Slashdot Mirror
Bounties vs. Extreme Internet Harassment
squiggleslash writes Brianna Wu, a game studio owner in Boston, found herself the target of numerous anonymous death threats last month, apparently the escalation of a campaign that started when she spoke up for women in gaming, and that intensified during the GamerGate train wreck. Rather than hide, she's offering an $11,000+ cash reward for anyone who helps put her attacker in jail, and she's reporting — albeit at a time many see GamerGate being in its death throes — that it's already having an effect. Wu is also setting up a legal fund to go after those promoting more extreme libels against her and others, with screenshots of a forged tweet purporting to be written by her still circulating around the Internet.
1. Why do we seriously need threats prison time to get people to knock off threating to rape and murder people, or threats of lawsuits to have people not forge the kind of libelous "evidence" that drives such hatred in the first place?"
2. What happens to those without the resources? I'm guessing most of those who suffer this kind of extreme harassment aren't rich enough to own game studios.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Dear Internet,
We, the women of the Internet, hereby demand to be treated with respect and dignity. We refuse to be talked down to, insulted, or otherwise degraded while on-line. Furthermore we demand that you finally acknowledge that we do in fact understand technology and the internet as well as any...
Why are you laughing?!?! STOP LAUGHING! That's it, I'm suing someone! Give me your name... got it... Seemore... Butts... Got it, We'll be seeing you in court... Mr.... hey!!! Get back here.
Damn my spotlight is fading out. Lets get the media machine going so I can get back in the limelight.
Really I don't know which bothers me more, that the press forms these phalanxes to shove alternate realities down our throats in a way that would have George Orwell blanching or that people line up and lap it up.
Do you seriously think if anyone didn't want the death threats and publicity that comes with them, they would go around DARING people on the internet to make threats against them ?
It's not even about that one guy. This is a (repeated) tactic to slander other people who legitimately disagree with her, and distract from the Gamergate scandal.
If Nathan Grayson, Patricia Hernandez, et al were Republicans, Gamergate would be handled exactly like the journalism scandal that it is. The corrupt writers would lose their jobs, their employers would acknowledge the seriousness of the situation and at least attempt to convince us that that it wouldn't happen again, and the rest of their ilk would be watched like a hawk for evidence of similar transgressions for a long, long time.
But no. Because the perpetrators were extreme leftists, they're afraid that the scandal might give folks like Fox News and Limbaugh political ammo*, so there was a complete media blackout, the likes of which I've never seen before (not a SINGLE article detailing the corruption, on ANY tech/gaming site, for a week). Another part of the blackout was blanket censorship in user forums/comments, up to and including reddit and--no bullshit--4chan. IMO this censorship of users merely discussing the scandal is still the most oppressive (and damning) anti-GG measure of all.
And then when the blackout didn't work, they colluded in a synchronized shotgun blast of articles to slander their core audience and intimidate any dissenters among them. The long-running smear campaign that began with the "Gamers are Dead" articles continues to this day, and the popularity of Gamergate is the long-running response to it. Every criticism and call for integrity is met with completely irrelevant accusations of misogyny and right-wing motivations. Gamers are (rightly) astonished and appalled to see corruption defended so vigorously (and uniformly).
And now that the smear campaign isn't working either, anonymous threats are used as an excuse to again slander the movement (this time as terrorists) and completely ignore the corruption. So of course as the smear campaign ramped up, the popularity of Gamergate ramped up accordingly--it's averaged over 50K tweets per day for a while now. And the gaming press, having addressed almost none of its ethics issues (to say nothing of its contempt for the gaming community), regularly feigns disbelief that Gamergate hasn't "burned out" yet in one-sided opinion pieces that, if anything, more than prove the need for the movement.
The crazy thing is that Gamergate itself is largely leftist. I am right-wing on many issues, but I've been impressed by (and learned something from) the integrity of the vast majority of left-leaning individuals in Gamergate. They just want journalism they can trust. They want the bad eggs removed, even if the bad eggs share many of their political stances. They understand that circling the wagons to protect "the cause" and "do good work" is likely to result in far more harm to the cause in the long run.
The mainstream media has now taken notice, and is just as happy as the tech press to pretend the journalistic lapses and cover up never happened, and to slander Gamergate as right-wing misogynist terrorists, all to support the invented narrative. It's an all too familiar story to those of us who've seen the mainstream media portray DVD ripping as grand theft auto, net neutrality as communism, or Jack Thompson as a defender of morality. But in this case, unbelievably, even here on Slashdot there hasn't been a Gamergate article yet that doesn't go out of its way to frame the whole issue in terms of misogyny and harrassment (much less an article that's pro- or even neutral). Is Slashdot politically motivated to misrepresent this issue? The question is moot, because most of those articles got 500-1200 replies each, so the Gawker-style clickbaiting is motivation enough. As far as we know, Slashdot's editors are kicking themselves for not praising Jack Thompson years ago as a hero activist.
* not an invalid fear, but you have to cross that bridge when you come to it. If you try to pre-emptively murder the truth then you
The threats were not serious. Going "OMG they have my ADDRESS!!! I have to move out!!!" She reported it to the police (the right thing to do) but temporarily moving was HER decision, not a police recommendation.
People who make threats on the Internet do so because they're scared punks who hide behind anonymity. Would they actually go and DO something physical? Of course not - that would risk the very anonymity that allows them to act like punks in the first place.
I get it - you let a bunch of anonymous freaks get to you. But doesn't there come a time when you should stop feeding them by showing how seriously you take them? The perps are laughing themselves silly at this point, because that's what trolls do - get an emotional (as opposed to rational) reaction. Anyone connected with IT knows you DFTT - unless you're trolling them back :-)
Time was when everyone's name and address were public - we had this thing called a "phone book". For those of you too young to remember, go watch the original Terminator, where "Ahh-nold" gets the list of Sarah Connors from a phone book. Who cares is some coward has your address? Really?
And before some punk says "So why don't you post your address online for all the cyber-bullies?" - already did that in another user's journal discussion on gamergate.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Those are the types of pranks 4chan does. They don't actually kill people.
Except for the guy who posted on 4chan a couple days ago about killing his girlfriend. The girlfriend's kid came home from school and found her body.
#DeleteChrome
Gotcha... You would rather live in a Soviet or Iranian style police state where even the smallest bit of mindless nonsense is treated like a threat against the state.
Now hoooooold on thar, pardner! I'm more or less with you in this debate, but your hyperbole is old and tired. There's a very big difference between death threats against a private citizen, and seditious speech. And let's face it, a death threat is kiddie grade terrorism. There's nothing defensible about it in these circumstances whatsoever. It is a form of assault, and it should be investigated and prosecuted. We could argue about what constitutes a threat (I'm not going to, but we could) but if you think it's okay to tell people that you're going to kill them, then you really are part of the problem. Words do have consequences, you are responsible for what comes out of your face, act accordingly. Obviously, the same goes for any other kind of expression. You're only responsible for other people's mental state as a result of your words if, in short, you are trolling. If your goal is simply to hurt them, that's not actually legal. It's a form of assault, and the law recognizes that in certain clear-cut cases.
Death threats are the children's version of terrorism. Only abject cowards engage in such pathetic behavior in an attempt to change others' actions, however they might feel about them. They might be justified if used to prevent violence. Not in this case.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
People who have gotten death threats have actually wound up dead
And many many many more have gotten killed without death threats. And many many many more have not had anything bad happen to them after getting death threats.
No one has any problem with investigating credible death threats. Random Internet death threats have just proven not to be credible. There is simply not enough resources to investigate them all. Simply a sad fact of life.
How much of a loser do you have to be to make death threats over anything remotely linked to video games?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Wouldn't it be funny if the pro-GG side found the person sending the threats and collected on the $11k? A few months ago when GG was still housed on /v/ the reaction to people posting hateful/abrasive stuff on twatter was always called out and the poster berated for being an idiot. The pro-GG side doesn't stand for harassment on either side; the ones harassing people are on the extremes or are trolls looking to make trouble.
Food for thought: The major camps in GG can be summed up like this:
1. Trolls who make the death threats or are trying to inflame the issue (both sides).
2. People genuinely concerned with ethics in games Journalism (TotalBiscuit).
3. "Games Journalism" Media/central anti figures (Quinn, Wu, etc, anti), attempting to either silence group 2's dissent or gain fame by playing up their victimization. The "'"I'm being forced out of my home by death threats' on her way to the airport to fly to a conference filled with thousands of people she doesn't know" type and the "gamers are dead" type.
4. Those reacting to group 3's name-calling/bully-tactics (Boogie). The "average Joe/Jane" gamer who doesn't like being called a misogynist or a hateful person for just playing games.
5. Those supporting group 3 because of the harassment from group 1 (pro), who seem to be seeing a social issue (innocent woman being attacked by evil men) and want to fight against that. Views group 2/4 as slut-shaming victim-blaming patriarchy and has no intention of changing that view.
I also found it rather ironic when Sarkeesian went on Colbert and talked about how too many women portrayed in video games were damsels in distress and asked why more women couldn't solve their own problems.
destroying the lives of kids saying stupid things online.
Me? I'd call it a valuable life lesson.
The moment you target someone else, personally and by name, and threaten to kill them... that's a very clear and very obvious line. There's nothing slippery about it. Protection against threats like that is not a police state. It's called civilization. I don't care if the cesspools of the internet have been getting away with it up until now just because it didn't catch the public's eye. Enough's enough. This shit has got to stop, and frankly, it appears that the only way to make it stop is if people have a reasonable fear that there might be real-world consequences - that's something few people like to admit. Their rights stop right at the line where they start trying to ruin other people's lives.
It's pretty damn easy to pontificate about slippery slopes or a police state when you're not the one getting personally addressed death threats. Or aren't a women, who, coincidentally, happen to be a bit physically smaller and weaker on average than men and therefore are more vulnerable to physical assaults.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
It's really sad how every major publication leaves out half the story and instead tries to paint the gaming community as the source of the problem.
It's really sad how some cowardly gamers won't acknowledge that the death threats are the problem, and that their only source is some other cowardly gamers — the people who made the death threats. See, nothing here justifies those death threats.
Also, I really doubt the gaming community as a whole would condone any threats of violence against these women.
That's what you are doing right now when you assert that the "source of the problem" isn't the source of the problem, that is, the problem. The people making the death threats are the problem. No amount of dishonesty in games journalism (wank wank, stroke stroke, flonk.flonk.flonk) justifies death threats. Let me repeat that, no amount. It doesn't matter if someone tells you that Halo has the most imaginative level design ever or that GTAV never crashes or that some boring little indie game that barely rates a yawn is really ground-breaking and imaginative, you don't make death threats unless you are basically six years old, have no idea what you're on about, and very poorly parented besides.
When you make excuses for people harassing people and making death threats, you are part of the problem. No amount of hand-waving can possibly change that. You're helping to enable bad behavior. Why would you want to associate yourself with that?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No one has any problem with investigating credible death threats. Random Internet death threats have just proven not to be credible. There is simply not enough resources to investigate them all. Simply a sad fact of life.
All kinds of people responding to this very story right here apparently have a problem with investigating credible death threats, which this very story is about. Some of those people are arbitrarily and without evidence claiming that death threats (which for some reason they designate as "random") over the Internet are not credible.
I'm not sure why anyone would consider a death threat against a controversial and apparently rather abrasive public figure "random" rather than, say, "motivated". If someone threatened me or you it would be "random", because we're just not very special or interesting (well, I'm not, anyway). But a public figure near the centre of the amazingly childish fit of anger known as "gamergate"? That's not random. It's motivated.
It's easy to dismiss credible, motivated threats when they are not against you. Stupid people lack the imagination to understand how unsettling it can be to get direct, specific threats against themselves that include details of where they live.
To declare an entire class of threats non-credible because of the medium used to deliver them is not reasonable. It's like the cops say, "Well, this note is written in crayon, so even though it says they're going to kill you it's not credible! Who ever took a note written in crayon seriously!" Ridiculous.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.