What's in the news?

[Mithlomwen]

Bernie supporters knew the DNC was biased in favor of Hilary because she was their golden girl. I doubt many of them, myself included, knew that Hillary had literally taken the DNC by the balls and was giving them their marching orders.

That's very true.  The extent of her control was startling.  I just hope the DNC takes this opportunity to re-evaluate and change. 

[LisztesFerenc]

  Whilst wrong an unethical, was what the DMC did illegal? If not, that would be another why this scandal isn't being treated as seriously as those of Trump.

[Missy]

NBC News decided to try and link video games and the alt-right together. Even going so far as to title their "think" piece - How gamers are facilitating the rise of the alt-right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN1P6UA7pvM

The video, and the story in general, unsurprisingly, is getting a lot of heat...but not just because the idea itself is rather ludicrous.

No, it also turns out that NBC decided to, unfortunately, live up to the whole "fake news" thing...because they took tweets and altered them to try and make them a part of GamerGate, when in fact, they could have been sent to the recipient of them for any number of reasons.

https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2017/10/nbc-news-publishes-fake-news-edits-tweets-blame-gamergate-harassment/43156/

Sounds liek somwun needs to go bak to skool to realern the difference between coincidence and correlation. I meanthis kind fo assumption is covered as a rational fallacy in basic psychology if I'm not mistaken. :/

[WindFish]

NBC News decided to try and link video games and the alt-right together. Even going so far as to title their "think" piece - How gamers are facilitating the rise of the alt-right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN1P6UA7pvM

The video, and the story in general, unsurprisingly, is getting a lot of heat...but not just because the idea itself is rather ludicrous.

No, it also turns out that NBC decided to, unfortunately, live up to the whole "fake news" thing...because they took tweets and altered them to try and make them a part of GamerGate, when in fact, they could have been sent to the recipient of them for any number of reasons.

https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2017/10/nbc-news-publishes-fake-news-edits-tweets-blame-gamergate-harassment/43156/

By using the "All X Is Y" fallacy, they are no better than Fox and the other conservative propagandists who claim that all Muslims are terrorists.

As a gamer, I won't deny that there are some of these alt-right trolls in the community. Any video that's critical of Pewdiepie will bring them out of the woodwork to the point they send death threats, for example. However, I have also seen other gamers and those in the community calling out these people. That never seems to get any mention, just like how Fox never mentions the Muslims who call out the actual bad guys.

However, I should also point out that the alt-right has a habit of "hijacking" things so that they can use it to fuel their persecution complex and hatred, like when there were so many of them who claimed to be Trekkies so they could say how oppressed and offended they are by Discovery's casting. There's a good chance that many of them are simply using gaming as a vehicle for their hatred, as opposed to them being actual gamers.

[Lustful Bride]

Saudi Arabia just shot down a Missile fired from Yemen.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/saudi-arabia-intercepts-ballistic-missile-over-capital/ar-AAurB2x?li=BBnb4R7&ocid=HPCOMMDHP15

[Vergil Tanner]

They aren't wrong in that there is a nasty level of racism and sexism in the gaming community, but they distort the facts to be this doomsaying 'All gamers are racist bigots!' lie.

I disagree with that. There are people who use racist and sexist slurs in online games, sure, but most of those are twerpy thirteen year old twats. Thing is, the sexist and racist comments you see online are either third party trolls, or the vast minority of the threads. And everybody knows that the online communities are a very poor measuring stick to measure most communities, since it's usually the people who have a lot of bitching to do that comment online. The majority of gamers never post to message boards and the like at all. So when you're looking at a minority of comments in an area that gets the minority of gamers posting there in the first place? I think that's a very poor sample size. There's gonna be awful people in every community. Looking at those awful people - who most of the time are promptly told to STFU, after all - and saying that that's reflective of the wider community? I think that's unfair in the extreme. It's like looking at The Mayor of Mgtown and saying that he accurately represents all MGTOW's, or looking at the 4Chan MRA Boards and saying "Well, this is OBVIOUSLY what all MRA's are like," or even looking at Jezebel or people like Big Red and saying "That's an accurate representation of modern feminism." It's just silly, and patently untrue.

But I do agree; the media need to stop attacking video games. They're trying to find anything and everything to blame except the person whose fault it is...that is, Clinton and the media themselves.

So, now that Donna Brazile's book has come out, detailing what went on with the DNC during the primaries.....Trump is throwing a fit, wanting to know why there isn't a special counsel investigating her.

I mean. He's not wrong. I think Secular Talk went over the issue the best. I mean, I'm not certain, but she must have broken at least a few laws there, right? She basically used the DNC to rig the Primaries and launder money for her campaign. Why isn't she being investigated and prosecuted?
Oh, right, she has the Corporate Establishment entirely on her side and she's a billionaire, so of course she won't be prosecuted. Why do I get the sinking feeling that she'll try to run against Trump AGAIN in 2020, and then we'll have another four years of Trump? >.<


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkoIWg0p_f0&t=1sMeanwhile, Bernie supporters are like, 'Dude, this is old news'.  Why in the hell do you think Bernie supporters were so pissed off?  They already knew Hillary rigged the primaries against him in favor of herself. 
[/quote]

The problem is, we can't LET it become Old News. Secular Talk said it best; before, they said "You're crazy, that's not going on, conspiracy theories bro!" And NOW they'll say "Oh, of course we were doing that! But hey, it's old news, it's done, let's forget about it and move on!" And we CAN'T let them just move on and get away with it, or they'll do the same shit again. We need to drag them over the coals for this. I just don't know how. >.>

[Vergil Tanner]

Whoops. Coding error there, and I can't edit it out >.>

[Vergil Tanner]

Oh, sorry for the triple post, but apparently Twitter just admitted to hiding information that could have been damaging to Clinton's campaign.

I mean, bloody hell, how far down the rabbit hole are we gonna go with this corruption? Do people understand now why so many people thought that Trump was the lesser of two evils? >.>
As I keep saying; Trump didn't win. Clinton lost. If she was anybody else, I'd say that her political career is now over...but she'll be back. She's always back. She's like a fucking Political Vampire, and apparently cutting peoples heads off isn't allowed anymore. >.>

[Lustful Bride]

Oh, sorry for the triple post, but apparently Twitter just admitted to hiding information that could have been damaging to Clinton's campaign.

I mean, bloody hell, how far down the rabbit hole are we gonna go with this corruption? Do people understand now why so many people thought that Trump was the lesser of two evils? >.>
As I keep saying; Trump didn't win. Clinton lost. If she was anybody else, I'd say that her political career is now over...but she'll be back. She's always back. She's like a fucking Political Vampire, and apparently cutting peoples heads off isn't allowed anymore. >.>

While I agree with you in part I feel you might be going alittle over the top.

Though I honestly think if itd have been Trump V Burnie then we would have a more stable leader than trump :/

[Vergil Tanner]

Well, I'm partly using hyperbole to make the point, but the fact remains that if anybody can come out of this and still somehow have a career in politics, it's Clinton. No matter how badly she fucks up, she always seems to get back in somehow.

And if it was Trump Vs Bernie, Bernie would have SLAUGHTERED Trump. Easily.

[Regina Minx]

Oh, sorry for the triple post, but apparently Twitter just admitted to hiding information that could have been damaging to Clinton's campaign.

If you actually clicked through to the source for this story, you might learn something interesting. That 'information' that they were hiding was blocking from search results a small number of tweets and retweets bearing the #DNCLeak and #PodestaEmails hashtags because they originated from bot accounts.

Assuming for the sake of argument that there was no deliberate decision to try to protect the Clinton campaign, an interesting following question might be: why did so many bot accounts promote those two hashtags?

[LisztesFerenc]

I disagree with that. There are people who use racist and sexist slurs in online games, sure, but most of those are twerpy thirteen year old twats.

  Citation needed. When Anita announced her Tropes vs. Women project, she received a flood of sexist, racist abuse, a game in which you beat up her face was made and wikipedia needed to lock her account because it was being edited by trolls too much. That doesn't sound like the work of twerpy thirteen year olds exclusively.

[Vergil Tanner]

If you actually clicked through to the source for this story, you might learn something interesting. That 'information' that they were hiding was blocking from search results a small number of tweets and retweets bearing the #DNCLeak and #PodestaEmails hashtags because they originated from bot accounts.

Assuming for the sake of argument that there was no deliberate decision to try to protect the Clinton campaign, an interesting following question might be: why did so many bot accounts promote those two hashtags?

That would indeed be an interesting question. But then, Bot Accounts send hashtags of almost everything, so why would the Clinton Bots get preferential treatment? Given the direction that Twitter has been going the past couple of years, I'm more than inclined to believe that if it was just a bot account that didn't get any attention, it would have been ignored. But because it got attention, they took special notice of it and blocked it...because at the time, those headlines WERE big news, and they disappeared. Who cares if it originated from a Bot Account if the information in that Tweet was true?

Citation needed. When Anita announced her Tropes vs. Women project, she received a flood of sexist, racist abuse, a game in which you beat up her face was made and wikipedia needed to lock her account because it was being edited by trolls too much. That doesn't sound like the work of twerpy thirteen year olds exclusively.

That doesn't actually refute my point at all; she received a lot of harassment, yes. But where is the evidence that even the majority of it came from the gaming community? Because at the time, most of the gaming sites I was on didn't even really know who Sarkeesian was, and those who did didn't give a shit. I'm not saying she didn't receive harassment, but I'm saying that the majority of stuff like that is from third parties who like to stir the pot, and even if they were ALL from gamers, that's still the vast minority of the community at large. If you want to claim that that harassment was from gamers and people within the actual community, then...you need to prove that. I don't believe that it was from the gaming community (generally speaking, I'm sure there were some gamers in there) because whilst everybody has always SAID that it was...they never actually provided evidence for that assertion.

[Regina Minx]

That would indeed be an interesting question. But then, Bot Accounts send hashtags of almost everything, so why would the Clinton Bots get preferential treatment?

It's not that Clinton bots got preferential treatment. It's that there were so many more Trump bots.

Our data showed that, during the relevant time period, a total of 1,625 @HillaryClinton Tweets were Retweeted approximately 8.3 million times. Of those Retweets, 32,254—or 0.39%—were from Russian-linked automated accounts. Tweets from @HillaryClinton received approximately 18 million likes during this period; 111,326—or 0.62%—were from Russian-linked automated accounts...The 851 Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account during this period were Retweeted more than 11 million times; 416,632—or 3.66%—of those Retweets were from Russian-linked, automated accounts.

[Vergil Tanner]

It's not that Clinton bots got preferential treatment. It's that there were so many more Trump bots.

Ok. Your point?

Here's the thing; Trump was certainly supported by Russia (though given Clinton's rhetoric going in, that's hardly a surprise), and he should be criticised over it. However, Clintons corruption reached much further, and I don't care whether there were Bot Accounts tweeting things; most Bot Accounts are painfully obvious, but if the Bots are giving out information that is true, we should be more concerned with the information than who's saying it. An argument / position stands or falls on its own merits, absent who's saying it.

[LisztesFerenc]

That doesn't actually refute my point at all; she received a lot of harassment, yes. But where is the evidence that even the majority of it came from the gaming community? Because at the time, most of the gaming sites I was on didn't even really know who Sarkeesian was, and those who did didn't give a shit. I'm not saying she didn't receive harassment, but I'm saying that the majority of stuff like that is from third parties who like to stir the pot, and even if they were ALL from gamers, that's still the vast minority of the community at large. If you want to claim that that harassment was from gamers and people within the actual community, then...you need to prove that. I don't believe that it was from the gaming community (generally speaking, I'm sure there were some gamers in there) because whilst everybody has always SAID that it was...they never actually provided evidence for that assertion.

  So your argument is gamers didn't even know about Anita, but non-gamers did known about her and launched a harassment campaign including the commissioning of the previously mentioned violent minigame directed at her? I'm don't particularly feel like debating that premise.

[Vergil Tanner]

  So your argument is gamers didn't even know about Anita, but non-gamers did known about her and launched a harassment campaign including the commissioning of the previously mentioned violent minigame directed at her? I'm don't particularly feel like debating that premise.

I'm saying that trolls are always on the lookout for things to stir shit up, and their favoured target tends to be things like Feminism and the like, where it gets LOTS of media attention and they get a HUGE reaction from it. So they tend to watch these things because they actively WANT to get involved and say mean shit. They go out of their way to do it. Now I DID say that most of the comments and harassment were from third party trolls. Some gamers are horrible people, yes, but that isn't the communities fault; horrible people are horrible and exist in every community. Saying that the community at large is a horrible, toxic place because you have some horrible people in it is unfair and indulging in the Guilt By Association fallacy.
So yes, trolls are more likely to hear about this stuff quickly, since they're actively looking for this shit, or get told about it by other trolls. Do you think that most gamers are always on google, refreshing the page every thirty seconds to find something to comment angrily on, rather than...I dunno...playing video games? I don't particularly feel like debating that premise.

[LisztesFerenc]

So yes, trolls are more likely to hear about this stuff quickly, since they're actively looking for this shit, or get told about it by other trolls. Do you think that most gamers are always on google, refreshing the page every thirty seconds to find something to comment angrily on, rather than...I dunno...playing video games? I don't particularly feel like debating that premise.

  Ah, I see why you're confused, you added majority without telling anyone and so now assume everyone disagreeing with you must support that. The original point you objected to was:

"They aren't wrong in that there is a nasty level of racism and sexism in the gaming community"

  Which makers no mention of majority. 10% is minority, yet if 10% of a group is vocally racist, that can be described as a nasty level of racism.

[Regina Minx]

Ok. Your point?

My point is math. If you have two paths and set up a barrier that catches a percentage of a hypothetical pest that crosses it, the barrier will catch many more pests on Path B than on Path A if 275% more pests pass through Path B than Path A.

if the Bots are giving out information that is true, we should be more concerned with the information than who's saying it. An argument / position stands or falls on its own merits, absent who's saying it.

I feel like you haven't actually read the thing I posted. It actually addresses this point.

[Vergil Tanner]

  Ah, I see why you're confused, you added majority without telling anyone and so now assume everyone disagreeing with you must support that. The original point you objected to was:

I did in fact tell people. I said it in my original response. It isn't my fault that you didn't read it properly.
I would like to request that you refrain from accusing me of dishonesty in my replies, please.

"They aren't wrong in that there is a nasty level of racism and sexism in the gaming community"

  Which makers no mention of majority. 10% is minority, yet if 10% of a group is vocally racist, that can be described as a nasty level of racism.

The implication of such a phrasing, however, is that there is more than in other communities. You could say that any percentage is a nasty percentage, but that wasn't the implication of the original comment.

If you're going to resort to accusing me of dishonesty, and then attempt to twist the meaning of the original comment in order to try to catch me out on word games, I have no interest in discussing this further with you.

My point is math. If you have two paths and set up a barrier that catches a percentage of a hypothetical pest that crosses it, the barrier will catch many more pests on Path B than on Path A if 275% more pests pass through Path B than Path A.

I feel like you haven't actually read the thing I posted. It actually addresses this point.

Honestly, I'm not actually that interested in this aspect of the story, hence why I tacked it on as an afterthought I thought it interesting that only after this came to light, Twitter came out and "admitted" to it, which suggests that it was at least a little more deliberate than just "We set up a system and it triggered the system."
The main thrust was her actively manipulating the polls and the DNC, rather than Twitter fucking up. Twitter fucking up has become, like, a weekly headline at this point and Twitter is such a shit show anyway that I rarely pay any attention to it.

Anywho, I'm gonna stop derailing the thread. I'm busy ATM, so I need to stop focusing on PROC when I should be posting and then eating. xD

[LisztesFerenc]

I did in fact tell people. I said it in my original response. It isn't my fault that you didn't read it properly.
I would like to request that you refrain from accusing me of dishonesty in my replies, please.

  You said "I disagree with that", which wasn't a claim of majority. The fact that you later inserted majority into your argument (without calling attention to it) doesn't change that what you disagreed with initially didn't involve it.

The implication of such a phrasing, however, is that there is more than in other communities. You could say that any percentage is a nasty percentage, but that wasn't the implication of the original comment.

  Yes it does. And indeed there does appear to be. In addition to the Tropes vs. Women controvasy, games are attacked for having black protagonists, girls with dyed hair, the makers of Remmeber Me where told by publishers you cannot give a female protagonist a love interest because that will be weird for male gamers, the makers of The Last of Us had to fight to get Ellie on the front cover as oppose to just Joel, and there was that embarrassing, shifting excuse from Ubisoft about why they couldn't have an option for a playable female character in Unity that many developers quickly debunked.

[WindFish]

Speaking of the alt-right, remember the conspiracy theory they came up with that antifa would start a civil war and kill conservatives on November 4th? As it turns out, it really was just another one of their conspiracy theories seeing how nothing happened yesterday.

http://time.com/5008829/antifa-november-4-rumors/

I don't know what's more disturbing - that they actually believed it, or how desperately they actually want a new civil war.

[Vergil Tanner]

  You said "I disagree with that", which wasn't a claim of majority. The fact that you later inserted majority into your argument (without calling attention to it) doesn't change that what you disagreed with initially didn't involve it.

So implication doesn't exist, then?
The phrasing of the original comment does indeed seem to imply that LB thinks that there is a worse problem than in other communities, what with her contextual use of the words. Plus, she didn't correct me when she replied, so I think you're quibbling over terminology here for no apparent reason other than to imply than I'm being dishonest. Which again, I take offence to. I didn't "Later" add it in, I added it in in direct response to her in my first response because that was the implication. Just because you couldn't be bothered to read my response properly doesn't mean I didn't call attention to it. The attention was there, since I said it several times. So again...stop implying that I'm being dishonest. It does you no credit.

Yes it does. And indeed there does appear to be. In addition to the Tropes vs. Women controvasy, games are attacked for having black protagonists, girls with dyed hair, the makers of Remmeber Me where told by publishers you cannot give a female protagonist a love interest because that will be weird for male gamers, the makers of The Last of Us had to fight to get Ellie on the front cover as oppose to just Joel, and there was that embarrassing, shifting excuse from Ubisoft about why they couldn't have an option for a playable female character in Unity that many developers quickly debunked.

See, all of your examples there are nonsense. There's a certain amount of a conservative nature in the large publishers, yes, but the industry is not the community. You're talking about the same Publishers that are constantly rehashing the same game over and over again because they have no idea what the audiences want, so keep playing it safe with guaranteed successes. The same publishers that are always trying to shove customer unfriendly bullshit down peoples throats like lootboxes, DRM, Season Passes, all that nonsense. The same publishers who - like EA - come up with a new IP and then fuck it into the ground so hard that it just breaks like a cheap toy...and then they move onto the next thing. Yeah, publishers believe that female characters with love interests weird out males...but they're demonstrably wrong from any number of surveys done on it. You just have to look at how many male Fem!Shep x Garrus Shippers there are to see THAT. Hell, most of the guys I know (I know, personal experience is not strong evidence) prefer Fem!Shep.

Games are "Attacked" for having weird girls and black people? Well, if the community had a large sexism and racism problem, you would expect to see games with such things derided and bombing, hard. How much money did Telltales Walking Dead make? Like...all of it? How about Horizon Zero Dawn, or the new Tomb Raiders?

Remember Me? (Nope, not really). Well, again, the publishers were wrong. Of all the criticisms laid at its feet for being an ultimately forgettable game with missed opportunity, little to none of the criticism I saw was "SHE A WUMAN!"

The Last of Us...again, Publishers and not the audience. How many Remastered and Released versions has that had again? Like...six at this point?

As for Ubisoft...I mean. Come on. Are you really about to say that Ubisoft of all people reflect the Gaming Community as a whole? Lessee, they tried to use that excuse...and who called them out on their bullshit and forced them to buckle and include a female protagonist in their following two games? Oh, that's right. The Community. Fancy that.

All of your examples there except for Sarkeesian are about the out of touch old boy publishers at the top. And yeah, they SHOULD be pilloried over their bullshit. But equating what the Publishers think with the attitudes of the Gaming Community at large? Well, you're being a huge hypocrite. The original comment was "The community has a large sexism problem." You've now sneakily changed it to arguing about the industry without telling anybody. Industry =/= Community. The Industry itself still has a lot of backwards ideas and batshit crazy notions about what people want, but the fact that the companies involved are constantly dragged over the coals for that bullshit should indicate that the Community at large is no worse than that of any other entertainment medium. It has its horrible people, yes, but that's something we just have to tolerate. We can slap them down when they pop their heads up...but the simple fact of the matter is that horrible humans will always exist (ironically enough, like Sarkeesian herself) and there's no way we can stop that.
You have yet to really demonstrate that the gaming community has a worse problem with that sorta shit than any other community out there. And before you say that you weren't saying that, you did.

Yes it does. And indeed there does appear to be.

Anyway, I've said my piece on the matter. I don't really want to discuss Sarkeesian or the Gaming Industry or delve into the can of worms that is Gamergate again for a very long time, so I shall bid you farewell. I have no wish to interact further with somebody who is falsely accusing me of dishonesty.

[AmberStarfire]

I saw a story just now about a mass shooting near San Antonio:

http://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/multiple-victims-after-texas-church-shooting/news-story/2a56e4c46d786486789273daae989d5e

Having been to San Antonio before (and I have friends there), it's sad to see it happening near there.

[Beguile's Mistress]

Violence seems to be the only way some people can communicate.