How do we realistically stop harassment online?

[Plunkies]

Then there's also the fact that few, if any, of the allegations of professional victimhood make any damn sense to begin with. Somebody with a history of being the victim of public harassment campaigns would have to be a bloody idiot to fake a death threat and post their OWN real address to do it. Think of Occam's Razor - what makes more sense? That Anita Sarkeesian received a number of death threats with her home address from a sock puppet on Twitter, got her family to safety, called the police, and then decided to draw some attention to it as a "F*** you!" to the stalker, or that she decided she needed more publicity, faked a death threat in public using her own address (thus endangering her family), filed a false police report (exposing herself to criminal charges and jail time), and then draws attention to it all on Twitter (increasing the odds of her family being endangered and the scam being exposed)?

This isn't something you should even have to think about - the second scenario is just ludicrous.

I knew you wouldn't try to refute any of the evidence. Instead you just write off the entire idea as crazy and beyond consideration. That's not the purpose of Occam's Razor. It's a heuristic that suggests not making superfluous assumptions. By your logic every liar must be telling the truth regardless of evidence to the contrary.

I mean really....Why on earth would someone who directly profits from death threats possibly make a fake death threat prior to the release of an upcoming video, post it on the internet, and then immediately ask for donations. I mean, does that sound at all logical to anyone? Surely someone known for lying and attention seeking wouldn't lie for attention, right?

You say she called the police? Well she certainly said she did, unfortunately....

http://www.gamerheadlines.com/2014/09/anita-sarkeesian-faked-death-threats/

Multiple people went looking and, as it turns out, local pd has no history of any such report. Isn't that odd?

You say she wouldn't risk giving out her address but you're assuming that's her address based on her word alone. Despite not being logged in or even searching she, miraculously, was the only person on the entire internet to see the threats. There is no third party confirmation. For all we know it could have said anything.

The timing is suspicious.
The content of the messages is suspicious.
The screenshot itself is very suspicious.
And her behavior after the fact is both opportunistic and dishonest.

 

[GladiatorUA]

We can't. Realistically. It's a shitty and complicated issue that can't be resolved. Assholes... No, shitty people exist, they always did and they always will. What has changed in last one or two decades was the internet. Earlier, the number of shitty people you encountered was limited by the size of your social circle. Now, you interact with much more people on a daily basis, so more shitty people. And somehow they hijacked good name of an asshole. Being an asshole doesn't make you evil or a shitty person. But that's a different issue.

Also, somehow, internet knocked out a certain limiter in a lot of people, and now they deal in absolutes. Don't like someone or someone's being an asshole? "Get cancer and die!"... WTF?! I don't want to take away the right to lash out at someone, but get some degrees appropriate to the "crime". "Hit your toe on the table leg really hard!" or "Get a hemorrhoids the size of an apple!" are much more reasonable for most "crimes" committed on the internet. But the way people lash out today is really uncomfortable.

Then, there is bandwagonning and crowd mentality. Not so vocal people join the cause that resonates with them, follow people with loud and strong voices and lose their own nuanced opinions a moral limiters.

There is also corruption/perversion/hijacking of causes. Strong loud voices derail bandwagons and use them for their own agenda.

And "us vs them" thing combined with labeling.

You would think that internet would help to lessen rumors and misinformation when information is readily available, but comments on reddit with recaps of ZQ scandal, for example, prove otherwise.

None of these issues can be solved fast or at all. Bandwagonning can be attacked by Pavlovian training of new generation in critical thinking. Won't solve it, because humans are social creatures, will reduce it though... But, *tinfoil hat on* critical thinking is harmful for all sorts of agendas with money, marketing being the most harmless of them *tinfoil hat off*.

And even band-aids don't work on these issues. Community moderation and counterattacks against shitty people turn into attack squads that fight criticism and different opinions.

Twitter turned into a force for evil, because 140 symbols cuts out any nuance and makes it impossible to have any discussion...

Any solutions? Condition yourself to ignore harassment. Shitty people want reaction. Stick to moderated communities and demand muting and moderation(reporting) options in games.

Tl;dr: everything is shitty, nothing can be solved, and funnily enough it has nothing to do with gaming, and only about 20% to do with internet.

 

[Robert B. Marks]

Carnex: I actually have to move on now (other things require my attention, and I need to stop reading message boards for a while and actually get some work done). But, before I do, I just wanted to thank you for the conversation. A good, challenging discussion is something I always relish, and you provided a good one indeed. Thank you.

Plunkies: I discounted you the first time because you were making a number of allegations in a conspiracy theorist manner without any evidence to back it up. That said, your latest post is indeed worthy of attention, and thank you for posting the link. My only comment would be that to prove the allegation, you would also need to follow up with the other local authorities in the San Francisco area (as she did not specify that she had talked to the SFPD) - if indeed it turns out that she did fake the threats, that would be a serious matter indeed, and quite shameful.

 

[Robert B. Marks]

Hi all - back for a moment after getting my work and various things done, because there's a bit of information that is tangentially related to the conversation.

Today a reporter named Milo Yiannopoulis received confirmation that Anita Sarkeesian IS working with the FBI at this time. It is possible that the reason the police report didn't appear in the SFPD records is that it was transferred when the case went federal (or, likewise, it could be that she went through a different local authority to get to the FBI).

The link is here: https://twitter.com/Nero/status/510484796943114240

Either way, unless new information pops up, I think we can put the "faked death threat" theory to bed now.

Considering it was a topic of conversation, I thought people would want to know.

 

[Sticky]

HUGE EDIT: I've changed my mind about something; arguing in this topic is a little pointless when everything that could be said about it has already been said. We're just arguing about gamergate at this point, and we don't need a second gamergate thread on this forum.

I will say: The chances of Anita 'faking it' are low, especially on the public sphere of twitter where hatred is only a mouseclick away. At the same time, three tweets from an associate editor at Breitbart, the same tabloid that reported that the NWO would take over America by 2014 [http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/05/29/VP-Biden-Tells-Air-Force-Cadets-to-Create-a-New-World-Order], does not a credible source make. Especially with the lack of any police reports. All we have is 'good faith' that this one reporter who hasn't written an article on the matter somehow has access to which files have and haven't been transferred to the FBI.

Not wanting to get into an argument with you again, but one post before that, you made an allegation to someone else about this same topic:

because you were making a number of allegations in a conspiracy theorist manner without any evidence to back it up.

And I have to say: if the problem is baseless conjecture without credible evidence, then he isn't the only one.