

[Henroid]

I'm not sure I'm ready to hold writers accountable for being scared of what could happen if they decided to write about this. Because when this all started we saw what the crazy shits were capable of; dumping people's personal information onto the net (because video games).

 

Unless a game site or writer declared, "We are in favor of this stupid shit going on," then I'll hold them accountable. And so far the only one I know of is the guy at Kotaku that decided to change their policy on something meaningless, giving in to a bullshit demand from people with bullshit convictions. I'm sure he's still hated by everyone now.

[tegan]

I'm disappointed that Giant Bomb didn't have any articles despite Jeff and Patrick talking about it a little elsewhere.

 

On the other hand, that job would almost certainly go to Patrick, since he's almost always the one to write about this kind of shit and almost always gets stuck taking all the shit for it. Even knowing that others (like Zoe) have had it far worse, seeing him get booed at their PAX panel was heartbreaking.

[Twig]

seeing him get booed at their PAX panel was heartbreaking.

Wow what? Jesus. Why would anyone go to a GB panel and not expect him to be there too.

[Bjorn]

I'm not sure I'm ready to hold writers accountable for being scared of what could happen if they decided to write about this. Because when this all started we saw what the crazy shits were capable of; dumping people's personal information onto the net (because video games).

 

Unless a game site or writer declared, "We are in favor of this stupid shit going on," then I'll hold them accountable. And so far the only one I know of is the guy at Kotaku that decided to change their policy on something meaningless, giving in to a bullshit demand from people with bullshit convictions. I'm sure he's still hated by everyone now.

 

Silence, I feel, ultimately favors the harassers not the harassed.  So while I understand that fear, I'm also a bit more heartless about it when it comes to the big sites.  If you want to call yourself a journalist, and most of the writers for the big sites do, then you don't get to sideline yourself when shit like this goes down.  There's always the option of writing a staff post as well, so no individual writer takes the heat for it. 

[Henroid]

Silence, I feel, ultimately favors the harassers not the harassed.  So while I understand that fear, I'm also a bit more heartless about it when it comes to the big sites.  If you want to call yourself a journalist, and most of the writers for the big sites do, then you don't get to sideline yourself when shit like this goes down.  There's always the option of writing a staff post as well, so no individual writer takes the heat for it. 

That probably could've been the best option, yeah.

 

It emphasizes the courage of people like Zoe and Jenn Frank for being willing to have their name and face out there in speaking out against the shit.

[Merus]

I'm not sure I'm ready to hold writers accountable for being scared of what could happen if they decided to write about this. Because when this all started we saw what the crazy shits were capable of; dumping people's personal information onto the net (because video games).

 

Unless a game site or writer declared, "We are in favor of this stupid shit going on," then I'll hold them accountable. And so far the only one I know of is the guy at Kotaku that decided to change their policy on something meaningless, giving in to a bullshit demand from people with bullshit convictions. I'm sure he's still hated by everyone now.

 

I find this less convincing when I remember that the Guardian had their everything confiscated by UK authorities because they stood by Greenwald. If the sites in question wanted to demonstrate that they weren't just regurgitating PR releases, I can think of no better way of doing it than taking a stand for their journalism.