Slashdot Mirror
How To End Online Harassment
Presto Vivace sends this excerpt from an article at the Kernel, titled 'With Gamergate, it's not enough to ignore the trolls.'
Gendered bigotry against women is widely considered to be "in bounds" by Internet commenters (whether they openly acknowledge it or not), and subsequently a demographic that comprises half of the total human population has to worry about receiving rape threats, death threats, and the harassment of angry mobs simply for expressing their opinions. This needs to stop, and while it's impossible to prevent all forms of harassment from occurring online, we can start by creating a culture that shames individuals who cross the bounds of decency.
We can start by stating the obvious: It is never appropriate to use slurs, metaphors, graphic negative imagery, or any other kind of language that plays on someone's gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion. Not only is such language inappropriate regardless of one's passion on a given subject, but any valid arguments that existed independently of such rhetoric should have been initially presented without it. Once a poster crosses this line, they should lose all credibility.
Similarly, it is never acceptable to dox, harass, post nude pictures, or in any other way violate someone's privacy due to disagreement with their opinions. While most people would probably agree with this in theory, far too many are willing to access and distribute this humiliating (and often illegal) content. Instead of simply viewing stories of doxing, slut-shaming, and other forms of online intimidation as an unfortunate by-product of the digital age, we should boycott all sites that publish these materials.
We can start by stating the obvious: It is never appropriate to use slurs, metaphors, graphic negative imagery, or any other kind of language that plays on someone's gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion. Not only is such language inappropriate regardless of one's passion on a given subject, but any valid arguments that existed independently of such rhetoric should have been initially presented without it. Once a poster crosses this line, they should lose all credibility.
Similarly, it is never acceptable to dox, harass, post nude pictures, or in any other way violate someone's privacy due to disagreement with their opinions. While most people would probably agree with this in theory, far too many are willing to access and distribute this humiliating (and often illegal) content. Instead of simply viewing stories of doxing, slut-shaming, and other forms of online intimidation as an unfortunate by-product of the digital age, we should boycott all sites that publish these materials.
GamerGate is not about harassment or women. Here is a statistical analysis of #GamerGate tweets. Here is a case of GamerGate tracking down a harasser, and Sarkeesian refusing to report him. Here is a timeline of the many grievances #GamerGate supporters have against gaming journalists. Here is the transparent, open place we track our emails to advertisers on corrupt sites. Here is a blog about the corruption. Here is a discussion of one of the scum at Gawker. Here is my earlier Slashdot comment on media bias surrounding GamerGate.
Despite the many, many articles putting the word GamerGate next to the words "misogyny", "wu", harassment" and the like there is no evidence -- No Evidence -- actually associating GamerGate with any of those things, save a very tenuous link related to how the hashtag was coined and some third party trolls who it turns out harass GamerGate supporters more than GamerGate opposers.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Actually there isn't evidence for the "gamergate is harassment" narrative. There IS evidence of the GNAA and other outside trolls going to the lengths of paying up to $20 for people to tweet while pretending to be part of gamergate, there IS evidence of the gamergate harassment patrol going to the lengths of tracking down the person behind much of Anita's harassment and even filing reports on him with the FBI, there ARE multiple statistical analyses empirically proving gamergate is NOT about harassment...
But there is absolutely no evidence for the conspiracy theory that tens of thousands of men, women, LGBT, and minority gamers from all over the world have banded together dedicated to the cause of driving women out of gaming by raising over $100,000 for charity... including $70,000 for feminists to get women INTO game development.
There is however a fuckton of evidence that a toxic clique of people with incestuous financial and personal ties are pushing a narrative defending themselves while rallying around someone multiple feminists have pointed out is blatantly a gaslighting domestic abuser.
Just like there's a fuckton of evidence for their vicous abusive behavior up to and including, like I said, a whole ton of doxings:
Because it's completely impossible to find out about serious criminal attacks like people getting sent dead animals without following each and every single person individually. Gotcha. If only there were websites where people talked about things that happened, all in one place.
Or even a website that lets you look for things elsewhere on the internet...
https://twitter.com/FartToCont...
https://twitter.com/GGfeminist...
https://twitter.com/ForemanEri...
https://twitter.com/milky_cand...
http://i.imgur.com/892hZ1A.png
https://twitter.com/FabioFacch...
https://twitter.com/CodeusaSof...
http://imgur.com/BNlLKcn (six people)
http://i.imgur.com/jpRvb52.jpg
https://twitter.com/Ash_Effect...
https://twitter.com/DanielleGi...
https://twitter.com/coolguyqui...
https://twitter.com/AlephXZero...
https://twitter.com/PlayDanger...
ht
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."