Gamergate

Started by consortium11, October 20, 2014, 12:46:34 AM

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consortium11

#75
I had a long, thoughtful, detailed, excellent (if I do say so myself...) post all written up and ready to go and then through a combination of my own incompetence and a drunken Saturday night managed to lose it in a way that even Lazarus can't save... so I'll guess you'll have to take my word for it. Here's the bullet points version:

1) "Just change the tag"

I wonder if people who ask for this have actually followed this story... because it's exactly what happened. This wasn't called #Gamergate to begin with; people organized around the #quinnspiracy tag. Why did they move to Gamergate? Because #quinnspiricy was loaded with the sort of misogyny and abuse that we all decry and they wanted a clean start with Gamergate to focus on journalistic ethics, collusion and the attacks of the gamer identity.

Unsurprisingly for anyone involved, people just dismissed Gamergate as a rebranding exercise and the trolls and abusers changed to using it as soon as the term gained traction. Thus here we are. Changing the tag would change nothing beyond losing momentum; the abuse and trolls would just follow it as they did before.

2) "Gamergate was never about ethics."

If this was never about ethics, then The Escapist, Polygon and Kotaku would not have updated their ethical policies in the wake of it. If it was never about ethics then those who oppose Gamergate have the perfect chance to prove it by satisfying those ethical concerns; if they did and Gamergate continued as did the abuse then they'd have their answer. But the ethical concerns aren't being answered.

3) "We all care about journalistic ethics, but you don't need Gamergate to do so".

Since Gamergate started Gamergate supporters have revealed the ethical issues relating to Patricia Hernandez giving extensive coverage and recommendations to buy for her friends, former housemates and seemingly former partners games without mentioning the connection. They've revealed Danielle Riendeau being close friends with the composer of a game she reviewed (and gave 10/10) without disclosing it. They revealed the ethical issues relating to Shadows of Mordor. They revealed the existence of GameJournalPro's. They revealed the collusion that went on in there. They revealed the quite possibly illegal blacklisting that occurred in there. They revealed the repeated patreon and kickstarter support journalists gave to games they then gave coverage and reviews to without mentioning it. They revealed that Grayson did enough work on Depression Quest to be thanked in the credits by Quinn without mentioning it in his glowing coverage of the game and recommendation for others to buy it. They revealed even more coverage he gave to his friends without disclosing his connections.

Since Gamergate started the ethical issues those not supporting Gamergate have revealed?

...

...

Yeah...

4) "Gamergate is a movement, Gamergate opposition isn't... it's Gamergate vs everyone."

This is a multi-part answer.

A) "Us and them" positions rarely help anyone.

B) The facts don't back this up. Gaymer X said it was neutral and, unsurprisingly considering it's goal, that everyone was welcome. It was pressured by those opposed to Gamergate to instead declare itself against Gamergate (including by someone directly implicated in Gamergate ethics issues). When Gamersgate, having received months of abuse, noted that it had nothing to do with Gamergate it was immediately met by demands that it come out against Gamergate. If everyone who didn't support Gamergate was automatically against it there would be no need to do this.

C) There are places like "gamerghazi" and "AgainstGamerGate". There are forums and areas specifically dedicated to opposing Gamergate. There are people regarded as leaders for those opposed to Gamergate. There were hashtags like #stopGamerGate2014 and #againstgamergate. If Gamergate... which consists of essentially a hashtag, a reddit sub-forum and an 8chan board constitutes a movement, so does the opposition.

5) "Gamergate does nothing to stop the abuse."

The major gamergate reddit has strict rules against abuse or doxxing. Both it and the 8chan board ban and remove any doxxing that gets posted. Gamergate supporters have been at the front of reporting offensive and abusive twitter accounts. The one serial abuser of Anita's to be publicly identified and reported was identified and reported by Gamergate supporters... this was a man constantly sending her dick pics, abusing her and sending death threats. Surprise, surprise he had nothing to do with Gamergate. At pretty much every turn Gamergate supporters are both apologizing for and doing what they can to stop the abuse. Those opposed to Gamergate? Not so much.

We've had Zoe Quinn herself come out and thank Gamergate supporters for reporting and preventing abuse. Likewise with this most recent doxxing outbreak; again, even those opposed to Gamergate acknowledge that it has been Gamergate supporters leading the fightback against the abusers and doxxers. There's a reason the #GamerGateHarrassmentPatrol tag is both popular and making news.

6) "Gamergate is behind the abuse"

The person who doxxed and threatened Brianna Wu, largely kicking off the abuse aspect of this discussion? His tweets didn't mention Gamergate once. Yet now it is an article of faith that it was Gamergate behind it. We've recently seen a mass doxxing attempt with most of the targets were anti-gamergate journalists; Gamergate right? No... it was the GNAA (warning; their full name features racially offensive terms) who fully admit to it. Much of the abuse and doxxing that has happened to both sides can be traced back to either the GNAA or Something Awful's Goonsquad, both of whom have history when it comes to this and trolling both sides of a debate. The previously mentioned Brazilian journalist who was one of Anita's most prominent abusers? Nothing to do with Gamergate. And Brianna Wu posted showing a group of people on 8chan seemingly organising a doxxing attack and abusive raid on her? Each of the posts had the same user-ID; they were by the same person replying to themselves and thus a pretty obvious troll.

If there's one good thing that's come out of this most recent spurt of doxxing's, it's that it should largely put to bed the idea that Gamergate is behind all of the abuse (unless you're an anti-Gamergater on Gamerghazi in which case you'll proudly post about how you're willing to lie and say it was gamergaters behind it even though you "don't doubt for a second" that it has nothing to do with them).). Likewise the inclusion of a couple of pro-gamergate people in the list of targets should remind people that prominent Gamergate supporters have also been doxxed and abused; knives and syringes sent to them in the post, one was forced from his home, another was threatened with their trans status being revealed to their family, another having someone post his home address and threaten to kill his wife so he'd have to mourn etc etc. That's only a couple of examples out of a much greater whole.

That's not to say that some people who can legitimately be called Gamergaters haven't been involved in abuse; as I've always said Gamergate is both the ethical issues and the abuse. But it's neither endemic to the whole movement or completely one-sided.

7) The Newsweek article.

Despite being presented as anti-gamergate, this should end once and for all the idea that Gamergate is all about harassing prominent women. Brandwatch analyzed around 500,000 #gamergate tweets (25% of over 2,000,000 but we'll keep the numbers low to help out the anti-Gamergate side). Of those Anita Sarkeesian got 35,188, Zoe Quinn 10,700, Brianna Wu 38,952 and Leigh Alexander 13,296. So, as a starting point, if we take the bare minimum of 500,000 tweets then only 19.6% were directed at the prominent women. But we have to look at more than that. What was the context of those tweets? In the graph handily provided it was made clear than less than 10% of the tweets any of those people received were negative. Even if we take massively round up the numbers to 10% for each that means that of the Gamergate tweets only 1.9% were negative towards those women, the rest being positive or neutral. Less than 2%! And let's also remember that the study doesn't appear to define what "negative" means; I'd assume that something along the lines of "I really hate what @Anita does" is classed as a negative tweet but would anyone call it harassment or abuse?

So the end result of the study by Brandwatch? Less than 2% of #Gamergate tweets are aimed at prominent women and negative (and remember, that's rounding up the abuse to 10% for each). In reality less than that are going to be harassment or abuse.

That right there is statistical proof that #Gamergate isn't about harassing or abusing prominent female journalists/personalities/developers.

People like to question Gamergate's motives. Let me do some questioning of my own...

I wonder what happened to the idea of intersectionality when anti-Gamergate people are minimising or ignoring minority voices that come out in support of it (again I recommend this article on how black voices have been whitewashed out of the conversation, predominantly by a largely white headed anti-gamergate movement). I wonder what happened to encouraging minorities in the game industry when a black developer was doxxed and fired for being prominent in #NotYourShield. I wonder what happened to protecting minorities online when a gamergate supporter can be doxxed and have threats to publicise their trans status made against them. I wonder what happened to the idea that it was never right to punch down on those with less privilege then you when the white, CIS-male, millionaire with a massive media platform Chris Kluwe can say black people are "just like the KKK". I wonder why it is that Chris Kluwe can call someone like Boogie2988... a man who in many ways is the stereotype of a "gamer" that so many people like to bully and abuse, a man who's most popular youtube video is a slow-mo of him falling into a pool (and the comments section is as massively fat shaming as you'd imagine) and a man who had to put up with being doxxed and his wife threatened... a "slopebrowed weaseldick" or a "slackjawed pickletit" or a variety of other imaginative insults and be praised for it by people who loudly proclaim their interest in social justice. I wonder what happened to the opposition to doxxing when Zoe Quinn... Zoe Quinn of all people... can happily retweet a document including an opponent's address and photos of their house to her many followers. I wonder what happened to preventing harassment online when someone can promote and encourage others to file frivolous police complaints against someone and get pats on the back. I wonder what happened to social justice when supposed social justice advocates rally around Gawker... Gawker that largely popularised the idea of doxxing celebrities, Gawker that still has humiliating leaked/hacked celebrity photos up despite the Fappening, Gawker that refused a court order to take down an illegally obtained celebrity sex tape, Gawker that has engaged in doxxing and online harassment campaigns before, Gawker that is frankly a pretty awful place.

Far too often the people on both sides of this debate have become exactly that "sides". It's good vs evil and everything that supports your "side" or gives the other "side" a black eye is good, however ethically dubious. Perhaps that's why those who are opposed to Gamergate haven't given credit to the ethical issues discovered (or discovered any themselves)... because they think doing so gives legitimacy to the "enemy". Likewise perhaps that's why some on the side of Gamergate are so insistent on saying all the threats the like of Anita and Brianna Wu are either faked or entirely false flags or spend far too long discussing "OMG, look Anita just didn't win an award/OMG look what she just posted". It's why people on the side of Gamergate pretend it's entirely about ethics and those opposed to it say it's entirely about harassment. Because to accept the truth... that's it's both... is giving ground to the "enemy" and you know... we can't have that...

Even if it does involve betray what you're supposed to stand for.

Edit: Just to add, TotalBiscuit's thoughts largely follow my own; text version here, audio version here.

Shjade

I stopped paying attention to GG for a while (frankly burning out after this long trying to keep up with the shitstorm) so I'm a few days behind, at the least. That said, this might be my new favorite piece on the subject, specifically regarding the "get personal politics out of game criticism" demand which, out of all the non-harassment, non-sexist demands of the tag, is probably the dumbest.

Quote from: The Bittersweet ThingI’ve seen the @femfreq videos as well, and I’ve commented on them previously. When I did so, I got a deluge of exactly this type of response: “But she’s cherry-picking her evidence!” “Her views are biased!” “Everything about those videos is garbage, and she needs to be stopped!”

Okay. Let’s pretend for a moment that, for those of you who feel this way, you’re absolutely right. My question is this:

Why the fuck do you even care?
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Caehlim

Quote from: consortium11 on October 26, 2014, 09:00:06 PMSince Gamergate started the ethical issues those not supporting Gamergate have revealed?

You mean... since last month?

Quote from: consortium11 on October 26, 2014, 09:00:06 PMThey revealed that Grayson did enough work on Depression Quest to be thanked in the credits by Quinn without mentioning it in his glowing coverage of the game and recommendation for others to buy it.

An odd revelation to make. Since if you actually read Grayson's article in Kotaku magazine (http://tmi.kotaku.com/the-indie-game-reality-tv-show-that-went-to-hell-1555599284) it's entirely about a group of game designers' experience with a reality TV show.

Is their idea of 'glowing coverage':

"(and corroborating testimonials from Depression Quest creator Zoe Quinn, SoundSelf maestro Robin Arnott, and traveling indie of all the hats Adriel Wallick)"
or
"YouTube personality JonTron and Depression Quest creator Zoe Quinn butted heads during the Let's Play challenge, and they decided to resolve their differences with a discussion off-set."
(Grayson, 2014)

which are literally the only two times the article in question mentions her game.
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Caehlim

^ Note: This isn't to imply that this is the entirety of your argument. Merely the parts that I thought were problematic and had the appropriate research to address. ^

I just want to acknowledge that there was more information and nuance to your post that I have not yet had time to review or address fully so that I'm not taking you out of context there.
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consortium11

Quote from: Caehlim on October 27, 2014, 02:51:50 AM
You mean... since last month?

About two/three months ago actually.

And if Gamegate supporters... basically a collection of people with access to the internet... can discover all of that in that time, why couldn't others with far more access and resources? Why couldn't they discover that Patricia Hernandez was giving publicity for and recommendations to buy games for her friends, ex-housemates and possibly ex-partners without making any note of it? Why couldn't they reveal the existence of GameJournoPro's? Why weren't they finding out about the Shadows of Mordor issues? We're not talking hardcore investigative journalism here... but it was still seemingly still too much like hard work for the "we all care about ethics, you just don't need Gamergate to do it" people.

The websites in question now pretty much all accept that journalists funding games through Kickstarter/Patreon and then giving them coverage gives at the very least the perception of bias. The fact they've gone through articles to retroactively add a "Note: XXXX is a friend of mine" where there was no mention before shows that they accept not doing so before was wrong. GameJournoPro's existed well before Gamergate and, self-evidently, many of the members of the gaming press were at least aware of it and a significant number aware of the coordinated coverage and blacklisting aspects of it. Yet it took Gamergate supporters to discover these ethical issues and publicise them... the "we all care about ethics, you just don't need Gamergate to do it" had all the time before Gamergate and the entirety of Gamergate's existence to do so... they didn't.

Quote from: Caehlim on October 27, 2014, 02:51:50 AMAn odd revelation to make. Since if you actually read Grayson's article in Kotaku magazine (http://tmi.kotaku.com/the-indie-game-reality-tv-show-that-went-to-hell-1555599284) it's entirely about a group of game designers' experience with a reality TV show.

Is their idea of 'glowing coverage':

"(and corroborating testimonials from Depression Quest creator Zoe Quinn, SoundSelf maestro Robin Arnott, and traveling indie of all the hats Adriel Wallick)"
or
"YouTube personality JonTron and Depression Quest creator Zoe Quinn butted heads during the Let's Play challenge, and they decided to resolve their differences with a discussion off-set."
(Grayson, 2014)

which are literally the only two times the article in question mentions her game.

You're seemingly a couple of weeks behind the discussion.

Here's the article in question.

It's written by Nathan Grayson.

Its title is a pun on the name Depression Quest.

It uses a screenshot of Depression Quest as its illustrative screenshot.

While discussing a list of 50 or so Steam Greenlight games, it states "Anyway, standouts: powerful Twine darling Depression Quest".

Nowhere does it mention that Nathan Grayson was involved in the development of Depression Quest enough to be thanked in the credits and for Zoe Quinn to say the game would be dead in the water without him.

This has been known about for going on weeks now (again, discovered by Gamergater supporters... the "we all care about ethics, you just don't need Gamergate to do it" people managed to somehow miss it) and the article is still up, unamended. You can go and play Depression Quest (for free online) and see Nathan Grayson mentioned in the credits. Zoe Quinn says he was a tester, Grayson disputes that but then said he did do early testing and sent recommendations and bug reports back... regardless he did enough to be mentioned in the credits and made no mention of it when giving the game coverage.

Ephiral

Okay, yeah. My last post was off the rails and not terribly fair. I... won't stand behind that, and I'm sorry. It's clear to me now that I let my anger at the abuse get the better of me, and blind me to what was actually being said. My apologies to everyone here who had to deal with that, and I'll conduct myself better from here on out.




Consortium, I've had some time to think about my issues with Gamergate's claims to be about ethics, and here's a large part of it: their actions are actually against ethics.

What's the single biggest ethical issue in journalism today, and in games journalism in particular? Advertisers (and, in games journalism, the game companies being covered) dictating coverage, threatening to pull dollars (and advance copies and access to inside information) unless they get the coverage they want, up to and including straight-up PR releases disguised as articles.

What is Gamergate's primary go-to tactic to stop journalism they don't like? Attack the ad revenue - try to force the change by tying it to advertising dollars.

When a doctor abused her position to publicly diagnose someone who was not her patient with STDs based on extremely spurious evidence - something that, I hope you'll agree, is a serious ethical violation - and Rebecca Watson called her out on it, what was Gamergate's response? Why, to lie about Watson, attack her, and even start a petition trying to cause damage to her professional life.

So it's nice that some stuff has come to light in the wake of all this, but... the only ethics issues and lies Gamergate has a problem with are the ones it doesn't like. Clearly, "ethics" is not a terminal value; honestly, I'm not even sure it holds up as a value period in light of their actions.

On the tag: Claiming that anyone is saying "Just change the tag!" is pretty disingenuous. What I, for one, was suggesting was "Build a new movement and make it clear, personally and publicly, that people like, say, Paul Elam are not welcome. Disavow them. Refuse their support. Speak out vsibly against them if they spew toxic bullshit in your name. In short, don't let them define or hijack it. That's a lot more work than just changing the tag - but it's vital work if you don't want the abuse to define your movement.

Shjade

Okay, my last post? Disregard that.

Popehat's 10 rants about #GamerGate is by far the most informative, even-handed and devastating writeup of the entire situation I've read so far. Ken's pulling no punches and taking no sides; he wrecks everybody's shit, and with good reason.

It's not just the post itself, either. Those links he uses along the way go to some devastating and relevant posts from years ago: covering for/defending abusers in the BDSM community, harassment at writing conventions and how complaints about overtly sexist remarks and articles by the SFWA were called "censorship" and "banning," and on and on.

I'm really only up to point 3 of the Popehat 10 rants because I keep getting rabbit-holed down these other fascinating and disappointing conversations about sexism and harassment and free speech and all kinds of elements that play into the current situation and it's pretty much all great stuff. I'll probably be at this most of the day at this rate.

Some highlights:
QuoteGamerGate is label-heavy, and labels are lazy, obfuscating bullshit.

Labels are supposed to be shorthand for collections of ideas. I might say "I am libertarian-ish" because it's not practical to go around announcing the whole array of views I hold about demolishing public roads and privatizing the air force and so forth. This, up to a point, is useful.
...
#GamerGate dialogue relies heavily on labels — feminist, gamer, MRA, SJW, and so forth. That's why it's mostly noise. I've used labels before, and when I have, what I've written has been mostly noise. Labels are an excellent way to vent outrage, but a lousy way to argue about ideas or facts.

...

When people complain that they are being associated with misogyny and threats for waving the #GamerGate banner, I feel (on a different scale) about the way I do when people complain that they are being misjudged for flying the Confederate battle flag. Sure, maybe it means Southern pride and heritage to some of them. But I'm not sympathetic when many see it another way based on its history. If you fly the Confederate battle flag, people may reasonably think you intend to send a message that contradicts your spoken claims of harmony and equality.

This is stuff a lot of people have been saying about GG pretty much from the get-go, ever since the point where "it's about ethics" started being A Thing. I just find it a much more direct and instructive explanation than most offer on the subject and, perhaps more noteworthy, it's coming from a source that isn't anti-GG, unlike most who broach the subject. When I say "isn't anti-GG," I don't just mean "he's not directly, openly opposed to GamerGate," I mean this is a guy who, when I asked him who he thought had the best summation of how GamerGate started, directed me to an amateur gaming enthusiast's blog post which, though well-written, was decidedly in support of GG: Daddy Warpig's blog, to be specific. Popehat's recommendation was single-handedly responsible for my stepping back and taking a less condemnation-focused view of GG's ostensible goals, even if I still find them by and large reprehensible for a variety of reasons. That someone with that perspective is the one calling them out for this shit seems, to me at least, a significant difference from the norm when this is the topic of conversation.

Does he go on to take a machete to things like Chris Kluwe's latest shit-spewing at GG or the anti-GG propensity toward ad hominem being on par with GG's? You bet your ass he does, and none of it's undeserved. This kind of behavior is what pushes me away from ever wanting to describe myself as "anti-GG." Not fear of reprisal, not wanting to avoid forming some opposed movement - it's just not wanting to be associated with people who think the right way to call out assholes is to be assholes themselves. Does not compute.
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consortium11

I really rate Popehat in general and his blog (or at least the bits Ken White writes, I'm less interested in most of the other stuff); he's both an informative and entertaining writer while also having a great grasp of the law; for anyone with an interest in free speech laws (both in theory and practice) in the US it's pretty much vital reading. It's also a good example of how one shouldn't judge merely by what allies one has or always go with your own "side" regardless of the truth; Ken himself is a Christian libertarian(ish) person but he's friendly with PZ Meyers and, for something directly connected with Gamergate, has previously both called out Mike Cernovich (the "alpha male" lawyer dude who's become something of a lightning rod in this), linked to Mike's stuff in a positive way and with regards to Gamergate mocked many of those insulting/abusing/harassing Mike.

I think there's a couple of slight inaccuracies there; notably he somewhat misinterprets what #NotYourShield was about; while some have undoubtedly used it in a "some of my friends are black therefore we're not racist" sense, it was largely set up to point out that "gamers" weren't a single unified, homogenous whole and that (predominantly male, largely exclusively white or Asian) journalists shouldn't deflect criticism about censorship and ethics by attacking gamers as being racist and misogynistic; don't speak for me to defend yourself; I am not your shield. That said for someone who admittedly has been on the periphery of this and not really involved it's a very balanced article.

Shjade

While that may have been the ostensibly intended meaning of NotYourShield, two things:

1 - observing how its creation was suggested in a -chan thread suggests that it is, pretty much, intended to be used as an "I can't be misogynist, look at all these women on my side" deflection

2 - that's almost always how I see the tag actually used, regardless of why it may have been created


The whole "GamerGate is all young white men" thing is definitely an issue - people need to stop saying that stupid crap when it is both provably false and, far more importantly, irrelevant (misogyny is misogyny, it shouldn't matter the source) - but #NotYourShield is almost equally bullshit.
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Ephiral

#84
Yeah, looking at its origin, #NotYourShield was never about stopping deflection - it was deflection from its creation, a way for Gamergate to say "Nuh-uh! You're the real bigot!"

In other news, the numbers are in, and they're pretty damning for any claim that Gamergate isn't heavily skewed to harassment.

So, to recap, we have:

-The earliest, founding discussions of the movement, focused around hating on, attacking, and doing horrible things to a female games dev.
-Primary tactics that actually further violate journalistic ethics.
-Protection of others who commit ethics breaches, against non-games non-journalist women.
-Output from Gamergate heavily skewed toward targeting women, so much so that just two non-journalist female targets outweigh the combined total of traffic targeted at journalists or news orgs.
-Continuing silence on the biggest and most well-known journalistic-ethics issue there is.

At what point can we put "It's about ethics!" and "It does some good too, it's not a bad thing!" to bed?

(A tip of the invisible hat to Steampunkette for the link.)

Caehlim

QuoteYou're seemingly a couple of weeks behind the discussion.

Here's the article in question.

Apparently so, I did wonder what all the fuss what about. Thankyou for pointing out the right article, I feel a little silly now but at least I can understand why people were objecting.

QuoteNowhere does it mention that Nathan Grayson was involved in the development of Depression Quest enough to be thanked in the credits and for Zoe Quinn to say the game would be dead in the water without him.

Yes. That's quite a conflict of interest. I'd be okay with it if the article at least declared his involvement but without it its pretty unethical. (Though frankly nothing special in the journalism world... unfortunately. This sort of tabloid journalism isn't just in the gaming industry but it's good to kick up a fuss about it or else it'll never change).
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consortium11

Quote from: Ephiral on October 27, 2014, 07:06:54 PM
In other news, the numbers are in, and they're pretty damning for any claim that Gamergate isn't heavily skewed to harassment.

I'll get a full reply to your earlier post up later but this needs mentioning now.

The numbers actually show the exact opposite; of the tweets that mention the people in the study (100,576 of over 500,000... we'll use 500,000 for simplicity... or 20.1% of the total) the vast, vast, vast majority (90%+) are either neutral or positive. Even if we round up the "negative" tweets to be 10% of all tweets (noting that actual figures are between 5% and 10% for each individual) that means a grand total of just over 2% of the tweets aimed at those people relating to Gamergate are "negative". Note, "negative" not "harassment"; without the strict methodology we can't tell how the tweets are classified but I'd imagine a tweet simply saying someone doesn't like say Anita's analysis would be classed as negative but would we class that as harassment?

So, even if we do view every negative tweet as harassment then we're still left with just over 2% of all Gamergate tweets being harassment of the prominent individuals... hardly "heavily skewed to harassment". In reality, depending on how something being "negative" is classified, chances are it's less than that.

What the study does show is that people comment towards Anita, Leigh Alexander, Brianna Wu and Zoe Quinn then they do Stephen Totilo or Nathan Grayson and that could possibly be used to argue that the focus is seemingly more on developers and commentators than on reporters/journalists. But the counter to that would be that the previously mentioned names are much more active on twitter in relation to gamergate and generally have a larger profile anyway (at 191,000 followers Sarkeesian has over 30 times more than Grayson for example); it seems logical that when someone is more actively engaging in the Gamergate conversation and has a high profile they'll get more replies about it. Without having more details of the study such as the context of the tweets (were they in reply to Gamergate tweets by the participants? Out of the blue? Etc etc) it's hard to draw too many conclusions.

That said, I wouldn't deny that far too much focus has gone on to Anita and Brianna. While Zoe is involved in some of the ethical issues (although the blame there falls on Grayson) and Leigh did the most hateful of the "gamers are dead" articles that took everything up a gear, Anita's not directly involved in ethical side of Gamer Gate beyond some exasperation that her analysis is largely left uncontested or subject to further analysis by high profile gaming journalists and commentators and Brianna Wu' sent a mocking tweet and was then subjected to abuse which thrust her into the spotlight. I'm not going to whitewash the entire movement... even beyond the abuse (and as the stats show, that's only a small part) many are using it as an excuse to delve into the "culture war" element... I have no doubt that's why someone like Milo from Breitbart first got involved; they see this as their battleground against the modern brand of Feminism someone like Anita has come to represent and signify, their chance to take a swing at "social justice warriors". It's not an aspect I like... as previously mentioned while I disagree with much of Anita's analysis I think it's interesting and certainly should be allowed even if I do agree that it's somewhat disappointing that there have been so few dissenting voices or opposing opinions offered by the mainstream publications... but it is there and part of Gamergate.

Ephiral

So... if it isn't about ethics, and it isn't about harassment despite the ridiculous shit being thrown at non-journalist women in the name of Gamergate... what is it about, then? Because... again, the overwhelming balance of evidence doesn't support the "ethics!" explanation.

Shjade

Quote from: consortium11 on October 27, 2014, 08:28:10 PM
Leigh did the most hateful of the "gamers are dead" articles that took everything up a gear

I'm curious how you measure "most hateful" given that Leigh's article never even says "gamers are dead" once.

https://pixietalksgamergate.wordpress.com/gamers-are-dead-article-analysis/ Go ahead and compare/contrast with the others. Personally, I found Arthur Chu's the "most hateful" of the bunch, but he hardly gets any flak for it. It's always about Leigh.
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Shjade

So apparently Anita Sarkeesian's going to be on The Colbert Report tonight.

Enjoy.
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Orange Marmalade

Quote from: Shjade on October 29, 2014, 07:51:47 PM
So apparently Anita Sarkeesian's going to be on The Colbert Report tonight.

Enjoy.

It was a hilarious. She couldn't even name three video games.

Which I guess isn't entirely unexpected since she's lied about her 'gamer' history since the beginning.

Caehlim

Quote from: Orange Marmalade on October 31, 2014, 03:27:09 AMIt was a hilarious. She couldn't even name three video games.

Haven't seen the interview, but that seems odd. Couldn't she have just listed three that she covered in her videos?
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She could have, but since in the past she's been criticized for cherry picking her examples or focusing only on negative games when there are so many that do it "right" or etc. etc. I'm not surprised she avoided going down the route of "let's just list specific games."

It's not that she couldn't, she just didn't.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L_Wmeg7OTU


Alternatively, could be she froze up talking to freaking Stephen Colbert on network TV. I'd probably have a hard time naming names if put on the spot in that situation. #NameThreeGames is cute and all, but it's much easier to name three games at home on Twitter than it is on live TV being comic-badgered.
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Orange Marmalade

Or it could be that she's a crook, a fraud, and a liar. Go watch the video of her circulating from before she started begging for money on Kickstarter. She's no gamer. She just saw an opportunity and went for it and has been a professional victim ever since.

Kythia

Quote from: Orange Marmalade on October 31, 2014, 04:05:04 AM
begging for money on Kickstarter

What, errrrm, what do you think Kickstarter is for?
242037

Ebb

Quote from: Orange Marmalade on October 31, 2014, 03:27:09 AM
It was a hilarious. She couldn't even name three video games.

Which I guess isn't entirely unexpected since she's lied about her 'gamer' history since the beginning.

It seemed to me more that she wanted to avoid focusing the discussion on particular instances of games rather than addressing the general landscape. Not that Colbert was a hostile interviewer, although of course that's the persona that he takes on, but I could see that this is a conversation she's had before in less ideal circumstances, and she's no doubt developed defensive habits.

Quote from: Orange Marmalade on October 31, 2014, 04:05:04 AM
Or it could be that she's a crook, a fraud, and a liar. Go watch the video of her circulating from before she started begging for money on Kickstarter. She's no gamer. She just saw an opportunity and went for it and has been a professional victim ever since.

I have to say that this seems particularly vitriolic and uncalled for. I haven't followed GamerGate incredibly closely, but this sort of comment seems exactly like the kind of thing that consortium11, for example, is saying should not be taken as representative of the movement. Would you agree with his assessment?

Bloodied Porcelain

Quote from: Ebb on October 31, 2014, 09:04:12 AM
It seemed to me more that she wanted to avoid focusing the discussion on particular instances of games rather than addressing the general landscape. Not that Colbert was a hostile interviewer, although of course that's the persona that he takes on, but I could see that this is a conversation she's had before in less ideal circumstances, and she's no doubt developed defensive habits.

I have to say that this seems particularly vitriolic and uncalled for. I haven't followed GamerGate incredibly closely, but this sort of comment seems exactly like the kind of thing that consortium11, for example, is saying should not be taken as representative of the movement. Would you agree with his assessment?

+1 to all of this. I haven't been taking part in the conversation here, but have been reading along.
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Gamergaters tend to rely on laundry lists of weak pieces of evidence, rather than finding any one piece of evidence that actually stands up. This creates the impression of a "body of evidence" or a massive conspiracy. But if you add together a lot of very bad evidence, you don't suddenly get a reasonable conclusion just because you have so much lousy evidence.

Example:

Consider the claim that mailing list posts represents unethical collusion. Now, before Gamergate, we'd have seen this list the same way we see any other professional mailing list: a place where people in a field talk to each other. But look, a smoking gun! Someone posted their concerns about harassment, which makes them an SJW! And then some people agreed! MORE SJWS! And then a bunch of people used the old "Death of X" trope to talk about a group identifier of declining relevance.

Some people, seeing these messages, draw the obvious conclusion: A bunch of journalists saw a trend, talked to each other about it, and then did their jobs. But it takes a Gamergater to turn "professional discussion" into some sort of collusive conspiracy. I've seen more collusion at science conferences. Hell, I've seen more collusion on message boards.

("But... but all of those Death of Gamers articles! COLLUSION!"

First off, "Death of X" is an old journalistic cliche, something people use whenever a group identity seems to be decreasingly relevant. Second, lots of people writing similar commentary is how news moments tend to work. Finally, the word "gamer" really is declining in relevance as a useful way of grouping people, unless you recast it in exclusionary ways and talk about who isn't a "real gamer." That's what people mean by the "death of gamers" - that gamers are no longer some specific demographic to be catered to exclusively.)

Another prominent (set of) example(s):

Just about every "friends list" showing how someone in game journalism "knew someone" in game-making is dubious. You know all those giant wall-of-text posts with arrows and circles showing friends of friends and so on? Bullshit.

To say "knowing people in the industry you cover" is an ethics breach would pretty much eliminate every major film critic of the last century. In journalism, knowing people is an asset, and yes, that includes knowing them closely, having long-standing friendships, sending letters back and forth, and so on. As for demands to disclose non-commercial relationships ("This person knew the composer of a game they reviewed highly!"), I think Gamergaters should talk to some actual journalists about what actually constitutes a conflict of interest. The answers may surprise them!

To satisfy Gamergaters, every review would have to prefaced with such an exhaustive list of "people who are friends of my friends" so as to render actual conflict of interest statements irrelevant.

This digging for tangential links has already had a toxic effect. The changes to Kotaku's ethics policies were not an improvement, but rather caving to bullying. Saying that journalists can no longer contribute to Patreons for games and developers they like, in an attempt to prevent some kind of bizarro "reverse bribery," does not promote ethics. What it does do is prevent people who are passionate about games from monetarily supporting games they like, without doing anything to affect the parties that really have worrisome pull on journalists - larger games companies, advertisers, and so on.
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Orange Marmalade

Quote from: Ebb on October 31, 2014, 09:04:12 AM
I have to say that this seems particularly vitriolic and uncalled for. I haven't followed GamerGate incredibly closely, but this sort of comment seems exactly like the kind of thing that consortium11, for example, is saying should not be taken as representative of the movement. Would you agree with his assessment?

No, I wouldn't agree with it at all.

She came in talking about how terrible games are to women, and saying how she's been a gamer all her life and how she's seen this first hand since forever. Yet before Kickstarter she was giving speeches in her classes about how she doesn't play games because they're icky and involve shooting people.

She's a liar. She's a crook. She's a cheat. She also has nothing to do with GamerGate or ethics in journalism, but she hopped on the bandwagon the moment something started taking focus away from her Professional Victimhood.

Ephiral

Thank you, Orange Marmalade, for explaining in such succinct and stark fashion why feminism still needs to be a thing. It is much appreciated.