[SomeCallMeTim]

>Although an initial lie may have sparked it

Is there a single confirmed case of any issue that the #gg outrage is based on? Between the various topics above (Quinn, femfreq, "We are all gamers now" article) that, at least seemingly, spawned #GamerGate, it seems like it grew entirely from mob rage, and continues along in that vein.

>Complaints to the FTC even caused Kotaku and other publishers to add disclosure for affiliate linking.

Even terrible events can lead to positive results. A particularly bad fire that kills hundreds may get the fire code changed so that thousands will be saved; that doesn't mean that we encourage disasters for the sake of improving safety of those who survive.

The #GamerGate tag is irrevocably tied to all of the hate spewed by people associated with the tag at this point. It doesn't even matter that some people associated with the group may have done some good, because a lot of people carrying that banner spew misogynist crap and other hate speech pretty much constantly. It's not even the doxing that I'm talking about here; I'm just observing that, when I see a #gg tweet in the wild, it is almost universally associated with some form of hatred.

If you come along and tell me that those aren't the "real" GG, that the real GG is only about journalistic ethics in games, why should I believe you when most of what I see associated with the tag is garbage? If you're honestly not a misogynist, then I have bad news for you: Most of the people who tweet using #gamergate are, and you should find a different tag to represent the positive things you are doing, or you will be associated with what they're saying. If you don't mind being associated with what they say, then...well, I have nothing more to say.

[Nadya]

Feel free to take this to email.

>why should I believe you when most of what I see associated with the tag is garbage

I don't ask for you to believe me. I just ask that you don't believe the media. Given they're the ones being criticized, they're incapable of giving a fair representation of the situation. That goes equally both ways, of course. I wouldn't ask you to trust an openly pro-#GG source (like Breitbart) for their opinion on #GG either.

There are a quite a number of neutral opinions to be found but they will not be found in prominent media and will mostly be random people on Tumblr or Medium which can make taking their word on things harder. [0]

>It doesn't even matter that some people associated with the group may have done some good, because a lot of people carrying that banner spew misogynist crap and other hate speech pretty much constantly.

I ask you to look at this [1]. One would have to cherrypick very selectively to get an outlook like that. Which is exactly what the media does.

I haven't been 'active' on the #GG tag in quite some time, you can verify that by checking my Twitter but I still read it from time to time and had a brief few months of high activity.

The harassment I see goes both ways [2] [3] with one side getting a hell of a lot more retweets/favorites for their hatred than the other and the other side having an entire hashtag dedicated to preventing it. I'll let you figure out which side is doing which.

When you try and stop harassment (as I legitimately tried to do on many instances) you get bitched at or blocked or told you're using a sockpuppet to build up PR. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario because the ones controlling the media control the public narrative. Don't call it out? You support it! Call it out and stand against it? You're using a sockpuppet for PR!

>Most of the people who tweet using #gamergate are, and you should find a different tag to represent the positive things you are doing, or you will be associated with what they're saying. If you don't mind being associated with what they say, then...well, I have nothing more to say.

I could say the same thing about #KillAllMen being blasted by feminists and if you're a feminist you're a sexist man hater. Do I think all feminists are a bunch of sexists man haters? No. Hashtags can be used by absolutely anyone and switching hashtags just makes it easier for the media to slander the new, less established tag.

[0] https://medium.com/@Slyly_Mirabelle/a-year-of-gamergate-from...

[1] http://equalityactualitatem.tumblr.com/post/96992331819/on-g...

[2] http://gamergateharassment.tumblr.com/

[3] http://antigamergate.tumblr.com/

[SomeCallMeTim]

>I ask you to look at this [1]. One would have to cherrypick very selectively to get an outlook like that. Which is exactly what the media does.

You don't need to use explicit words to be saying misogynistic things. #notyourshield is also a misguided movement, IMO.

>I could say the same thing about #KillAllMen being blasted by feminists and if you're a feminist you're a sexist man hater.

No, you couldn't really. If you tried to claim that #KillAllMen was actually a women's rights group that focused on bringing out the vote, then even if it had (somehow? facetiously?) been started that way, but then later was co-opted by militant man haters, then yes, I'd say anyone who didn't actually believe in killing all men would need to abandon the use of that tag.

I did a lot of reading and observing of people's tweets on my own timeline before coming to the conclusions I have. I don't see a media conspiracy; I see a single narrative that makes sense based on the data, and that, yes, has been reported on by the media.

Are there crazys on both sides? Absolutely. But I've blocked tons of people on Twitter and elsewhere for making misogynistic comments with the #gamergate tag. And just because they can group together and protect their friends doesn't mean that I would ever be comfortable with a group that demonizes "SJWs."

[Nadya]

>#notyourshield is also a misguided movement, IMO.

How so? It's a direct response to this scenario: http://40.media.tumblr.com/73df4acf6fc05fcdca641f417a7d247a/...

There's a bunch of mostly privileged and mostly white people speaking on behalf of all POC, all trans, all women, etc.

There are two issues with the above, depending on where one stands. One can be seen as "forgetting to include us" ala #WhiteFeminism and the other can be "speaking wrongly on our behalf" ala #NotYourShield

>I see a single narrative that makes sense based on the data

Please cite the data then.

I've gone out of my way to provide actual data that shows the exact opposite, with abuse being <1% while you have yet to provide any data whatsoever other than saying "my position is based on data".

[SomeCallMeTim]

>There's a bunch of mostly privileged and mostly white people speaking on behalf of all POC, all trans, all women, etc.

I think that most of the people in question who have been demonized have been women who have been speaking out about treatment of women in games. Or in Quinn's case, someone who was demonized as a cheater with no redeeming excuse at all (at first -- and what rationale eventually surfaced was shown to be lies).

"Internalized oppression" is a real thing. Not listening to the oppressed is also a real thing. #NotYourShield is misguided because it ignores the first and mocks people who are trying to help because some people do the second. Just because a member of a group doesn't feel oppressed doesn't make the experience any less real for someone else in that group. I've met minorities who have it all and who insist that they haven't encountered prejudice for years, and yet I read other accounts of people who are pulled over and harassed because of the color of their skin. The experience of the first person doesn't invalidate the experience of the second.

>Please cite the data then.

I have, above, several times: personal observations of many tweets with #gamergate combined with boorish claims, plus many different articles by journalists who "dove deep" and tried to find people to talk with about #gg. The "data" you sited was restricted to a few specific "obvious" hate words.

And just because I apparently am a glutton for punishment, I just read the top 100 or so tweets on a #gamergate search. Aside from circlejerk-GG-is-awesome-we-are-the-best posts, most were slams of Anita (misquoting her in several), (proud!) reports of the trolling of Brenda Wu, slams of SJWs, or claims that the media was distorting what happened at SXSW. The last was probably the actions of a single bad actor (or a small number of them? and with all of this anti-terrorism technology in place, why haven't they CAUGHT them?!), but the media loves an easy narrative, regardless of the truth. The rest of the tweets didn't do anything to change my opinion of GG.

What kills me is that, if it's true, entire stated premise of #gg is naive: Journalism has existed in an ethical grey area since shortly after the printing press was invented.

So how do you deal with journalists being too close to those they review? Support good reviewers who are willing to slam games that deserve it.

It won't hurt to get journalists to admit when they're being paid by advertisers, but it won't do any actual good either, because most or all journalists benefit from game publisher money or freebies. If every single review ever has a generic "we may have received freebies and/or advertising from this publisher" disclaimer, what have you accomplished? And specific disclaimers won't ever happen (for logistical reasons) except if it's a publisher like Consumer's Reports that never accepts freebies or advertising. And there are very few of those around.

So what is it again that you're trying to accomplish?

P.S. It is a good thing that people donated to causes that help women and/or minorities. I don't want to minimize that. But the bulk of people using #gamergate are still using it to promote what I would consider negative-for-society ideas (in a Kant/Moral Imperative sense), so I stand my decision to block most #gamergate-tweeting accounts and generally criticize the hashtag.

P.P.S. I am at this point tiring of this discussion. I will cede you the last word if you reply, otherwise it's been an interesting chat. Thanks for keeping it civil. Yes, that's a point in your favor.

[Nadya]

>I think that most of the people in question who have been demonized have been women who have been speaking out about treatment of women in games.

Data contradicts this sentiment. [0] The "targeted men" are more likely to receive negative and neutral tweets and less positive tweets than the "targeted" women that are often cited. I see Chu being shit on more than anyone else, honestly.

>personal observations of many tweets

My entire experience with #GG has been with a large transgender crowd and an entire community panicking and trying to contact local authorities or family of a member because they were contemplating suicide after someone outed them as trans to their employer. Any "harassment" I've seen is calling people out on their bullshit.

e.g Anita's newest list of harassment, someone said they "recognized a lot of names from #GamerGate" - nobody active in #gamergate recognizes any of the names. Are the tweets harassment? Yes, most of them were. Are they tied to #GG in any way? No, they aren't.

>plus many different articles by journalists

I hope you don't mean the same journalists being slammed for their ethics. They found that the people accusing them of being morally corrupt are "actually" the morally corrupt and should not be listened to? Well, okay then. Or do you mean different journalists who don't have any skin in the game?

>claims that the media was distorting what happened at SXSW

The last 3 "positive #Gamergate [panel, gathering, etc]" have received bomb threats and have been cancelled due to it. That's being ignored by the media entirely and swept under a rug as if it doesn't matter. If it were an anti-GG [panel/gathering/etc] and it received bomb threats the media would never shut up about it. That's my understanding of the SXSW issue going on.

Actually - I just took a break to check the tag really fast. It gets worse than people shutting down the panel, GG is being blamed for shutting down its own panel. [1] But if enough people write about it, that makes it true I guess? That is blatant bullshit. #GG has been trying to get a platform to speak on for well over a year. Every time has been shut down like this, but this time they're putting the blame on #GG itself. The sheer absurdity of the claim coupled with fifteen different articles on it to push the narrative is corrupt as fuck. This is the type of shit that is keeping #GG around. Media collusion to push a narrative regardless of facts.

>It won't hurt to get journalists to admit when they're being paid by advertisers, but it won't do any actual good either

Of course it will do good. It's good for the consumers. I can take their review with a grain of salt knowing there is a bias. Not knowing is worse than knowing without making the assumption that every review is paid for - which is a lose-lose for reviewers. If every review is paid for, they aren't reviews and I wouldn't listen to them. That's bad for the reviewer (nobody listening to them) but good for consumers.

Furthermore, I'm less likely to trust someone not known for taking freebies who gives a glowing review to a game only to be found 3 months after release they were paid $1,500 in merchandise to give a good review to a shitty game nobody ended up liking. That's both bad for consumers and bad for the reviewer (but only if caught!).

>So how do you deal with journalists being too close to those they review?

"Hey, I'm dating the girl who worked on this game. I should let Paul review it because he isn't expecting to fuck her tonight and won't have an incentive to praise the game if it's bad."

"I'd love to have $2,000 in merchandise but that's a bribe that I'll have to decline. I'll accept the pre-release game in order to review it but I will not accept the $2,000 goodie-bag you're trying to bribe me with."

That's actually been done before, believe it or not! Some people are ethical enough and take their job seriously enough to deny bribes! The people who can admit they might be too biased to give a fair and honest review are the people I trust the most to be writing about things.

>P.P.S. I am at this point tiring of this discussion. I will cede you the last word if you reply, otherwise it's been an interesting chat. Thanks for keeping it civil. Yes, that's a point in your favor.

That's understandable and I'd like to thank you in return for keeping things civil.

[0] https://medium.com/@cainejw/a-statistical-analysis-of-gamerg...

[1] https://twitter.com/mombot/status/658829030431420416