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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.
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.
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...
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.
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?