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.
Everyone stop making fun of her!
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.
Surely harassment doesn't suddenly become acceptable if it's done to someone you agree with (but just don't like or respect)?
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.
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.
We have a problem with the propensity of people to want to view garbage (broadly defined). How we control this, along with harassment, is the big issue. This piece sadly offers no useful insights.
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!?!?
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.
Any particular reason religion is in that list of protected attributes? The others are innate characteristics while religion, regardless of how deeply held or deathly serious the consequences of deviating, is an opinion.
If we do that, there will be very, very little left of the internet, or any other medium.
I don't think so. People who have something worthwhile to say are usually intelligent and experienced enough to know that being abusive is counterproductive; so, if we got rid of all the abusers and the sites that thrive on them, what is left is actually the 1% or so that is worht spending time and money on - the part that was the actual, original purpose of the internet.
... that people are wiling to do any of this stuff at all?
I'm afraid you can't blame us evil old patriarchs for this culture of say anything you want do anything you want trash talking.
Of course you all supported sensible cultural restrictions on what you could say, and how you could act, for the last 50 years or so ...
If you have a negative opinion about a person, which OP finds offensive, your opinion should be allowed to be voiced. Riiight..
By all means, physical threats should not be tolerated, but everything else is freedom of expression, even if we dislike it or find it in bad taste.
By the way, it's a little sexist to suggest that only women need to be worried about death threats and harrassment. I've received more than a few myself in my time. What - because I'm a guy I should just ignore it? It's not a problem? I think you'll find this is something which can be an issue for 100% of the population, not just your favorite gender. GG bigotry.
"The true measure of a person is how they act when they know they won't get caught." - DSRilk
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.
People who have something worthwhile to say are usually intelligent and experienced enough to know that being abusive is counterproductive; so, if we got rid of all the abusers and the sites that thrive on them, what is left is actually the 1% or so that is worht spending time and money on - the part that was the actual, original purpose of the internet.
And I suppose everything you say goes inside that 1%, right?
Coincidence?
(Some people would consider that the first step would be to get rid of those who apparently never learned to use semicolons, or those who can't spell, or those who talk about "the original purpose of the internet")
Yup, straight white males -- the oprressed minority.
Not.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
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?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Death Threats are unacceptable. I'm glad we're seeing journalists express their outrage exactly the same way they did when Jack Thompson received death threats and when Death Threats were made against the family of the Penny Arcade writers...
Oh wait, there was no outrage over these, if anything there was an atmosphere of "well, they deserved it". Of course, to condemn these would require news websites to accept some culpability for the drumming up the anger that lead to the abuse they received.
The hypocrisy and self serving nature of the journalists is probably best summed up by the "gamers are dead" articles. The basic argument presented by a disturbingly large number of them is basically "How dare you be sexist and comment on someone's sexual history you virgin man-children!" and the writers are completely unable to see the irony in doing that.
Lastly, a call for diversity is fine but you've need to accept that diversity is more than just LGBT and women. It's the rich and poor, old and young, the conservative and liberal, the religious and the atheist, The North American and the European (or any combination of continents). Gaming sites have readers from all these backgrounds. Maybe, just maybe there are lots of people don't like being lectured to by relatively well off 20-30 year old ultra liberal Americans? Maybe, when people disagree with political opinions presented on the website, the best response isn't name calling, shaming and banning. You belittle, censor, insult and claim superiority then wonder why there's a build up of hatred on the other side.
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.
I lost count at 30 people doxxed by those that claim to stand for "feminism" and against 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.
At this point the "mere" verbal abuse from so called "feminists" screaming racial slurs and making threats at anyone in gamergate is practically background noise compared to the sheer number of people getting doxed and sent fucking knives and dead animals in the mail. And disturbingly all of this has not only been explicitly encouraged at times even participated in by major public figures, it's also been subject to a near complete media blackout. You would think people who care so much about women and minorities would be writing a whole lot about black men losing their jobs because of racists doxing them, or women having their income held up by fraudulent reports, or any of the other thirty plus attacks against primarily women and minorities by mostly rich white men. Unless of course they don't actually give a damn and it's just political opportunism.
>Once a poster crosses this line, they should lose all credibility.... we should boycott all sites that publish these materials....
At this point the hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness is so staggering I'm almost starting to believe this is all some kind of kafkaesque modern art performance.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
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.
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.
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.
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.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
Yup, straight white males -- the oprressed minority.
I don't think they're oppressed, but I don't think "straight white females" are either.
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.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
In his book, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, Heinlein had his lead character say the following regarding uncivilized behavior:
Gwen, my love, if one tolerates bad manners, they grow worse. Our pleasant habitat could decay into the sort of slum Elli-Five is, with crowding and unmannerly behavior and unnecessary noise and impolite language. I must find the oaf who did this thing, explain to him his offense, give him a chance to apologize, and kill him.
Problem solved.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
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.
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".
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.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Meh, I call bullshit on that.
Men are definitely *feeling* harassed for being men during this "debate", and isn't that what's most important, how you feel?
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.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
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.
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".
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 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.
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.
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.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
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.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
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".
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
"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.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Yes, men have some discrimination in law and employment. That, where appropriate, should be fixed. That does not give men the right to attack women for simply being women. The list of cases of discrimination against women is far greater than for men, as official statistics show. You can point at your handful of counter examples all you wish - it just shows that you are not against bias and discrimination, but looking for any reason to discriminate against women.
Rational, caring people are against all kinds of discrimination.
You poor, pathetic straight white male. It must be terrible for you. I shed a tear. *sob*
Handful? I'll match you one-for-one any day of the week. I'm not discriminatory. Oh, and citations needed for your claims, since you state official statistics, I want to know what official statistics, where they are, and who sponsored their collection.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
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
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
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.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
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.
Whenever they post this stuff, there's like 300 comments. I think we are all well aware of how utterly pointless theses "debates" end up being, but the slashdot folks can't hear us over all the $$$.
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?),
That is absolutely wrong, but that is just as much a feminist issue as women who want to work. Men being regarded as unsuitable as parent is because of traditional gender roles: women take care of children, men make money. Men should of course have equal rights to guardianship of children as women, and if they don't, that's just as much a sign that feminism isn't done yet as the fact that women make less money than men.
men are harassed in the workplace (some jobs you can't get if you have a penis - simply because you have a penis),
I'm not aware of any job where men are actively being kept out (though I don't doubt they exist), but I know a lot of jobs where women are actively kept out of. Of course both are problems, and both need to be solved, and they are in fact both the same problem. But you are delluding yourself if you think this issue is worse for men than for women.
men are harassed constantly, and IT IS WORSE if you're white and straight because that makes you a legitimate target for militant feminists.
I'm a straight white man, and I'm certainly not being harassed constantly. Have you ever really taken a good look at the kind of harassment that almost every woman faces on an almost daily basis? What we face is really truly nothing compared to that.
But I'm not denying that there are idiots on the feminist side. Particularly bizarre are the "all sex is rape" people, but they are widely recognized as idiots, and when necessary, criticized appropriately. But I've also had some guy turn me into a bigotry strawman, putting words in my mouth, and finishing off with advice that was actually worse than anything he falsely accused me of. Those things do happen, I am well aware of that. And if you find that hurtful, you should really take another look at all the crap that's often directed at women, because really, you've got to be blind if you don't see what an order of magnitude that's worse than what we face.
Only harrasers should feel harrased by this debate. If you treat people with respect you should be happy with this debate, whether you are a white man or not.
You do realize that what you just said is the same old "If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" argument?
Only _BAD_PEOPLE_TM should feel _NEGATIVE by this _PROCES. If you _GOOD_PEOPLE_TM you should be _POSITIVE with this _PROCESS, whether you are a _DESCRIPTIVE_ATTRIBUTE or not.
Or shorter, "You're either with me, the GOOD, or against me - therefore EVIL."
It's generalization to the extreme, piggybacking on top of a false dichotomy.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Seems likely. That's exactly what happened last time. According to some people, somehow that being on the internet makes it different and therefore "doesn't count".
I'll bet they'd be the first to decry "yeah but on the internet" style patents precisely because it ISN'T different from everything else.
Basically double standards because they want to support really shitty behaviour but are too cowardly to say shitty things wit htheir own real name.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
By the way while I love how positively Mcarthyist your "He's one of THEM! COMMUNIST!" response is I forgot to point out that by your own standards you can't trust pretty much anyone condemning gamergate because they're all members of GJP and often have close personal ties or even financial ties to each other through patreon.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Because they are harassed for it, yes. Does not an unjust attack require a defense?
What surprises me is how many men get defensive when harassment of women is addressed. As if they consider that a personal attack.
The point about racism is power.
No.
The point of racism is legitimization of mistreatment of other humans through dehumanization.
Which includes immaterial and subjective things like hating or fearing someone based solely on the fact of one's personal perception of them.
Racism is a cognitive dissonance which provides reasoning for such behavior.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
You're why the article is relevant.
Thanks for playing.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Some of the funniest office 'banter' I've heard has been based on race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion.
I doubt that in your office banter someone ever (seriously) said "I know where you live and I'm going to come round some time and rape and kill you".
Maybe I've just led a sheltered life.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
If I hadn't already posted the comment you reply to, I would have modded your funny +1 :-)
So, I'll have to do the next best and reply instead.
And I suppose everything you say goes inside that 1%, right?
Well, modesty forbids ... However, I do strive to always make intelligent posts, rather than just shoot off my gob.
(Some people would consider that the first step would be to get rid of those who apparently never learned to use semicolons, or those who can't spell, or those who talk about "the original purpose of the internet")
Not to mention those who put too much significance on minor errors, rather than trying to actually understand what is being communicated. I don't mind - I lose nothing just because some lack the ability to discuss content instead of form.
How does including someone's home address make a threat more or less serious? Perhaps you are young and do not recall that not that long ago, Americans had delivered to the home annually a book that listed the addresses of most citizens of their city or town. Unless one takes extraordinary steps to hide, one's address is not private information.
My address has been on my resume on my website since the 1990s. Some random asshole posting "I'm going to kill that Tom Swiss for what he said on Slashdot!" wouldn't worry me any more or any less than some random asshole posting "I'm going to kill that Tom Swiss, who lives at 2119 Arlonne Drive in Catonsville, MD, 21228, for what he said on Slashdot!"
So how worried should I be over some random asshole posting a threat? Seems to me that the ratio of "I'm going to kill you!" posts to actual assaults is so low that I shouldn't worry. Over a quarter-century of flamewars (I was active on FidoNet BBSes starting around 1988) a few people have posted that they were going to kick my ass, none have ever showed up to do so.
If anyone is going to object "But you're a man, not a woman!", you need to keep in mind that as a man I am more likely, not less, to be a victim of violence.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
No-one is trying to censor the internet, they are trying to prosecute criminals who make illegal death/rape threats. They are also trying to make a statement that society does not consider that sort of thing acceptable.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Ah, that thing. Tell me, where is it? I gave you the link, so now please tell me where exactly he says it.
(Hint: he doesn't. Nowhere in it does he say anything about reviews at all. This was a masterful case of the "denying something else" media narrative strategy, the equivalent of strenously and truhfully denying that you murdered anyone when what you're accused of is theft. You can only pull it off if the media is really on your side.)
Judge for yourself. No, not you serviscope minor, anyone else reading. (You're a lost case, as are most people who strongly committed to a position without researching it).
He dumped her, in fact.
Ah, he must have been guilty, otherwise he would not have been punished.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
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?),
That is absolutely wrong,
Children Act 1989 section 2, particularly:
(4)The rule of law that a father is the natural guardian of his legitimate child is abolished.
Source: England and Wales Statute Roll (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/41/section/2)
Stick that up your arse, naysayer.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
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.
nobody has said a word about censorship (not the submitter, not the GP). you are the one throwing that in here. what they are saying is we need to accept that threatening somebody with physical harm is a Bad Thing and we need to reject this language so we can have a debate about things that matter.
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.
You have it wrong, this is not about legitimizing harassment of women. It's about a propaganda war which attempts to perpetuate and inflate stereotypes of the oppressed women and abusive man. A similar propaganda war has been going on attempting to propagate racial tensions, and another war for Religious tensions. I won't distract further than the mention of the latter two, but if you are truly interested there is plenty of information to find on those as well. For now, lets stick with the misogyny.
First, there is real discrimination and real pricks that truly believe they are better than women. Those people are an extreme minority, but they do exist. In order to increase tensions, those extremes are portrayed as the normal. Small examples are inflated and portrayed like "everyone does it", and fake issues get repeated until people start to believe them. You hint at one of the latter, but completely miss the mark for "why?" the fake issue is not corrected.
As an example, we are told by media that women can't get IT jobs because "misogyny". The reality is that there are countless reasons other than misogyny that women don't want to work in many IT jobs. Journalists won't talk about those other reasons, and people over time start to believe that the only reason for a lack of women in IT is discrimination. Instead of the obvious, such as demand for insanely long work hours and tedious work for little reward. Lack of career progression, since the management side of IT is a completely different degree and skill set (some people get promoted up without, but we are talking "normals" not exceptions here). Work/Personal life balance is always shifted to "work" if you want to progress in IT. And lets not forget that if you want to start a family the woman must sacrifice work life, the man has no womb so can't do that work (which is another item often portrayed as misogyny even though there is an obvious physical requirement involved).
In reality, there are trolls. They do so for various reasons, but one of the known is a desire for attention. Given that known, it should be obvious to anyone looking that all kinds of people get trolled. They are a minority, and are best dealt with by simply ignoring them when they show up. Free speech is too important to pass laws requiring identity all the time. The trade off is not worth it, and the majority would suffer. You think trolls have targets today, imagine when they can see that QQ4322 is "Rebecca Smith", because that's what identity requirements will do.
Another interesting fact is that many Trolls are bought and paid for by various people claiming to be on your side. Snowden's leaks showed that the US and UK have numerous departments using paid people who's job is FUD at all costs. It has also been leaked that certain corporations pay for trolling. Funny that of all the reports of evil trolling I have not yet seen anyone demand the identity of the paid trolls from companies and governments that are known to use them. Cui bono from that little fact is fun, especially considering that most media has the same few masters.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Anyone who expresses any opinion at all on this article will be doxxed and demoralized. That's part of the problem.
There needs to be a way to resolve this matter without this continual conflict, but so far the only way to manage to do that without getting dragged into a knockdown brawl is to not get involved.
This makes apathy the answer. The problem with apathy being the answer is that history shows a lot of bad things happen in the presence of an apathetic crowd. In World War II, the U.S. was apathetic to the plight of the Jews. In the seventies, the U.S. was apathetic to the plight of Cambodia under the rule of Khymer Rouge. In the nineties, the US was apathetic to the plight of the people of Rwanda.
So here we are stuck on trying to not get involved in this senseless war and trying to prevent those from succumbing the out right aggressiveness of parties for and against everyone involved in GamerGate.
Place something witty here
Yes, but gendered bigotry against men is widely considered to be "in bounds" by society in general so the problem here is that internet commenters need to get in line and understand that it's only ok to harrass and send rape and death threats to men. Being men, they don't have feelings anyway and if they do they need to man up.
Or whatever.
Won't somebody think of the ethics in game journalism!?!?
Considering the number of sites, youtubers, and so on that are now adopting, modifying, or rewriting their ethical standards policies to be more open I'd say that the main goal of increasing ethics in game journalism has been successful. Of course, your comment on the "credible rape threats" well let's look at some of the prominent people on GG who've been doxxed, harassed, or fired from their jobs. How about Milo Yiannopoulos who's been mailed syringes, dead animals, and so on. Or the the rape threats by the anti-gg side, or them simply going right off the deep end and calling for a new genocide against gamers. These of course aren't small time people.
Then you've got the open spewing at the mouth ministrants and racists, like Lee "Hood rats need to be killed" Alexander, Mattie "I'm giving low scores to male developed games" Brice and Elizabeth "Sexism against men isn't real" Simms. Yeah, there's a problem, but it sure seems like the anti-side has some serious ethical and moral problems they need to sort through.
Om, nomnomnom...
The following is not "harassment":
1) Political disgreement
2) Publicly questioning the credentials of one who has publicly asserted said credentials
3) Publicly calling someone else a liar about something they publicly said.
4) Arguing that something is or is not harassment
5) Arguing that something is or is not sexist
6) Arguing that something is or is not misogyny
7) Publicly questioning a claim someone made publicly
8) Criticizing someone who has been harassed
9) Claiming that someone has engaged in unethical behavior.
10) Changing the subject
(some of these may be other sorts of bad behaviors besides harassment, but only conditionally)
Furthermore, and it should go without saying, but the opposite is an axiom for one side: What's good for the goose is what's good for the gander, and vice-versa, in nearly all cases. The gender-reversed version of bad behavior is bad behavior, and the gender-reversed version of acceptable behavior is acceptable behavior.
The greatly expanded version of "harassment" (generally applied to people with the wrong political beliefs only) that denies all of these things should not be "ended".