[mushtifaha]

> the thinly-disguised harassment campaign

I am not convinced that repeating a lie a thousand times will make this claim the truth. The propaganda may have worked well back when gamergate was completely unknown to the general public, but we are past that, I think.

[robin_reala]

You’re partially right at least. It’s now a completely undisguised harassment campaign.

[Karunamon]

Yeah, no. People claiming "harassment!" absent evidence is not proof of said harassment existing, doubly so when the people shouting the loudest have a profit motive for its supposed existence.

Also: It would be rather disingenuous to claim that gamergate are a bunch of harassers without acknowledging that prominent people within the movement have received things like syringes and knives in the mail... and been blackballed from the industry..

Kind of puts in perspective this "harassment", which at its worst, can be described as "people saying mean things on the internet".

http://deepfreeze.it - also all public record.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

> People claiming "harassment!" absent evidence is not proof of said harassment existing

Who said there's no evidence?

[igreulich]

Perception is reality. And it seems the perception is that Gahergate is a group of harrasors. You (not you personally) saying it is not will not change that perception.

It seems to me that if you want Gamegate to be taken seriously (though I think it is way to late for that) Gamergate needs to start cleaning out it ranks.

Which highlights the real issue. Gamergate has no central entity. So there are going to be people harrassing under the banner of Gamergate, and you can’t do anything about it. The name is tarnished, full stop. It will be almost impossible for Gamergate to do any good now, assuming it ever wanted to good!

[Karunamon]

You (not you personally) saying it is not will not change that perception.

Perhaps, but correcting misinformation wherever its seen should be the goal of anyone connected with the movement. Perceptions can change.

Gamers have been a marginalized group for pretty much as long as the hobby has existed, so this is nothing new. People lying about them, their hobby, making fun of them as losers and shut-ins and immature and criminals in training, this is all de rigeur. One more insult on the pile doesn't change much.

>Gamergate needs to start cleaning out it ranks.

How so? Other than shouting down harassers, I'm not sure what action you expect a bunch of people centered around a hashtag and an idea to take.

>It will be almost impossible for Gamergate to do any good now

I'd say they've done quite a lot of good already. Disclosure policies at multiple journalism outfits enacted, FTC rules on paid endorsements being clarified due largely in part to an emailing campaign, hundreds of thousands of dollars raised for various charities...

[Dirlewanger]

>I'd say they've done quite a lot of good already.

Absolutely, and the saddest part about all this is that entities with painfully overt agendas (The Verge/Vox, Ars Technica, etc.) were more than happy to report on all the negatives, and will still continue to, while reporting none of the good that's come out of it.

Same with people on this site for the most part: they've completely made up their mind about what Gamergate stands for and will hear nothing else about it. Which is hilariously ironic given how much this site likes to tote itself as a well-educated bunch. Groupthink/hivemind tendencies are always the same for any community of humans.

[Karunamon]

Thing is, it's hard to not to get the wrong idea. All the people complaining the loudest about Gamergate have serious media connections.

Unchallenged falsehoods in multiple media outlets -> Sourced by Wikipedia per their usual secondary source rules -> Shows up on the front page of Google where most normal people will see it.

You actually have to have an interest in this stuff and actually dig to see that the narrative is false/misleading.

igreulich is correct - the name has been very successfully tarnished. Problem is, moving on to something else is a move that has zero benefit (because the same problems would just happen again under any new name), so the hivemind wisely decided to stay put.

[DanBC]

Can you (or any pro-gamergaters) show me one site that you think counts as a pro gamergate site?

[mushtifaha]

> The name is tarnished, full stop.

You know what other names are tarnished? Liberals, Socialists, Democrats, Conservatives, Republicans, Christians, Muslims, ecologists, feminists, etc. Every sufficiently large movement has had its name dragged through the mud by its opposition. It's how things work. Gamergate is fine and continues to do good, whether the adversaries want to acknowledge it or not.

[Torgo]

Gamergate doesn't actually have "ranks", it is a multi-homed, decentralized mob. That is the genius/horror of it. Welcome to the future of memetic warfare, it has already reached escape velocity from 4chan.

[mushtifaha]

It is being continuosly harassed by people who claim they are fighting harassment, that's for sure. But I don't think that such strategy is going to pay off. You can't just yell harassment as means to abuse people into submission. Many have tried similar tactics in the past and it never works in the long run.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

> It is being continuosly harassed by people who claim they are fighting harassment, that's for sure.

Harassed? Which members of gamergate have been forced out of their homes?

[BgSpnnrs]

I think Mike Cernovich did after he got doxxed and attempted swatted

[Lawtonfogle]

If a few incidents by bad actors make a harassment campaign, what does that say for feminism with incidents such as donglegate.

[icebraining]

Karunamon above, defending GG, says it started out as an harassment campaign. Is it wrong?

[Lawtonfogle]

I'm sure there are a few civil rights movements that had some nasty issues when they started out. Do we judge based on where one came from or who one is now?

[icebraining]

I think I was clear in that I wasn't talking about isolated incidents. comrh wrote "the beginning of the GG movement was mainly a force to harass people", and Karunamon - who has also been defending GG on this thread - agreed.

If a civil rights movement had started for the purpose of doing unacceptable acts, I would definitively judge the people who chose to associate with it. (Of course, I'd excuse a lot from a civil rights movement that I wouldn't excuse from a movement dedicated to fighting bad gaming journalism - regardless of the merits of their claims.)

[Lawtonfogle]

>Karunamon - who has also been defending GG on this thread - agreed.

I'm not sure why Karunamon agreed, but I largely passed on this point because that is an argument that would only distract from the overall point. I would assume Karunamon wanted to not get mired down in that point as well.

From what I have seen, I would say that it was not founded for that purpose, but there have been bad actors who have been a part of it.

>Of course, I'd excuse a lot from a civil rights movement that I wouldn't excuse from a movement dedicated to fighting bad gaming journalism

What are some behaviors you would excuse from one but not the other?

[TazeTSchnitzel]

On the contrary, the claim is the truth, and the idea that gamergate is not a harassment campaign is a lie. The original creators of the movement explicitly stated that it was intended to be such, and that 'ethics in game journalism' is a cover story.

Of course, most members of gamergate do not believe they are in a harassment campaign, but why would they? The leaders of the movement will indulge them and tell them what they are doing is just.

[mushtifaha]

This is what I was referring to. Your statement reads like a religious dogma. There is no argument, no proof, no room for nuance. Just an axiom, which should be taken at face value and assimilated into one's set of beliefs. And this is something GG does very often. They build entire mythologies about the movement to paint the movement as some sort of a bogeyman. I think this is beneficial to gamergate. The opponents, with all their propaganda, make themselves appear ridiculous and work hard at discrediting themselves. Gamergaters don't even need to engage in advocacy. They just need to let the anti-GG keep being anti-GG.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

> This is what I was referring to. Your statement reads like a religious dogma. There is no argument there, no proof, no room for nuance. Just an axiom, which should be taken at face value and assimilated into one's set of beliefs.

No proof?

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Timeline_of_GamerGate#August_20...

These links might be helpful to you.

As with any Internet discussion, not every point may be immediately substantiated. Your comments in this thread haven't been either.

[mushtifaha]

Heh, this site offers as much "proof", as those shady news sites no one has ever heard of which pro-Russian internet trolls use to "prove" that there's no Russian invasion in Eastern Ukraine.

The parallels between the techniques employed by the anti-GG/SJW crowd and those of the Russian state propaganda are uncanny.

Strange times we live in.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

If you consider this bad, wait until you see what "proof" gamergate offers.

[brymaster]

>rationalwiki

Very ironic that you decided to link to that RationalWiki piece, actively edited by the notorious 'Ryulong' who was banned from Wikipedia largely in part by his bad behavior (rule-beaking, undoing edits, bias and unethical practices) on the GamerGate entry. (https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ryulong%20banned)

Wow, I mean come on!

[thieving_magpie]

who are the "leaders of the movement"?

[TazeTSchnitzel]

The people who most influence gamergate, the people who gamergate listen to. They do exist. Gamergate may be decentralised, but like any campaign, it does have leaders.

[thieving_magpie]

I'm clearly asking for some names. You're avoiding the question. who are the "leaders of the movement"?

[TazeTSchnitzel]

Well, one example would be Milo Yiannopoulos. A journalist with a murky past (screwing over staff working under him) and who, prior to joining gamergate, actively mocked video gamers.

[Sacho]

Could you identify a call-to-action that Milo Yiannopoulos initiated, or any other manifestation of his leadership of GamerGate supporters? Has he started a campaign? Has he organized an event?

Milo is a journalist, not a leader.

[thieving_magpie]

Interesting - I hadn't heard of him. The wiki page certainly seems to back up the claim regarding his contempt for gamers.