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SXSW Cancels Panels On Harassment Due To Harassment (sxsw.com)
New submitter rMortyH writes: Two panels on online harassment in gaming scheduled for the upcoming South by Southwest festival have been cancelled due to online harassment and threats. According to a statement from SXSW Director Hugh Forrest, "... in the seven days since announcing these two sessions, SXSW has received numerous threats of on-site violence related to this programming. ... If people can not agree, disagree and embrace new ways of thinking in a safe and secure place that is free of online and offline harassment, then this marketplace of ideas is inevitably compromised."
This is one of those things that's gotten too far out of hand. Now is not the time to have a rational conversation, that's impossible, now is the time to sit on it for a while so that we can come back to it later without quite so much yelling.
This has absolutely NOTHING to do with a "politically correct narrative." This is a bunch of asshole teenagers on the internet being led by a couple basement dwelling 40 year olds who are mad at everyone for no good reason.
It's the dregs of humanity...on the internet...being assholes. Plain and simple.
Not a single "threat" would have been followed through on because these people either never leave their homes, or they're still under their parent's jurisdiction.
When you define disagreement as harassment, there is no way to have discussion.
So, GamerGate's first large meetup in Washington, D.C. was disrupted by a bomb threat.
Then, GamerGate's panels in Airplay were disrupted by several bomb threats, despite precautions taken against possible bombs by the SPJ at the venue.
Now, their panel at SXSW was cancelled due to threats of violence and harassment.
The fact that they cannot seem to peacefully assemble, which is defined as a basic human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations (among many other human rights documents), should be concerning no matter what your position on GamerGate is.
"Gee I wonder what this Slashdot comment thread will look like...."
Yeah.. It's just as likely that this 'cancellation' is nothing more than a publicity stunt design to 'signal boost' 'awareness' of the 'problem.'
If people can not agree, disagree and embrace new ways of thinking in a safe and secure place that is free of online and offline harassment, then this marketplace of ideas is inevitably compromised."
Interesting. Marketplace of ideas, eh? I guess this guy's been watching certain vids on youtube. Too bad his 'new way of thinking' is newspeak jargon for 'politically correct' speech, which has no room for any other kind.
Loved the humor you two a/cs, even if the moderator is too PC, I laughed. Also GGP is not a -1, troll, people are sick of the politically correct narrative and it is their way of rebelling.
This reminds me of my sister in law. I was teasing my brother, and he was smiling and happy, and she misunderstood the teasing as insults. She came screaming across and had a go at me. The smile on my brothers face dropped, like "oh no not again", and he tried to calm her down, explain that we were joking and he was having fun.
She insisted we spend the holiday apart after that, she couldn't simply admit she was wrong, it had to become a PC thing.
She doesn't interact in social situations much, and isn't use to the concept of ragging or teasing for fun. So she doesn't know how to behave in groups among friends, and they try to avoid her.
In short, she's a real cunt who can't admit she's wrong and makes REAL problems from her IMAGINED issues. For us, we had to find another hotel at peak season, which meant walking 2 miles with heavy bags on a hot summers day with no water. Fucking cow.
I see the same things here with these people. They don't interact much with real people in the real world, and so don't get to develop the thicker skin needed to be happy in social situations.
So the take actions which do serious harm, in order to be protected from the most minor imagined slight. As if their slight is more important than the real harm to free speech they're doing.
Do they mean shit talking? I thought talking shit was part of the appeal of online gaming? What am I missing here?
People having varying personalities and approaches to social interactions. Some people (male and female) enjoy trash talk, as friendly competitive banter. Others find it aggressive, stressful, immersion-breaking, and plain annoying.
Plus there is trash talk, and there is plain insulting, discriminatory aggressions (racist, sexist, homophobic, ageist and ableist, notably), sexual harassment, and real-life threats and stalking (and there are sometimes 'real' consequences to this, with 'doxxing', 'swating', harassing family or co-workers/bosses, etc.).
There's also a matter of time and place. Starting to insult a complete stranger after he crushed you, flooding the chat with stupid binds, calling cheat and starting a voteban, isn't "friendly banter". You're just an annoying sore loser brat. Same with bragging about 'winning' a round, in a completely unbalanced game because of stacking or pros going pub-stomping, with people leaving, or going spectator to join the 'winning' team, even after having been switched to the 'losing' team as part of autobalancing.
And there's also the problem of griefing and cheating in multiplayer games, not just trash talking. They are often linked.
Of course, this is mostly a mirror of society (and kids imitating adults), it has absolutely nothing to do with computers, Internet, and gaming in particular, although the sense of anonymity and distance sure make it easier for people to 'slip'.
In some cases, people don't use smileys when they should too, particularly with strangers. There is a huge difference between a "Go die! :P" and "go die". Even when the person might actually have the exact same state of mind.
One important thing to note is that trash talkers in a carebear world, would just find things boring. While the opposite situation can lead to depression and suicide. A good society has to take the side of people more sensible and vulnerable to aggression, even if in many cases, this is actually just 'friendly' (albeit often clumsy) trash talk.
To summarize, you can trash talk all you want with your friends who enjoy it, particularly when you're on your own server, or isolated from strangers. But you're supposed to tread lightly with strangers, until you know they're receptive to friendly banter. And finally, many aggressive behaviors are just plain annoying, and I'm sure you are of the exact same opinion, most likely very openly. So, when we are talking about these problematic behaviors, just don't take it personally, right? 'Cause that's precisely what you're trying to argue is an error on the part of more sensible persons... Yes, there is overgeneralization in many news articles about it, like on most other subjects. That's not a reason to throw everything out in reaction.
Beyond faking screenshots (editing the shot, editing the page), maybe not a 3-minutes-storm of multiple tweets with perfect punctuation and grammar by an account with no other posts, that were some how 'caught' within 12 seconds of its final message while not logged in to twitter? Cue Patreon link
I'd also accept threat notifications submitted to the FBI and deemed credible, as opposed to submitted to twitter and deemed fund-able.
If words were that worrisome, pretty sure most of us would be dead by that Navy Seal that likes to post.
They don't give a shit about their own female folks in the islamic world. All they want is easy gain and power to satisfy their ego.
You idiot. She was making a wider point about games that were overtly misogynistic, and said "what if someone made a game where you have to kill all men"
Doesn't that cover most shoot-'em-up games? If that was her point, she could probably have picked a better example.
My spoon is too big.
Oh, Anita Sarkeesian, is a victim alright--a professional one.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.