GamerGate's Image Problem

[runic knight]

As far as this goes, I actually agree with you. While I'm not sure I'd accuse the motives of the press of trying to silence discussion to defend their buddies in the biz, it was a shoddy and knee-jerk response, that did highlight some problems in how some game journalists had come to view their role in the industry. Also, it gave the impression to a lot of people who had been wanting to know what was what, that there was no smoke without fire, and they really should have seen that coming.

Now, that's not me saying that they should have released reports into it until they actually had something of substance to report. Otherwise, they would just have been being the game industry equivalent of TMZ or Hello! Magazine (for the UK), neither of which are paragons of the touted journalistic integrity. However, when people were asking what was happening, they should have let it known they were looking into it, rather than ignoring it and actively trying to shut down the discussion. On that much, I believe GamerGate was right to take offence and campaign for better treatment.

However, there's a problem with you saying on this thread what any of this is and isn't 'about', while gamergate remains a nebulous movement with little agreed direction and no command structure, because then anyone who also claims to represent GamerGate can come along and start spewing crap, and for it to be taken as equally representative. I mean, we have people in this thread right now still trying to hang their arguments on what a conniving, abusive ***** they believe Quinn to be, while in the same breath claiming that they are the real victims of personal attacks.

You, personally, sound like you've got a level head on your shoulders, even if I still don't agree with your stance. However, in the context of everything that is happening around what you're saying, surely you can understand what it is about GamerGate that a lot of us don't have time for, and why were unconvinced by any one person trying to tell us what this is or isn't about?

All movements in history, no matter where they came from or what they stood for, that are remembered for making any kind of real progress, did so because they had leaders. The importance of leaders is that, when someone from the outside wants to get perspective on a movement and discuss their motives/aims, be they a government, a media outlet, or an ordinary citizen like me, they have people they know they can go to who are understood as being representative of at least the major thrust of said movement, and have some tangible control over where that movement goes next. You can talk to a person. You can talk to a small group of people, but you can't talk to thousands of people at once, who's voices all carry an equal amount of weight, because they will always contradict each-other and drown each-other out, because people, even when united by something like GamerGate, remain individuals with their own perspectives and priorities.

If GamerGate can't take control of it's own voice, and make sure it's conveying one, distinct message, then people like me will continue to be left in the dark as to what you really want.

I do understand, but leadership is one of those tricky things that no one seems to want to get at the moment outside the defacto ones like IA who don't really act like leaders. I would assume that the consistency of the perceived defacto heads to talk about the same points of journalistic corruption does what you say enough to argue the point is at least the majority, considering those following the bigger names in this discussion. Hell, I can't think of anyone with a lot of followers in this think that says it is about Zoe or Anita themselves, or really discusses them outside of as examples of journalistic failings or collusion.

I'll be the first to agree that genuine leadership and some sort of defining statement would be gold. I have been arguing or weeks about it now. But most people see this as a counterpoint to the corruption in gaming journalism and they know well fate awaits any who takes the reins of leadership. Hell, even de facto leaders such as Mundane matt and boogie got major pressure to pull away just for being perceived as leadership. Furthermore, it is hard to get people to accept leadership when they are burned by a group of close knit people who betrayed the public trust in them and who have connections to so many others. See m00t for instance. Even beyond that many argue, even if I disagree with this sentiment, that centralizing leadership and a message will make it easier to be misrepresented and dismissed. At the end of the day it is hard to get a crowd to take a leader when many don't seem to want one.

All that said, I do think there is general consensus in what the largest amount of people want. It is the same message you see coming from the gamergate side over and over here, on twitter and elsewhere. They want more transparency, they want more accountability, they want less deflection and insulting their audience. Even as a nebulous idea, that still is a consistent "Improve gaming journalism" notion.

What I never see is the things constantly claimed of gamergate. I never see people saying to kick out all women or that harassing is good. I never see people saying that reporters can't have their own opinions or friends.

I get the benefits of leadership and readily agree, but I don't think the masses here are so varied or their calls so different that such a banner to unite under is critical when it is consistent enough about journalism itself and consistently not about the bullshit slandered about it by the detractors and deflectors.

 

[Something Amyss]

What sparks a movement and the movement itself are in many cases 2 very different things

If only that were the case here.

 

[Velventian]

What sparks a movement and the movement itself are in many cases 2 very different things

If only that were the case here.

You really just can´t pass up a post without adding your noise can you...

 

[Something Amyss]

You really just can´t pass up a post without adding your noise can you...

I'm curious: do you actually have a real dispute with what I said? If so, feel free to address it. I'm betting it'll be about as inaccurate as was your analogy of the American Revolution, but go on.

If you're trying to prove that GameGate has any level of value beyond the crap that started it, complaining that I responded is a poor way to do it.

 

[aliengmr]

ZOMG! Leigh Alexander tweeted an Irish drinking joke! Adam Sessler employed some unflattering hyperbole! It's the story of the century!

Yes, I'm sure we'll all be looking forward to future revelations from Yiannopoulos with bated breath.

Oh, Ultratwinkie, since you're so worried about journos saying mean things?

I understand why young people might get the odd thrill from beating up a bad guy, or catching a glimpse of a nipple or two. But there?s something a bit tragic, isn?t there, about men in their thirties hunched over a controller whacking a helmeted extraterrestrial? I?m in my late twenties, and even I find it sad. And yet there are so many of them ? enough to support a multi-billion dollar video games industry. That?s an awful lot of unemployed saddos living in their parents? basements.

Is it that these games provide a bit of macho reinforcement to the terminally beta? It is hard to escape that conclusion. Might I suggest that if you want to feel like more of a man, you should head down to the gym or the football pitch. buff up and then bang a few birds ?IRL??

Perhaps that?s why this whole genre leaves me cold: by the time I get home from a night out, The Little Mermaid is about as racy a piece of entertainment as I can stomach. There are benefits to having seen it all before, you see: it means you?re even better at it than the kids.

That was Milo's opinion of you [http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/comment/column/5344/am-i-too-old-for-video-games/] before he decided to exploit the "movement's" seemingly unending supply of gullibility, desperation and futile, self-destructive hatred for clicks. A guy now working at Breitbart because the Telegraph -- basically the New York Post of Britain -- got so sick of his embarrassingly shoddy reporting that they fired him.

Any surprise to you that nobody outside of GG was wowed by "Milo to the rescue"? Beyond that, think it might be worthwhile to grow a little self-respect and just admit to yourself that if someone like Milo is your last champion, your "cause" just isn't worth it? Notice how he sounds exactly like a garden-variety jock bully? That's what most of the MRA misogynists egging you on really are, or (in the sadder cases) just aspire to be. That's why #GamerGate looks like a bullying campaign trying to dress itself up as something it isn't.

This has been has been my problem from the start, when has conservative social views ever wanted to add to gaming? I'm not talking about Conservatives, I'm talking about the social views, which have been held by various ideologies. To be even more specific, what has "Fox news" given to gaming, symbolically speaking.

From trying to legislate games in the 90's to scapegoating them even today, when someone like Milo pops up my alarms start going off. I mean the tone seems to be that of wanting to censor ourselves. GG doesn't want Journalists talking about it, but whats next?

I want to make this very clear, so long as it ADDS to gaming and doesn't take away, ALL views are welcome in my book. A game's content is between the developer and their consumers, period.

Bottomline is this, what Milo said about gamers was FAR worse than what Leigh Alexander said. If gamergate is going to literally say, "Well he's helping us." you have no credibility with me.

 

[Velventian]

You really just can´t pass up a post without adding your noise can you...

I'm curious: do you actually have a real dispute with what I said? If so, feel free to address it. I'm betting it'll be about as inaccurate as was your analogy of the American Revolution, but go on.

If you're trying to prove that GameGate has any level of value beyond the crap that started it, complaining that I responded is a poor way to do it.

That brings to mind a saying "Playing chess with a pigeon reaps no benefit, even if you play right and are about to win the pigeon will just strut around the board, shit on the pieces and declare himself victor."

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Dont know why people are getting so worked up about it. Some woman used sex to gain reviews from game reviewers. So what? Woman have been using their bodies to their advantage for centuries. Only thing that can come out of it is those reviewers have lost their ability to review games with an unbiased opinion and thus their careers are over. As for Quinn, whatever, dont care about the woman, so is she the first woman to cheat? The only people it effects are Quinn and her husband/boyfriend. Other than that its no bodies business. An all the hate mail and death threats should stop, people are acting like they are directly effected by it and none of them were (unless you are the wife/girlfriend of those game reviews).

 

[RexMundane]

Thats the issue right there:

Look at these journalists doing bad things, where is the outrage?

OMG LOOK AT THAT.

It ignores the original point. It ignores anything of value using red herrings. How can we fight intolerance if people want to look the other way every single fucking time?

I said that people's willingness to look the other way was disgusting. That we let gaming journalists get away with things that normal journalists WOULD NEVER get away with. I said that gamers didn't want to do any actual effort to reform gaming because its a "lost cause" or because some mouthpiece has been saying what they were thinking for years.

I have been saying this for weeks.

And this isn't exaggerated outrage, this is real outrage. That despite saying how they will "fight for diversity" so I can play as someone of my own race, they turn back around and try to dictate what all minorities should feel. They brow beat minorities into towing the line.

That against all their rhetoric, they lied so they can build reputation and look cool.

Well that isn't going to fly. You can still not like gamergate and still call out unethical actions.

But somehow people create imaginary party lines because of reasons.
Its somehow either "journalists are fine" or "omg misogyny!"

Its a false dichotomy that you are pushing.

I didn't mention party lines or politics, or minorities or misogyny or intolerance. I didn't say your outrage was un-real. I didn't say that modern game journalism is fine as-is. To the topic of the thread on "Gamergate's Image Problem," I was trying, civilly as I could, to indicate that the kind of accusatory, unfocused accusations and paranoid behavior exhibited in that post, and the fact that it is not uncommon within the movement, is to the detriment of whatever "good" they might accomplish.

To your tangential issues about the "bad things" the journalists were doing? Aside from having to point out Sessler quit games journalism a while ago precisely because he didn't want to deal with the amount of abuse he was getting (Links: Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/memories-of-my-16-year-career-in-video-games-1580581507], and Archive.today mirror [https://archive.today/0hPUo]), I am unconvinced that they are as bad as you say, or are indicative of any further rot beyond the revelation that people in the middle of a protracted twitter argument tend to say things they, on reflection, shouldn't. To which point, many have apologized, and the ones who haven't, I can see why they'd refuse to give an inch of vindication to the worst of the harassers. Beyond that, if I'm reading the "earth-shattering" emails correctly, the bad behavior seems to be saying further bad things in emails, and arranging a show of sympathy to victims of online harassment which, I have to tell you, I don't perceive as evil. And it's your job to try to convince people that it is, and returning back to the thread topic, that's why the movement has to deal with its image problem.

The entire backlash against gamergate used those arguments. That we shouldn't go after toxicity in journalism because of a problem you have a particular movement. Copy pasted everywhere. Ties into gamergate's image.

Do you stomp on puppies because PETA did something stupid?

Do you destroy nature because of what greenpeace did?

No. Good causes are good causes regardless of movements. Its this mentality that gives gamergate its little "image problem." That somehow a cause is only as good as its movement.

Adam Sessler still does games journalism:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/04/02/adam-sessler-leaving-rev3-games-to-pursue-new-avenues-in-video-games/

And that is just the tip off the iceberg of hateful comments:

http://gamergateharassment.tumblr.com/

Greg Tito was harassed using the mailing list, and condemned it on twitter. Boogie too. Many developers came forward and said so. In fact, the mailing list was used to do a media black out because the journalists were "friends." In fact, this is a huge breach of ethics. There shouldn't be a journalist council censoring and spinning stories.

The press should be free, not by council a few figureheads. 47 pages of more collusion which not even normal journalists could get away with. Merely having a secret mailing list at all costs someone their job in real journalism.

and that's the major problem: Somehow games journalists are demigods who can never be wrong on anything. Even when some journalists apologized like Movie Bob, they went right back to insults.

Gaming journalists should not be on a level above actual journalists. They should have the same consequences as anyone else.

Even if it was just twitter bullshit, real journalists would be fired for what these people said. Yet advertisers gave them a warning where a real journalist is immediately fired.

That's the major issue here, that since all these journalists circle wagons around each other that they can do whatever they please regardless of ethics, morality, or the state of the industry.

Gamergate's issue with image stems from a beaten down gamer demographic, and the mentality that causes are only as good as their movements.

Both are incredibly wrong because we have the power to reform the industry and good causes are good causes regardless. But years of being told "we are helpless" actually made gamers believe it.

The sting of tribalism and party lines also contributes because gaming has a star struck problem where a famous person is treated as an infallible god.

So it becomes a fight of whose "god" is more powerful.

...I keep having to double check myself when I'm responding to you, and I honestly don't mean this as a dismissive insult, but will you listen to yourself, please? A "Journalist Council" of "Demigods," intolerant racist bullies of cancer patients with no ethics or morals, "beating down" the "helpless" gamers who've done no wrong? This is how you genuinely see the conflict?

I mean, look, this is a major part of the problem right here. You've all amplified the nature of this into a massive "Us vs. Them, Good vs. Evil" thing and it isn't healthy. People can't just disagree with the nature of the problem as you see it without being "disgusting," or "evil," or somehow just unworthy of being treated as humans who only need to be persuaded.

I mean forget the abuse harrassment and death threats (by which I mean, you know, DON'T actually forget it, but lets just move beyond for the moment), forget that this all started with vulgar accusations about a woman's sex life being used to get good press for her project, forget the harassment Sarkeesian was getting for revealing she received death threats, forget that the primary sympathetic news outlet is Breitbart which has had a checkered past with the facts, to put it very mildly.

Forget all that and we're left with this. This as the image of Gamergate. And it's impossible to take you seriously.

 

[Something Amyss]

That brings to mind a saying "Playing chess with a pigeon reaps no benefit, even if you play right and are about to win the pigeon will just strut around the board, shit on the pieces and declare himself victor."

How does that not describe what you're doing here?

I'm asking for something of substance, and you're just flinging accusations and sayings. Actually, that's a pretty perfect metaphor for GamerGate overall.

 

[Velventian]

That brings to mind a saying "Playing chess with a pigeon reaps no benefit, even if you play right and are about to win the pigeon will just strut around the board, shit on the pieces and declare himself victor."

How does that not describe what you're doing here?

I'm asking for something of substance, and you're just flinging accusations and sayings. Actually, that's a pretty perfect metaphor for GamerGate overall.

I already spent about 20 posts discussing with you in the old threat before i figured out the only reason you will listen to are your own, so i am not gonna waste any more time here.

 

[aliengmr]

However, I'm actually curious about how it feels now that the factual feminist video has completely obliterated all of the arguments that were made by SJWs when it comes to gaming?

I honestly feel nothing at all about it personally. What I will say is the, seemingly, endless stream of videos attempting to refute Anita Sarkeesian's videos are ultimately proof that her videos were a success. Agree or disagree, the conversation is happening.

 

[Something Amyss]

I already spent about 20 posts discussing with you in the old threat before i figured out the only reason you will listen to are your own, so i am not gonna waste any more time here.

That's news to me. Which old thread? I don't even particularly remember your name, so this would be a surprise to me. In fact, I had to go back eight pages of your post history to find a single thread we'd both posted in, and in the two cases there, I can't find any posts in which one of us responded to the other.

I mean, I'm not going to go through each and every one of your posts, so I can't preclude it. But I've been through enough of your posts to give me reason to doubt your claims.

 

[Velventian]

I already spent about 20 posts discussing with you in the old threat before i figured out the only reason you will listen to are your own, so i am not gonna waste any more time here.

That's news to me. Which old thread? I don't even particularly remember your name, so this would be a surprise to me. In fact, I had to go back eight pages of your post history to find a single thread we'd both posted in, and in the two cases there, I can't find any posts in which one of us responded to the other.

I mean, I'm not going to go through each and every one of your posts, so I can't preclude it. But I've been through enough of your posts to give me reason to doubt your claims.

Yes just like last time you said you went through all my posts and concluded that i don´t take action to meet my words.
But nice you are sticking to the classics. Take a glass of water out of the ocean, see no fish in the glass and declare there are no fish in the ocean and call it a victory.
If that kind behavior wasn´t so repetitive and annoying it might just be funny, but isn´t.

 

[runic knight]

Its hard to call that a strawman though when many people are making it about those things from within GamerGate. Especially considering how many of these journalists and pundits received a lot of hate for the anti-Quinn stuff prior to the inception of GG and even afterwards. Then there's accusations that they're corrupt because... these people in games media think the industry is less corrupt than some random person on twitter.

ugh...so messy. Hate large quote trees.

I don't get your point here. Journalists and pundits got a lot of hate for protecting a woman in a way that represented a conflict of interest and outside professional relationship. Yes, that is sort of known. Accusations that they are corrupt stem from how they acted and worked together in a way that was beyond a professional relationship and represented collusion. I fail to see your point about this other then getting me to restate the obvious.

Here's the thing though, people are getting caught up on that, and people their biases because of that. If this is about journalists baiting people, they're doing a good job, seeing as how many people take the bait.

You know, most of the time people are talking about how it relates to journalism itself up to and until people who dislike gamergate storm in and start calling them harassers and saying they need to stop making this all about zoe or anita. Sort of funny how that works really.

So again with the analogy, a crime committed with a weapon, and then while people are discussing the crime and the weapon, someone jumps in and starts complaining about how it is weaponist to talk about the weapon, utterly ignoring the crime itself to win brownie points or something in distracting the overall discussion with a red herring.

It does feel as if you are arguing that because people are talking about SJW negatively, that it is an attack on social justice itself.

Um, yeah.
I can think of an real instance of something like that happening.
> George Zimmerman shoots Trayvon Martin.
> Media cries "racism".
> People defending Zimmerman say "George Zimmerman was just defending himself, its got nothing to do with the niggers."

Is it any surprise that people call those defending Zimmerman bigots when many of them clearly are?

Sorry but your analogy just doesn't really fit as your third point has people actually being racist instead of complaining about a tactic or behavior in the news itself and then being called racist for daring to call the behavior out. Try it more as
> George Zimmerman shoots Trayvon Martin.
> Media cries "racism".
> People call the media out for publicity spin and narrative crafting for views.

Now keep in mind, both in the example and in gamergate that I am not saying such racists don't exist. I am arguing that they are not the majority nor the cause of the movement though and that it is intentionally dishonest to keep representing so many people as such.

Its pretty easy to not get hung up on misrepresentation. Just don't engage it any more than it takes for you to dismiss it, because otherwise you take the bait, you reveal your bias, and motives become questionable. The motives of a lot of GGers are questionable because they're engaging things other than about journalism.

so, you readily admit that people are baited into engaging the behavior as they have to somehow address the false claims but you still insist that makes their efforts about people like Zoe or anita or about SJ in the whole and thus the movement is obsessed with it?

I... I honestly am at a lose of words on how you can admit it is bullshit yet still defend it.

as for Anita, you are both right and wrong. Yes, they do not have anything to do with people's complaints about journalism. That said, how they treat her, and how she deflects criticisms, has jumped into this discussion and her ties to many involved has made her at least tangentially relevant as an example of journalistic impropriety.

Whats the journalistic impropriety regarding her, exactly? There's plenty of opinion pieces regarding her, but, you know, opinion pieces. Gaming websites couln't survive without them, and I don't recall having seen any of that seep into reporting about her, aside from whenever she gets harassed online, or somebody else namedrops her, I don't really see any reporting about her. In fact, the most recent articles I've seen where she's mentioned is her and her family's death threats being investigated by the FBI, and how the GDC got a bomb threat over Anita being up for an award. I don't see the impropriety regarding her, you're really going to have to explain that.

Well how about having close personal friendships and even sexual relationships and not recusing themselves to start with? Or how her influence sank TFYC game project the first time around and no one would cover the story?
How about why she gets coverage at all for being harassed when so many others online certainly do not.
How about how game journalists worked together to try to censor discussion on her and then attempted to buy her a gift. Hell the example of trying to get the escapist itself to shut down the thread. Or what about directly supporting her financially?

Impropriety stemming from her influence within the news media is not exclusive to good press. Blacklisting people, getting opinion pieces over others because of friendships, attempting to cover up misdeeds and finacially supporting the people they should keep at a professional distance would all be improper in a professional setting. Hell, in any real job environment, how they acted would have them fired. I have meet grocery store baggers with more professionalism ten I have seen on display in the papers and on twitter.

No, its not, unless its solely in the context of saying "GamerGate isn't about Anita Sarkeesian" and nothing more. But I go on, and see people say "Oh those death threats aren't real, she's such a professional victim" and shit like that. We're seeing that here on The Escapist. If GamerGate was about journalism for those people, they wouldn't engage the Anita conversation.

You mean the death threats reported by the media in direct response to their dirty laundry suddenly being aired? You mean the 6 month old story that seemed to suspiciously be dropped right when they needed a distraction?

Yeah, there is relevance to her, as I have argued before, but that doesn't make it about her so much as an example of the lack of integrity over all in the gaming media. And the sad part is it may well have been an honest story but their credibility is so shot that it still looks suspiciously like desperate distraction.

Maybe people would stop talking about anita and the like if A. people stopped trying to tell gamergate that it is about them (instead of them being examples as I have explained) and B. if the journalists in question stopped promoting and supporting and deflecting in articles and on twitter to try to make this about her.

as for Zoe, well, she exactly the same as Anita. She isn't anyone important and her relevance here stems entirely from her being the spark that started the investigation, as well as her being an example of the crime itself. There are examples of her exerting influence that she should not possess in the journalistic industry to affect others such as TFYC, Wozniac and the wizardchan thing.

Um, yeah.

Proof.

Of an improperly close relationship, there is tons of it. From how they worked to censor discussions to cover each other, to them supporting each other financially through patron, to a multitude of other things.

Here, most recent example of a relationship that is improperly close for a professional position, as being a journalist is suppose to be. http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/09/18/The-emails-that-prove-video-games-journalism-must-be-reformed

Though I know people dislike the conservative bend they have, what is revealed is exactly what has been argued by myself and others, that these people are not acting in a professional manner.

I keep seeing people say this. And then they never provide anything remotely legitimate. Usually just some weird chart with a bunch of red lines going "Look, people in this industry know each other! Oh the humanity!" Funny how everybody backs The Fine Young Capitalists, yet they've provided no evidence for pretty much all of their claims, but people take their word because then it gives an excuse to beat up Zoe Quinn. What about Wizardchan, what is the evidence that harassment didn't exist? "Uh, I didn't see anything" from a bunch of channers, which is like saying "I didn't see any underage drinking at the party, therefore it didn't exist! Drop the charges on the kids at the party!" It doesn't hold up. Its even worse if you claim that Quinn targeted wizardchan, becuase not only does no evidence of that exist, but it reveals a strong anti-Quinn bias, because rather than work under the presumption that some people on the internet might be idiotic assholes (because thats never happened, noooooo...) you claim that she rallied people to deliberately attack the site.

Whatever "Wozniac" is, I've never heard anybody mention it before, so I'm thinking that its ironically the one claim that has any teeth to it yet nobody is using because GG standards of evidence are poo.

You dismiss everything against journalists wholesale because you dislike the implications. I get it. You believe what the journalists tell you wholesale because they tell you. I get it.

I could go dig up the screenshots of the 2 posts that the channers themselves managed to find mentioning Zoe during the wizardchan debacle, but you failed to even understand why people are upset. It was that the journalists didn't investigate the story and instead just ran it resulting in a backlash against a group of people that were innocent of it but harassed anyways because guilt by association to the "harassing" 2 comments posted on the board. I could go dig all this up from the main thread, again, but I know you will dismiss them so rather then exert a lot of extra effort on my part, I'll just stick with the above response for now and the one above it showing that yes, they are not acting in a professional manner and no amount of handwaves or scoffing dismiss drivel about "they can't have friends?!?" will suddenly make their collusion acceptable behavior.

I've heard those two examples, but none other. And you're right that people follow the process correctly, but then the very same people are acting as if the "evidence" provided by Zoe's ex is super duper legitimate because screencaps are the most legit evience ever, as if there's any evidence at all that Zoe defrauded TFYC or orchestrated an attack on wizardchan, yet I see a lot of GGers asking for this to be reported. Standards of evidence. There has been only one single corroboration of anything Zoe's ex said, from Kotaku. Nobody has come forward or presented anything remotely definitive of impropriety. A lot of GamerGate is asking for more journalistic investigation, and then in a separate breath asking for TMZ tabloid reporting because it involves Quinn or Anita. You know when Quinn brought up those claims that 4chan was orchestrating the thing? I don't think that they should've reported that. Why? Somebody with a major personal stake in an event, with only supposedly legitimate screencaps of anonymous people on the internet saying things? I wouldn't have even given that the time of day, let alone take the time to debunk it like Tito did.

Your dismissal is funny since the "screencaps" in that instance are a little more sophisticated then just the printscreen function your label suggests, to say nothing of the irony that the journalists who ran the wizardchan story with no evidence, suddenly became so discerning about the quality of evidence now.
Standards of evidence and consistency of standards are demanded. When people accepted journalists as little more then tabloids, the issue was a lack of consistency., After people investigated things themselves (since the media sure as hell refused to), then they shifted from "why aren't you publishing this story" and into the general call of just all out reform.
I am glad you don't think they should have reported on wizardchan. But after Tito admitted to not running the story correctly, he gained some respect for seeking to fix that mistake. And while the damage was long done, the twitterites raid of the wizardchan community having happened months prior, it was still representative of someone tryng to be honest about mistakes at the very least. why do you think Tito shouldn't have addressed it (also why do you say "debunk" when he revealed himself they didn't investigate it?)

I've not heard anything regarding the boss. Grayson, yes, Kotaku corroborated that. Still nothing regarding any of the others.

I beleive it was the man's wife who collaborated the second one.

But then again, there was no investigation by journalists into the matter and all inquiry lead to a massive vitriolic response of calling people misogynists, shutting down all conversation on it they could, reaching out to shut down conversations elsewhere and so forth.

Maybe these inquirers wouldn't be considered a bunch of misogynists if they didn't turn it into a conspiracy, and rather would just say "We didn't any evidence of it, we're not pursuing the matter." Now some people did do the latter, because GamerGate has no structure, no unified vision, the people for whom this is about taking down Zoe Quinn for fighting the SJWs, they didn't, and they started making laughable charts with lines as "evidence", the kind of charts that the very same people laugh at when its made by a guy who claims that the moon landing was faked. Standards of evidence are quite lacking.

ok, first off, "misogynist" is a label for those who hate women. At this point there is no excuse to label them that in any capacity. No, "being a conspiracy theorist" is not an excuse for a mislabel, especially not one that is openly dismissive and dehumanizing when improperly placed like that. They investigated a woman, not because she is a woman, but because of her actions. That is not hatred of her for being a woman and your attempts to excuse the label as such is outright disgusting. It undermines the weight of the word when you change the meaning from "hatred of woman" into "did something I disagreed with to an individual who happened to be a woman".
Your scorn of the evidence is noted and disregarded though. See, the thing you kinda forget in all of this is that the majority of us aren't actually investigators or reporters. We are gamers trying to find the answers the journalists refuse to report on and shame and blame any who ask questions. Now Milo, he is a reporter and your criticisms of him on that would be valid. But the thing about not being professionals ourselves, yeah, means we don't have professional standards, we just have ourselves to try to sort though and keep things on topic. It is messy but at this point, we have little other options since people we ask keep calling us misogynists. Imagine that?

Or because they're not going to report on the baseless accusations of an angry ex out to ruin their former partner's image, because that would make them TMZ. Yeah, they did fuck up, but once the Wizardchan stuff came to light, they had two options - give into the pressure and end up doing the very same thing they were doing before and not do any research before reporting anything, or use it as an opportunity to stop reporting without the facts but then look like they're covering shit up. Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

The implications of professional wrongdoing merited investigation. I don't care how much you refuse to comprehend that, but in the real world any such reasonable accusation of impropriety like that is investigated because of the weight it carries. Even a simple declaration of investigation and a story dismissing it would have been seen as due diligence on the topic. Instead we had the mass censorship, journalistic hate and deflection stories and so on. They handled this as poorly as a group possibly could and showed everyone in the community they lacked the professionalism to handle the position. Simple as that.

You say that things were different from the wizardchan thing, but I have to ask: Why? At this point it had not been revealed that they screwed the pooch on the wizardchan story previously (as investigation into that happened after the media refused to run the story and started openly calling people misogynists and shutting down discussions.) Your timeline is out of order and it reveals your presumed motivations as not fitting. Especially true when even after the wizardchan thing, they continued to run the slander gamer articles, showing they did not actually care about a standard of evidence and instead were still willing to run generalizations and stereotypes. thus the question becomes, of all the stories they have run, from the Max Tempkin one to wizardchan to "gamers are dead", why was the zoe quinn one given special consideration? Well that is the question that fueled the investigation and and started this.

 

[AntiChri5]

Dont know why people are getting so worked up about it. Some woman used sex to gain reviews from game reviewers. So what? Woman have been using their bodies to their advantage for centuries. Only thing that can come out of it is those reviewers have lost their ability to review games with an unbiased opinion and thus their careers are over. As for Quinn, whatever, dont care about the woman, so is she the first woman to cheat? The only people it effects are Quinn and her husband/boyfriend. Other than that its no bodies business. An all the hate mail and death threats should stop, people are acting like they are directly effected by it and none of them were (unless you are the wife/girlfriend of those game reviews).

Actually, she didn't. She fucked a journalist a few months after he wrote a thing where she got an offhand mention.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Dont know why people are getting so worked up about it. Some woman used sex to gain reviews from game reviewers. So what? Woman have been using their bodies to their advantage for centuries. Only thing that can come out of it is those reviewers have lost their ability to review games with an unbiased opinion and thus their careers are over. As for Quinn, whatever, dont care about the woman, so is she the first woman to cheat? The only people it effects are Quinn and her husband/boyfriend. Other than that its no bodies business. An all the hate mail and death threats should stop, people are acting like they are directly effected by it and none of them were (unless you are the wife/girlfriend of those game reviews).

Actually, she didn't. She fucked a journalist a few months after he wrote a thing where she got an offhand mention.

So the problem is what? She did it as a reward for mentioning her? I just have trouble with why anyone should care.

 

[Ticklefist]

Just looking over this thread real quick, the pontificating certainly doesn't help.