"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

[Twig]

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.

Daaang. LESSON LEARNED! Now I can't say that anymore because I hate references.

 

Except for: "You're killin' me, Smalls." I say that all the time. Uncontrollably. Can't even stop myself if I wanna.

[Ozzie]

It seemed to me for a long time like "with great power comes great responsibility" was already a common phrase prior to Spiderman 2. But apparently not...

[James]

GGs response was to accuse the DM of being "SJW controlled media".

That's too perfect to even comprehend. Never has self-parody been so absolute. Jesus Christ.

[tegan]

It seemed to me for a long time like "with great power comes great responsibility" was already a common phrase prior to Spiderman 2. But apparently not...

 

Kind of. The actual quote is from Spider-Man (the comic, decades ago), but similar phrases have been used historically.

[Henroid]

GamerGate is like watching the Tea Party (recent American politics) happen in fast-forward.

 

That said it's still frustrating. I go from feeling "meh" about their importance to fucking infuriated, the latter usually coming up when someone has to leave their home due to specific threats.

 

I really hope the capture and prosecution rate of the people attempting to anonymously deliver these threats is high (or perfect), because honestly some time spent in federal "fuck me in the ass" prison would terrify the internet tough guys out of pulling this crap. It's gonna take some examples to be made first. There's definitely this haughty, "I'm anons on the internet, you can't get me~" crap going on. Meanwhile there's stories every week about "Hey remember that time that one company got hacked a few months back? They just arrested the little shit(s) that did it."

[tegan]

I really hope the capture and prosecution rate of the people attempting to anonymously deliver these threats is high (or perfect), because honestly some time spent in federal "fuck me in the ass" prison would terrify the internet tough guys out of pulling this crap. It's gonna take some examples to be made first. There's definitely this haughty, "I'm anons on the internet, you can't get me~" crap going on. Meanwhile there's stories every week about "Hey remember that time that one company got hacked a few months back? They just arrested the little shit(s) that did it."

 

Weev went to prison, and now he's a neonazi, soooo...

[SecretAsianMan]

Brianna Wu made an attempt to reach out to a few GamerGate supporters, namely Adam Baldwin and Milo Yiannopoulos.  She says that Adam Baldwin rejected her offer while Milo agreed to have her on his radio show for an interview.  He sent her a bunch of really leading and inflammatory questions, most of which she still agreed to answer.  While she was traveling to find a safe space to do the recording, Milo basically got tired of waiting and started talking about how she blew him off.  He even shared part of their email correspondence because he no longer felt obligated to keep it confidential (no personal information or anything but still a really shitty move for a movement that's supposedly about journalistic ethics).  I only read a handful of the questions and I'm honestly surprised she would agree to answer any of them.  Its pretty clear from reading them what his agenda is.

[namman siggins]

His questions a clear cut example of leading, Jesus Christ.

 

Just when I thought Milo Yiannopoulos couldn't be anymore of a piece of shit, well...

[Merus]

GamerGate is like watching the Tea Party (recent American politics) happen in fast-forward.

 

That said it's still frustrating. I go from feeling "meh" about their importance to fucking infuriated, the latter usually coming up when someone has to leave their home due to specific threats.

 

Well, considering Adam Baldwin started the hashtag, it's not surprising. (Also it is a reactionary movement, much like the Tea Party.)

[Bjorn]

She's amended her post, and said that Baldwin did accept her invitation to talk and that she missed it in the deluge of messages, so that might still happen.  But fuck Milo's questions and his tweets/posts bitching about it. 

 

Wu did end up in a segment on MSNBC, watching that now. 

 

Giant Bomb actually wrote something about gamerghazi.  Wu actually specifically calls out GB on MSNBC as being an all male site that's not talking about the gaters and criticizes them for not covering it.  Not quite clear when each piece went up. 

[twmac]

Yeah, someone mentioned that the article went up after Giant Bomb got called out:

 

Posted by Splodge - October 13, 2014 at 1:17 PM

 

Good article Patrick. A tad too late tho, Brianna already called out GB on MSNBC for doing nothing

[JonCole]

I also have to imagine that segments like that are prerecorded.

 

The thing about Giant Bomb that kinda bothers me is that they really don't seem to have any desire to earnestly have an opinion on these matters as a publication. When Stephen Totilo writes an editorial about GG or sexism, it's obvious that he's speaking for Kotaku. Giant Bomb usually just lets Patrick cover it, making it seem like his SJW niche that doesn't necessarily represent the site. I like Patrick, but he doesn't speak for GB like Jeff does. Now, I get that GB is now part of a corporate monolith that is CBS, but they came up as a community-based site where the editors have very open and discussed opinions. I feel like they have a responsibility to have a stance as a site that is responsible, not ghettoize their progressive opinions to Patrick's morning webshow.

[thefncrow]

Yeah, the article went up after the MSNBC segment, but Patrick mentioned on their morning podcast that he was going to put something up on it that day.  It wasn't a reaction to getting called out on MSNBC (although it most certainly was a response to getting called out in general).

 

Also, it looks like Milo isn't the only scumbag when it comes to trying to set up an ambush of abuse victims.  Zoe Quinn mentioned on twitter that she was asked by the Huffington Post to come discuss her experiences.  She then started hearing word from other people that they were also invited to the Huffington Post thing, which was odd since they hadn't said anything to her about a panel or anything like that.  The response from Huffington Post was that it would be a debate "with reasonable people from both sides", but that they wouldn't tell her who was the supposedly reasonable people from the other side. It turns out that the Huffington Post almost blindly walked her into a debate against the operator of 8chan, the board explicitly organized to host the harassment campaign after they got kicked off of 4chan.  She only discovered that since she's monitoring GG conversations and saw a post on the Kotaku in Action reddit saying he was going to be on Huffington Post.

[Bjorn]

If you go through the comments on that GB piece, you can actually find a couple of people who are just learning about gg thanks to Patrick talking about it.  I wonder how many people there are like that, who just listen to GB, maybe check the site once a day, don't hang out in forums, don't use Twitter, etc.  For as big as gg has been, I can also see how someone could completely miss its existence.  And the sites who have chosen complete silence on this have only helped that.  They've contributed to the harassment of women being invisible. 

[clyde]

I've seen a few retweets in my feed that seem to indicate that gamergate is trying to put more energy into promoting the concept that talking about being harassed to anyone but the police is "professional victimhood". If this becomes a common attitude (maybe it already is), then it would make it much easier for hate-groups to silence people by use of anonymous threats.

[Golden Calf]

"Professional Victimhood" is such a hilariously stupid phrase. 

 

How exactly do people think publicizing your harassment results in money?

[sclpls]

Yup, this is a pretty common tactic where these groups are aware that basic common moral sense shows that people that harass other people do not have the moral high ground. So anything they can do to minimize the perception of themselves as harassers will be used, even if the rhetoric tips their hand into revealing themselves as harassers (and not people concerned about journalistic ethics or whatever).

[Twig]

This is not directly related to gormorgort but

 

I am following Shaun King on Twitter, and have been ever since I saw him talking about Ferguson. He's a staunch defender of Mike Brown and talks a lot about the lies the Ferguson police department have told, among other similar issues and events.

 

He was doxxed on Twitter. He's currently addressing lies people have been spreading about him. https://twitter.com/ShaunKing

 

it's incredible how much garberbabies have in common with killer-cop-defenders when they're both attacking the people who speak against them. I have no doubt he's received a number of death threats. I suppose the only difference is he doesn't receive rape threats. Wouldn't be surprised if people threaten his wife, though. He just specifically addressed how people are looking through and analyzing photos of him and his children (some of whom are temporary foster children) just to identify a "lie" so they can discredit him. Creepy gross ass fucking shit.

 

ETHICS IN JOURNALISM.

 

EDIT: LOL wow people are using his later-than-promised Kickstarter product delivery to attempt to discredit him

[Bjorn]

I wish this was hilarious, and not just sad.  The Escapist has removed yet another one of the "game developers" from their grumpygrowling list of essays.  Apparently that essay also had to be edited before it was removed as well, as Desborough name dropped someone he had been actively harassing on Twitter, and there was enough evidence for the Escapist to remove that line to prevent the piece from directing any more harassment at that person. 
 

Editor's Note #3: We have removed the testimony of James Desborough, after we've received evidence that he has harassed some contributors to The Escapist. Due to our strong policy against all harassment and abuse, Desborough's opinions will no longer be presented alongside those of his colleagues.

 

And now people are pointing out that Archon is a backer of Desborough's work, and has generally been friendly and chatty with him online, which is likely the main reason Desborough was ever included in the first place. Now the Escapist's ethics policies doesn't ban backing creators crowdfunding projects, so it wasn't a breach of their own ethics (and I don't consider crowdfunding to be a breach of anyone's ethics anymore than just buying a copy of someone's game or book is, but we've discussed that before). But given how many gaters lost their shit about other journalists contributing to Patreon or Kickstarter, there is a (to be expected) silence about their boy Archon doing the same thing and giving premium space to one of the gaters.

[Dewar]

I wish this was hilarious, and not just sad.  The Escapist has removed yet another one of the "game developers" from their grumpygrowling list of essays.  Apparently that essay also had to be edited before it was removed as well, as Desborough name dropped someone he had been actively harassing on Twitter, and there was enough evidence for the Escapist to remove that line to prevent the piece from directing any more harassment at that person. 

 

 

And now people are pointing out that Archon is a backer of Desborough's work, and has generally been friendly and chatty with him online, which is likely the main reason Desborough was ever included in the first place. Now the Escapist's ethics policies doesn't ban backing creators crowd-funding projects, so it wasn't a breach of their own ethics (and I don't consider crowdfunding to be a breach of anyone's ethics anymore than just buying a copy of someone's game or book is, but we've discussed that before). But given how many gaters lost their shit about other journalists contributing to Patreon or Kickstarter, there is a (to be expected) silence about their boy Archon doing the same thing and giving premium space to one of the gaters.

 

I thought the Escapist changed their policies due to GG to disallow those contributions?

[Bjorn]

I thought the Escapist changed their policies due to GG to disallow those contributions?

 

No, they specifically allowed for crowdfunding with some guidance:

 

Site staff are permitted to contribute to crowdfunding campaigns and subscription services like Patreon. If editorial content is derived from these contributions, disclose the contribution. However, staff may not create content surrounding a crowdfunding effort if they are a contributor to the effort, and the effort will not be funded if it fails to reach its goals.

[sclpls]

This is like only tangently related, but is too funny for me not to post. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) who unfortunately is in charge of running the House Oversight Committee is currently deeply concerned about the close relationship between the EPA and environmental groups.

 

www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/10/darrell-issa-finally-going-his-nut

 

Just in case you were wondering if this kind of insanity is limited to gamers, it isn't.

[Smart Jason]

Yeah, the article went up after the MSNBC segment, but Patrick mentioned on their morning podcast that he was going to put something up on it that day.  It wasn't a reaction to getting called out on MSNBC (although it most certainly was a response to getting called out in general).

 

Also, it looks like Milo isn't the only scumbag when it comes to trying to set up an ambush of abuse victims.  Zoe Quinn mentioned on twitter that she was asked by the Huffington Post to come discuss her experiences.  She then started hearing word from other people that they were also invited to the Huffington Post thing, which was odd since they hadn't said anything to her about a panel or anything like that.  The response from Huffington Post was that it would be a debate "with reasonable people from both sides", but that they wouldn't tell her who was the supposedly reasonable people from the other side. It turns out that the Huffington Post almost blindly walked her into a debate against the operator of 8chan, the board explicitly organized to host the harassment campaign after they got kicked off of 4chan.  She only discovered that since she's monitoring GG conversations and saw a post on the Kotaku in Action reddit saying he was going to be on Huffington Post.

 

Here is that Huffington Post video interview, which is now between Brianna Wu, Erik Kain, and an administrator of 8chan. The moderator notes that Zoe declined to appear and, for his part, seems to be rather gracious and receptive to Brianna. I'm going to see how much I can bear to watch. I can't see a way to tab out the chat (which is predictable in its content), but you can at least switch to the video chat, which is blank.

[Gormongous]

Here is that Huffington Post video interview, which is now between Brianna Wu, Erik Kain, and an administrator of 8chan. The moderator notes that Zoe declined to appear and, for his part, seems to be rather gracious and receptive to Brianna. I'm going to see how much I can bear to watch. I can't see a way to tab out the chat (which is predictable in its content), but you can at least switch to the video chat, which is blank.

 

That makes me trepidatious. I used to follow Erik Kain regularly, but his response to #GamerGate was a stubborn insistence on the middle path, which he didn't reevaluate but rather just restated with increasing volume when the misogynist terrorism of the movement continued. After the third editorial from him that week to the tune of "there's still something to salvage here, gamers, if you'd just stop the overt harassment," I decided my RSS reader was too crowded for him anyway. I'm not surprised that he's part of this entire ill-conceived project (which I really can't believe: "Women and Their Abusers, Point/Counterpoint").

[Smart Jason]

That makes me trepidatious. I used to follow Erik Kain regularly, but his response to #GamerGate was an insistence on the middle path, which he didn't reevaluate but rather restated with increasing volume when the misogynist terrorism of the movement continued. After the third editorial from him that week to the tune of "there's still something to salvage here, gamers, if you'd just stop the harassment," I decided my RSS feeder was too crowded for him anyway. I'm not surprised that he's part of this entire ill-conceived project (which I really can't believe: "Women and Their Abusers: Point/Counterpoint").

 

I went down that same road with Erik Kain. My breaking point was his hour-plus Google Chat talk show with TotalBiscuit, The Escapist's EIC, and a female pro-GG voice and one of the first hard-hitting, insightful questions they asked themselves was "Why do we have people making such ludicrous accusations as comparing us to ISIS?"