#GamerGate Needs Damage Control Badly (Small OP Update)

[carnex]

Seriously, lay off David Futrelle. Even if he does a service to all this, he's a fruitcake and his mere involvement is going to derail everything again. Let's not make this Red Pill central vs Feminism or SJWs. That will end up as one big stinking pile of garbage.

Fruitcake according to... who exactly? I only ever recall seeing MRAs complain about him prior to this.

I actually didn't hear anyone complain about him. I have read his blog about a year ago and saw someone who just pokes people without any goal whatsoever than to poke fun of them. He offers nothing but poking fun. I don't care which side he is on, he's counterproductive in my opinion.

 

[000Ronald]

I like the logic of your response, I really do, but there are some logistical issues here. I mean, it's one thing to call one another out on places like this board, where, even if we don't use our real names, everyone has a defined identity (and, to their credit, I see a lot of people on the GamerGate thread calling out their more seedy elements fairly regularly). But it's quite another when we're dealing with literally anonymous posting boards like the chans, and hateful comments coming from burner accounts on twitter. That's where most of the bile has been coming from. You can't challenge them, because, realistically, you don't even have any way to communicate with them. It's hit-and-run bad behavior.

Have you tried reasoning with them? I've done the rational and adult conversation thing with them, before this mess. When someone takes an extremist or backwards stance like this, it is next to impossible to change their minds. If they believe that someone like Anita Sarkeesian is trying to ruin video games for everyone, to them, it's an ultimate law of the universe that nothing can overturn.

You know when you get into a religious or ethical debate with someone? Even though you have formal scientific papers, documentation from an ethics community or something else along those lines, they will continue to quote their own misinformation and sketchy websites made with a 12-year-old's understanding of HTML. Nothing you say will get through to these people and sometimes you have to realise that bashing your head against a brick wall isn't even making a dent.

Don't get me wrong, I would love for my reasoning backed by facts and rational to get through to these people, but it hasn't worked in the past in the hundreds of arguments I've had and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Have I spoken to the people responsible for the specific circumstances of this incident? No. Not yet. Have I spoken to people I know to be unreasonable, who's minds I am reasonably sure I am going to be unable to change? Yes I have. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/528.843798-Poll-The-Extreme-Conservative-Agenda-And-The-Second-Class-Citizen#20775793] More than once [www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/528.847550-9-11-Truthers-FACThammer?page=5#20980610]. I'm actually pretty active in the Religion and Politics forum, and I would like to think that I'm reasonably well liked there, because despite the fact that I discuss very inflammatory matters on a fairly regular basis, my forum health meter is still 100% clean.

You're right in saying that trying to talk to convince them of their own wrong doing is more often than not next to useless. I won't disagree with that. But even if you can't change their mind, you still try. Not because you expect it to have any effort, at least not on it's own, but so that everyone else who wants to say something but might not know how knows that they aren't the only ones who feel that way, so that maybe they might be willing to speak up, too.

I don't believe that this (the harrassment, the vitriol, the threats) are who we are, as a community; but I do believe that it's the most visible part of who we are, at least right now. If nothing else, it's become distressingly common as of late, and I've just come to the point where I'm sick and tired of it. If nothing else, I'm going to make damned sure that everyone that sees what I have to say understands that. Maybe other people will decide they're sick and tired of it, too.

 

[000Ronald]

Looks like someone is going through the 3700+ pages of that IRC log, and surprise surprise, the accusations that ZQ was cherry picking don't seem to be holding water.

http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/09/08/zoe-quinns-screenshots-of-4chans-dirty-tricks-were-just-the-appetizer-heres-the-first-course-of-the-dinner-directly-from-the-irc-log/

That is some serious auditing

Why would someone subject themselves to that kind of torture?!

I did...something like that, once [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/528.847550-9-11-Truthers-FACThammer?page=3#20950881]. While I won't speak for whoever this person was, I will say that I was motivated by a desire to participate in a discussion in good faith. Someone presents me with a great deal of evidence, enough that it appears overwhelming at first[footnote]A little over six hours of video to comb through, not to mention possible weeks of research involved in refuting it[/footnote], probably expecting me to just dismiss it out of hand. I decided I didn't want to do that. My actions were motivated by a sense of fairness, and a desire to hold not just the other person, but myself accountable. As I said before, this discussion we're having isn't just a discussion between you and I; it is a performance, and I have every desire to perform as best as I can, if only so that other people may look at it sometime later and nod in approval.

 

[rgrekejin]

I like the logic of your response, I really do, but there are some logistical issues here. I mean, it's one thing to call one another out on places like this board, where, even if we don't use our real names, everyone has a defined identity (and, to their credit, I see a lot of people on the GamerGate thread calling out their more seedy elements fairly regularly). But it's quite another when we're dealing with literally anonymous posting boards like the chans, and hateful comments coming from burner accounts on twitter. That's where most of the bile has been coming from. You can't challenge them, because, realistically, you don't even have any way to communicate with them. It's hit-and-run bad behavior.

Have I spoken to the people responsible for the specific circumstances of this incident? No. Not yet. Have I spoken to people I know to be unreasonable, who's minds I am reasonably sure I am going to be unable to change? Yes I have. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/528.843798-Poll-The-Extreme-Conservative-Agenda-And-The-Second-Class-Citizen#20775793] More than once [www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/528.847550-9-11-Truthers-FACThammer?page=5#20980610]. I'm actually pretty active in the Religion and Politics forum, and I would like to think that I'm reasonably well liked there, because despite the fact that I discuss very inflammatory matters on a fairly regular basis, my forum health meter is still 100% clean.

You're right in saying that trying to talk to convince them of their own wrong doing is more often than not next to useless. I won't disagree with that. But even if you can't change their mind, you still try. Not because you expect it to have any effort, at least not on it's own, but so that everyone else who wants to say something but might not know how knows that they aren't the only ones who feel that way, so that maybe they might be willing to speak up, too.

I don't believe that this (the harrassment, the vitriol, the threats) are who we are, as a community; but I do believe that it's the most visible part of who we are, at least right now. If nothing else, it's become distressingly common as of late, and I've just come to the point where I'm sick and tired of it. If nothing else, I'm going to make damned sure that everyone that sees what I have to say understands that. Maybe other people will decide they're sick and tired of it, too.

That's not really what I'm saying. I mean, how do you physically communicate with them? What channels do you use? On a truly anonymous board, you never know if you're even responding to the same person. How do you respond to a twitter account that's been set up five minutes ago to make a flurry of bad tweets, then never signed into again and inevitably deleted within the hour. The problem isn't that they are unreasonable or unwilling to change, but that the nature of the media itself makes it impossible to talk to them at all.

 

[000Ronald]

That's not really what I'm saying. I mean, how do you physically communicate with them? What channels do you use? On a truly anonymous board, you never know if you're even responding to the same person. How do you respond to a twitter account that's been set up five minutes ago to make a flurry of bad tweets, then never signed into again and inevitably deleted within the hour. The problem isn't that they are unreasonable or unwilling to change, but that the nature of the media itself makes it impossible to talk to them at all.

I had not considered that. I suppose...communicating with people like that is impossible, in a traditional sense. That being said, if the community comes together and strongly, strongly condemns this behavior for a long enough amount of time, I feel that it would make it a much rarer occurrence. Furthermore, in conducting ourselves in this way, others will see that this is how we have chosen to conduct ourselves, and will respond accordingly. As I've said before, what's happening now, not just in the Gamergate community, but in our community as a whole, is something of a feedback loop; people are coming over, acting like children, and no one is saying anything. So more people are coming over, thinking that the community is accepting of this behavior, and people are leaving because they WON'T accept that behavior, but don't feel strongly enough to speak out. If this keeps up, this WILL become our community, and I don't want that. This, more than anything else, is why I've decided to start speaking out, and I hope others will follow in suit.

As an aside, I would mention that if you have the chance to respond to someone, you ought to take it. My experience is that if they bother to respond, that response will prove their own disingenuity beyond any doubt.

 

[Skatologist]

Looks like someone is going through the 3700+ pages of that IRC log, and surprise surprise, the accusations that ZQ was cherry picking don't seem to be holding water.

http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/09/08/zoe-quinns-screenshots-of-4chans-dirty-tricks-were-just-the-appetizer-heres-the-first-course-of-the-dinner-directly-from-the-irc-log/

That is some serious auditing

Why would someone subject themselves to that kind of torture?!

That's sort of David Futrelle's thing, he runs a website that tracks internet misogyny.

Oh, I've seen his YouTube channel, his only videos there are unfortunately MRAs in there own words.

Just, all three of you, stop. The logs are publicly available. Take the lines he points out, and do a ctrl+f. Look at roughly the ten preceding lines, and the ten following lines. Letting other people confirm your biases is how we arrived at this point.

And honestly, Futrelle? Really? That particular individual is drenched in bullshit.

Didn't mean to say any of that, I was just surprised Futrelle had something other than a YouTube channel since I never checked his about page as a link to his "We Hunted the Mammoth" site and that someoneas small as him was also somehow becoming part of this. Not sure if his site, his link, or his videos are the things that are "drenched in bullshit" so I guess I'll just ask for examples.

 

[Netrigan]

But what the fuck is all this unrelated bullshit doing here? Why have the lines been drawn between so-called 'SJWs' and 'misogynerd' (or whatever the fuck they're called)? Why is feminism a factor at all? Oh wait, I see, many of the 'misogynerds' are saying that the Indy/Gaming Press Illuminati is using feminism/misogyny as a smokescreen to censor debate. Well if that's the case, then why the fuck are women, some of which have NO connection to any of this (like Anita), getting bombarded with harassment in the form of death and rape threats in relation to this?

Near as I can figure it, it's because this is part of a huge sprawling argument and no one seems to have the discipline within the movement to pair the thing down to its simplest form and use that to direct people toward agreeing with their argument.

Which is why you get this really confused narrative.

On the so-called "Feminist" side, the narrative has largely been the same, female voices are making themselves heard within the gaming community and this is the reaction they're getting. They do have to a bit of damage control as one of their star examples may not be as pure and innocent as she first appeared, but then Zoe was always more of a stand-in for the abuse many women have experienced. It's a well-honed narrative, is extremely compelling, and they're good at selling it.

On the other side, they're fighting some sprawling war against political correctness, so they're throwing in all their usual targets and complicating their narrative beyond comprehension. You can tell they don't have many proper journalists on their side, because they are absolute pants at presenting their arguments in a clear, concise manner. I've tried on a few occasions to wade into their side of things and am usually greeted with sprawling jpegs filled with circled bits and bobs, arrows, editorial asides, speculation, and so on at the jump. To the degree that they've gotten the #GamerGate thing apart is down to journalists wading into this mess of ideas, arguments, and speculation and finding a narrative on Journalistic Ethics.

Assuming there is important connective tissue (I honestly don't think there is, but who knows with this mess), the big mistake they made here is letting someone else create the narrative, thus re-writing it to serve their purposes. The journalists have looked upon it and said, "ah, yes, we have made some mistakes, we need to do better, and never mind all this anti-SWS stuff because we still think that's idiotic."

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

As this seems to be the gathering area for "dissenters", I'm going to offer this thread my reasons for supporting gamergate.

I read thezoepost and saw it for what it truly was (a tell-all about an abusive relationship with an emotionally manipulative and destructive human being) instead of what the media was telling me it was (a jilted ex airing dirty laundry for revenge). I've experienced that relationship from the inside. I recognized it immediately. I was appalled at how quickly the damning facts of the case were dismissed by the media at large in order to fit the overriding narrative of all women as default victims.

Then the gaming press closed ranks around an objectively terrible person for what appeared to be ideological reasons, which is bad enough already. Only, upon closer examination, it appears they're all basically friends in a treehouse, living together, sleeping together, supporting each other financially, and the lot of them tied together by various firms and companies with angling to become the gatekeepers for an always-burgeoning indie gaming scene. Nepotism run so amok you can't even see "networking" through a telescope.

Then came the censorship, the removal of comments and threads and even posters from sites and forums that were usually lauded for their freedom of expression. Sure, some of the participants were base trolls in need of moderation, but that's literally always the case on the internet. Pointing to the very worst element of your opposition (when your opposition can do literally nothing about it) as reason to silence and marginalize and ignore them is pure intellectual dishonesty.

Finally, when it looked like gamers weren't going to just "let it go" and resume business as usual, we saw like 8-10 nearly identical articles decrying the death of an entire demographic of people - a demographic hundreds of millions strong and featuring nearly every conceivable walk of human life. I believe most of these offensive articles could be traced back to people and companies associated with one woman, a woman who essentially declared "I AM video game journalism". She put wheels in motion to craft an entire narrative aimed at her justified detractors, drawing on her tentacles embedded throughout the industry to smear and belittle the lot of us.

That last one really got to me. I've never been on the wrong side of a media smear campaign before. It was very unsettling. It made me reconsider a lot of things. And it definitely made me hate the state of games journalism. So me and people like me are making noise, withdrawing support, shining lights, and advocating for change. If you think that makes me (a clean-shaven lefty pro-choice agnostic who pines for universal healthcare and the elimination of the off-shore economy) a right-wing misogynist hell-bent on oppressing all minorities, I simply don't know what else to tell you.

 

[Netrigan]

Finally, when it looked like gamers weren't going to just "let it go" and resume business as usual, we saw like 8-10 nearly identical articles decrying the death of an entire demographic of people - a demographic hundreds of millions strong and featuring nearly every conceivable walk of human life. I believe most of these offensive articles could be traced back to people and companies associated with one woman, a woman who essentially declared "I AM video game journalism". She put wheels in motion to craft an entire narrative aimed at her justified detractors, drawing on her tentacles embedded throughout the industry to smear and belittle the lot of us.

I'm pretty sure the real reason is far less sinister than this.

Ideas often spread incredibly easily. Back in the 80s, there was a surge of werewolf movies one year (An American Werewolf in London, The Howling, Wolfen), the source of which was likely the novel version of Wolfen which had been a success just prior. When The Abyss came out, it came along with several other underwater movies... the likely source, the best-selling novel, Sphere (turned into a movie much later). The lead up to this surge of articles is several months of gamers being cast (rightly or wrongly) as the villains in an on-going drama. It wouldn't take much of anything to push them in the same direction. A prominent blog or tweet mentioning in passing that gamers are killing gaming could easily trigger it off without it being planned by anyone. It could even be just the conversations the game journalists have been having behind the scenes which came pouring out the next time there was a notable event that triggers a flood of articles.

Which doesn't preclude a Talking Points style assault on the media. The Democrats and Republicans do this all the time. They hit the Sunday morning chat shows using a carefully chosen phrase to push their agenda. This gets repeated over and over and within a couple of days, the press are repeating the words as their own. It wouldn't take more than a couple of people to plant an idea in the heads of the gaming press, because it's designed as an easily used narrative.

The thing is, the people writing these articles have largely been saying the same thing for a long time. All the "Is Gaming Dead" articles is really just the same old ideas recycled under a new and exciting headline. How exactly that particularly phrase planted itself in their heads isn't all that important. You have a lot of people, all with the same basic beliefs, all posting similar articles following similar outrages... and they've been doing it since the original Kickstarter incident.

If I start getting hit with the same GamerGate story/idea from multiple sources, this isn't evidence of some grand conspiracy directing the GamerGate movement, it's just a bunch of people who all believe (more or less) the same thing who are constantly spitballing things both in public and in private.

 

[Jux]

Looks like someone is going through the 3700+ pages of that IRC log, and surprise surprise, the accusations that ZQ was cherry picking don't seem to be holding water.

http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/09/08/zoe-quinns-screenshots-of-4chans-dirty-tricks-were-just-the-appetizer-heres-the-first-course-of-the-dinner-directly-from-the-irc-log/

That is some serious auditing

Why would someone subject themselves to that kind of torture?!

That's sort of David Futrelle's thing, he runs a website that tracks internet misogyny.

Oh, I've seen his YouTube channel, his only videos there are unfortunately MRAs in there own words.

Just, all three of you, stop. The logs are publicly available. Take the lines he points out, and do a ctrl+f. Look at roughly the ten preceding lines, and the ten following lines. Letting other people confirm your biases is how we arrived at this point.

And honestly, Futrelle? Really? That particular individual is drenched in bullshit.

Yea, they are publicly available, and none of it is taken out of context.

Spoiler

A quote pulled from WHtM:

Aug 21 17.23.31 The problem is that making it about Zoe sleeping around amounts to a personal attack which, while funny and something she totally deserves, will hurt our chances of pushing the other point

And the context...

Aug 21 17.21.21 "You aren't allowed to use 4chan as a place to organize harassment campaigns."
Aug 21 17.21.25 since fucking when
Aug 21 17.21.29 i like how "going Phil Fish" is now a used expression
Aug 21 17.21.36 * AndChat|215124 has quit (Ping timeout: 240 seconds)
Aug 21 17.21.53 tfw no retina macbook
Aug 21 17.21.53 I remember when 4chan jumped a webcomic's forums for not giving them porn for free
Aug 21 17.22.06 <Silver|2> Moot hasn't cared about 4chan for years now. It became obvious around the whole canv.as thing
Aug 21 17.22.25 * AndChat|215124 ([email protected]) has joined #burgersandfries
Aug 21 17.22.35 >wanting a macbook
Aug 21 17.22.45 And where do we go when 4chan is dead?
Aug 21 17.22.45 I still say make this not about Zoe Sleeping around, make it about the 5guys giving publicity for sex
Aug 21 17.22.51 ^
Aug 21 17.22.54 Heaven
Aug 21 17.22.55 is say both
Aug 21 17.22.56 No shit, that's the actual point of this
Aug 21 17.22.58 <Silver|2> 7chan
Aug 21 17.23.01 <Silver|2> lol
Aug 21 17.23.14 I think Poole still cares about anonymity and posts not being permanent. But fuck free speech
Aug 21 17.23.15 guys, incase that thread is removed, here.
Aug 21 17.23.25 https://mega.co.nz/#!7FBj1RAT!ygutnsRwyjyuQJKrJ9bFUG2BbUCMGNvwc4rUWdzh09I
Aug 21 17.23.25 https://mega.co.nz/#!7FBj1RAT!ygutnsRwyjyuQJKrJ9bFUG2BbUCMGNvwc4rUWdzh09I
Aug 21 17.23.25 https://mega.co.nz/#!7FBj1RAT!ygutnsRwyjyuQJKrJ9bFUG2BbUCMGNvwc4rUWdzh09I
Aug 21 17.23.25 https://mega.co.nz/#!7FBj1RAT!ygutnsRwyjyuQJKrJ9bFUG2BbUCMGNvwc4rUWdzh09I
Aug 21 17.23.25 https://mega.co.nz/#!7FBj1RAT!ygutnsRwyjyuQJKrJ9bFUG2BbUCMGNvwc4rUWdzh09I
Aug 21 17.23.26 * GeorgeWashington has kicked Opfag from #burgersandfries (Stop repeating yourself!)
Aug 21 17.23.30 lel
Aug 21 17.23.31 The problem is that making it about Zoe sleeping around amounts to a personal attack which, while funny and something she totally deserves, will hurt our chances of pushing the other point
Aug 21 17.23.35 That's what you get
Aug 21 17.23.37 ******
Aug 21 17.23.38 ./v should be focused on the implications of gaming journalism
Aug 21 17.23.41 Stop kicking yourself Stop kicking yourself Stop kicking yourself Stop kicking yourself Stop kicking yourself Stop kicking yourself
Aug 21 17.23.41 * Opfag ([email protected]) has joined #burgersandfries
Aug 21 17.23.45 eh la mayo
Aug 21 17.23.46 <Silver|2> ouch
Aug 21 17.23.47 No fuck you
Aug 21 17.23.47 Because SJWs will cherry-pick the /b/ shit posting and say "See? It's sexist MRAs!"
Aug 21 17.23.53 Op, anything happen with the posting to attack the 5guys last night?
Aug 21 17.23.57 I wasn't the one to kick you
Aug 21 17.23.59 It was George
Aug 21 17.24.02 ./pol should be focused on her self righteous schtick and the implications of the investigation
Aug 21 17.24.10 * nawl ([email protected]) has joined #burgersandfries
Aug 21 17.24.10 and /b should be focused on ruining her life for being a slut
Aug 21 17.24.17 "See? It's sexist MRAs!" is the bullshit cop-out that Anita used to deflect criticism of her bullshit

How is that taken out of context exactly?

It doesn't take long to figure out where this is going.

Spoiler

Tell me again about how this is about journalistic ethics and not harassing some lady?

 

[Agayek]

It doesn't take long to figure out where this is going.

Spoiler

Tell me again about how this is about journalistic ethics and not harassing some lady?

I feel the need to point out that that the image I quoted is grossly misrepresentational and slanted. For example, if you do a regex search for slag of the press (such as "journo", "journalist", "press", "media", etc) the total number is around 2200 IIRC. Beyond that, of the 14 terms searched, 10, substantially more than half, are picked specifically to discredit the people talking while ignoring the culture and tone of the site entirely, which is explicitly to be crude, rude, and demeaning to everyone in equal measure, such as the use of 'fag' as a base descriptor.

As an aside however, and this is an honest question I'd truly appreciate a straight answer to, how do you get from "The problem is that making it about Zoe sleeping around amounts to a personal attack which, while funny and something she totally deserves, will hurt our chances of pushing the other point" to "Let's whip up an internet mob to attack Quinn"? Like, he's explicitly saying "Yo dude, we shouldn't even talk about Quinn because all it does is take attention away from and make it easier to ignore our other points". I really can't see how that points to a conspiracy to harass her, and I'm not sure if it's just not there or if I can't see it. I would appreciate you showing the logical process to connect the two.

 

[Panda Pandemic]

Seriously, lay off David Futrelle. Even if he does a service to all this, he's a fruitcake and his mere involvement is going to derail everything again. Let's not make this Red Pill central vs Feminism or SJWs. That will end up as one big stinking pile of garbage.

Fruitcake according to... who exactly? I only ever recall seeing MRAs complain about him prior to this.

I actually didn't hear anyone complain about him. I have read his blog about a year ago and saw someone who just pokes people without any goal whatsoever than to poke fun of them. He offers nothing but poking fun. I don't care which side he is on, he's counterproductive in my opinion.

I don't think you having a negative opinion is much of a reason to disregard him. First you're not even criticizing the actual thing he did now. Second you don't really give an actual reason for other people to have a negative opinion of him. Unless they already did I am not sure who would be convinced.

Personally I've seen him point out some really fucked up MRA positions with links to them to double check.

 

[Jux]

It doesn't take long to figure out where this is going.

Spoiler

Tell me again about how this is about journalistic ethics and not harassing some lady?

I feel the need to point out that that the image I quoted is grossly misrepresentational and slanted. For example, if you do a regex search for slag of the press (such as "journo", "journalist", "press", "media", etc) the total number is around 2200 IIRC. Beyond that, of the 14 terms searched, 10, substantially more than half, are picked specifically to discredit the people talking while ignoring the culture and tone of the site entirely, which is explicitly to be crude, rude, and demeaning to everyone in equal measure, such as the use of 'fag' as a base descriptor.

As an aside however, and this is an honest question I'd truly appreciate a straight answer to, how do you get from "The problem is that making it about Zoe sleeping around amounts to a personal attack which, while funny and something she totally deserves, will hurt our chances of pushing the other point" to "Let's whip up an internet mob to attack Quinn"? Like, he's explicitly saying "Yo dude, we shouldn't even talk about Quinn because all it does is take attention away from and make it easier to ignore our other points". I really can't see how that points to a conspiracy to harass her, and I'm not sure if it's just not there or if I can't see it. I would appreciate you showing the logical process to connect the two.

Posting from the phone right now, so I may come back and edit this, depending on how cumbersome this gets. First, if you look further down in the quoted section, you'll see someone suggesting that /b/ should be in charge of harrassment of ZQ. If this were simply about journalistic integrity, whats with the planned campaign of harrassment? Second, the specific quote I used was just one of many on Futrelles site, I used it at random not to back up my overall point that this is nothing but a witch hunt, but rather as a rebuttal to Mages assertion that his quoted parts were taken out of context.

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

Looks like someone is going through the 3700+ pages of that IRC log, and surprise surprise, the accusations that ZQ was cherry picking don't seem to be holding water.

http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/09/08/zoe-quinns-screenshots-of-4chans-dirty-tricks-were-just-the-appetizer-heres-the-first-course-of-the-dinner-directly-from-the-irc-log/

That is some serious auditing

Why would someone subject themselves to that kind of torture?!

That's sort of David Futrelle's thing, he runs a website that tracks internet misogyny.

Oh, I've seen his YouTube channel, his only videos there are unfortunately MRAs in there own words.

Just, all three of you, stop. The logs are publicly available. Take the lines he points out, and do a ctrl+f. Look at roughly the ten preceding lines, and the ten following lines. Letting other people confirm your biases is how we arrived at this point.

And honestly, Futrelle? Really? That particular individual is drenched in bullshit.

Yea, they are publicly available, and none of it is taken out of context.

Spoiler

A quote pulled from WHtM:

Aug 21 17.23.31 The problem is that making it about Zoe sleeping around amounts to a personal attack which, while funny and something she totally deserves, will hurt our chances of pushing the other point

And the context...

Aug 21 17.21.21 "You aren't allowed to use 4chan as a place to organize harassment campaigns."
Aug 21 17.21.25 since fucking when
Aug 21 17.21.29 i like how "going Phil Fish" is now a used expression
Aug 21 17.21.36 * AndChat|215124 has quit (Ping timeout: 240 seconds)
Aug 21 17.21.53 tfw no retina macbook
Aug 21 17.21.53 I remember when 4chan jumped a webcomic's forums for not giving them porn for free
Aug 21 17.22.06 <Silver|2> Moot hasn't cared about 4chan for years now. It became obvious around the whole canv.as thing
Aug 21 17.22.25 * AndChat|215124 ([email protected]) has joined #burgersandfries
Aug 21 17.22.35 >wanting a macbook
Aug 21 17.22.45 And where do we go when 4chan is dead?
Aug 21 17.22.45 I still say make this not about Zoe Sleeping around, make it about the 5guys giving publicity for sex
Aug 21 17.22.51 ^
Aug 21 17.22.54 Heaven
Aug 21 17.22.55 is say both
Aug 21 17.22.56 No shit, that's the actual point of this
Aug 21 17.22.58 <Silver|2> 7chan
Aug 21 17.23.01 <Silver|2> lol
Aug 21 17.23.14 I think Poole still cares about anonymity and posts not being permanent. But fuck free speech
Aug 21 17.23.15 guys, incase that thread is removed, here.
Aug 21 17.23.25 https://mega.co.nz/#!7FBj1RAT!ygutnsRwyjyuQJKrJ9bFUG2BbUCMGNvwc4rUWdzh09I
Aug 21 17.23.25 https://mega.co.nz/#!7FBj1RAT!ygutnsRwyjyuQJKrJ9bFUG2BbUCMGNvwc4rUWdzh09I
Aug 21 17.23.25 https://mega.co.nz/#!7FBj1RAT!ygutnsRwyjyuQJKrJ9bFUG2BbUCMGNvwc4rUWdzh09I
Aug 21 17.23.25 https://mega.co.nz/#!7FBj1RAT!ygutnsRwyjyuQJKrJ9bFUG2BbUCMGNvwc4rUWdzh09I
Aug 21 17.23.25 https://mega.co.nz/#!7FBj1RAT!ygutnsRwyjyuQJKrJ9bFUG2BbUCMGNvwc4rUWdzh09I
Aug 21 17.23.26 * GeorgeWashington has kicked Opfag from #burgersandfries (Stop repeating yourself!)
Aug 21 17.23.30 lel
Aug 21 17.23.31 The problem is that making it about Zoe sleeping around amounts to a personal attack which, while funny and something she totally deserves, will hurt our chances of pushing the other point
Aug 21 17.23.35 That's what you get
Aug 21 17.23.37 ******
Aug 21 17.23.38 ./v should be focused on the implications of gaming journalism
Aug 21 17.23.41 Stop kicking yourself Stop kicking yourself Stop kicking yourself Stop kicking yourself Stop kicking yourself Stop kicking yourself
Aug 21 17.23.41 * Opfag ([email protected]) has joined #burgersandfries
Aug 21 17.23.45 eh la mayo
Aug 21 17.23.46 <Silver|2> ouch
Aug 21 17.23.47 No fuck you
Aug 21 17.23.47 Because SJWs will cherry-pick the /b/ shit posting and say "See? It's sexist MRAs!"
Aug 21 17.23.53 Op, anything happen with the posting to attack the 5guys last night?
Aug 21 17.23.57 I wasn't the one to kick you
Aug 21 17.23.59 It was George
Aug 21 17.24.02 ./pol should be focused on her self righteous schtick and the implications of the investigation
Aug 21 17.24.10 * nawl ([email protected]) has joined #burgersandfries
Aug 21 17.24.10 and /b should be focused on ruining her life for being a slut
Aug 21 17.24.17 "See? It's sexist MRAs!" is the bullshit cop-out that Anita used to deflect criticism of her bullshit

How is that taken out of context exactly?

It doesn't take long to figure out where this is going.

Spoiler

Tell me again about how this is about journalistic ethics and not harassing some lady?

This is all completely true. People keep pointing at the irc log and going "No no no, this was taken out of context. You have to dig deeper." I literally just went and did what BlackMageBob suggested, and none of the quotes were surrounded by things that made them look any better. It just reminds me of this:

Spoiler: The whole thing reminds me of this

The whole thing reminds me of this

You can say they're being ironic all you like, it's still toxic shit and there's such a constant stream of it on that log that it's really hard to believe that "Oh no, they were just joking."

 

[Agayek]

Posting from the phone right now, so I may come back and edit this, depending on how cumbersome this gets. First, if you look further down in the quoted section, you'll see someone suggesting that /b/ should be in charge of harrassment of ZQ. If this were simply about journalistic integrity, whats with the planned campaign of harrassment? Second, the specific quote I used was just one of many on Futrelles site, I used it at random not to back up my overall point that this is nothing but a witch hunt, but rather as a rebuttal to Mages assertion that his quoted parts were taken out of context.

Ahhhh, that makes more sense. That's pretty much 4chan IRC in a nutshell, tbh. He's basically calling out how he thinks the various boards will react, given their content and the type of posters they attract. Given the general nature of conversation on 4chan and the like, I don't personally see it as a call to arms for anything, but I can see why you would.

This is all completely true. People keep pointing at the irc log and going "No no no, this was taken out of context. You have to dig deeper." I literally just went and did what BlackMageBob suggested, and none of the quotes were surrounded by things that made them look any better. It just reminds me of this:

You can say they're being ironic all you like, it's still toxic shit and there's such a constant stream of it on that log that it's really hard to believe that "Oh no, they were just joking."

Eh, that's just how 4chan is, like it or not. The culture of the board is to be vile and crude and rude to anyone and everyone for no particular reason. It's just how they work. It's rarely ever said with any real malice though, it's a bunch of random anonymous twits on the internet hurling abuse at each other and responding in kind. It's surprisingly welcoming, assuming you've got a thick enough skin to not take everything personally. The same language outside of that context is horribly toxic, that much is true, which colors a lot of people's perception of the site and its posters, but if you keep the broader culture of the site in mind, the chat logs (or at least the excerpts I've read, which is only a small portion of it) are pretty innocuous. Take that however you will.

 

[Jux]

Posting from the phone right now, so I may come back and edit this, depending on how cumbersome this gets. First, if you look further down in the quoted section, you'll see someone suggesting that /b/ should be in charge of harrassment of ZQ. If this were simply about journalistic integrity, whats with the planned campaign of harrassment? Second, the specific quote I used was just one of many on Futrelles site, I used it at random not to back up my overall point that this is nothing but a witch hunt, but rather as a rebuttal to Mages assertion that his quoted parts were taken out of context.

Ahhhh, that makes more sense. That's pretty much 4chan IRC in a nutshell, tbh. He's basically calling out how he thinks the various boards will react, given their content and the type of posters they attract. Given the general nature of conversation on 4chan and the like, I don't personally see it as a call to arms for anything, but I can see why you would.

Aug 21 17.24.02 ./pol should be focused on her self righteous schtick and the implications of the investigation
Aug 21 17.24.10 * nawl ([email protected]) has joined #burgersandfries
Aug 21 17.24.10 and /b should be focused on ruining her life for being a slut

Sorry, but I'm not reading it that way. When he says /b -should- be doing something, that is a call for action, not speculation on what will happen.

Getting back to my main points (because I'm back on a computer), I don't buy that this is about journalism ethics. Were it, it wouldn't be focused on the personal life of some indie dev, it would have focused on actual breaches of ethics. The fact is that Grayson never wrote a review for Depression Quest, and while ZQ's personal ethics may be questionable, it has had zero impact on the industry. This isn't some studio being exposed as bribing countless reviewers into giving them good reviews, it's about one lady and a jilted ex airing relationship laundry for the internet to see, and a bunch of misogynistic imbiciles using it as a proxy in their 'war' against the boogeyman SJWs coming to take away their dudebro games and enforcing diversity on everyone.

And speaking on the 'culture' of 4chan, I would liken 4chan to a boil on the asshole of the internet, except 4channers might mistake that for a compliment.

 

[Agayek]

Sorry, but I'm not reading it that way. When he says /b -should- be doing something, that is a call for action, not speculation on what will happen.

Like I said, that's fair enough. I disagree, but that's simply a matter of perspective. I've seen that kind of talk entirely too many times over the internet to read any sort of call to arms in it. I'm not nearly arrogant enough to assume my viewpoint is universal truth though, so I'll leave it at that.

Getting back to my main points (because I'm back on a computer), I don't buy that this is about journalism ethics. Were it, it wouldn't be focused on the personal life of some indie dev, it would have focused on actual breaches of ethics. The fact is that Grayson never wrote a review for Depression Quest, and while ZQ's personal ethics may be questionable, it has had zero impact on the industry. This isn't some studio being exposed as bribing countless reviewers into giving them good reviews, it's about one lady and a jilted ex airing relationship laundry for the internet to see, and a bunch of misogynistic imbiciles using it as a proxy in their 'war' against the boogeyman SJWs coming to take away their dudebro games and enforcing diversity on everyone.

This is true. As far as I've been able to tell, Grayson only had the appearance of impropriety, and that was pretty quickly debunked. Grayson only ever wrote two articles mentioning Quinn or Depression Quest, and neither was a review. And if that's all that was there, there would have been a furor for a couple days and it would have faded, just like every other 'outrage' in gaming history.

That wasn't all there was though. The big thing that kicked the whole thing off was the massive, concerted effort to censor any discussion on it. There was plenty of legitimate censorship, stopping people from doxxing, or bringing up things best left private, but there was also a lot of illegitimate censorship. There were posts being deleted, people being banned and even grossly insulted for going "Hey wait, Grayson slept with a subject. Isn't that a conflict of interest?". Anything at all that wasn't blatantly and blindly in support of Quinn and/or shouting that there was no possible way there might potentially be a problem was being heavy-handedly censored all over the goddamn internet.

Naturally, the Streisand effect kicked in, and that made people curious. That over the top reaction seemed to imply that yes, there really was substance to the accusations of impropriety, and so people started digging. It turned out that no, Grayson didn't do anything really wrong (though it was somewhat alarming that it was seen as normal for press to be sleeping with devs), but it also turned out that we found out about people like Patricia Hernandez, who was writing glowing reviews and recommendations for her girlfriend's games while living with her, and the massive web of Patreon support threading back and forth all over the industry. That's a very real sign of a very real problem in the industry as a whole.

Then, when people started talking about that and going "WTF mate?", pretty much everyone implicated by the amateur investigations doubled down and started screaming about 'gamer' being dead and pissing off a great many people who'd, until then, been confused on what the whole affair was about.

That's where the movement really came from. If it was about Zoe Quinn, it would have fizzled out weeks ago. Hell, the internet kept its focus on #GamerGate through fucking PAX, and it looks like Destiny is barely budging it. These are things that have never before failed to distract whatever internet mob was whipped up previously. How the fuck would 'a bunch of misogynistic imbiciles' be able to avert that and keep all the attention on Quinn? Please, explain. I would love to know so that I could abuse the shit out of it and maybe get some marginally unique games out of AAA publishers.

And speaking on the 'culture' of 4chan, I would liken 4chan to a boil on the asshole of the internet, except 4channers might mistake that for a compliment.

Which again, is fair. There's a reason I don't make a habit of visiting the place. My point is mostly that actual meaning relies on context, and the context of a 4chan irc is that language tends toward being much more offensive and toxic than it would be elsewhere, regardless of the topic[footnote]No seriously, go check out the IRC when their discussing a positive topic, like a solid debate on game mechanics or whatever. People use pretty much the exact same language then as they are in the IRC chat logs[/footnote]. It's disingenuous and intellectually lazy, at best, to claim "those people say mean things to each other, therefore everything they say or do is evil". They're basically speaking a different language, one where the default assumption is no one is ever offended by anything, and that assumption is largely born out.

On a only somewhat related note, it's actually a pretty good glimpse of where our language is going to end up if we ever succeed in achieving true social equality, to be perfectly honest. Where people simply don't care what they're called and so nearly anything is permissible. I could easily be wrong in that regard, I'm no master of sociology, but I'd be willing to put money on it.

 

[Jux]

This is true. As far as I've been able to tell, Grayson only had the appearance of impropriety, and that was pretty quickly debunked. Grayson only ever wrote two articles mentioning Quinn or Depression Quest, and neither was a review. And if that's all that was there, there would have been a furor for a couple days and it would have faded, just like every other 'outrage' in gaming history.

That wasn't all there was though. The big thing that kicked the whole thing off was the massive, concerted effort to censor any discussion on it. There was plenty of legitimate censorship, stopping people from doxxing, or bringing up things best left private, but there was also a lot of illegitimate censorship. There were posts being deleted, people being banned and even grossly insulted for going "Hey wait, Grayson slept with a subject. Isn't that a conflict of interest?". Anything at all that wasn't blatantly and blindly in support of Quinn and/or shouting that there was no possible way there might potentially be a problem was being heavy-handedly censored all over the goddamn internet.

Naturally, the Streisand effect kicked in, and that made people curious. That over the top reaction seemed to imply that yes, there really was substance to the accusations of impropriety, and so people started digging. It turned out that no, Grayson didn't do anything really wrong (though it was somewhat alarming that it was seen as normal for press to be sleeping with devs), but it also turned out that we found out about people like Patricia Hernandez, who was writing glowing reviews and recommendations for her girlfriend's games while living with her, and the massive web of Patreon support threading back and forth all over the industry. That's a very real sign of a very real problem in the industry as a whole.

Then, when people started talking about that and going "WTF mate?", pretty much everyone implicated by the amateur investigations doubled down and started screaming about 'gamer' being dead and pissing off a great many people who'd, until then, been confused on what the whole affair was about.

That's where the movement really came from. If it was about Zoe Quinn, it would have fizzled out weeks ago. Hell, the internet kept its focus on #GamerGate through fucking PAX, and it looks like Destiny is barely budging it. These are things that have never before failed to distract whatever internet mob was whipped up previously. How the fuck would 'a bunch of misogynistic imbiciles' be able to avert that and keep all the attention on Quinn? Please, explain. I would love to know so that I could abuse the shit out of it and maybe get some marginally unique games out of AAA publishers.

I had a nice long post in response to this, and then a 404 ate it, so I'm going to truncate it the second time around.

In response to 'concerted effort of censorship': Concerted efforts imply people working together to achieve a goal. I'm going to slap a big ole [Citation needed] here, because as far as I can see, threads were shut down because people were unjustly dragging this ladies name through the mud. I'm actually disappointed that the Escapist has allowed this charade to go on as long as it has. Were I in charge at this site, I would have shut down any thread about Quinns personal life, perma banned astroturfers showing up here specifically to talk about it, and told anyone that didn't like it to fuck off, and ban their asses too.

In response to legit complaints about journalistic ethical breaches: You can't swing a dead cat around here without hitting a post talking about Quinn. If this were about ethics, why is everyone still talking about Quinn?

In response to the 'gamers are dead' articles: I'm a gamer, and I think this community is filled with bile. I have zero sympathy for it as a whole.

As for how to exploit this to your own benefit:

Step 1) Show up on Reddit or 4chan with a story about a feminist/sjw type doing something bad
Step 2) Watch the internet hate machine start up.
Step 3) Profit.

 

[Agayek]

In response to 'concerted effort of censorship': Concerted efforts imply people working together to achieve a goal. I'm going to slap a big ole [Citation needed] here, because as far as I can see, threads were shut down because people were unjustly dragging this ladies name through the mud. I'm actually disappointed that the Escapist has allowed this charade to go on as long as it has. Were I in charge at this site, I would have shut down any thread about Quinns personal life, perma banned astroturfers showing up here specifically to talk about it, and told anyone that didn't like it to fuck off, and ban their asses too.

You're right, that was a poor choice of words. Perhaps "universal" would have been better. Whatever it was, pretty much anyone across the entirety of the internet who so much as considered thinking about possibly maybe posting about it was banned and insulted, even when it was just to say "Wait hold up. I don't give a shit who she slept with, but doesn't it strike anyone as kinda weird that she slept with a journalist?"

In response to legit complaints about journalistic ethical breaches: You can't swing a dead cat around here without hitting a post talking about Quinn. If this were about ethics, why is everyone still talking about Quinn?

Fucked if I know. I can't speak for anyone who made those threads or posts about it. You'd have to ask them. From what I've seen from the people actively involved in #GamerGate though (which predominantly is the bigfuckhueg thread), Quinn left the conversation weeks ago. The only people who I can remember off-hand that have brought her up in the last week were people trying to insist the whole thing was about her, and the people who in turn told the first group to knock it off because she's irrelevant.

There's probably plenty of people talking shit about Quinn for whatever reason, that's kinda what happens to controversial figures on the internet, especially when they and their supporters keep insisting a ruckus is about them, but I haven't seen it happen in relation to #GamerGate without being shouted down.

In response to the 'gamers are dead' articles: I'm a gamer, and I think this community is filled with bile. I have zero sympathy for it as a whole.

That's fair, but a lot of other people apparently don't. There've been a great many people, and even devs (see: Wardell, Brad), who were rather offended by the articles. You can argue whether or not they should have been offended (personally, I find it kinda silly), but they were. They're sick of being insulted and talked down to by the press, and they gave a rather large push to the momentum of #gamergate.

My whole post there wasn't about the validity or lack thereof to the arguments. It was merely a basic rundown of the sequence of events, and an implicit question of "If there's nothing to this affair but Quinn's sex life, why did all this other shit keep happening?". I'll make that implicit question explicit now. Can you answer it?

As for how to exploit this to your own benefit:

Step 1) Show up on Reddit or 4chan with a story about a feminist/sjw type doing something bad
Step 2) Watch the internet hate machine start up.
Step 3) Profit.

And how, pray tell, does that distract the internet hate machine from the shinies of PAX or the latest shiny? You're insisting this is just a random hate mob with no purpose, but if there's no purpose, why haven't they been distracted by the various usually very distracting distractions that have come up?

 

[Jux]

My whole post there wasn't about the validity or lack thereof to the arguments. It was merely a basic rundown of the sequence of events, and an implicit question of "If there's nothing to this affair but Quinn's sex life, why did all this other shit keep happening?". I'll make that implicit question explicit now. Can you answer it?

I can answer your questions, though my answer is simply a personal opinion, however, one I feel is backed up by the historical views of large parts of the community.

It was actually answered in part in #189, but I'll expound a bit. First, a shit ball rolling downhill is bound to pick up stuff along the way. And while this may have been unintentional to those first pushing this, it actually works out in their favor. It's easier to pushback against blatant misogyny, but when you entangle it with actual causes worth fighting for, it becomes much harder to fight against without looking like the corrupt one. So while I'm sure that people hoped Quinn was actually guilty of a bunch of ethical breaches, it doesn't really matter anymore because other stuff has been exposed along the way. And yet Quinn is still at the center of this with the harassment and rape and death threats.

Second, there has always been a large part of the community that has pushed back against any calls for reform in the way of diversity, or ending sexism in gaming; basically an Us v Them, with 'us' (I don't actually include myself here, but rather use it as a substitute for the aformentioned part of the community) being the people that want to maintain the status quo. Sure, some people say it's about creative freedom, but all it is is a resistance to the percieved attack on their hobby and 'Them' being everyone in gaming that wants more diversity/inclusion in gaming and non gamers that criticize the mediums community for it's general vitriol.

And I think this whole gamergate thing is just a proxy war for that. People latched onto Quinn because she considers herself a feminist and is therefore 'the enemy', and her game got some good reviews. And when all this is over, Quinn is still going to be the first thing that comes to everyones mind when #gamergate is mentioned.

And how, pray tell, does that distract the internet hate machine from the shinies of PAX or the latest shiny? You're insisting this is just a random hate mob with no purpose, but if there's no purpose, why haven't they been distracted by the various usually very distracting distractions that have come up?

I wouldn't call it a mob without a purpose. There is a purpose behind it, as I feel I explained above.