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JonCole

"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

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The real MRAs have decided it's time to wade into the swamp.  Return of Kings is looking for a regular correspondent to write a weekly column about gg and SJWs in games. It also wrote a big piece on gamergate. RoK admits it doesn't write about games much, and highlights the few pieces it has ran:

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Yes, you read that right. Those are their "neutral" pieces. Other recent fine writing examples include an essay on why you shouldn't date single mothers; why Malala Yousafzai is a coward for not going back to Pakistan to get killed; not one, but two pieces on how women with tattoos are slutty and mentally ill (one of these actually uses a picture of Quinn in it, without naming her); and a piece that says video games are addictive and holding you back as a man.

Mike the lawyer is a fan of RoK and links to it.  So yeah.

 


Because the "reasonable claims" are the ones that I've observed using my meager investigative methods (described previously).

 

This is an example of something to use to judge what it is that pro-gg folks are actually after. RoK has one interest, and one interest only: destroying feminism. They have no problems throwing around gay slurs, calling women bitches and sluts, labeling people retards, body shaming language (land whales), and using pictures stolen from the Internet of actual people to label with such language.

In the KiA thread on this, some people don't want RoK involved, others welcome it, some are ambivalent. The important thing to note is that many (by my reading of the thread) of the people who oppose RoK coming on board are worried about it because of gg's image. They are not concerned about whether or not RoK engages in the kind of behavior that they have condemned from others.

There is also a strong vein of, "Well, we can't stop them, so I guess if they want to write about it they can." What-in-the-actual-fuck. If you can't stop an outlet from writing about something, then why the organized crusades against Gamasutra and Gawker?  This is one of the things that shows the truth about gg.  The criteria they use for their actions are just justifications they've found allowing themselves to go after the people they already didn't like.  They won't organize against someone else, doing the exact same thing, even someone who is trying to co-opt gg from them.  Because the target comes first, and the reasoning second.

One particularly insightful redditor did note that the pro-gg side does have women in it, and failing to condemn RoK is a de facto support for the way that RoK approaches women. So at least that one person could draw two dots together.

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What kills me is that those tumblrs are the go-to link they cite for GGers being harassed. Sending that link is basically like saying: "Look at this collection of how we've been harassed! Well, some of these are fake, we're not sure which ones are. Some of them are proven to be fake, but the person running it doesn't care about taking down the fakes but... STOP HARASSING US."

 

Daniel Floyd from Extra Credits gave his two cents appealing to the "moderate" GGer asking them what they think they've accomplished. He also expanded upon that Kris Straub comic arguing the most vocal and abusive GGers are undermining any hope for credibility:

 

THEY are your biggest problem right now. Because, while you may be fighting to distance yourself from them, they sure aren't trying to distance themselves from you. And they are DESTROYING you guys' credibility, because they keep tagging along with you and attacking your opponents. In fact, THEY are all your opponents can see anymore.

 

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Yup, same old stuff. "We're not about misogyny, we're investigating journalistic ethics!"

 

Multiple posts proceed to obsess over Zoe Quinn.

 

And people wonder why no one wants to bother engaging, or taking anyone seriously.

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Ghh it's that thing where "I'm speaking with a neutral tone therefore I am a voice of reason and take a neutral stance."

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What the hell is the process for getting a lawyer disbarred? Because the guy already abused his office once already to engage in the harassment of Zoe Quinn, and in the tweet line about him hiring a private detective to stalk her, he mentioned how he has access to more resources to further engage in that harassment. I know the process of disbarment isn't an overnight affair, but I know injunctions can be filed to prevent a lawyer from practicing until it is resolved.

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It depends on the state he is licensed in since each state sets their own ethical rules concerning attorney conduct. From there you'd need to figure out what section of the code of conduct he is violating, and what the remedies are...

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I mean, the basic problem is you would need to hire another lawyer to handle all this stuff.

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I tried to engage a gamergater-friendly game developer on Twitter a couple of days ago, expecting someone with some intelligence, but he responded like any gamergater, using talking points that are repeated to death. Then another one started to talk to respond. Both linked to a video interview with 3 gamergater girls, who were also just repeating the talking points, and one said that "feminism [etc] is just irrelevant [in games (writing?)]). Both of the gamergaters were like

 

 

Watch this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtzrUsi6Y1s  Only link I will send you.

 

and

 

 

 

As if everything were somehow obvious from that video... and as if that gave legitimacy to everything. What the fuck are these people smoking.

 

To be honest I wasn't very nice in my tweets either, being rather sad that an game that seemed really interesting at first was being made by a gamergater...

 

[edit]"it's about journalistic integrity and this is what's important. Women are not important in this discussion about ethics... [something about black people] ... all that matters is your game... [why do you think misogyny keeps coming up?]..." AARGHHHH!!!!

"The real issue is that we have a terrible problem of nepotism and cronyism..." ... "A review needs to be objective" ... "we just want to know if the game is good" AARRRRGH!!!

Link to time where this starts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=qtzrUsi6Y1s#t=468

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These are basically the students in school who thought that having a good education meant being able to repeat the words you heard / read, rather than actually understanding those words and being able to explain it in your own way. They can't argue for shit, and because of that it often gives the impression of them not arguing in good faith. And then they get frustrated and spout insulting shit, either with vulgarities or trying to take some sort of intellectual high-ground of "I'm not wasting anymore time with you."

 

Ultimately I'm sad that these people have so little going on in their lives, so little involvement in the world around them, that this is the thing they get up to and think they're fighting some massive injustice on. The last eight years were an eye-opener to my mother being a paranoid twit, beyond help at this point, and I see it reflected in these people that I would otherwise get along with because we have a shared interest; playing games.

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The only thing that is relevant about gamergate is that it's an ongoing harassment-campaign that attempts to amplify its threats by accumulating members. There is no point in listening to these fools talk about how the world is run by lizard people until the threats and harassment stop. Their particular views on gaming-culture and journalism are completely irrelevant; threats are made to silence opposing opinions, and the many shades of gamergate is used to deflect accountability. All these uninformed opinions are selected organically to get their numbers up so that their perceived power is increased. If people have joined gamergate so that they can inflate their consumer power, then they are doing so at the expense of female voices and THAT is the issue. The attacks on individuals are continuing and until they stop I don't care about gamergate's opinion on anything. They can repeat over and over and over again that they are not harassers, but getting under a banner that is seen by the victims of harassment as the central brand of what has, and continues to threaten them IS an act of harassment. Gamergate doesn't get to decide what it is about, the victims of their abuse do. I don't give a shit about their favorite color or how often they volunteer at the food-bank.

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As if everything were somehow obvious from that video... and as if that gave legitimacy to everything. What the fuck are these people smoking.

 

To be honest I wasn't very nice in my tweets either, being rather sad that an game that seemed really interesting at first was being made by a gamergater...

 

[edit]"it's about journalistic integrity and this is what's important. Women are not important in this discussion about ethics... [something about black people] ... all that matters is your game... [why do you think misogyny keeps coming up?]..." AARGHHHH!!!!

"The real issue is that we have a terrible problem of nepotism and cronyism..." ... "A review needs to be objective" ... "we just want to know if the game is good" AARRRRGH!!!

Link to time where this starts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=qtzrUsi6Y1s#t=468

 

It's heartbreaking to see people being used so willingly, and on top of that being unaware of what is happening.  Someone really needs to explain to gamergaters what the burden of proof is.

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So Mike Cernovich is going to hire a private investigator to stalk Zoe Quinn.

 

I have no words.

 

I have no words. I can't believe this has gotten so low.

 

How can we stop this?

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So Mike Cernovich is going to hire a private investigator to stalk Zoe Quinn.

 

I have no words.

 

I have no words. I can't believe this has gotten so low.

 

How can we stop this?

He deleted the tweet about it - not because he became aware of it being wrong or because he was getting shamed for it.

 

Because someone reminded him it'd blow the point of hiring a PI to stalk someone if that someone is aware someone is watching them.

 

What a piece of shit.

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He deleted the tweet about it - not because he became aware of it being wrong or because he was getting shamed for it.

 

Because someone reminded him it'd blow the point of hiring a PI to stalk someone if that someone is aware someone is watching them.

 

What a piece of shit.

 

In the interest of fairness I decided to read a bit of his work and man, that fucking guy is just a bastion of every shitty quality human beings can possess.

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Thankfully someone got an archive of it before it was deleted.  Quinn's feed following that is fucking heartbreaking.  Seriously, the mob is bad enough, but a fucking lawyer with a PI going after you, just to whip the mob up more?  Fucking hell.

 

Apparently people began throwing her nudes around again to use that to harass her, and trying to shame her for having done porn work.  This exchange between Quinn and a couple of other women is interesting.  It's not the first time I've heard a woman say that she was treated better doing sex work than she was in other industries.  Not to say there aren't negative experiences, but that there can also be positive ones. 

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There have been repeated calls for moderate gamergate folks to adopt a new tag to discuss journalistic ethics and they've fallen on deaf ears. Maybe the best thing to do would be to start it ourselves. Personally I don't really believe the ethical problems are bad enough to warrant it but I'm sure there are people who are worried about ethics who don't want to associate with GG that could start this. The new tag could start from a position of wanting to disassociate, condemning shitty behaviour, and approaching topics of ethics evenhandedly. This could give the moderates somewhere to jump to and actively oppose the extremists.

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There have been repeated calls for moderate gamergate folks to adopt a new tag to discuss journalistic ethics and they've fallen on deaf ears. Maybe the best thing to do would be to start it ourselves. Personally I don't really believe the ethical problems are bad enough to warrant it but I'm sure there are people who are worried about ethics who don't want to associate with GG that could start this. The new tag could start from a position of wanting to disassociate, condemning shitty behaviour, and approaching topics of ethics evenhandedly. This could give the moderates somewhere to jump to and actively oppose the extremists.

 

It would be nice, but how would they prevent 8chan and Reddit from tearing the hashtag to pieces as a perceived attempt by #GamerGate's ubiquitous enemies to divide the movement? There have been attempts in the past, like #GamerEthics, that have been actively poisoned by people who seek only to keep the ranks closed.

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It's been attempted. #GameEthics was "spawned" immediately following Quinn's nuclear bomb of IRC logs, and it went nowhere. EDIT: Oop Gorm beat me to it.

 

Anyway, these people are clearly not acting in good faith, so it's not really worth the attempt.

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Yeah, one of Gamergate's goals, in practice, is to try and keep up a persistent climate of fear that they control around women participating in games. I'd imagine that ethics discussion will happen organically if Gamergate finally dies because, as far as I can see, gaming journalists are intensely aware of how close they are to being third-party PR, and how there's a gap between that and what they'd hope and imagine game journalism to be.

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Props to you all for keeping a good discussion going. There is just so much unbearable shit going on and I can't bring myself to spend the energy necessary to get involved in this debate or whatever you might call it.

 

The one thought I did have though is that it would be kind of nice to have some kind of message board out there where gg'ers can clearly identify themselves as such (so there is no ambiguity as to what banner they fall under), state what it is they take issue with, and provide 3 specific examples that demonstrate that what they take issue with is actually a thing that is happening. This sure would be a good start at bringing into focus exactly what the hell they are fighting for and why they are fighting for it. I think the fact that there doesn't seem to be anything like this out there says a lot about what their goals are. And I suspect if there was some kind of place to put their grievances out there, whatever examples they might come up with would probably be exactly what we would all expect. Zoe this, Anita that, blah blah blah...

 

Okay, now back to hiding.

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Yeah, one of Gamergate's goals, in practice, is to try and keep up a persistent climate of fear that they control around women participating in games. I'd imagine that ethics discussion will happen organically if Gamergate finally dies because, as far as I can see, gaming journalists are intensely aware of how close they are to being third-party PR, and how there's a gap between that and what they'd hope and imagine game journalism to be.

I think Gamergate people would actually be pretty happy if the gaming press were completely third-party PR.  If these people are composed of the same hardcore gamers I've been encountering over the last few years, it seems like they want every AAA game to get an A for effort anyway.

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