A petition to black out Steam for an hour

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RJ 17

The Sound of Silence
Nov 27, 2011
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Does...does the person who created this petition realize that if you get Steam shut down you're only likely going to exacerbate the problem rather than teach people a lesson about not making threats? I'd imagine anyone who already doesn't like Zoe or Anita would likely end up blaming Zoe and Anita for the black out and be even more pissed off at them, thus making them more likely to send moronic rape threats and other forms of harassment.
 

Irony's Acolyte

Back from the Depths
Mar 9, 2010
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Oh boy, nice to see that me, among of plenty other totally unrelated people, get affected because some youtube celebrity got some death threats. Yes, it's all terrible and all (if the threats are even worth worrying about), but remind me why me and plenty of other innocent men and women should be punished (because none of us signed or even knew of a petition) when this woman get's a death threat again.

I don't even see how it's supposed to be effective at all. The SOPA blackouts were a bunch of websites volunteering to join in because they realized that a potential piece of U.S. law could negatively affect them (and their viewers) and choose to protest by simulating the effects of SOPA to raise awareness for it. This is an attempt to shut down some totally unrelated gaming platform by a group of supporters of someone of (relative) prominence who had some nasty things said to them (probably the first time in recorded history). Who's going to be affected by this? The people who made the threats in the first place? Possibly. The millions of ignorant and innocent people who use Steam? Most definitely.

I see no good coming of this.
 

SacremPyrobolum

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Dec 11, 2010
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I'm beginning to more and more think these are the end times. Everything is getting so out of control!

And if Critical Miss has taught me anything, it is that Steam going dark leads to the End Times...

Anyways, you want a fake death threat to become a real one? This is how you go about doing it. Fucking with people's personal lives who never game a toss about you or your opponents in the first place is a bad way to try and gain allies.
 

lacktheknack

Je suis joined jewels.
Jan 19, 2009
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Jim Trailerpark said:
Fuck her, I ain't blacking out anything, because I'm a bad person
I was going to say something pithy and biting against OP, but I think I'm going to go with this. It's more honest and carefree.
 

RedDeadFred

Illusions, Michael!
May 13, 2009
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Honestly, I have no doubt that the threats were real but this is the internet. Thousands of internet personalities get shit like this every day. Other internet personalities just shrug this shit off (or get very depressed by them) rather than draw attention to it since doing so doesn't actually help them. Sarkeesian draws attention to it since it's actually just helps prove her points.

I'm not saying that she doesn't have any right to call attention to it, I think it's good that she does, but the fact that people are outraged over this one person getting threats when it's pretty common occurrence on the internet seems a little over-dramatic.

Seriously, when you compare this to other popular internet figures who have actually had SWAT teams sent to them as jokes, it seems kind of inconsequential.

NOTE: If the threat she received actually had detailed information in it about where she and her family were, and how the person could get to them, I fully understand taking this a lot more seriously. If this is the case, you can ignore the previous stuff as this isn't the kind of thing that should be taken lightly no matter how unlikely it is that the person would follow through with their threat.
 

Therumancer

Citation Needed
Nov 28, 2007
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Well, my thoughts are that a lot of the negative attention Anita gets is very much "the community policing itself" as the people who are doing so are pretty much trying to shut down a destructive trouble maker.

To be honest unless Anita can actually prove she's been threatened to this level, I'll flat out say she's a liar, given that she's a self promoter and one of the biggest ways to get attention is to play the whole "female in trouble" card and setting herself up as some kind of victim. What's more if she manufactures some kind of alleged threat, she can make herself seem that much more impressive, and use it to deflect criticisms about why she does things like disable comments on her videos and so on.

Basically if Anita actually had proof it's likely she'd be on the phone with the police, not on twitter. Things like "stalking" and threats are a big deal nowadays. Of course she won't do that because she knows the police will find nothing, or evidence manufactured by her. Furthermore even if they do find something, the police will probably tell her that she needs to stop stirring up trouble on The Internet for her own safety, and at the end of the day that's something she won't do, since the bottom line is all the attention.

Plus let's be honest here, Anita is a big mouth on The Internet who has slotted off a lot of people on social media, and really she knew what response she was going to get, and has been intentionally baiting it. She's not a major celebrity or anything, and isn't exactly swarming with personal security or anything, truth is if someone actually wanted to rape or kill Anita over this stuff, she'd already be a statistic. At the end of the day, she's just not that big a deal, outside a specific group of people (albeit a fairly big one) and is mostly notorious because of the negative effects she could have on things like video games. It's not like she's addressing serious enough social issues where she's going to make the kinds of enemies likely to actually attack her.... of course by pretending she's scared of this due to "convincing threats" she can promote herself as being that important as part of her entire schtick.

I think the odds of big companies taking action in favor of Anita are minimal, she's just not that big, and if you know who she is, you know she's hated by as many, or more, people than seem to agree with her, so doing anything in her name is likely to cost you as many customers as it is to gain you some. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if a company like Valve has it's employees heavily divided on the whole "Anita question" if they even know who she is in more than a general sense.

At any rate, I'll sort of call it now, though I hope I'm wrong. Eventually when she feels she needs a boost of notoriety Anita is going to stage an attack on herself (perhaps even letting herself be injured, or self-inflicting injuries) or claim to be have been raped by a hater, in a situation that will remain highly debatable, and where no culprit will likely ever be apprehended and/or convicted.
 

gigastar

Insert one-liner here.
Sep 13, 2010
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AccursedTheory said:
Why does anyone think that because a few dumb, impotent internet hornets stung you, that setting fire to the hornet nest where millions of hornets that have no interest in coming after you live is a good idea?

This phrase may be terrible to say, but I think it applies: Why are you asking for it?
When a persons values become warped enough, what seems right to them would appear as simple madness to someone else.

Or they could be doing it for attention. Given the context both are equally likely.

Either way, this SJW crap needs to draw a line somewhere.
 

Denamic

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Aug 19, 2009
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So... what? They're trying to black out Steam to combat sexism? By pissing off millions of people? By forcing dozens of e-sports organisers to reschedule? The economic damage caused to them alone will be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not cancel smaller events entirely because of scheduling conflicts. How the hell is that going to achieve anything positive whatsoever?
 

Artaneius

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Dec 9, 2013
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Well, maybe the gaming industry doesn't want to change. And the feminists who constantly want change maybe should back off and allow the gaming industry to make it's own choices. If we want to continue to have AAA games mistreat woman in a symbolic way, that's our choice. This isn't real life. Feminists need to realize that gaming culture that started with the arcades shouldn't have to change their views now. You sure as hell didn't care about us viewing woman the way we do 20-30 years ago when we were trash talking playing SF or MK in the arcades. No reason, absolutely no reason why now you immediately start whining and moaning about gender equality now in gaming culture. You adapt to the culture you want to join, the culture doesn't adapt to you.

And anyone thinks otherwise hasn't been in competitive gaming communities for very long. Only times opinions matter is when you have the skills to back them up.
 

Zakarath

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Mar 23, 2009
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disgruntledgamer said:
Honestly, if I were going to hypothetically do something less than legal like issuing death threats to a person, I probably would go to a public terminal, set up a dummy account, set up what it would send, then send them and get out. Which happens to explain away most of those supposed anomalies.
 

zehydra

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Oct 25, 2009
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*clicks link*

4000 views.

Some random person wants to start a petition, which hasn't taken off. Maybe if they'd had like 1 million + views and everyone was talking about it THEN maybe it'd be worth talking about.

Because really, we shouldn't feel the need to discuss every little opinion we come across.
 

Grape_Nuts

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Mar 23, 2011
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Can we stop giving the attention whores the attention that they so crave? Let them fade into obscurity, and enjoy a world that is ever so slightly better.
 

Shamanic Rhythm

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Dec 6, 2009
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Oh look, someone made another stupid and/or kneejerk petition on the internet. Does a day go by where this doesn't happen?

Seriously, if you ever want a laugh, go check out the petitions people have submitted to the White House's webpage. Here's a few selections from today:
-Denounce 'Anti-Racist Hitler'
-Require for Go-Pros to be placed on every[sic] and all police officers
-Mandate all Freight-Trains have two person crews
-Make "Phantom of the Opera" backlot 28 a national landmark.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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xaszatm said:
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. She did it to herself? Seriously? She called the police and had to evacuate both her own house and her parent's house and she is faking it? Really? We're going down this route?
Are you really surprised?

If Anita was found raped and murdered there would only be about a four minute pause before someone on the internet accused her of faking it or doing it to herself and complaining about teh evul Ess Jay Dubyas.

Artaneius said:
Well, maybe the gaming industry doesn't want to change.
If that's the case, it means we think threatening to rape and kill someone whose personal info we know is okay, as is threatening to then kill their parents. As is sending a swat team to someone's house because they beat us at Halo.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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Shamanic Rhythm said:
Oh look, someone made another stupid and/or kneejerk petition on the internet. Does a day go by where this doesn't happen?
No, but this time it's about someone we dislike, so it's a huge deal!
 

Shuu

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Apr 23, 2013
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This isn't going after the symptom instead of the disease, it's going after the BODY, instead of the disease! The body is they thing you're trying to save! I don't think people will ever get it right>: (
 

disgruntledgamer

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Mar 6, 2012
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RJ 17 said:
Does...does the person who created this petition realize that if you get Steam shut down you're only likely going to exacerbate the problem rather than teach people a lesson about not making threats? I'd imagine anyone who already doesn't like Zoe or Anita would likely end up blaming Zoe and Anita for the black out and be even more pissed off at them, thus making them more likely to send moronic rape threats and other forms of harassment.
Like I said I think that's sort of the point every time she gets threats her popularity goes through the roof.
 

RJ 17

The Sound of Silence
Nov 27, 2011
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disgruntledgamer said:
RJ 17 said:
Does...does the person who created this petition realize that if you get Steam shut down you're only likely going to exacerbate the problem rather than teach people a lesson about not making threats? I'd imagine anyone who already doesn't like Zoe or Anita would likely end up blaming Zoe and Anita for the black out and be even more pissed off at them, thus making them more likely to send moronic rape threats and other forms of harassment.
Like I said I think that's sort of the point every time she gets threats her popularity goes through the roof.
If I could have a single wish granted with regards to the gaming industry/community, it would be simply this:

"I wish people who don't like Anita Sarkeesian would stop caring about what she has to say...as they rightfully shouldn't care anyways."

As with all things on the internet, when you boil it all down this is what it amounts to: we're all just a bunch of random jackasses braying at one another. Anita is one such jackass. I'm one such jackass. Everyone on this forum are the same such jackasses. Does anything any one of these random jackasses has to say have any true bearing on your life? No? They why should you care about what their opinion is? If you have an open mind and you're willing to have your opinion change, good for you. But judging by my experience that only applies to a small percentage of internet goers. And even if it does apply to you, it's really quite simple: listen to the opposition's arguments and if you find yourself agreeing with it then there's no problem. If you don't agree with it, then at least you can say you've heard them out. And after that, guess what: only you're to blame for clicking on their videos or reading their posts knowing full well you're about to hear thoughts and opinions you strongly disagree with. And even if you are someone that's willing to have their mind changed, chances are very likely that the other person is not willing to have their mind changed, so I say save yourself a pointless argument and just ignore them.

Just leave well enough alone and in the end Anita will only be preaching to her own choir, much like Rush Limbaugh.
 

disgruntledgamer

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Mar 6, 2012
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Zakarath said:
disgruntledgamer said:
Honestly, if I were going to hypothetically do something less than legal like issuing death threats to a person, I probably would go to a public terminal, set up a dummy account, set up what it would send, then send them and get out. Which happens to explain away most of those supposed anomalies.
The threats seem very well timed and very cut and dry they really don't make much sense and their tone is all over the place and reeks of fakeboy. Even IF she isn't lying about the 'death threat' shes currently milking for publicity, shes deep in the boy who cried wolf territory

Artaneius said:
If that's the case, it means we think threatening to rape and kill someone whose personal info we know is okay, as is threatening to then kill their parents. As is sending a swat team to someone's house because they beat us at Halo.
It's too perfect. It hits all the right notes.

It's what an SJW would write if they were impersonating a creepy internet stalker.

None of the stuff that was doxxed reveals any information that isn't already out there, and hadn't already been doxxed in the past, which is kind of convenient.

The whole 12 seconds combined with the "sign out" thing just puts it over the top for me.