"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

[Merus]

note how it doesn't talk about how the IGF believed GamerGate when they said that Mattie Brice said a bad thing and their statement can be easily twisted by GamerGate to sound like a further statement of support.

[Problem Machine]

I doubt it will be twisted so much as ignored, the same way GG ignored all of the clarifications re: Jenn Frank's Guardian piece. Though I think the criticisms are legit, I'm not sure how much of a difference it would make if they were addressed.

[Twig]

I think it can and will be twisted. I agree with Denial. Why are people so afraid to call it out by its name? Fucking weird and cowardly.

 

Really, I think the statement is fine overall if you're us and know who they're talking about, but to people who don't really know... A simple identification of the scourge would be more than enough to make it totally acceptable, I think.

[Cyborg771]

In today's edition of GamerGate Lacks Reading Comprehension, apparently Anita gave a talk discussing ways lawmakers and social media companies can help address the problems of online harassment. A couple of slides got tweeted out and GG interpreted them as "lobbying for internet censorship".

 

Here's the KiA thread in case you don't believe me, I know I wouldn't. http://np.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2lsh06/anita_sarkeesian_co_have_begun_lobbying_for/

[Bjorn]

In today's edition of GamerGate Lacks Reading Comprehension, apparently Anita gave a talk discussing ways lawmakers and social media companies can help address the problems of online harassment. A couple of slides got tweeted out and GG interpreted them as "lobbying for internet censorship".

 

Here's the KiA thread in case you don't believe me, I know I wouldn't. http://np.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2lsh06/anita_sarkeesian_co_have_begun_lobbying_for/

 

Holy balls, that thread.  I kept copying comments to paste here, then I'd read the next one, and then the next one, and so on. It just kept getting more absurd.  Like comparing Sarkeesian's slides to Japanese Internment Camps in WW2 and to modern despotic regimes jailing activists who oppose them. 

[Gormongous]

Holy balls, that thread.  I kept copying comments to paste here, then I'd read the next one, and then the next one, and so on. It just kept getting more absurd.  Like comparing Sarkeesian's slides to Japanese Internment Camps in WW2 and to modern despotic regimes jailing activists who oppose them.

 

I'm satisfied with this brief Watchmen discussion:

does anybody get the impression that they are Ozymandias and we Rorschach

Nope, ozy was right.

Adrian wasn't even entirely sure he was right. And although Rorschach is an awesome character, his ideology is so extreme and one-sided, it's hard to really relate to him on any realistic level.

For you

[Ben X]

Yeah, this Voldemort thing is getting kind of silly...

 

Holy shit, I hadn't made this connection. It works especially well with the seventh book where

the villains have a magical hashtag search, so every time someone says Voldemort out loud they get swarmed by Death-Eaters.

.

 

So, Maddie Bryce leaving Twitter etc - she made kind of a baiting joke, so did she receive a different level of harassment than she was expecting or is used to? Is it that this one joke happened to kick off more than others? It's hard to nail down details out there, even reading through her Twitter feed, and things often get referred to rather obliquely in here!

[CollegeBaby]

In today's edition of GamerGate Lacks Reading Comprehension, apparently Anita gave a talk discussing ways lawmakers and social media companies can help address the problems of online harassment. A couple of slides got tweeted out and GG interpreted them as "lobbying for internet censorship".

 

Here's the KiA thread in case you don't believe me, I know I wouldn't. http://np.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2lsh06/anita_sarkeesian_co_have_begun_lobbying_for/

 

It makes total sense in the mind of gater that can't tell the difference between expressing a coherent argument and directing waves of harassment at someone.

[James]

I'd be heartened by the ridiculous stuff people are linking to -- surely something so absurd should be seen for what it is soon enough -- if it weren't for the fact it's been like this for so long, with no evidence of GamerGate's proponents having any self-awareness of how preposterous they look to the outside world.

That Mattie Brice thing in particular gave me metaphorical whiplash: one moment I was enjoying the schadenfreude of seeing so many people so earnestly taking a completely obvious joke at face value; the next I was knocked to the (also metaphorical) floor by the IGF playing right into that delusion, a move as bewildering as it is infuriating. Sure, the apology is about as good as you could expect, but in many respects the damage is already done. First answers tend to carry the most weight.

Still, I'm largely optimistic, though perhaps without much reason.

[RubixsQube]

I really appreciate the conversation that goes on in this thread about gamergate. It's good that someone has the stomach to digest this constant stream of bullshit. I wonder if this will ever end, at all, ever.

 

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a gamergate boot stamping on a SJW human face - forever.

[Nachimir]

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a gamergate boot stamping on a SJW human face - forever.

 

 

That's the kind of rhetoric gaters employ

 

I don't think it will exactly end, but it's continuing to peter out in a lot of ways. Voldemort bullshit from companies notwithstanding, most ordinary people seem to be able to look at it and see it for what it is. Whatever's left long term will be the most deluded, earnest and vicious people of GG. We already know that, as it stands, gaters are a tiny minority of gamers who had delusions of grandeur.

[RubixsQube]

But I think that gamergate is perhaps symptomatic of something much larger, which is the idea that the internet allows for ways of harassment and intolerance that we'll be seeing for a long time. Sending swat teams to houses, and spreading sensitive documents and personal information, these are things that are bad, and I worry they'll only get worse. Even if gamergate fizzles out, there will be people who use these methods to support their own ignorant views and get what they want. 

 

Edit: I think that this article, from Ezra Klein, builds an interesting case discussing how this sort of weird mess of a conflict is going to continue, today with video games, tomorrow with something else.

 

(Also, I do want to make clear to anyone and everyone that the statement I made was a reference to my favorite 1984 quote, and not something I actually believe is a thing that should be done ever)

[Synnah]

As a result of the Mattie Brice 'scandal', GamerGate is turning it's email-writing spam-factory on everyone who entered a game in this year's IGF. It fucking infuriates me that they think this is still some righteous crusade, and that Mattie's joke justifies it because it's somehow indicative of bigotry. For people who'll accuse 'SJWs' of taking everything too seriously, they're remarkably bad at knowing the line between humour and actually problematic behaviour.

 

I think the IGF's apology is softer than it needs to be (Just name GamerGate, for christ's sake), and their clarification that their initial concern was that Mattie's tweet suggested that judges might not be taking the position seriously is a little odd, because their replies to the Gater that sparked this whole thing certainly didn't read that way. Their heart's in the right place, I think, but they handled things really badly. All it took was for them to respond to the initial tweet with 'That's a joke, you're an idiot'.

 

I've got more stuff I want to say about the past week's stuff, having not really had time to post much in here about it, but I don't have the time! Look forward to that soon, I guess.

[tegan]

GG is the Westboro Baptist Church of games.

[Reyturner]

I'd go with Alex Jones of games.

[Merus]

I thought this was interesting, because it describe the problem I had with "social justice warriors" when they were merely fuckwits on Tumblr and not literally everybody. It was never a great name, of course.

 

I'm less sure about the critique of the progressive movement, because it's really fucking hard to point out systemic inequalities at the best of times. But maybe the tactics to politicise the personal aren't necessary if people are merely allowed to share their stories without people jumping in and trying to explain it. I'm always fascinated by the regular Reddit thread where people discover for the first time that women get way more shit than men do on the internet.

[Problem Machine]

Didn't finish because I was getting super bothered that he was conflating the intended purpose of rhetorical devices with their rampant abuse by progressives looking for scapegoats. These are problems that have been observed and described without the implication that they're intrinsic to the understanding of tone policing etcetera. I probably just don't have the attention span right now though.

[Merus]

Didn't finish because I was getting super bothered that he was conflating the intended purpose of rhetorical devices with their rampant abuse by progressives looking for scapegoats. These are problems that have been observed and described without the implication that they're intrinsic to the understanding of tone policing etcetera. I probably just don't have the attention span right now though.

 No, I think that's a fair criticism, although I think his point was that they inevitably get conflated.

 

On a happier note, Milo was suspended from Twitter.

[Cyborg771]

As a result of the Mattie Brice 'scandal', GamerGate is turning it's email-writing spam-factory on everyone who entered a game in this year's IGF. 

 

Seriously? I've got a friend who has entered a game, I've asked him to please share any hilarious emails he gets.

[JonCole]

In addition to Milo/Nero, Jordan Owen was also suspended. I'm very happy about these things.

[Smart Jason]

 

The allusions to Christmas make it sound like a bunch of kids preparing to battle Santa for new toys and consoles.

[Merus]

You can also get legitimacy by being right and expressing your point clearly, succinctly and inescapably, but I can see why Gamergate doesn't think they have that in them

[CollegeBaby]

I think they have a point. I certainly consider the Ku Klux Klan more legitimate for having not died out in the 1870s. Ideas that old must be right.

[James]

Sounds more like shrinking pains than growing pains.

[Gormongous]

You can also get legitimacy by being right and expressing your point clearly, succinctly and inescapably, but I can see why Gamergate doesn't think they have that in them

I think they have a point. I certainly consider the Ku Klux Klan more legitimate for having not died out in the 1870s. Ideas that old must be right.

 

I really do love the repeated implications in that screencap that ideas gain power passively by not going away or changing, rather than actively through discourse of any kind. It's so transparently how the poster wants human psychology to work given the situation, regardless of how it actually does work. I've also said this before, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is another instance of members of #GamerGate projecting their own feelings about the movement ("All these months and so few people believe in us... Maybe we're not as right as we thought?") onto those opponents ("If we feel this way when we're right, anti-GG must be ready to fall apart with doubts!").