Adobe has pulled out, Mercedes may have gone back, but that's unconfirmed...

Someone should thank Sam Biddle for supporting bullying against nerds. He has truly done a great thing for GG:mrgreen:

 

So I found this to be an interesting discussion of GamerGate, well-researched and distinctly academic. Enjoy the inevitable conversation: http://blip.tv/foldablehuman/s4e7-gamergate-7071206

 

So, what I took from that vid, and correct me if I am wrong, is that due to the base assumptions GG is a flawed movement and that it is misogynist in nature and should end....which is the argument anti GG has been making for awhile now. This, again, conveniently forgets about the harassment of GG supporters, the mass censorship, the support of things such as bullying and outright hateful things that come from anti GG, the black lists etc... all of this doesn't matter, but because trolls love being trolls, and GG's main activity happens on a public sight where anyone can use the tag it's made up of misogynists and their dupes, and the moment he claimed notyourshield was started via sock puppets I closed out. This guy isn't saying anything that Anti GG hasn't said before, he just pretties it up with smart talk.

Edit: Also KoP is being interviewed by a guy named Dr. Laymen on a stream...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQZ_fCdKrkY

 

I don't understand that argument. Genuinely.

It's like saying Feminism is a flawed movement because of crazy, radical feminists. Which is ludicrous (though to be fair, I'm sure people think that way).

 

The problem with that, Hugplx, is that feminism, without the crazy, is a generally accepted and good position to take. Why wouldn't it be? Equality for men and women? Fuck yeah! So people see the crazies, and say 'well, we can't let them detract from the core message'.

Gamer gate, on the other hand does not. It's done a flat out terrible job of getting its message out there. For every one good article coherently explaining it, there's ten idiots slapping death threats at people. And it doesn't matter if they're just hijacking the hash tag. That's part of the danger of using social media to enact change.

That's why I personally feel GG is a bust. The entire movement has been tarnished by what set it off, actual or perceived (zoe banging some dudes), and by the hordes of trolls who do stupid, stupid shit like harassing a game developer. Honestly, the best thing to do is to just wash your hands of it, wait for the next controversy to crop up, and try again, hopefully without the idiots this time.

 

See, here's the thing: I've never seen any of this. I've been lurking around the #GamerGate hashtag and the IRC channels for months now, and I have not seen this supposed harassment, certainly not to anywhere near the degree of the other way. I've seen snippy comments thrown back at Gamergate (only to be deluged by swarms of people doing considerably worse), or "the black list" (which from what I've seen, has been applied to people who have proven to be harassers who seem to be 'blacklisted' for sane reasons). Hell, half of it seems like the worst fucking soap opera ever, and I'll repeat what I said last time: the indie game scene should be about the games, not the lifestyle and people's social lives. Art over the 'artists', as it is.

As for the censorship claims - which seem pretty damn spotty considering many of the threads remained open, and considering some extreme elements of GamerGate were actively trying to drive people out of game development and journalism, including people like Sarkeesian where the most she did in this bullshit was come out in support of Quinn - I'm not seeing a huge amount of basis there either. It's a shame you killed the video the second you heard anything about #notyourshield, because he made some genuine, well-reasoned points how GamerGate responds to outsider points-of-view...

But here's the thing: for as much as GamerGate is claiming "the other side does it too", I'm not seeing it to anywhere near the same degree. I don't see evidence here - if anti-GamerGate is driving people from their homes or prompting people to file police reports, I want to see proof of that. I've acknowledged I'm no fan of Zoe Quinn (who was proven to do the Content ID bullshit) or some of her ilk, so convince me here. And really, if that harassment was happening, why didn't GamerGate take the moral high ground and completely ostracize those who would co-opt the movement for bad purposes? I mean, if you don't, it's the same 'No True Scotsman' fallacy that gets leveled at feminists for the legit crazy ones.

Because I've been watching this shit from the sidelines, and it's been two months and I'm still seeing this shit happen, and nobody's having a fucking conversation (to say nothing of addressing real issues of journalistic corruption). And when I see pieces or videos from both sides, one group is trying to quell the conversation with some form of dialogue, or well-reasoned analysis that all the facts I've seen support... and the other side seems to be building tangential conspiracy theories that divorce from any sort of reasonable context (example: the majority of what I've seen from IA or that Slade character).

When at the end of the goddamn day, the majority of this comes down to a fucking number on a review, or pageviews on a website, and while there is money/exposure involved, it's not going to save a bad game from being bad, or from the legitimately great titles rising to the top.

EDIT: basically, a lot of what Samuel Black said.

 

Funny you should say that.

 

That will never happen, just like occupy wall street will never happen again. If GG were to fail here gaming will be just like the comic book market and it's kinda hard to get your message out when your opponent is the media itself.

That's because pro GG don't make a drama out of it, they don't really see the need too because they don't believe the person threatening them will actually carry through. In the highly unlikely event anybody was ever killed over this whole snaffu I would bet it would be a pro GG for the simple fact they ignored that one threat that was serious.

You, me, and Gamergate.

That would be because every outside point, bar some places, have been parroting the same line over and over, this guy was no different. Anti GG is out of ideas, they've blasted GG twice on MSNBC now and that's been their biggest play. Meanwhile we've gotten three, possibly four, of their sponsors to drop Gawker and rumblings that something interesting might happen in December, Tmobile also has asked for paper letters from the movement so that's a thing. Also...

He claimed it was created by sock puppets, the moment he said that he lost all credibility, especially since Anti GG got the creator of the Tag fired from his job. When he said that he more then implied that any woman or minority that backs notyourshiled was a dupe and should be pitied. you don't get to pull that card and expect to be taken seriously after that.

Why would anybody in GG file a police report? Oh no, somebody threatened me on the internet, I better call the cops and then make a big deal about it on Twitter, despite the police often advising not to post anything about it on Twitter. Like I said above, you don't see much of it on the tag itself because nobody finds it much of a big deal and doesn't say anything unless asked about it.

We've been trying, but do you realize how easy it is for trolls to use publc hash tags on twitter, including Anti GG who want to spread slander? that's why we state that if it's anything harassing or a death/rape threat it's not from GG. We clean up what ew can find, but we can't get it all.

Nobodies talking because nobody on the other side wants to talk. From day one they have refused to do anything but label GG as garbage, or did you not notice how MSNBC forgot to have anybody that might have a different opinion on when they interviewed Zoe and Brianna? There are also two parites in GG right now, the ones who are wanting to get rid of corporations like Gawker entirely, and the more level headed like Totalbiscut that were pushed into GG because they weren't against it. Fortunately the cooler heads have been prevailing and Jim has been more reserved in his enthusiasm lately.

Also..

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/10/09/the_gender_games_sex_lies_and_videogames_124244.html

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/10/21/the_gender_games_part_2_videogames_meet_feminism_124375.html

Edit: Also part 2:

http://www.hitbox.tv/kingofpol

KoP stream, apparently Gawker is being sued by their interns.

 

The implication being that, 'without the crazy', GG (or people in support of it) aren't championing a just cause?

The messaging has been pretty terrible from what I've seen, but that's what happens when games media mostly cover one side of the debate, while highlighting the crazies.

I should clarify, the crazies should be highlighted. Threats of death, rape, torture and doxxing in general is the kind of behavior that needs to be stamped out. Now.

Dragging a movement that is genuinely gaining momentum for the right reasons through the mud because the crazies add a hashtag to their abuse is not cool though.

 

In regards to the origins of #notyourshield here's this old video from the second person to use the tag and who is often credited with starting it @j_millerworks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfEnFHZ0JX0

@Ninouh90 was the very first person to use it and he has proven his own identity multiple times over. This is information that is easy to find by simply asking people so when anyone starts the sockpuppet stuff they're discredited in my mind as either they have not conducted a true investigation or they are intentionally being dishonest.

 

Comparing a movement that has more than a century of history, and involves in one way or another the whole humanity and much more directly a huge chunk of western society with such specific movement like GG, that as far I heard never gained much mainstream momentum...

Never saw much of it, except for some harsh (unecessary so? Yes) and a good degree of censorship on privately owned medias, yes too. It's not exactly a witch hunt though.

 

Who's comparing the principals of feminism with ethics? I said dragging GG through the mud because of the crazies is as stupid as dragging feminism through the mud because of the radicals.

It's sidestepping the issue with a completely different one.

This may come as a shock, but trolls and genuinely horrible people go back way more than two months.

They need to be dealt with, and people feel the GG discussion needs to be had - which means it should be had.

 

I didn't compare principles either. Just size and importance, ie how relevant to everyone anything is.

 

You're not supposed to understand that argument, because it's not an argument.

It's simply an extended attempt at deflection.

One of the blackly amusing things about this whole clusterfuck is how little anyone on either side is actually engaging with the issues at hand. People think it's the Ultimate Showdown, and in fact it's ships passing at a distance screaming slurs via megaphone.

 

It's not just the crazies. The first thing that I see pro-GG folks link to is Internet Aristocrat's Five Guys video. That alone pushes people away, for good reason, and gets them thinking that GG is nothing but misogynist loons with an ax to grind against anything and anyone that doesn't sync up with their definition of "video games" and "video gamers". What they find out afterwards doesn't disabuse them of the notion, it makes the link stronger.

It is impossible at this point for Gamergate to be seen in a positive light. Want this conversation? Start something new. Police it to make sure the crazies don't get their claws in. Extend some olive branches and get the anti-GG folks involved - bonus points if you can convince Anita to lend her voice. Get a consultant that has real experience in journalism (New York Times as opposed to Gizmodo or Kotaku). Make it official, and start policing.

Yeah, it's like middle school debate class all over again.

 

That is exactly what Anti GG wants us to do. They want us to abandon the Tag and lose all momentum. The trolls will just follow us if we actually did. GG is here to stay, and unfortunately for Gawker we've had much more success then they've managed to even scrap together. Their best counter was stopgamergate2014 and that only trended cause they hired a bunch of bots, most of the time it's dead if GG doesn't co-opt it for it's own amusement.

The truth is that Gawker has a lot, but not all, of hateful people working for it that have gotten real comfy in their spots to the point they fucked up, and now they're stuck. It was pointed out, and it's true, that if they had let the whole Zoe scandal play out then it would have been like Doritogate, fierce at first but quick to die out. But they had to get on their high horse about it and look where it lead. Hell nobody was even expecting that an actual group existed. It was joked about and then Milo actually found one and everybody was like, holy shit.

What else can we do? Every time we tried we were shut down and slandered. Hell Even Erick Kain of all people tried. He's still neutral as of today and even he is leaning more GG then Anti since he can't get any of them to talk to him. the only thing that comes from the other side is slander and hilariously over the top misogynist/misandrist/racist tweets. I know that it's near impossible to convey anything meaningful in 140 characters, but after you have a guy come out and say that GG is the reason why nerds need to be bullied in school, so they know their place, and see all his buddies gather around and agree with him you start to realize that sometimes all it takes is 140 characters to show just how much of an asshole some people are.

---------- Post automerged at 11:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:32 PM ----------

It's looking like Olympus might have dropped Gawker.

 

I feel like it's pretty hypocritical to argue the 'we're not all dickheads' point, then wave one dickhead and his friends right back at antiGG.

 

You're probably right, but if anything has made me angry about this whole thing it was that little spat of tweets, it hits a bit close to home. I can't begin to imagine what others feel about some of the harsher things being said.

 

Well, if you want harsher things being said against GamerGate, I give you an NFL player.

EDIT: this is obviously not a tone or method I endorse when dealing with these issues, I just found the piece kind of fascinating from a purely conceptual level, especially how it'd be anathema a good twenty or even ten years ago.

 

It's accurate though.