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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.
Which ones are they investigating? The drama-mongers or the drama-mongs?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
is technically challenging to do as the internet can be anonymous.
In many cases it is irresponsible journalism to assume it is "gamergate" launching the harassment campaigns since we know the SA/4chan professional trolls are antagonizing both sides to incite drama.
Some were admitted to have been fabrication. Some have been real but police advised people threatened that they were not credible, only to have those people go to the media claiming they were serious.
And then there were probably a few real psychos.
The saddest part is that most of the actual victims appear to be people who took part in the #notyourshield tag. The folks that basically made a point that "we're those minorities you opponents of #gamergate claim to be "protecting" and we're telling you under our own names - we need no protection from you". They and their families were brutally harassed and some were actually driven out of work.
It's going to be interesting to know if FBI is going to actually look at the whole thing rather than just #gamergate and what they will find out.
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.
Your argumentation would work better if it wasn't based on ad hominems.
Anyone whose been following gamergate would know this by now. This is late October news. The FBI has also stated that some people named as hacking victims had in-fact hacked themselves. Didn't name names, but three names that come to mind are Phil Fish, Zoe Quinn and Brianna Wu.
Buck Feta. You know what to do.
Slashdot's coverage of Gamergate has been abysmal. Every other summary has followed the template "harassment, misogyny, threats, harassment, misogyny, threats . . . oh btw Gamergate."
/. thread about the Gamergate scandal itself: the journalistic lapses, the universal news media blackout and user forum/comment censorship (including reddit and 4chan of all places), and the still-ongoing coordinated smear campaign that was launched on August 28 with the "Gamers are Dead" shotgun blast of hit pieces. All of those milestones should have gotten at least one article here each.
Sad as it is, this shitty summary is still the most "unbiased" simply because it straightforwardly mentions the movement as the topic of the discussion. The attempt to imply that the FBI said they were investigating pro-Gamergate people has already been destroyed in the comments (thank fuck users are still in control of the discussion here).
Four months later, there still hasn't been a single
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.
I can understand you want the conflict to just go away, but that doesn't mean both sides are without argument and are just assholes.
You forgot to add #ThinkOfTheWomen to your little hashtag list. At least then your posts wouldn't leak your obvious opinion on the issue you claim not to care about.
Large amorphous groups like gamergate (and yes, feminist groups and organizations as well) all have a few crackpots making threats. I am sure a few will be found, but that does not alter the legitimacy of the arguments made. I wouldn't be so quick to believe what three letter agencies put out either, especially since they are beholden to political bodies with interests in specific outcomes for the sake of image.
Well, the practice of swatting would be one of those kinds of harassment where 'ignoring it' literally wouldn't work. Of course a cursory googling seems to show more gamergaters actually subjected to that than their purported victims.
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.
There is no media blackout because the media does not care. How could you even condense this whole shit show down into a one minute news story? Outside of the gaming community nobody really cares.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
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...
As one of the few conservatives left on /., I can only agree fully with what the above smelly hippie has to say.
Back when Jack Thompson was the Anti-gaming Asshole in Chief, the Penny Arcade guys had a brilliant idea about that, and the Childs Play charity was born. We need a similar idea here. I had hoped that fine young capitalists might be that, but they really don't seem to have their act together, much as I like their intentions. Anyone else have a clever idea for a grand gesture?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Even anon posters on slashdot! *nods*
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.
Calling something "social justice" does not immediately relegate it to obscurity. "Social justice" is just a term to mean "admit less-than-stellar behavior towards minorities or the underrepresented, and earnestly try to improve it". Unless you'd call Rosa Parks a SJW you really should stop trying to use terms like that pejoratively - it makes you look like a tiny-minded, scared child, who is worried their favorite toys aren't as awesome as they always thought, and lashes out at anyone who might point that out to them.
Excellent summary. What it boils down to is that some people were criticized, and they defended themselves by claiming these were attacks on their gender. The reason is plain and simple: They could not credibly defend themselves against the criticism itself, so they used misdirection and made it a gender-issue. Predictably, a lot of people with no clue whatsoever about what was going on then jumped on those criticizing, as apparently criticizing a person of female gender is an attack on them all...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Excellent summary. What it boils down to is that some people were criticized, and they defended themselves by claiming these were attacks on their gender. The reason is plain and simple: They could not credibly defend themselves against the criticism itself, so they used misdirection and made it a gender-issue. Predictably, a lot of people with no clue whatsoever about what was going on then jumped on those criticizing, as apparently criticizing a person of female gender is an attack on them all...
I think this is the best summary ever of #GamerGate. There are several books worth of stuff happening as a result of this, but this is the point of origin.
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
ALL OF THIS.
This is exactly why Gamergate exploded in numbers.
It all started out attacking some awful excuse for a game on Steam that attempted to be deep and meaningful, but ended up being awful.
Then, the developer cried "sexism!" and played the victim card SO HARD.
Then friendships were found between a few reviewers and her, which caused an even larger shitstorm.
Then the rest of the bullshit happened, fake relationships, fake harassment, fake death threats, fake screenshots attacking and threatening to attack her (like those faked images from uh, wizardchan or whatever it was, OBVIOUSLY forgetting archivers exist) and so on.
The claims that only white fat virgins were pro-gamergate, shot down, and then them saying images were faked, how people were PAID and so on. YES, SERIOUSLY. PAID. This is how far these morons will go in order to try squash any criticism against them.
OH, let's not forget where she publicly attacked a charity to get more female developers in to games dev, that bit ALWAYS ends up forgotten.
I sat and watched that crap as it was happening, her and her group of friends all gloating about their success on twitter during it all.
The ONLY people that have genuinely been harassed during this are all the people supporting gamergate, all by her and her group of "hacker" buddies doxxing everyone that even shows any negativity to her movement, or follows the people in question.
People have been fired. People have been accused of rape. People have had massive amounts of shit sent to their houses that they never wanted, I'm sure some people even got swatted.
People against GG that were in positions of power elsewhere, such as game jams, were threatening to give all games by male teams bad reviews, RIGHT ON TWITTER, then came that delusional terrible programmer that wrote the blocklist for twitter and got trolled by allowing a troll himself on the whitelist! And who did that block? Oh yes, literally anyone that followed anyone relating to GG, or mentioned GG, so, loads of people that had nothing to do with it, because "gotta silence everyone!", you know, because censoring things on your computer means NOBODY ELSE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD CAN SEE IT. (this is the sort of people we are dealing with here)
I seriously do hope the FBI find those fake threats and the few possibly real threads that seem to be coming from a guy in Brazil. (probably a botnet node)
This shit really needs to be dealt with already since the only people suffering are gamers.
These people aren't gamers, Anita couldn't even mention a single game in an interview when she done an entire piece on game sexism. How pathetic. (not to mention every single one of her points were destroyed many times over)
But of course, let's not forget, this is just attacking females.
All those females that are actually guys employed at many news sites, or post on twitter. I can literally name 4 females in gamergate and the rest are guys that are hitting double digits now. Soggy knees indeed.
Being personally acquainted with at least one of the #NotYourShield folks, they definitely aren't all sockpuppets. There's people in back of there that really believe in what they're saying, There's also at least one developer in there who isn't either.
Now as to whether the people giving them grief are the anti-GG types, or the GG-types running a false-flag, that's another debate entirely.
"How fine you look when dressed in rage."
I notice that all your links are to poorly made YouTube videos. Taking the first one, the links you claim back you up are actually just links to more YouTube videos, a document on Google Docs that is unverifiable, a seemingly unrelated WaPo editorial about a spat between journalists and bloggers, and a Gamasutra article that they clearly state was written by community member and not their own staff and which seems to be mostly irrelevant.
Your claims are built entirely on top of other unfounded claims and extremely weak evidence. That basically sums up the entire GamerGate movement, from the original lies about Zoe Quinn onwards. There are some genuine issues with games journalism, although why that surprises anyone I don't know because no aspect of entertainment journalism has much credibility, but those points are lost in a sea of bullshit now.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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.
Its about corruption, about members of the gaming press having relations, both physical AND financial, with game developers they were promoting,
We already found out that this was a non-story, so why are you repeating it? zzzzzzz
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".
So you're offering as evidence your lack of understanding of how "news" works today? I guess you haven't heard of a wire service, either. Hint: It's how news is made.
Its REALLY simple folks,
Some people are making mountains out of molehills.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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?
Post a link to the positive review she received due to her relationship with a journalist. I dare you. I double dare you.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
This whole gamergate thing has been deeply confusing right from the start. It's hard to work out which side is which. Earlier this year, a couple of rape-threat trolls were jailed here in the UK - and one of them was a woman. Sending rape threats. To someone who was campaiging to get Jane Austen put on a UK banknote. I just can't make sense of the world any more!
This is an issue I truly believe socialists like myself and conservatives like yourself can come together on because NOBODY likes corruption, manipulation and hypocrisy and that IS ultimately what "Gamergate" is about.
Just don't label the SJWers as "radical left" okay? They have about as much to do with the left as Rev Al has in common with MLK, its about co-opting for the purpose of self enrichment, its about a handful of women who have figured out how to use the guise of feminism to put money in their bank accounts, see Zoe Quinn killing Fine Young Capitalists so she could push a "Women's GameJam" that went straight into her personal checking account, or how Anita Sarkeesian went from being a telemarketing shill to being the Andrea Dworkin of video games, at the end of the day its about stealing an idea, perverting it, and making bank off it.
But just as I wouldn't try to paint all conservatives with the same brush by saying all conservatives believe like Rand Paul that you should be able to discriminate against other races as long as its under the guise of private business, I would hope that you would afford those of us on the left that believe in safety nets for the poor and fairness in everything from taxes to political power and lump us in with those that say every ill of the world is because of white straight penis holders.
At the end of the day I think we can BOTH agree that political agendas don't belong in gaming, nor do we need a gaming media clic that is corrupt to the core and THAT is what BOTH sides need to be focusing on, the fact that you had 13 websites putting out the exact same story almost word for word within a few minutes of each other, that this very same media was covering up the fact they had both physical and financial interests in the games they were promoting, and that those with a political bent that both sides would rightly label extreme was using this podium to silence and blacklist those that did not support their agenda or at least pay lip service to their beliefs. This level of corruption simply cannot be tolerated and we in the gaming community and the Internet community in general should accept nothing less than the gamejournopro writers no longer being in gaming media and the websites they worked with going under because this level of collusion and corruption must NOT be allowed to spread, lest it taint and infect all those around it.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
SJW = Social Justice Warrior.
They are people who see Racism and Sexism in everything except themselves.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I disagree. Not all women are feminists, and getting more ladies into game development is not even one of the goals of these feminists. Their goal is to turn all gamers into feminists, and impede any gaming that isn't conforming to the dogma By force, if necessary.
According to wikipedia, all gamergate related articles are edited by a one specific editor who was asked even by Jimbo Wales himself to stop editing because of his obvious extreme bias.
He's still editing the articles and they're all extremely obvious hit pieces.
GamerGate isn't an echo chamber. GamerGaters do in fact question each others positions and claims. And sometimes find them wanting, as in the case of a pro-GG person who claimed he was physically assaulted and forced out of the apartment he shared with his girlfriend because of his pro-GG stance.
It's not surprising GG has a bad reputation; when you fight the press you can't expect anything but bad press.
Except that it wasn't coined as part of that particular bit of chan drama. It came up a month later -- coincidentally, just as the "gamers are dead" articles came out.
No one objects to women making games. But who was it who ran a successful campaign to get GTA V pulled from Target Australia because, specifically, of misogyny?
The initial claim turned out not to be a simple quid pro quo. The person who gave the favorable mention of Depression Quest turned out to have been mentioned in the credits for the game, however. He gave a mention to a game he was involved in the development of. This is certainly less headline-grabbing than sex-for-coverage, but I don't think it's any better. Either way it's a tempest-in-a-teapot at that point... but the more people started looking, the more rot they found.
It's clear at this point that there's a group of "gaming journalists" who give favorable reviews to their friends and political allies while giving unfavorable reviews to others on the same bases. And who are contemptuous of gamers, though that's not in itself unethical.
There's little public evidence on either side about threats and harassment. The most well-investigated threat (to Anita Sarkeesian) seems to have been from someone in Brazil who she already knew about and has been threatening her since long before GamerGate got going.
A lot of the so-called harassment is just people responding publicly to statements made publicly. That's not harassment. Dot-mentioning someone on twitter is not "harassment". Making a response video to someone else's video is not "harassment".
As with harassment, a lot of these so-called death threats don't even fit the form. They count things like "I hope you die" or "Go kill yourself" as death threats, when they're clearly not. Some of these death threats were actually threats and actually happened, but "someone sent me a death threat therefore my opponents are wrong and evil" still doesn't hold together.