A petition to black out Steam for an hour

[TotalerKrieger]

Why should Steam specifically black out their service? What about Origin, Xbox Live, PS Network, etc, etc? A far more reasonable campaign would be to schedule an hour in which gamers collectively (and voluntarily) log out to consider the concerns being raised and the content being presented to them. A moment of pause and reflection if you will. As it is now, this campaign will be ignored entirely and rightly so.

 

[HavoK 09]

Maybe I'm missing something, or maybe somebody else has pointed this out, but wouldn't you still be able to play your games, if Steam did shutdown, in offline mode? My internet connection sometimes cuts out on me, and I can still play my Steam games, just not the ones that require a constant connection.

There are games which have a competitive scene and have matches every day and throughout most of the day. Besides I registered and paid for a service that is supposed to be ON all the time, sure I can take downtimes when servers fry but those shouldnt even exist to begin with.

Also ever heard of those "green hour" events? Its all voluntary, forcing everyone to join would end up screwing someone over. People do make a living with videogames, sure its a small percentage but I doesnt justify its fair, and saying that they can play other games doesnt always work when they are pros at some game.

 

[oooooooooooooooooooooooooo]

Wait is this now a dick measuring contest of who has it worse?

In that case shouldn't we completely ignore the problems of all men and women in first world countries, and focus on all the people who have to go to sleep every night wondering if they'll be murdered in their sleep by some passing warlord, or die of Ebola, or just plain starve?

Seems pretty shitty to simply say "you guys will get your turn when we are done". Who is first in line? women? racial minorities? religious minorities? homosexuals? the poor? What order are we lining up in?

Responded to this argument already in the post following the one you quoted. Also, when did everyone decide that take precedent meant utterly ignore everything but this.

 

[Gokuofuin]

....again who cares about the raving of some strange lady?

 

[Proto Taco]

I'm getting really sick of 'laid back', 'egalitarian', 'live and let live kinda guys' sitting with their thumbs up their butts while basically everyone who isn't a white male, gets harassed, teased, bullied, and threatened. The 'it's only a game' excuse doesn't fly either, because games don't play themselves. People play games, real, flesh and blood, people, and when you threaten someone online you're not threatening a nebulous avatar or NPC, you're threatening a real person. When you tell someone online to go kill themselves, you are walking up to a stranger you've never met before and telling them to commit suicide. It is getting out of hand, the internet is turning an entire generation of people into spiteful sociopaths who apparently lack the ability to do more than entertain themselves.

This entire thread is an excellent case-and-point. Anita talks about women being mistreated in games, and what happens? Do people actually stop to consider that maybe women ARE mistreated in games? And maybe a better job could be done of both portraying and interacting with them in a digital environment? No, instead a chorus of moans erupt that she won't shut up and just leave 'gamers' to their passively, sometimes actively, misogynistic entertainment. Indeed many of these threads even blame Anita for inciting the death threats, because clearly if you talk about giving women a fair shake you're just asking to be threatened with a brutal beating, dismemberment and murder.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

Oh, my god...

As has already been said, you can't compare blacking out Steam to the SOPA protests, because those black-outs weren't done for the mere sake of protest. The message was not "You can't use this service/website because someone is upset about something", the message was "This is an emulation of what will happen if you ignore this upcoming bill and let it be elected in".

While I feel sorry for Anita (at least as long as her story is what it claims to be at face value), there is a massive difference between proving a point, and punishing people for the crimes of the few. Blacking out Steam will only serve to piss off people for all the wrong reasons.

 

[Malpraxis]

If someone doesn't let me use a service I paid for, as noble as their intentions could be, I'm rallying against that cause.

I barely know who she is, couldn't care less about her plight, and so far her life isn't interfering with mine, so I don't mind. If they pull that kind of crap, I'll probably change my stance from neutral, to against her. I'm sure I'm not the only one in that position.

 

[Dango]

What? How...? That doesn't make any sense...

 

[sonofliber]

Can someone give me back the 15 minutes of my life i wasted reading this?
also
90% of the people here would make really crappy detectives.
until police notifications, YOU SHOULDN'T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS, thats how witch hunts start.
There are arguments for her faking threats, and for her not too, and unless you guys are a police man working on the case, you have no information besides what the media (who loves witch hunts) tell you, you dont have anita psychological profile, information from her surroundings, nor access to information company's can provide to help solve this

 

[Gorrath]

I'm getting really sick of 'laid back', 'egalitarian', 'live and let live kinda guys' sitting with their thumbs up their butts while basically everyone who isn't a white male, gets harassed, teased, bullied, and threatened. The 'it's only a game' excuse doesn't fly either, because games don't play themselves. People play games, real, flesh and blood, people, and when you threaten someone online you're not threatening a nebulous avatar or NPC, you're threatening a real person. When you tell someone online to go kill themselves, you are walking up to a stranger you've never met before and telling them to commit suicide. It is getting out of hand, the internet is turning an entire generation of people into spiteful sociopaths who apparently lack the ability to do more than entertain themselves.

This entire thread is an excellent case-and-point. Anita talks about women being mistreated in games, and what happens? Do people actually stop to consider that maybe women ARE mistreated in games? And maybe a better job could be done of both portraying and interacting with them in a digital environment? No, instead a chorus of moans erupt that she won't shut up and just leave 'gamers' to their passively, sometimes actively, misogynistic entertainment. Indeed many of these threads even blame Anita for inciting the death threats, because clearly if you talk about giving women a fair shake you're just asking to be threatened with a brutal beating, dismemberment and murder.

I'm myself rather sick of people pretending that if you're a white male, you are given some kind of special protection against being bullied, harassed, teased and threatened. The past few weeks have shown immense amounts of this type of shit being thrown by all sorts of people at all sorts of people. If you want people to join your side in a cause, then convince them that your cause is just. Running around and playing the, "If you're not with us, you're against us" (ie, you're a misogynistic piece of human garbage) does not win supporters, it makes people defensive and angry that you lumped them in with assholes. Defensive people don't tend to listen to anything else you have to say, and so you shoot your own goals in the foot.

I'm all for having much greater diversity in games. By most accounts, you and I would likely see eye to eye. But instead of us being able to agree on any rational point, I end up having to respond to a bunch of bile that uses broad brushes to paint people with stereotypes. Slinging accusations and indignant rage at 'egalitarians' because some of them don't think Anita's points are well made or who don't take personal responsibility for the actions of other people they have nothing to do with and no power over does nothing to address any issue with regard to character representation in games. Instead, it serves as soap-box grandstanding with a total lack of self awareness and makes any discussion about the actual topic almost impossible.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Oh god, please make this petition go through! If they black out Steam and openly say its because Anita and Zoe were bullied on Twitter, oh man...
The amount of hate and rage they'll get will make the whole Gamer Gate thing seem like a schoolyard brawl. It will backfire on them SO fast and hard. Really wish it'd go through

 

[Tony2077]

Oh god, please make this petition go through! If they black out Steam and openly say its because Anita and Zoe were bullied on Twitter, oh man...
The amount of hate and rage they'll get will make the whole Gamer Gate thing seem like a schoolyard brawl. It will backfire on them SO fast and hard. Really wish it'd go through

i would not want that to happen i doubt the pr will be good for us at all

 

[Proto Taco]

I'm getting really sick of 'laid back', 'egalitarian', 'live and let live kinda guys' sitting with their thumbs up their butts while basically everyone who isn't a white male, gets harassed, teased, bullied, and threatened. The 'it's only a game' excuse doesn't fly either, because games don't play themselves. People play games, real, flesh and blood, people, and when you threaten someone online you're not threatening a nebulous avatar or NPC, you're threatening a real person. When you tell someone online to go kill themselves, you are walking up to a stranger you've never met before and telling them to commit suicide. It is getting out of hand, the internet is turning an entire generation of people into spiteful sociopaths who apparently lack the ability to do more than entertain themselves.

This entire thread is an excellent case-and-point. Anita talks about women being mistreated in games, and what happens? Do people actually stop to consider that maybe women ARE mistreated in games? And maybe a better job could be done of both portraying and interacting with them in a digital environment? No, instead a chorus of moans erupt that she won't shut up and just leave 'gamers' to their passively, sometimes actively, misogynistic entertainment. Indeed many of these threads even blame Anita for inciting the death threats, because clearly if you talk about giving women a fair shake you're just asking to be threatened with a brutal beating, dismemberment and murder.

I'm myself rather sick of people pretending that if you're a white male, you are given some kind of special protection against being bullied, harassed, teased and threatened. The past few weeks have shown immense amounts of this type of shit being thrown by all sorts of people at all sorts of people. If you want people to join your side in a cause, then convince them that your cause is just. Running around and playing the, "If you're not with us, you're against us" (ie, you're a misogynistic piece of human garbage) does not win supporters, it makes people defensive and angry that you lumped them in with assholes. Defensive people don't tend to listen to anything else you have to say, and so you shoot your own goals in the foot.

I'm all for having much greater diversity in games. By most accounts, you and I would likely see eye to eye. But instead of us being able to agree on any rational point, I end up having to respond to a bunch of bile that uses broad brushes to paint people with stereotypes. Slinging accusations and indignant rage at 'egalitarians' because some of them don't think Anita's points are well made or who don't take personal responsibility for the actions of other people they have nothing to do with and no power over does nothing to address any issue with regard to character representation in games. Instead, it serves as soap-box grandstanding with a total lack of self awareness and makes any discussion about the actual topic almost impossible.

If only those cruel, heartless feminists would stop sending you death threats detailing how they're going to dismember your genitals and them use them to kill you. You, poor, poor thing, how do you live? Oohh, that's right...they don't.

You ever heard of an enabler? They're people who passively sanction destructive behavior by not doing anything about it. If you stand by while women are issued a barrage of brutal death threats for having the sheer gal to speak up about women getting a fair shake, in any community, and then complain that the people speaking up about women getting a fair shake are 'harassing' you? That is enabler behavior right there. Basically you're saying;

"Yeah I saw her getting beaten from the cafe window, but I just wanted to enjoy my drink, not fill out a witness statement. Why's it my fault she got beaten? She shouldn't have worn that outfit that night."

Because what you're doing is witnessing an internet beating, and then getting annoyed at people for holding you accountable for not having the integrity to stand up and say, "no, not cool dude. Stop beating peeps up."

 

[Six Ways]

I'm myself rather sick of people pretending that if you're a white male, you are given some kind of special protection against being bullied, harassed, teased and threatened.

I myself am rather sick of people using that strawman. No-one said white males don't get bullied. Just that women and minorities get it constantly.

The shit's flying on both sides, definitely, but white males are still nowhere near receiving the amount of horrible abuse that women and minorities get all the time. My point there is not "so it's OK that white males are getting bullied" - it's not OK. My point is that most of the white males have only started caring about it (while still claiming women and minorities don't get this treatment) since they've started receiving a mere taste of the same treatment.

 

[Six Ways]

Oh god, please make this petition go through! If they black out Steam and openly say its because Anita and Zoe were bullied on Twitter, oh man...
The amount of hate and rage they'll get will make the whole Gamer Gate thing seem like a schoolyard brawl. It will backfire on them SO fast and hard. Really wish it'd go through

"Oh man, I really hope they fake some death threats toward themselves, that'd totally make them deserve the death threats they keep getting! I can't wait for them to do something that makes their side the wrong one so my side isn't!"

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Oh god, please make this petition go through! If they black out Steam and openly say its because Anita and Zoe were bullied on Twitter, oh man...
The amount of hate and rage they'll get will make the whole Gamer Gate thing seem like a schoolyard brawl. It will backfire on them SO fast and hard. Really wish it'd go through

"Oh man, I really hope they fake some death threats toward themselves, that'd totally make them deserve the death threats they keep getting! I can't wait for them to do something that makes their side the wrong one so my side isn't!"

Ah! No, I get it. You're not familiar with the concept of collective punishment. Its not a very good strategy, punishing millions of gamers to get back at what, a dozen? Less?
Picture this: a single 3rd grader is acting out in class, because, i dunno, the boys won't let her play football. So she gets her mom to call the principle, who agrees that yes, NO ONE at the school should be playing football. You know whose not going to be very popular? Take a guess.

 

[Six Ways]

Oh god, please make this petition go through! If they black out Steam and openly say its because Anita and Zoe were bullied on Twitter, oh man...
The amount of hate and rage they'll get will make the whole Gamer Gate thing seem like a schoolyard brawl. It will backfire on them SO fast and hard. Really wish it'd go through

"Oh man, I really hope they fake some death threats toward themselves, that'd totally make them deserve the death threats they keep getting! I can't wait for them to do something that makes their side the wrong one so my side isn't!"

Ah! No, I get it. You're not familiar with the concept of collective punishment. Its not a very good strategy, punishing millions of gamers to get back at what, a dozen? Less?
Picture this: a single 3rd grader is acting out in class, because, i dunno, the boys won't let her play football. So she gets her mom to call the principle, who agrees that yes, NO ONE at the school should be playing football. You know whose not going to be very popular? Take a guess.

That's completely unrelated to what I said. I don't even.

(...besides, I've already said this petition is a dumb idea...)

 

[Gorrath]

If only those cruel, heartless feminists would stop sending you death threats detailing how they're going to dismember your genitals and them use them to kill you. You, poor, poor thing, how do you live? Oohh, that's right...they don't.

You ever heard of an enabler? They're people who passively sanction destructive behavior by not doing anything about it. If you stand by while women are issued a barrage of brutal death threats for having the sheer gal to speak up about women getting a fair shake, in any community, and then complain that the people speaking up about women getting a fair shake are 'harassing' you? That is enabler behavior right there. Basically you're saying;

"Yeah I saw her getting beaten from the cafe window, but I just wanted to enjoy my drink, not fill out a witness statement. Why's it my fault she got beaten? She shouldn't have worn that outfit that night."

Because what you're doing is witnessing an internet beating, and then getting annoyed at people for holding you accountable for not having the integrity to stand up and say, "no, not cool dude. Stop beating peeps up."

This isn't about me, it's about harassment and about how anyone can be a target of it. You know nothing about me as a person and have no basis for any claim about lacking integrity. You say you stand up against harassment and at the same time mock the idea that a "feminist" might send someone death threats. I wonder if you've seen the death threats leveled against that 10 year old kid that got doxxed by so-called "feminists"? See, I'm actually against harassment, no matter who does it or who it's aimed at. You mock with one breath and then seek to ridicule with the other, capping it off with a lecture on integrity. You might want to reassess your approach if you actually desire any sort of real change, because hypocrisy is transparent and gets you no where.

 

[Gorrath]

I'm myself rather sick of people pretending that if you're a white male, you are given some kind of special protection against being bullied, harassed, teased and threatened.

I myself am rather sick of people using that strawman. No-one said white males don't get bullied. Just that women and minorities get it constantly.

The shit's flying on both sides, definitely, but white males are still nowhere near receiving the amount of horrible abuse that women and minorities get all the time. My point there is not "so it's OK that white males are getting bullied" - it's not OK. My point is that most of the white males have only started caring about it (while still claiming women and minorities don't get this treatment) since they've started receiving a mere taste of the same treatment.

Stripping my comment of the context in which it was made is quote mining. The post I responded to asserted that white men were sitting around doing nothing as everyone else is being harassed. This implies that the white men themselves are not being harassed, presumably due to the fact that they are white men. Committing a fallacy in order to call my comment a fallacy is rather bad form, is it not?

Sexism, racism and their ilk, as institutions and as ideology are awful. The reason they are awful is because they paint huge swaths of people with unfounded assertions based on nothing more than the people's race, sex ect. Doing this tramples the individual justice of the people that have these traits and unfairly lumps them all together so that some segment of them is held up and used to dismiss or denounce all the members of that group. So, when you start banging on about "white males" as if they are some hegemony, claiming that you KNOW what most of them care about and even when they started caring about it and why, you are engaging in the very same behavior that causes the injustices inherent to sexism and racism. I mean seriously, a mere taste? How could you possibly sit there and assert that you know what sort of harassment people you've never met in your life and know nothing at all about have gone through? Because you know what color their skin is or what their sex is? That's presumptuous to the extreme!

Edit: I want to make it clear as well that I am in no way trying to antagonize you; that would get us nowhere. I'm simply trying to demonstrate the folly of making arguments that revolve around making assertions based on nothing more than pointing to someone's race and/or sex and drawing conclusions about them or their supposed experiences.

 

[Six Ways]

Stripping my comment of the context in which it was made is quote mining. The post I responded to asserted that white men were sitting around doing nothing as everyone else is being harassed.

It didn't say 'no white males ever get harassed or bullied'. Explicitly claiming otherwise should not be necessary, because the point being made was not about white men. It may not be intentional, but what you're saying is 'What About The Mens?'.