"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

[natellite]

Just a couple things I saw via Twitter.

 

First, GaymerX doesn't want anything to do with GamerGate, and GG is doing their thing with that.

 

Second, GamerGate is now making transgender-outing an actual thing they aim to do. They call it "truegendering."

 

What a bunch of losers.

 

Man as if I wasn't already worried enough about making and releasing anything, ever.

[clyde]

I like thinking that #StopWebH8 was just an easy honey-pot to set up so that any curious Twitter users who haven't seen gamergate can get a quick idea of how childish they are.

[Henroid]

Zoe Quinn was called to testify before the US Congress about internet harassment. GamerGate continues to be GG over it.

[natellite]

Zoe Quinn was called to testify before the US Congress about internet harassment. GamerGate continues to be GG over it.

 

Yeah, a Congresswoman is getting campaign funds from a weapons manufacturer and Zoe Quinn is the problematic thing here.

[Twig]

Yeah, a Congresswoman is getting campaign funds from a weapons manufacturer and Zoe Quinn is the problematic thing here.

heh

 

 

 

 

 

heh ):

[Gormongous]

Yeah, a Congresswoman is getting campaign funds from a weapons manufacturer and Zoe Quinn is the problematic thing here.

 

I love how inane their smoking gun is:

 

 

It's like, despite all the games they claim to have played that had to have had military hardware manufacturers and defense contractors at the center of a dense web of commercial and social ties (in short, the military-industrial complex), it never occurred to them to consider how much of that was actually real and in what ways. Now that they've realized it and done their digging, the best they can unearth is that one part of a massive company represents the products of one part of another massive company (among dozens of others) in a single foreign country, a relationship so slight that neither of those companies sees fit even to publicize it outside of said country, and yet that the tenuous connection of two otherwise unrelated human beings to that economic edifice constitutes absolutely damning corruption.

 

There are no words. What exactly is happening? Is Quinn making her boyfriend ask his dad to tell the Brazilian division of his company to give one of their vendors a little extra in the quarterly contract (or just threaten to stop representing their products) so that the vendor's parent company will donate more money to the campaign of a member of Congress (or, again, just threaten to reduce contributions) so that she is willing and able to hold hearings about internet harassment that Quinn can attend in order to further spread her lies? Who has so much time and money that they're willing to spend in order to risk so much and accomplish so little, besides #GamerGate itself?

 

Actually, I'm more surprised that they didn't also seize upon IMI and IAI among the companies that Gehr International represents, then we could fill the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" bingo space, too.

[Hermie]

Also, a really weird way to use the word "influenced". Is that gater shorthand for "used their feminine wiles to sneak SJW agenda into congress"?

[Vainamoinen]

Gamergate argument history:

Anita Sarkeesian is making a video series about tropes vs. women in video games. Isn't that great?

You *****g greedy ****** ***** charlatan, I'm coming to your house to **** *** **** * ********! We didn't say that! It wasn't us! This is not gamergate! We didn't harrass the **** ***** !

We could, you know, talk about the issues instead, no?

But these games have soooo many positive female characters!

No they don't, but anyway, you can't identify tropes VERSUS women if you focus at the few positive examples.

This is cherry picking! She wants to censor our games! She doesn't even like games!

No, she enjoys games just like you do. She just points at aspects she finds problematic in games she possibly loves while explicitly saying again and again that there is nothing wrong with enjoying these games. For example, she talks about binge playing the Zelda series on the Idle Thumbs podcast. Yes, Zelda. Huge fan. Despite damsel and all.

But where are the positive examples?

There's supposedly a video in her series coming up more at the end of the series that talks about positive examples exclusively. It's in the Kickstarter, right there, since 2012.

That isn't enough! We can't know whether she really REALLY likes games!

Sarkeesian's 'gamer cred' has never been that relevant anyway.

Here! Look at this reaxxion article! She's getting loads of money from Intel now!

And, here, look at the actual data in the PDF reaxxion "analyses". She's announcing several new projects, among them an entire new SERIES of positive female character portrayals in video games. Makes sense to make that a separate series for above reasons...

OMG look at this new video! The positive character she talks about doesn't even LOOK like a woman and hardly anyone ever CALLS her a woman! Man, Sarkeesian really sucks at feminism!

So now you got what you asked for, but you're too stupid to understand it? Oh-ka-hay.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalso, her promotion didn't even boost sales!

Wait, who the what now? Promotion?

The 'success' of Sarkeesian's previous series was never measured in the inexistant damage she does to the year old games she criticises, but when she gives positive examples, suddenly the effect on sales is supposedly relevant.

 

Wow, just wow.

 

 

 

/edited for mimicked insults; they weren't met with universal approval.

Edited April 16, 2015 by Vainamoinen

[Reyturner]

I love how inane their smoking gun is:

It's like, despite all the games they claim to have played that had to have had military hardware manufacturers and defense contractors at the center of a dense web of commercial and social ties (in short, the military-industrial complex), it never occurred to them to consider how much of that was actually real and in what ways. Now that they've realized it and done their digging, the best they can unearth is that one part of a massive company represents the products of one part of another massive company (among dozens of others) in a single foreign country, a relationship so slight that neither of those companies sees fit even to publicize it outside of said country, and yet that the tenuous connection of two otherwise unrelated human beings to that economic edifice constitutes absolutely damning corruption.

There are no words. What exactly is happening? Is Quinn making her boyfriend ask his dad to tell the Brazilian division of his company to give one of their vendors a little extra in the quarterly contract (or just threaten to stop representing their products) so that the vendor's parent company will donate more money to the campaign of a member of Congress (or, again, just threaten to reduce contributions) so that she is willing and able to hold hearings about internet harassment that Quinn can attend in order to further spread her lies? Who has so much time and money that they're willing to spend in order to risk so much and accomplish so little, besides #GamerGate itself?

Actually, I'm more surprised that they didn't also seize upon IMI and IAI among the companies that Gehr International represents, then we could fill the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" bingo space, too.

Remember, in gator world, GG is the principled, logical consumer revolt made up of the victims of Zoe's misanderist, hypocritical corruption. But the SJWs have used their influence to invert the truth. By proving(?) she benefits(???) from the Military-Industrial Complex they reveal her true nature(???????????) making it harder for the ~Liberal Media~ to "spin" Zoe into the victim and GG into the aggressors.

It's not about GG having a problem with the Military-Industrial Complex, it's about driving a wedge between Quinn and her support network, to silence her. You know, since liberals are ruled by their iron clad ideologies and are required to turn on all thought criminals. "Look at your progressive hero now!!"

Sure, gators might have PERSONAL objections to Acme Gun Co. being involved in CoD, but they would never let such ~~feelings~~ cloud their objective assessment of a game. To do so would be punishing a creator for their free speech. Of course, if a game lacks an FOV slider, or is locked to 30fps, or is pushing a political agenda by having an unrealistic number of "females", that's different.

It's all perfectly in keeping with gator logic.

[Merus]

Remember, in gator world, GG is the principled, logical consumer revolt made up of the victims of Zoe's misanderist, hypocritical corruption. But the SJWs have used their influence to invert the truth. By proving(?) she benefits(???) from the Military-Industrial Complex they reveal her true nature(???????????) making it harder for the ~Liberal Media~ to "spin" Zoe into the victim and GG into the aggressors.

 

Which is interesting, because people tend to stick with those they feel an affinity with, even if those people are terrible. One of the nominations for the Hugos this year is this takedown of liberal shitheel Benjanun Sriduangkaew, who had a lot of support because they felt a lot of her vitriol was going in social-justice approved directions and weren't really able to deal with the possibility that her other accounts would attack rape survivors and smear hostile remarks over safe places for marginalised people. (Follow-up.)

[Apple Cider]

Oh boy, I am going to stay out of this because Benjanun is actually a long-time friend of mine. 

[Merus]

Oh boy, I am going to stay out of this because Benjanun is actually a long-time friend of mine. 

 

My heart dropped.

 

One of the things I've been saying all through this thread is that Gamergate's tactics aren't new, they aren't inherently conservative, and they cannot be tolerated. The manipulations that Bee is apparently responsible for, the grooming of friends, her willingness to excommunicate, to decide who is and is not valid, are tactics that we see elsewhere, in Gamergate, in evangelical circles, in cults and re-education camps. The process of dehumanisation is deeply dangerous.

 

If even half the stuff I'm reading here is true, and I'm inclined to believe it, then being anywhere near this - for years - is the sort of thing that I hold against people.

[itsamoose]

For those that have been following it, is Gamergate growing or is it just kind of a permanent fixture on certain websites? The things GG does are pretty common in other areas of the web (mainly extreme conservative circles) and I wonder if GG is just kind of a manifestation of the typical bigotry we see elsewhere as opposed to its own thing.

[clyde]

For those that have been following it, is Gamergate growing or is it just kind of a permanent fixture on certain websites? The things GG does are pretty common in other areas of the web (mainly extreme conservative circles) and I wonder if GG is just kind of a manifestation of the typical bigotry we see elsewhere as opposed to its own thing.

 

I haven't been following it, but here is my view as someone who just runs into it every once in a while:

It seems like a hashtag-mob that is easily mobilized. I view it as a weapon that won't go away by pointing out its flaws because it thrives on low self-esteem and derision by others.

[Problem Machine]

Yeah, unfortunately mockery tends to very much play into their narrative of being a grass roots resistance to oppression from a cultural elite. I mean, that's probably the only reason they have that narrative, it's entirely constructed for convenience. Not that that's necessarily a strong argument against mockery, since it can be a useful tool to point out their hypocrisy, but most of the people willing to listen have already gotten the message there.

[Christopher]

For those that have been following it, is Gamergate growing or is it just kind of a permanent fixture on certain websites? The things GG does are pretty common in other areas of the web (mainly extreme conservative circles) and I wonder if GG is just kind of a manifestation of the typical bigotry we see elsewhere as opposed to its own thing.

It seems fairly stable.

Judging from the lowest effort GG activism possible (signing an online petition) and assuming no sock puppets, they have pretty consistently had a core of about 3000-4000 supporters. Remember Mark Kern's hilariously stupid petition? He didn't understand how small the membership was, and set the goal at 5000 people. He's still sitting around 3600. Internet petitions from earlier in GG also had around the same amount of support.

It's enough core supporters to ruin someone's life with harassment and enough to trick a company into thinking they matter, but it's a stagnant group of core conspiracy theorists.

[Vainamoinen]

Yesterday in the fabulous land of gamergate:

 

For episode 3 of Dreamfall Chapters, Red Thread Games has released concept art showing the protagonist with her hair cut short.

 

GATERS DEFINITELY NOT AMUSED.

 

The exact source of gater irritation is still unknown. Recently, his gamergate holyness Roosh V. has written an — as always, higggghhhhly and unnnndoubtedly satirical — article protesting about women cutting off their hair:

 

If a woman cuts her hair to a short length, or shaves it outright in a Skrillex haircut, we can now confidently say that she is making herself appear less fertile, less beautiful, and less healthy. A woman cutting off healthy hair is one step away from literal cutting of her skin with a sharp object, because both behaviors denote a likely mental illness where the woman presents herself to society as more damaged than her genetic condition would indicate, suggesting that she has suffered environmental damage that has reduced her overall fitness.

(safe link: http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/04/15/pickup-guru-roosh-v-women-who-cut-their-hair-short-are-committing-self-harm-and-should-be-monitored-by-authorities/ )

 

Some people seem to be of the opinion that women with short hair are automatically lesbians. As gamergate continues to tell us, there's really really nothing wrong with lesbians, but portraying them in video games is leftist political propaganda, so essentially should never be done.

 

Add to that the strong unease of gaters when episode 1 of the game dared to show a future political system with actual party names you'd find today, and their misguided notion that the game somehow favored the games' "social democrats", I'm really surprised that Ragnar Tørnquist doesn't deal with these idiots more often.

[zerofiftyone]

 

If a woman cuts her hair to a short length, or shaves it outright in a Skrillex haircut, we can now confidently say that she is making herself appear less fertile, less beautiful, and less healthy. A woman cutting off healthy hair is one step away from literal cutting of her skin with a sharp object, because both behaviors denote a likely mental illness where the woman presents herself to society as more damaged than her genetic condition would indicate, suggesting that she has suffered environmental damage that has reduced her overall fitness.

 

 

Is this person for real? I am amazed.

[JonCole]

Don't forget that Roosh is in the crazy MRA camp that earnestly believes stuff like powerful man semen can control the minds of inferior, girlish women.

[Merus]

Roosh isn't technically an MRA - he's a pick-up artist, and they've got a Judean People's Front thing going on - but he isn't a gamer and is basically trying to build his personal brand by appealing to horrible people.

[feelthedarkness]

these people can obviously cause great harm to women through their actions but what kind of idiot wastes their time that kind of banal thinking? what medieval corner of the world does this shitheel live in where he thinks a woman needs to promote fertility? again, if it weren't that they can leverage significant harm it'd be totally ridiculous. 

[Twig]

So wow wow, some booth at Calgary Expo is doing this

 

https://twitter.com/sokareemie/status/589082066110689281

 

 

 

Checked Calgary's Twitter, and apparently they were unaware of this, which means GG basically snuck a booth in.

[GavinTheAlmighty]

That's pretty crazy.  You have to be dedicated to your crazy to do something like that.

[feelthedarkness]

As somebody who works a large (26k) nerd conference dealers room, you spend an INSANE amount of time trying to get these shithead vendors to put away stuff you don't want sold. Like we have a hard "no weapons of any kind" policy and most recently had to tell the same table to put away the same goddamn weapons like 2 or 3 times a day, every day for 3 days.

 

what would be more effective than pounding the conference would be to focus on the vendor selling it and tell people not to patronize that vendor. 

[JonCole]

The GG guys got kicked out of the expo, fyi.