Yet another female game dev targeted with credible threats after speaking out on sexism

With respect, I want to know why the comment was made in the first place, if not to put people onto a defensive back foot.

Ok. Let’s try to pull this back on topic.

Proposition:
Threats like this are not acceptable. At all. Regardless of the gender of the recipient. Or the gender of the issuer. Or the industries that either of the two parties work in. Or if they are unemployed.

Who wants to oppose?

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another important read:

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Oh good lord. This guy.

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Who is he, other than a major dickbag?

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Milo Yiannopoulos is an Associate Editor at Breitbart London. He is one of the best-known technology and media commentators in Europe. He writes a weekly column for Business Insider on technology, media and politics.

From what I can tell, as a casual observer, he seems to be using this occasion to cross over into full-on ambulance chaser role.

Oh, that’s right. Someone in a previous thread was linking to Breitbart (& presumably this guy’s article) claiming it was a better source than he was. Talk about undervaluing yourself! :wink:

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Shit really? I honestly didn’t know, sorry. I hadn’t heard anything so I assumed there was nothing to hear.

Zoe Quinn, in her recent Reddit thing, linked another thing citing some actual problems with game journalism. There’s a troubling amount of coziness between devs and reporters, and Jim Sterling has previously spoken about the ambiguity there.

Those would be the legit points I’m talking about. That it’s not perfect and standards aren’t quite up-to-snuff. I’m not about to agree with the shit GG has pulled or claim it started as anything other than a bizarre, conspiracist hatestorm.

(Or is anything else really right now. I’ve been to 8chan, I’ve seen the threads.)

It’s a bit like Anon in that sense, but the troubling thing about GG is you can’t separate it from the aspect of threats and misogyny, unlike Anon where the only association you can claim is that most of them are probably self-important libertarians (which speaks volumes in itself, but doesn’t necessarily imply anything terrible). You can claim to have reclaimed it and all that, but the threads on /gg/ are still very much what the Feminist Illuminati say they are, and there’s still a lot of shit flying around the Twitterverse in the name of GamerGate. It wouldn’t be hard to dig up actual threats under GG. I mean, this was the tag’s top tweet at the time of writing.

https://twitter.com/BlackTridentTV/status/521864517291360256

You can’t really separate it from the misogyny at this point, and the harassment isn’t far behind.

(More from Black Trident:)

https://twitter.com/BlackTridentTV/status/521864363242954754

So when I say there are some good points being made by GG I mean to recognize that it’s amorphous and not dogmatic, and there are as many sides to it as there are people who end a tweet with #GamerGate, and some of them are saying things that need to be said. But it’s a double-edged sword because since it’s amorphous and not dogmatic, you can’t then say “we don’t condone threats” because there’s nobody to gatekeep the Gamer Gate (ha ha). Anything tagged with #GamerGate is #GamerGate. If it’s repeated enough and the response is to minimize rather than to come down hard on it, then it becomes associated with #GamerGate, no matter how much you might want to erase it.

I wouldn’t say game journalists being too close to devs is a non-problem. Many people, myself included, have been talking about it for years. Quinn herself admitted it was a problem. Many people defending Quinn (again, myself included) admit it’s a problem.

You’re totally right that there’s some disgusting shit pulled by GG, and my posts above this one go into that enough I think, but you can’t use that to then say “there’s nothing wrong, nothing was ever wrong”, or that GG is just completely glossing over it.

Unfortunately, it’s that line of thinking that’s leading all of this to amount to nothing. Another woman who dared speak is harassed, a couple asswads move to a less-moderated imageboard, a couple policies get some small tweaks, and the sun continues to set in the west. Because the people cracking down on misogyny aren’t cracking down on bad journalism and bad industry, and the people who are cracking down on bad journalism and bad industry can’t be heard for all the misogyny.

Maybe that will change. Maybe GG will, in some attempt to score credibility, actually make good on that “we don’t tolerate harassment” claim. Maybe they’ll simmer down about the Horrible Zoe Quinn who is Literally Hitler enough to find out that there are a lot of goals in alignment here. Maybe this side will own up to the harassment it’s done (I dun seen it, though it’s not quite so bad) and realize there are a lot of goals in alignment here.

But probably not.

Larf, stood beside the actual problems of “GG” or whatever, journos being to close to devs is a non-problem.

In the light of recent events, or most all events in relation to “GG” or whatever, any adherents “it”, a hashtag, still has are fools, esp. those that still relate such non-problem issues proprietarily to “GG” or whatever.

Anyone who is a matured adult inside their head has or would walk away to address their issues in a legitimate forum. Any who remain should know that they no longer have any moral authority to solve even a non-problem such as the one you mention.

That’s how it works, they’ve proven themselves. And in the same zealous manner as the very same people “they”, “GG”, claim don’t actually represent them. It’s ridiculous how similar is the manner that “GG” or whatever, digs in it’s few remaining heels to the manner in which the man-babbahs among them digs in on gender issues.

Fuck #gamergate, really. Anyone so invested in such is ??

totally fair points.
and yeah, i think if developers were handing out death threats, they’d probably wind up with a lot fewer sales :wink:

First of all, here is your point, as I understand it: There are two separate issues, one is that there is a hashtag and the other is that there are threats. The threats should be dealt with as threats (investigations/prosecutions where warranted) and the hashtag should be ignored and forgotten so that it dies off. In this example, a woman took on gamergate and became the target of threats - if she had not taken on gamergame then the threats wouldn’t be happening.

I disagree and I will tell you why. These kinds of threats have been happening for a long time against women in the tech industry. Since gamergate became I thing I’ve heard about more of them, but I’m not even sure if more have been happening or if I’ve just heard about more. Even if more have been happening to simply let his conversation die would be at best returning to how things were.

It shouldn’t be the case that women are risking their own personal safety and well-being to say that sexism is wrong, but the solution can’t be that women just stop saying sexism is wrong. Gamergate is thoroughly tainted with misogyny and people who associate themselves with it associate themselves voluntarily with misogyny. Saying that, and saying that is a bad thing to do shouldn’t be a dangerous thing, but if it is then we should be glad there are people who are brave enough to do it. We shouldn’t shake our heads at them and say, “Look at what your actions precipitated.”

And please, strike the term “straw man” from your vocabulary. Try, “Oh, I’m sorry, it seems I didn’t communicate my point clearly, what I meant to say was
” Anyone can say “straw man” any time, without further elaboration there is no point.

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And now, Anita again. School shooting threats unless she cancels a speech, which she has. Seriously- Is anyone interested in taking any kind of real action here?

Breitbart? I wandered over there one time and thought I’d found myself in the worst neo-Nazi site before realizing “Oh it’s Breitbart.” They’d death threat the whole world if it would get anyone to pay attention to them.

People are taking action, peaceably. It takes time to change a culture, every time someone makes a conscious decision to do something differently, associate differently, purchase, support, speak or act differently as a result of some uproar, they are taking appropriate action of the sort that causes meaningful change.

Biker vigilantism it ain’t, but it is far & away more effective. Believe me, the SJW & allies are winning.

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What difference does it make? She could have said anything - death threats are not a thing that is an acceptable response. Not even to another death threat.

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This is hate group tactics and should be treated as such.
Terroristic threatening is a violation of law and this person needs to be charged and brought to heel by the criminal justice system.

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