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.

Comments

here we go

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how this conversation is going to go? Hint: I hope my daughter does not read this.

Re:here we go

[yndrd1984]

Me neither. Especially when the author absurdly implies that the primary targets of "rape threats, death threats, and the harassment of angry mobs" are women. Or when people state their position in high sounding language - "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.", but never seem to apply that standard when her brother is insulted in those ways.

I'm quite sure there are crazed misogynists out there, but don't mix them in with people who are simply treating women online as badly as they treat men in real life.

Re: here we go

[Kvathe]

So because someone is a straight white male, it's perfectly acceptable to harass them with death threats and dox them? I'm pretty damn sure that more men are victims of online harassment than women, if only because they tend to be more prevalent on internet forums.

Re: here we go

[mcvos]

No, it is never okay to harass, threaten of dox anyone. However, women are most definitely harassed for being women more than men are harassed for being men.

The fact that men are more prevalent on some internet forums is at least partially the result of women being made very unwelcome in those places.

Re: here we go

[MrHanky]

The funny thing is that the #gamergate proponents feel that being rightly labeled as misogynists is harassment that justify death threats. They're a bunch of dilusional morons, the lot of them.

Re: here we go

[ihtoit]

I definitely call bullshit on that. Men are harassed in Law (did you know that men are not considered guardians of their own legitimate offspring in England?), men are harassed in the workplace (some jobs you can't get if you have a penis - simply because you have a penis), men are harassed constantly, and IT IS WORSE if you're white and straight because that makes you a legitimate target for militant feminists.

Speaking as a straight white male.

Re:here we go

[yndrd1984]

Well that's all totally spiffing then, no one's oppressed at all, and anyone who says otherwise is just a whiny bitch, yes?

Nope. Just because you aren't oppressed doesn't mean you don't have problems that need to be addressed.

Using words like 'oppression' to describe how women are treated in modern western countries is just a cheap political tactic - it defines the situation in terms of 'us vs them' (if someone is oppressed, someone must be oppressing), while exaggerating the issues women face and downplaying the issues that men face. That broken model is why you think that people who disagree with you must think than men are oppressed - you assume that other people are using the same framework, but are merely on the 'other team'.

There's no pigeonhole in that mindset for people who just want the world to be nicer for everyone.

Re: here we go

[Shadow of Eternity]

I lost count at 30 people doxxed for supporting gamergate, starting with the black developer who lost his job to racists harassing his boss and going downhill from there to people's bank accounts getting hacked, their utilities turned off, their income held up by fraud, a couple attempts at SWATting, and even syringes, knives, and dead animals in the mail.

If you want delusional morons you need to look at the rich white men screaming "house ni**" at women.

Re: here we go

[Vintermann]

for being women ... for being men.

Who are you who have insight into the ultimate motivations of harassers?

I have as a basic assumption that men are no better than women, and vice versa. If there's some way of being evil that's dominated by one sex, then you can assume that is not for lack of evil in the other sex, but rather that they have some other way of living out their malice.

It's a doctrine of faith in some circles, that you should not only believe the victim, but not question the victim's interpretation of events. If she says the motive of her harassers is that she's a woman, then you're a monster for questioning that (even if the "harassers" deny that it was harassment, and assert other motivations for it.) This is obviously and blatantly abused in "social justice" circles on the internet.

Let's NOT take gamergate as an example. Let's take the Requires Hate drama instead - there you have identity feminists on both sides, both sides claiming to represent the true, unsubjugated, authentic feminism, defender of all minorities. There's this hate blogger, Requires Only that you Hate, who has a long history of "criticizing" fantasy authors, stalking them for years, saying they deserve to be raped by dogs and have acid thrown in their faces etc. She used to get away with it for a long time. Why? Because she always claimed to "kick upwards". If you're a man, you're obviously fair game. If you're a white lesbian feminist, you're fair game too. If you're an asian, you're still fair game if you are "diaspora". You're mixed race? well fuck you, appropriating scum! Don't you dare write about your minority parent's culture!

Now, she was "doxxed". Her identity (or rather, her literary pseudonym, as opposed to the blogging one) was exposed by a friend of hers - she is a well-known Thai writer - and people started assembling the pieces. It looks like she has systematically targeted competitors. Especially competitors in the niche of "writing for the oppressed". More and more people come forward with stories of whisper campaigns she's waged, open hostility, stalking for years, online community after online community that has went down in flames from her warfare. And she has been at this for almost 15 years.

How? By saying the right things, with unshakeable conviction. By using the social justice people's own rule about "tone policing" - that you're not allowed to protest against the ways an "oppressed person" lashes out at her "oppressors". For over a decade she's played them like a fiddle, for personal gain and personal satisfaction. The social justice people's beliefs have a hole in them wide enough that a psychopath can drive right through it with a truck and set up shop. The "cheap moral glow" of siding with someone righteously proclaiming their oppression, was a tool she used to build an army that could make a talk radio host green with envy, to sic on people who fell afoul of her or competed with her.

I've said "her" throughout. But technically, we don't even know that. So even for the purpose of protecting/advancing minority women, the SJ crowd's own principles fail disastrously. There's no reason to think Requires Hate even believed in the rhetoric she was spouting.

Now, I said let's not use Gamergate as an example. But let's, now. Most of anti-gamergate missed one rather important thing: the initial post was a callout of a similar nature.

The ex-boyfriend of Zoe Quinn had story to tell about infidelity, emotional abuse and cynical career promotion - he told it because he had come to the same conclusion that the social justice folks in SF/Fantasy now believe about Requires Hate - she may not even believe those things, she certainly uses them with extreme cynicism for selfish ends.

And is he right about that? Judge for yourself

"or religion"

[Anonymous Coward]

Religion is a choice. I see no reason to effectively exclude it from discussion. I agree that it is a sensitive topic, but it has no place in a list of properties that a person does not have a choice in.

Re:"or religion"

[JaredOfEuropa]

Belief is not the same as religion,and certainly not any religion in particular. I don't know if belief is indeed a defect, or genetic, or a mental condition beyond one's control, but it's plausible. But there's no mental condition that makes you a Muslim or Christian or Hindu. Those are determined by your environment, and in those cases you do have a choice. A hard choice for sure: if you grow up in a deeply religious family, you'll have a hard time switching to a different one. But by the same token, someone being brought up in a deeply racist family will have a hard time accepting the notion of the equality of races. I do not judge someone for being religious, but I do judge them by the values they embrace and the actions resulting from those values.

Trolled by Soulskill

[Anonymous Coward]

What irks me about GG is that the shitty things a few gamers said is *evil* beyond imagining and must end, while the shitty things professional journalists said is defended across the board.

‘Games culture’ is a petri dish of people who know so little about how human social interaction and professional life works that they can concoct online ‘wars’ about social justice or ‘game journalism ethics,’ straight-faced, and cause genuine human consequences. Because of video games.

Why is it socially acceptable to demonize an entire demographic (gamers)? Because they're the "out group" for feminists. It's always acceptable to attack gamers in the media. Likewise you can always safely attack men, rich people, and white people. These so-called journalists and pundits seem to think gamers are male, middle class, ignorant, socially crippled, and white. That's a stereotype from the mid 90s. Games went mass market with the PS/2. Games went female with social media. Games went international and cross-cultural 15 years ago.

It shouldn't be safe to attack gamers, because they're no longer male, ignorant, socially crippled, and white. Even if they were, it shouldn't be acceptable to attack people because of their sex, social status, and race.

This isn't equality, this is oppression and it's far worse than a few anonymous death threats.

Re:Trolled by Soulskill

[rioki]

Except for a few superfluous platitudes you appear to have no real clue. Now I don't really claim to know what gamer gate is about, but I know that in the current situation both (extreme) sides are up their ass and the TFA is more part of the problem than the solution.

I don't really have an investment in either side, I don't care much, but I saw what happened first hand from day one. To refresh your mind this all started with the "five guys" post. In this post Zoe Quinn was accused to having affairs with 5 different guys while in a relationship with the posts' author. The reason why people started talking about the issue was, that at least two people where closely related to gaming press. Honestly I was not very surprised in general, since I assumed that the some game developers where figuratively in bed with the press, that this instance it appears that this literally is almost meaningless. Nevertheless few people went ballistic about it, this partially because of previous polarized debate surrounding depression quest.

But what came next was unprecedented and actually eclipses any ethical issues surrounding Zoe. During the first day many mysteries surrounded the issue, maybe the "fives guys" post was not correct, who knows. People started to talk about the issue, some reasoned, some less reasoned and suddenly all discussion was suppressed. Entire subredits where deleted any thread on 4chan about the issue was deleted and banns where handed out generously. This pattern permeate many gaming forums. But the starkest was the disruption of 4chan, a place where racism and chauvinism is part of the community's makeup and the response not, "you can't say that, they can be nice people" but "U dimwitted retard" or Spiderman. When even reasoned debate is silenced, something wrong. As it turned out there was collusion between the sites and any moderator that disagreed was culled. That day 2/3 of 4chan's and a large number redit moderators where shown the door, simply for not suppression the topic.

Honestly would it not have been for the attempt at suppressing discussion, the issue with zoe would probably be mostly forgotten. But the real shit storm happened after the rather failed attempt at suppression. The suppression was fuel to the fire and granted the more radical elements started to become unpleasantness. (I don't support their actions, but I understand where they came from.) At the same time suddenly "feminist" voices where starting to get heard that gamer gate was a concerted effort to drive women out of gaming. At the time it made absolutely no sense. (It still doesn't, but at least it started to look plausible.) That suddenly many game journalism sites started to run articles "anti gamer", like the "Gamers are Dead" article definitely did not diffuse the situation.

I don't know where we can go from here. Harassment never was OK, but that applies to both sides. (No you don't get a "tone argument" free pass.) I will continue to mostly ignore the entire issue and continue to have fun playing games. Ignoring the trolls is almost always the best solution, no matter what banner they appear to be waving.

Re: What about misandry?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh. My. God. Abusing Twitter's anti-abuse button ?! That's totally worse than sending credible rape threats to someone's home address!! Won't somebody think of the ethics in game journalism!?!?

Re:The right to offend ...

[Anonymous Coward]

This goes way beyond offending people, though. This is abuse and harassment, which is not the not the same thing at all. Since you obviously can't tell the difference, you are directly part of the problem. There is no right to make rape threats. There is a right to make jokes about rape. Saying you are going to rape somebody is a threat and not a joke. If you can't tell the difference, maybe you should sit in a corner and think quietly before joining the rest of the online community again.

What?

[wonkey_monkey]

Gendered bigotry against women is widely considered to be "in bounds" by Internet commenters

Is it? Is it really?

Are you sure it's not only considered as such by a tiny but vocal and offensive minority?

Re:What?

[Torodung]

This. Someone forgot that troll protocol 101 is to ignore the troll. No matter how outrageous the slur. Someone is equating internet trolling with credible threats. The silence is therefore not misongynic assent, it is years of Internet culture training.

I'm a man, I've been threatened directly by trolls, and the only way to make them go away was to set up a kill filter and forget what a remailing bastard's ethics eventually spiral down toward. The severity of the outburst is belied by its impotence. CF: Gabriel's Internet Fuckwad Theory.

Things also tend to get exaggerated in text forums; this is a natural symptom of text medium discussions. A mildly worded response of displeasure is not enough to express severe displeasure in text. So things get "fuckity," at the very least. Nobody thinks it should get to the level of death threats, but sometimes it does, because someone wants to get a rise out of someone in text.

Now what gamers, and other internet board goers, have to understand is that feminist protocol 101 is go after anyone who threatens a woman, no matter how non-credible the threat, in order to silence her. This is a foregone conclusion to anyone who is a feminist. They are doing what their culture indicates they should do, as an automatic reaction. In face-to-face, physically close communication, it is a foregone conclusion. You must not back down from it, because historically women have been intimidated out of social spaces in exactly this way. It is part of making the world a safe space for women. The record is a winning one, and isn't about neutering men, it's about fighting gender based domination plays.

What we have here is a culture clash. Internet 101 meets feminism 101. Both views work in different ways that are fundamentally in conflict. The only way it goes away is to stop telling the women to "toughen up," take them seriously by their cultural touchstone, and tell them personally that physical threats are intolerable, but best ignored on the Internet. If a threat is viewed to be particularly credible, it is better to go to the police than to petition the greater Internet community to "shame" them, as if shaming would stop a credible threat in the first place.

And various people have had to go to the authorities over GG. The threats have been perceived as credible, no matter what your opinion. If you cannot wrap your skull around that, sit it out and don't tell people to "get over" what they perceive to be real threats. Support them.

Not again..

[epyT-R]

I am sick of hearing the same old fallacies over and over. Ditto with the passive aggressive shaming language, crocodile tears, and deliberate misrepresentation of troll 'threats' in order to keep the controversy going. Why is it that slashdot never really covered the opposing side to all of this? The only stories that get through are anti-gamergate/pro feminist, just like with the mainstream media (no surprise there).

Just because a few women (sarkeesian/quinn/dina/wu etc) got called out for fallaciously and hypocritically generalizing/stereotyping one of the largest internet communities doesn't mean that the majority of that community hates women. The community just has a problem with what a few specific women (and men) said. It also has a problem with the so-called 'journalists' (and their pals at DIGRA, silverstring, gawker) covering the community's activities. When journalists editorialize or propagandize, they are no longer journalists. They should have the integrity to leave the editorializing to the op-ed sections of their publications, or, ideally, abstain from it altogether.

Why do these 'justice' warriors hate objectivity and meritocracy so much? When gaming met the internet, it was the ultimate equalizer. All that mattered was the game and how well you played relative to other players, not your race, your sex, or any other irrelevant characteristic. Trashtalk was trashtalk, and only lamers took it seriously. I remember a time when this was looked at as a positive thing. Now it's all about wearing shit on our shoulders and baiting each other into passive aggressive offense. I guess SJW politics had to turn up the intensity in order to keep certain politicians and ideologies relevant. The bottom line is, if someone criticizes you, it does not mean he hates your race, sex, religion, or anything else. Instead of routing all negatives to /dev/oppressed, have the fortitude to listen to the criticism and see where it might apply. If there's truth to it, modify your perspective. If not, discard it. Quit playing the victim. It's a loser's game.

Re:The right to offend ...

[jandersen]

The right to offend is more important than the right not to be offended.

True. But that is not the point here, nor is it the point of legislation against stirring up hatred against religious groups. Criticising or making jokes about others is orders of magnitude away from inciting hatred or bullying a vulnerable person. The difference is in the consequences and the intentions: if you joke about religion, it is well-intended, but if you incite hatred, you are actively trying to harm somebody. It's like sex vs rape; one is good, the other is bad, and most people accept that there is a fundamental difference.

"Freedom of speech" once meant simply that everybody had the right to express their political or religious opinions without fear of being persecuted by the authorities. Nowadays it appears to be used as an excuse for why you can't be held to account for anything you say at all, no matter what the consequences. Call me old-fashioned, but I disagree with that notion - to my mind, you always have to face up to the consequences of what you do, freedom or not. If you drive like an idiot and kill somebody, you're guilty of man-slaughter; if you bully a vulnerable person online and they commit suicide, you're guilty of the same; if you incite hatred and your followers lynch somebody, the same applies. The last example is no different from the concept of corporate man-slaughter, which most people find very reasonable.

Re:The right to offend ...

[Ixokai]

Did you miss the point?

I think you did.

Its not about what its OK to be offended about: its that THREATS of EXTREME VIOLENCE are not okay.

It is quite possible to define a set of rules that do not include committing violence, particularly here, sexual violence, against someone. If you can't get behind that, you're part of the problem.

This isn't about made up offense and political correctness and differing cultural norms. We're talking about threats of rape and extreme violence here. Its not okay to threaten to rape someone. Its not okay to threaten to murder someone. The topic is not a joke. You're the problem if you think otherwise.

I exited the discussion

[aepervius]

As soon as I saw a few troll harass women, I knew it would become the number 1 issue by journalist outfit rather than the real reason of the anger. And make no mistake troll almost certainly did not care about gamer or game, but got a rise out of harassing the women, there are study of trolling and troll out there showing they do not care about their victim or the cause they "seemingly" endorse. the reality is that troll are mostly sadist personality which gets a thrill from the rise they get out of people.

But on the journalist side, it is the same as with dorritosgate. Rather than admit and try to change , or explain why some things are not corruption, they immediately JUMPED on the trolling and made it the SOLE issue. I am not into conspiracy normally, but this was a so widespread reaction, that it felts like a defense mechanism : try to move the issue to something else as to avoid discussing the main issue most people in gamersgate sees as an increasingly disturbing problem. I don't even recall know how it started this time (for me it already started with the "dorritosgate") but the fact is that there are far too many publication having a disturbing behavior incestuous with publisher or developper, and endorsement are not clearly marked often with the relationship.


I see the same behavior with the sarkeesian story : She made a statement on damsel in distress openning the discussion, then rather than ignore the troll and concentrate on the counter statement indicating where she made errors or is not going the correct way for a study, journalist and folk are concentrating SOLELY on the troll.


It is starting to be the hack of any discussion : move the thema to troll harassing women, and poof the whole discussion is dead.

Re:The right to offend ...

[JaredOfEuropa]

It is the author of this silly article who cannot tell the difference between (threats of) rape and offensive statements:

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.

The language is a bit convoluted, but the author implies that these threats are the result of online misogyny ("gendered bigotry", really?), or at least that ending online misogyny would put an end to death threads as well. This sounds like one of those cases where harassment automatically is blamed on bigotry, instead of accepting the fact that people often simply dislike you for your actions and opinions and not for your gender or ethnicity. It's easy to make that mistake (especially as an outside observer) because once those threats and insults materialize, they often do contain sexual or racial slurs.

Before asserting that death and rape threats are the result of online bigotry, at the very least one should examine who exactly is getting these threats. Hint: it's not just women and minorities; it happens to plenty of white males. The language in those threats might be less racial or sexual, but they are threats just the same.

Re:Special treatment

[Cloud K]

This is the problem with "lists". I subscribe more to Wheaton's Law aka "Don't Be a Dick". Why not just not be a dick to anyone, including religious people?

As for my views on religion (as a non religious person), it may be a choice but if the individual doesn't force their beliefs on others then I see no reason to attack them without provocation.
Obviously it's different with the nutjob "God hates Fags" types who need to be told that they're being assholes and projecting their personal beliefs on other people (i.e. there's your provocation), but that's a vocal minority - most are just passively living by their personal rulebook and condemn the violent idiots like Westboro et al, and don't deserve a torrent of abuse for something they've not done.

Gendered Bigotry

[Pino Grigio]

This is the biggest pile of bollocks I've ever read at slashdot and as you can imagine it's up against some pretty stiff competition. (Am I allowed to use the word "stiff", or is that a gendered slur that reinforces the patriarchy?).

This, for example: "gendered bigotry against women is widely considered to be "in bounds" by Internet commenters". It is? No, it isn't.

The only gendered bigotry I come across on the internet these days, especially Twitter, involves pejorative uses of the phrase "straight white male".

Re:What about misandry?

[tehcyder]

Men-hating feminazis is not some random term

No, but anyone using it is helpfully signposting the fact that they're a pathetic fucking idiot.

Re:The right to offend ...

[tehcyder]

Threatening to rape or kill someone isn't "being offensive" it's fucking illegal, you worthless clown.

As always, there are a large number of people on slashdot and elsewhere who seem to think there is something magically different about an act if it is done via the internet, rather than face to face.

Your "free speech" has consequences, only children would believe otherwise.

Re:The right to offend ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I second that, you have understood this, and I'll add: "The right to behave like a fool does not equal a duty to do so".

Re:misogynists on the intarwebz? WHAT U SAY?

[trewornan]

There is effectively no censorship on the internet now so whatever you say can result in criticism and attacks of any kind whoever you are. Obviously trolls will pick on the form of attack that generates the most outrage, that's what trolls do. If you can't take a mature attitude to it then don't get involved. Trying to censor the internet is:

a) impossible
b) damaging to everybody's interests

Grow up, get a life, stop whining and nagging.

the De Facto Millenium Harassment Act

[Kunedog]

The people behind this want to effectively wield power comparable to the DMCA, including the ability to take down content (and authors) at will, with a widespread chilling effect and no consequence for false positives. We've already seen how easily terrorism and child porn^W^W^W^W misogyny and harassment became the root passwords to the Constitution^W^W journalistic ethics.

Re:misogynists on the intarwebz? WHAT U SAY?

[TheRaven64]

The people that are triggering this debate are being incredibly abusive and awful to women, simply because they dared to express an opinion online that doesn't align with the troll's opinion. If that doesn't meet the criteria for being a misogynist, what does?

Nope, that doesn't meet the definition of being a misogynist in the slightest. If they were being incredible abusive and awful to women simply because they were women, then that would meet the definition of being a misogynist. If they are being awful to people for having an opinion, then they are jerks.

The real problem with this entire issue is the people who try to frame it as misogynistic men against oppressed women and not antisocial idiots against sensible people.

Re:Not this shit again

[mcvos]

Gamergate is about revealing corruption in the gaming industry.

It's certainly what they like to claim, yet they're mainly concerned with the massive corruption surrounding a little indie game that's free and not making anyone any money, while they're ignoring the very large scale corruption surrounding major publishers demanding positive reviews in exchange for money and review copies (Shadows of Mordor anyone?). I have addressed this with GamerGaters before, and they defended it, stating that Shadows of Mordor is objectively good, while Depression Quest is objectively bad. And that apparently makes one type of corruption okay, and the other type a really serious problem.

There is as much men involved in this corruption, hell, there is more actually.

And yet it's the women that keep getting attacked. Who even knows the names of the men involved? GamerGaters keep harping on about Zoe Quinn, despite her being supposedly irrelevant to what their cause is really supposed to be about.

This has absolutely nothing to do with attacking females.

And yet GamerGate started with attacks on women, and any woman that speaks up about GamerGate gets doxed (see Felicia Day), whereas men don't (Chris Kluwe, for example).

Every supporter of gamergate has been reasonable, calm, and argues things like a reasonable adult.

That is not exactly my experience with the ones I've tried to argue with. Every single one started with these exact same arguments, and every single one came up mostly with irrelevant arguments, ended up talking about Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian were killing their hobby, and when they ran out of arguments, slipped up with a dose of homophobic and misogynist slurs (which at least one of them then tried to cover up).

I haven't seen any calm arguing like a reasonable adult yet.

Every attacker of gamergate has been violent, sending death threads, making up BLATANTLY fake images to make themselves look like victims, and very publicly attacking people on Twitter as well.

That kind of hyperbole is not exactly helping you acquire the image of a calm and reasonable adult.

There has been zero evidence they have put forward. "Legit" mass shooting threads, nobody found, none of it, despite all the paranoia in America over it these days.

None of it, expect of course that the University of Utah confirmed it, and a lot of people there have received this message. Read it for a fine example of crazy reactionary misogyny.

They need SERIOUS help. Especially Zoe Quinn. She is delusional and mentally broken. You can see it in any interview she does, trying to play it up as if she was a victim. You can see the smugness in her face behind that horribly fake sad form.

So it is about Zoe Quinn after all.

Re:What about misandry?

[mwvdlee]

Men-hating feminazis is not some random term

No, but anyone using it is helpfully signposting the fact that they're a pathetic fucking idiot.

This in sharp contrast to people using "pathetic fucking idiot" to describe people they don't like.

Re:Blame the Media

[Shadow of Eternity]

4000? You realise their main subreddit alone has nearly four times that in subscribers right? Even the various automated blocking systems used on twitter have double that or more. On top of that you need only look up "gamergate harassment patrol" to see that they're dealing with even outside actors like the GNAA and various goons so fast that the accounts get suspended before anti-gamergate users can even retweet them for publicity. They even tracked down the source of much of Anita Sarkeesian's harassment to brazil and have furnished all the necessary information to the FBI and brazilian law enforcement... of course Anita has so far refused to actually press charges or do anything about that person. Meanwhile Leigh Alexander, Ben Kuchera, Bob Chipman, Devin Faraci, and many other leading voices on that side of the fence continue to publicly encourage openly racist abuse and even participate in outright doxing.

Also the idea that toxic voices get addressed by other feminists in any meaningful way is demonstrably laughably false. Where's the mainstream voices "addressing" West, Valenti, and Marcotte? Where are they "addressing" the fact alleged "feminists" against gamergate are openly racist and transphobic, have rallied around a domestic abuser, and have encouraged somewhere upwards of 30 outright criminal attacks against primarily women and minorities?

Or to give you what is perhaps one of the most egregious examples: right now in the US one of the most powerful and influential researchers working on the largest and most definitive study of sexual and intimate partner violence is a feminist who has explicitly stated she does not believe men are ever raped by women, but rather that they "choose to engage in unwanted sexual intercourse". Every year the NISVS classifies male rape victims as "other sexual assault".

You would think the deliberate and total erasure of almost 2 million rape victims from one of the most important studies in the US would be the sort of thing that needs to be "addressed".

Re:Completely outrageous

[AmiMoJo]

Straw man. There was condemnation when death threats were sent to men, and no-one is arguing that it is okay to threaten anyone regardless of gender.

Defend the scoundrels

[bradley13]

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." — H. L. Mencken, US editor (1880 – 1956)

Really, that's it in a nutshell.

TFS says: "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"

I will actually agree with that: it is inappropriate, as in, uncivilized, trollish behavior. And it absolutely must be tolerated, because freedom of expression is such a critical, fundamental right. Calls for silencing such boorish behavior are entirely misplaced.

Why is this story on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on, Slashdot editors. This submission is dumb, even by modern Slashdot's ever-decreasing standards.

Just because this story involves the Internet it does not make it relevant here. It's a petty squabble between hipsters, losers and those stuck in ideological ivory towers.

Slashdot editors, please promote useful stories to the front page. You know, ones about math, or science, or technology.

We don't need reddit-esque Millenial boohoo-you-hurt-my-hipster-feelings crap here. Let's keep their idiocy isolated to Twitter, reddit and other useless sites like those that just don't matter, okay?

Re:Why is this story on the front page?

[omfgnosis]

You think rape and death threats are about hurt feelings. You obviously have never been a victim of such threats.

If you don't want to read about the social aspects of technology, you have a perfectly reasonable alternative to whining about it: scroll past it. Some of us actually take it seriously when proposals are made to reduce or eliminate the most egregious forms of online harassment, and want to have a real discussion. Go play with your toys, or whatever.

Re:misogynists on the intarwebz? WHAT U SAY?

[yndrd1984]

you don't seem to have done any prerequisite reading on this subject before pushing the submit button

And I would suggest the same of you. But that doesn't seem to be getting us anywhere.

If that doesn't meet the criteria for being a misogynist, what does? Do you have to start stabbing women before you are worthy of the title?

Stabbing women doesn't make you a misogynist, but stabbing only women (or specifically targeting them) might.

Can you show me any evidence that these people would treat men they disagreed with any better?

How to end...

[Chas]

Okay, in many ways, much of the framework of what you're talking about ALREADY EXISTS.

But trolls continue to exist anyhow. Why is that?

Because the trolls don't give a damn for the polite bounds of society.

As to "shaming individuals who cross bounds".

First, they have to be able to feel shame. Second, this is an entirely arbitrary watermark. Third, it's just BEGGING for abuse. It's basically institutionalization of PC-speak. Never mind that there truly ARE legitimate usages of harsh speech. Fourth, in a way, isn't this part of the problem? Weren't some of these people attempting to shame someone who transgressed some notion of "decency"?

At this point, what would be the difference between you and someone who's doxxing or throwing off threats?

As for "losing all credibility". So, the second someone CLAIMS these people have transgressed, their arguments have exactly zero meaning? Even legitimate arguments? Sorry, but people can be assholes and still have a valid point. Not liking them is not a valid counter to legitimate arguments.

Sorry, but this has not been thought through, even a little. This is a very shallow thought experiment where none of the ramifications have even been considered.

The irony of the neofascist left

[kruach aum]

You would think that a group that defines itself by being hyperaware of power dynamics would see the irony in using phrases like "widely considered to be "in bounds" by Internet commenters (whether they openly acknowledge it or not),", but apparently not, so I will spell it out. By putting things like this, in one fell swoop you both demonize your opponent as well as remove their ability to respond. No matter what they say, you can just go "oh, you're just not acknowledging what I know you to truly believe." No matter who they are, you can just say "well, you're an internet commenter, and internet commenters believe certain things whether they openly acknowledge them or not."

It ends all discussion, and effectively removes any possibility of debate or even reply by describing an entire group as having property X and then removing the ability of that group to dispute that claim. It's like saying "I am right, and anyone who disagrees is a he man woman hater misogynist asshole."

Whether they acknowledge it or not.

Re:Completely outrageous

[serviscope_minor]

Straw man.

It's a straw man if he bothred to set up an incorrect argument to cut down. What he did---making shit up at odds with the actual truth---is simply a bald-faced lie.

Because nothing supports the GamerGate crowd quite like making up yet more lies about everyone else.

Re:Not this shit again

[squiggleslash]

The clearest evidence that GamerGate is still primarily misogyny (remember: Baldwin coined the term promoting a video attacking a female game developer for having sex with people who weren't her boyfriend) is that GamerGaters still self-identify their "enemy" as being not journalists but "SJWs" - people concerned about the treatment of women within the gaming world.

You guys are also having problems coming up with a real case of problems in journalistic ethics to rally around - thus far the nearest you've had to an actual success (ie one that was real, not imaginary) was Gawker making a joke in bad taste... about GamerGate itself.

But you don't seem to be running out of women to try to force out of game development.

Very difficult.

[jo7hs2]

I was a severely bullied youth. So severely that I have been diagnosed with PTSD as a result, as some of the events were life-threatening. In once instance, I was an early victim of what would now be termed cyber-bullying. It also was illegal under Maryland's two-party consent for voice recordings law, but was none of it was ever prosecuted. Anyway... I was recorded against my consent in day-to-day conversation. The content was then edited to make me sound either like I was intellectually disabled or a homosexual, depending on their mood. Nothing wrong with being either of those things, I'm neither, and obviously this was being done to harm. The audio files were posted on Geocities/Xoom/or one of the other free internet hosting providers at that time in RealPlayer format. This was around 1998-1999, for perspective. Due to Maryland's two-party consent laws, my 14-15yo self was able to get the audio taken down, repeatedly, by the hosting provider. Unfortunately, it took several violations before the provider finally convinced the students in question that their account would be deleted if they stopped. Each time, of course, their account was suspended until they complied. This made them very unhappy, leading to much worse taunting, and even shockingly well-targeted and convincing arguments that I should kill myself. Eventually, the audio was taken down permanently because they got tired of it. The point of my story being, this is not an easy thing to fight. Online harassment is difficult to fight even when you know the names of the offenders and they've clearly broken a law...that is nothing new.