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FBI Confirms Open Investigation Into Gamergate
v3rgEz writes In a terse form letter responding to a FOIA request, the FBI has confirmed it has an open investigation into Gamergate, the loose but controversial coalition of gamers calling for ethics in gaming journalism — even as some members have harassed and sent death threats to female gaming developers and critics.
I knew we'd get this story, because it casts GamerGate as misogynists, and not the story about Brianna Wu being caught lying about the death threats.
Despite the former story being voted down and the latter being voted up. Because we can't have an unbiased discussion about GamerGate on SJWDot!
Stop lying that lie. For everyone else, please look at my post history for evidence refuting it.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
This isn't even the use of weasel words. The FBI is investigating *opponents* of GamerGate for lying about threats and third party trolls for making other threats while the summery claims the investigation is about threats made by proponents. I really, really hope whoever made the threats and whoever lied about them is caught. I hope this because I know damn well GamerGate did not make these threats.
The entire case against GamerGate is built of press pushing talking points off of empty claims made by professional victims. That's the start and end of the "threats and harassment" side of the story. Meanwhile a consumer movement against, ironically, corruption in the press is being libeled to suit political agendas.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Can we please stop adding gate to the end of any controversial subject? It was barely clever the first time it was done and it's gotten to be pretty much the polar opposite at this point.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
Its about corruption, about members of the gaming press having relations, both physical AND financial, with game developers they were promoting, and about a secret Google group where the supposedly "independent journalists" were given marching orders and told what to push, what to ignore, and whom to attack. When the news came out? THIRTEEN gaming sites issued THE EXACT SAME STORY about how they didn't need gamers and that gamers were "dead".
If you would like corroboration you can start with this video that provides multiple links to back what I've written up.
Its REALLY simple folks, some of the press is dirty, they are taking bribes, pushing political agendas, and while pretending to be independent they were actually running a little clic that went so far as to blacklist those that didn't "play ball" (which is illegal in several states) and when found out instead of doing what most corrupt groups do when caught, spinning and passing the buck, they went on the attack, while some of the "victims" who are accusing others of doxxing went out and shook down and doxxed fine young capitalists for money. This is ironic as many of these report to be "feminists" while fine young capitalists was an org trying to get female designed games made. instead after shutting them down one of those at the center of Gamergate pushed for a "game jam" for women with a Patreon account...that went directly into her personal checking account. They are also using the guise of "social justice" which in reality is self enrichment and hypocrisy but at the end of the day, when you strip away the "SJW" and "radical feminism" bullshit? Yep just about money, both the corruption in the press caused by and by certain women trying to use feminism the way Rev Al uses the black community. Sure you have a few in this that are so far left Karl Marx would go "Damn comrade, dial that shit back a bit" but as with so many scandals in the end? yep its about $$$
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Giving sex or blow jobs for preferential treatment is not a problem. However, a journalist not disclosing that he was receiving a blow job from the subject of his review while writing it could be considered an ethical breach.
Of course, the same goes for any other more common methods of obtaining promotional preferential treatment, such as donating copies of games, travel or hardware. The producer of the product has rarely made any commitment to limit how they encourage promotion of their products, but the journalist does implicitly make a commitment towards their readers to perform their job with a certain level of professionalism and adherence to good journalistic practices, which is where the ethical problem appears.
Whether anyones genitals are involved in any step in those chains is frankly irrelevant.
How internet fighting works:
http://www.smbc-comics.com/ind...
The people who are sending death and rape threats over the internet. The FBI doesn't give a shit about ethical lapses in gaming journalism or who fucked who as those are not crimes.
Gamergate is a conspiracy theory (although to be fair ethics in game journalism are non-existent). Anti-gamergate is made up mainly of those rich middle class women who think that nerds who have been picked on their entire lives for being nerds are somehow opressing them. The media sides with the media of course.
Gamergate is made up mostly of kids who fling slurs that would make a sailor bluch around on XBox live, and anti-GG seem surprised when their slurs and insults that usually shut down their opponents bounce off. Gamergate, on the other hand feels that they are each owed a personal explanation for each and every point made by any of the main anti-GG side.
I'm leaving out a lot of the more unpleasant aspects from both sides.
Dude, the entire industry is dirty. Here's a tip: if you're worried about ethics start boycotting every video game.
It's funny how when it comes out that a gaming company acted unethically Gamergaters suddenly lower their standards by a few notches rather than give up their favorite toys.
The initial corruption turned out to not exist, so it's no wonder it wasn't reported on. After that the hate-train was already at top speed and it was too late to stop it.
Are you serious?
We have logs proving collusion, we saw sites getting censored the day Total Biscuit brought this to light,we have over a dozen websites publishing attack articles on the same day.
I do not give two shits about ethics in journalism, it's a pointless battle. But what I do care about is people denying the fucking obvious because it conflicts with their personal politics. Game journalism is corrupt as shit and used SJW bullshit to defend themselves - whether you think that's justified, whether you think the gamergate response of harassment and threats is the bigger story, fine I have no opinion. But denying the objective fucking truth is horseshit, and I can't believe /. stands for it.
Four months later, there still hasn't been a single /. thread about the Gamergate scandal itself: the journalistic lapses
That's pretty much because we all know what happened:
(1) Zoe Quinn is a game developer
(2) Zoe Quinn was dating an idiot
(3) Zoe Quinn broke up with the idiot
(4) Zoe Quinn's game got a positive review in a magazine
(5) Months later, Zoe Quinn started dating one of the people who worked for the magazine that wrote the positive review
(6) The new person Zoe Quinn started dating had absolutely nothing to do with writing the review
(7) Zoe Quinn's former boyfriend became a massively jealous psycho stalker-type
(8) Zoe Quinn's former boyfriend started this huge campaign trying to link the review with the new boyfriend
(9) All of Zoe Quinn's former boyfriend's friends piled on, because, hey, trolling is fun!
(10) Other people piled on the other side defending Zoe Quinn
(11) A lot of Zoe Quinn's former boyfriends supporters are basically 4Chan trolls
(12) Many 4Chan trolls are adolescents with no sense of boundaries, and no life outside the Internet
(13) The trolls went overboard, as adolescents commonly do, when they have no sense of boundaries
(14) Some of these overboard actions included, but were not limited to, death threats, rape threats, verbal abuse, terrorism threats
(15) Now everyone is pissed off
(16) Someone needs to spank the adolescents for their antisocial behaviour
(17) The FBI is looking into it
(...) STORY TO BE CONTINUED
a general attack on women because of their sex...may or may not be misogyny
Actually, that is pretty much the definition of misogyny.
.: Semper Absurda
I would say that people who've received death threats, rape threats, had their blogs vandalized, etc would count as victims. Given that a crapton of those threats were on twitter & posted in comments on blogs as well as e-mailed, the FBI isn't going to have a hard time showing they didn't come from the 'drama queens' looking for attention.
Have there been death threats - yes
Have there been threats of rape - yes
Have there been threats to shoot up a school - yes
To suggest that their are no "victims of #GG" is utterly inconsistent with known, provable facts.
Just shows how crazy it is to rely on Wikipedia these days.
By the way, anyone else missing comments they recall making in this thread?
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Well, that was mostly the cynic in me writing, but on the other hand, isn't a threat made against a single individual typically handled by the police? Why would FBI feel the need to get involved? Or is this on of the "because it happened on the Internet it's different" kind of situations?
Government agencies overstepping their boundaries and getting involved in things that aren't their business is certainly a reason for concern.
Why what police force get involved when...
This is a basic, 50,000 foot view; it's not intended to cover all the details, and corrections gratefully accepted, but I believe this covers the gist of it...
It's pretty clear that the threats, particularly against the appearance of Anita Sarkeesian at Utah State University were, at a minimum, interstate.
When the threats cross a state line, the move from local police jurisdiction to federal police (FBI) jurisdiction, since police forces may only operate within their own jurisdictions. If the crime spans larger jurisdictions, such as adjacent cities within a county, or adjacent counties within a state, then it may be handled by an inter-agency task force. If it gets bigger than that, then the next larger jurisdiction encapsulating the jurisdictions involved takes ownership. The jurisdictions and agencies, are as follows:
Within a city: The city police force
Within a county: The county sheriff
Within a state: The CBI (California Bureau of Investigation - agency name varies by state)
Interstate: The FBI
International: Interpol
Within these classifications, inferior jurisdictions are often acted to cooperate/participate in the investigatory legwork, arrest operations, searches, evidence gathering, forensic work (autopsy, crime scene investigation, and so on).
Exceptions:
When a crime occurs on a federal lands or reservations, the FBI always has jurisdiction. For "indian reservations", investigator power lies in both the FBI and in the tribal police force (depending on the nature of the crime).
When a crime occurs on a military base, the investigatory power lies within the branch of the military; for most crimes, this is the MPs or Military Police. For more serious crime, or crimes involving military personnel not on base, or non-military and military personnel both, it goes by branch of service:
Navy, Marine, Coast Guard: NCIS - Naval Criminal Investigative Service
Army: USACIDC or CID - Criminal Investigation Division of the Army Provost's office
Air Force: AFOSI or OSI - Office of Special Investigations
Generally, anything involving a civilian, or occurring off base, ands up being a joint investigation with local authorities, which can include authorities in other countries (e.g. naval bases in Japan, air force bases in Germany, etc.).
For terrorist threats, USDHS - DHS - the Department of Homeland Security - gets involved. They are probably already involved in the Utah State University threat. At that pint, they can call on the capabilities and services of agencies such as the DOJ (Federal Marshals office), the NSA (which is allowed to operate domestically), the CIA (which is allowed to operate extranationally), the DIA (which is allowed to operate with regard to foreign military), and so on.
All in all, the more something escalates in terms of geographic reach, or in terms of threat level, the higher up the food chain you go, further and further into territories where you do not want to be. At some point in the escalation process, you get to the stratospheric regions where people simply "disappear" (otherwise known as "extraordinary rendition").
Does that answer your question?