"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

[Flynn]

What a weird coincidence I started play the Secret World recently as well.  

[Merus]

And I'm playing it actively now.

[JonCole]

... we're all in the Illuminati, right?

 

I'm actually a Templar.

[Twig]

I've been strongly considering playing it for a while now!

[Nachimir]

GG didn't seem to cast much of it's shadow at GameCity, apart from one guy who thought it'd be hilarious to continually reference it while playing in a live text adventure event. Which it wouldn't have been under normal circumstances, but especially not since Zoe Quinn and Leigh Alexander were two of the DMs writing in response to players

 

We wrote/tweaked anti-harassment policies, and had these up in the venue:

http://twitter.com/chromatogram/status/526411507132018688

 

It was a weird week. A bunch of people would sometimes tell GG jokes because that's a way of coping with it, and there were a few games of indie-illuminati themed werewolf too, which were generally hilarious. At times though, with some of the primary targets of harassment actually around, it was all way too close to the bone. I hope people joking about it doesn't cause them to forget the ongoing, long term harassment GG is a manifestation of, or think it's been defanged.

[Cyborg771]

We haven't seen much of the worse misogyny lately, unless the victims have just been too afraid to speak out. The fact that I can even entertain that thought makes it depressing though.

In other news, I'm seeing an increasing number of "I used to be a GG supporter" posts on GamerGhazi and elsewhere, so that's good I guess.

[Merus]

I've been strongly considering playing it for a while now!

 

It's MMO bullshit with really good writing and mission design. My tip is to rush to the end of the storyline mission and come back and clean up the other missions later, because otherwise you're going to spend tens of hours on Solomon Island and that's rough. Investigation and sabotage missions (they have different icons) are pretty much always worth doing.

 

I'm playing as Illuminati, and they have a fun aesthetic, but apparently one of the mid-game Dragon-only missions is much better than the Illuminati/Templar equivalents, and the late-game Templar mission to open up the third map is much better than the Dragon/Illuminati one, so that may be a factor in your decision-making.

[Denial]

At this point it's sort of metronomic. Today, KingofPol, one of the most voluble of the Gamergate tweeters and YouTubers, explained at length that the Holocaust was smaller than you think today on a live stream, while the other preeminent citizens of Gamergate on the stream laughed and egged him on.

 

Of course, some Gamergaters have been saying that his opinions about the Holocaust are his own business, and have nothing to do with games so are not relevant, and that the stream was not hashtagged Gamergate and so is not relevant to consideration of the consumer revolt demanding ethics in journalism.

 

That feels like it may be a tough sell outside Gamergate.

[Problem Machine]

So... Brianna Wu is putting a bounty on people who send death threats?

"Identifiable information leading to the prosecution of individuals sending me death threats will now be $11,000."

[Bolegium]

At first glance that sounds pretty extreme, though only if you forget that this is a response to death threats, SWATing, 'doxing' etc. I wouldn't be suprised if Brianna gets a wave of 'well meaning' but ultimately misplaced criticism over this. I hope this is enough to deter people from doing this shit in tbe first place.

[clyde]

I wonder if anyone is going to make a death-threat so that an accomplice can cash in. While that may seem like a pretty obvious mistake to many of us, GG has shown a tendency to attract people who lack much ability to extrapolate consequences beyond short-term goals and game-plans. I worry that GG will throw one of their weaker members under the bus for a possible cash-grab and a chance to get an example of the lack of compassion and hypocrisy of social-justice warriors they are always raving about. I have a hard time imagining a scenario where paying informants is wise or ethical.

[Problem Machine]

I have a hard time imagining a scenario where paying informants is wise or ethical.

I'm not sure I understand why that's unethical. I can see an argument for unwise, but,,,?

[Synnah]

Speaking of Ethics, Tauriq Moosa wrote this piece about why GamerGate is unethical. Contains a lot of good points, including some things we've discussed here.

 

In Gamergate, there is a false idea that there are “two” sides: Gamergate and “anti-GG”. But as I’ve stated before: Anti-GG is a creation of Gamergate, a Strawman they can attack whenever they feel threatened, to paint all critics as harassers. An attitude of fairness suggests we shouldn’t paint all Gamergaters with the same brush: but when you have no good reason to maintain the label (many of us do ethics in game media, all the time), when people’s lives and safety being ruined because of a movement aren’t enough to make you leave it, even when you yourself haven’t “harassed”, it still doesn’t paint your views in a good light.

[SuperBiasedMan]

That also sort of addresses (though not directly) how GG specifically says you can't paint them all as the same, while they specifically group everyone who actively doesn't support GG as if they're an anti-GG movement with one widespread consistent identity.

[Justin Leego]

Something in common, then

[SuperBiasedMan]

I'm not sure I understand why that's unethical. I can see an argument for unwise, but,,,?

 

I feel it's ethically questionable because by paying for it you are creating a monetary incentive for people to present information that would be used to prosecute people.

 

Realistically, a decent person wouldn't need the money to come forward, so this is to push people who would otherwise hesitate to do it purely for the moral reasons. But it will also draw out people who only care about the money, and that can easily make for dodgy information and questionable accusations. I really don't think it's a good idea, since she'll only have to sort through the information she gets for legitimate evidence, then suffer through complaints and accusations from the people who gave unusable information saying she cheated them. All for the sake of getting information from the small section of people who do care about more than the money but need a monetary incentive to push them over the edge of giving info.

[Nachimir]

[Problem Machine]

I feel it's ethically questionable because by paying for it you are creating a monetary incentive for people to present information that would be used to prosecute people.

 

Realistically, a decent person wouldn't need the money to come forward, so this is to push people who would otherwise hesitate to do it purely for the moral reasons. But it will also draw out people who only care about the money, and that can easily make for dodgy information and questionable accusations. I really don't think it's a good idea, since she'll only have to sort through the information she gets for legitimate evidence, then suffer through complaints and accusations from the people who gave unusable information saying she cheated them. All for the sake of getting information from the small section of people who do care about more than the money but need a monetary incentive to push them over the edge of giving info.

That seems more like an argument for unwise than unethical, really.

[clyde]

I'm not sure I understand why that's unethical. I can see an argument for unwise, but,,,?

Changing the motive to cash or amnesty can really gnarl justice. Here's a pretty good article about it. It's a more extreme circumstance, but this is the basic pattern that concerns me. Give me $1000 and I can find you someone who makes a death-threat (that wouldn't have done so otherwise).

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-fbi-entrapment-is-inventing-terrorists-and-letting-bad-guys-off-the-hook-20120515

The This American Life story cited in that article is worth listening to.

Also, Frontline just recently has a documentary about this case:

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3333205

It highlights how the incentivization of finding criminals does more damage to those who are lonely or cognitively challenged.

[Problem Machine]

I guess the point is that beyond a certain point 'unwise' turns into unethical, as it becomes a form of reckless endangerment.

[BusbyBerkeley]

Saw h

This on twitter and the first response was like "yeah, cause people had a problem with naked women in art in the past :smug: give me davinci and frazetti any day!"

Those were the actual two examples he gave. He then went on to call out Duchamp as not a real artist, though not by name just by saying how urinals aren't art. Dating an art history nerd that kind of shit drives me fucking batty, even though this guy was clearly just trying to seem intellectual. It's all very douche-chill enducing.

[Justin Leego]

As in Frank Frazetta? Da Vinci and Frank Frazetta?

as examples of uncontroversial examples of nudity in visual art

hahahhaaaHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAH HAHAHHAHHAHAAAAAA

 

ow

 

well I guess some people do think that.

 

edit: ah, so it was actually Frazetta, Michelangelo and Delacroix. I ... guess that's valid.

[Blambo]

Regardless of lack of art history knowledge, they're viewing feminist criticism with the same lens they view regressive historical cultural forces. With hitman absolution standing in as the Sistine chapel and Anita sarkeesian standing in for Biagio de Cesena

[James]

When I was eleven or twelve, I remember having difficulty with the claim by one of my classmates that not all depictions of nudity are pornography. The above-described Twitter user sounds like they are operating on a similar level.

It's pretty frustrating when a person with very superficial familiarity with something assumes there are no further depths to delve, and goes around acting like some sort of moron-expert, completely ignorant of their personal Rumsfeldian unknown unknowns. Or perhaps completely resistant to the idea that there is anything else, preferring to label and claims to the contrary pretentious nonsense.

Like how anti-feminists are so keen to self-identity as rational, because they've thought about it once and it all fits neatly into their nice clean equality formula and let's not worry about the sprawling morass of subtle interconnected social phenomena because that's too messy to be true. Like how my childish model of what was pornographic permitted no information other than whether or not nudity was included. Nuance would ruin an easy formula.

OK, that's probably a straw man I'm describing. Sorry. I guess my point is fuck overconfident laypeople. Or educate them or whatever.

[CollegeBaby]

I don't know, it seems to be the approach of several YouTube GGers I've encountered who profess to exemplify rationality and skepticism, then go on indignant tirades and "gotcha" type character assassinations that is more characteristic of Denialism. It's the same rhetoric used by Climate Change "skeptics" as well as a list of other conspiracy theorists.

 

Whatever. It's the Dunning-Kruger Effect isn't it? Ignorant people are oftentimes too ignorant to understand the extent of their ignorance. Assuming they genuinely believe their views and aren't just being contrarians. I wonder if this post-Wikipedia age has exacerbated it. I know I've learnt things I never would have known without the Internet, but I wonder that other people might take this access of information for granted and assume they are instant experts on any topic by virtue of them knowing how to use Google.