SXSW Reinstates Panels On Harassment, Adds All-Day Harassment Summit (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader writes: On Tuesday, the South by Southwest Festival announced that it had canceled a pair of panels about online harassment after receiving threats involving them. The cancellation generated a massive outcry, including threats from media organizations to withdraw their support for the festival. Now, SXSW has announced that they're reinstating the panels as part of an all-day summit dedicated to talking about online harassment. They said, "By canceling two sessions we sent an unintended message that SXSW not only tolerates online harassment but condones it, and for that we are truly sorry. The resulting feedback from the individuals involved and the community-at-large resonated loud and clear. While we made the decision in the interest of safety for all of our attendees, canceling sessions was not an appropriate response." They've scheduled more than two dozen speakers for the event, and they plan to stream it live online. "Online harassment is a serious matter and we stand firmly against hate speech and cyber-bullying. It is a menace that has often resulted in real world violence; the spread of discrimination; increased mental health issues and self-inflicted physical harm."

Comments

SXSW are pussies

[Anonymous Coward]

I virtually kick their asses in cyberspace. I stuff their bits into lockers and turn all their 1s into 0s. Why are they hitting themselves?

Re:SXSW are pussies

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're an adult, you got over being called names. Expecting others to sanitize your environment wherever you go is insanity.

Re:SXSW are pussies

[NoImNotNineVolt]

That is, uses a colloquial term for a female genitalia to describe something bad.

And for being unable to take a fucking joke, I call you a dick. That is, I use a colloquial term for a male genitalia to describe something bad. Am I a misandrist now?

Re:SXSW are pussies

[Anonymous Coward]

I know right, what a dick.

Re:SXSW are pussies

[Darinbob]

If we're an adult, we should be in an environment more mature than the school playground. At school when we were immature asses, we called each other pussies and dicks. As an adult in my life, it does not happen anymore. We grew out of it. If someone things these are still appropriate terms to use after the age of 18 then they've got some stunted mental growth.

Re:SXSW are pussies

[NoImNotNineVolt]

I'm hopeful that one day this trope will be as unfashionable as the ones about women.

I'm hopeful that one day people will go back to a pre-1980 usage (or lack thereof) of the word "trope". Here's a helpful graph.

Seriously. The 2010s will be remembered as the decade of the war on tropes. Trope.

Re:SXSW are pussies

[tnk1]

There is nothing unreasonable about faith. Faith is the understanding that you will not be able to investigate the underlying mechanism of the thing you are dealing with. Most people have to exercise at least a little of that every day, when even when discussing scientific topics.

Generally, religions have been matters of revelation, and not investigation. This does not imply that they are unreasonable, just that they cannot be investigated scientifically. You can reasonably choose to discard items of faith, if you choose to limit yourself to that which you can investigate scientifically, but faith is not the opposite of reason.

Science and the scientific method was the outgrowth of quite a few people, particularly minor clerics, who eventually developed the concepts of Reason and the scientific method. Preachers and such may certainly be irrational, but their job description does not make it automatically so, nor does faith mean that they disable their "reason" to accept it. It is eminently reasonable to accept that there is something out there that you don't understand and can't investigate which, nevertheless, may be true. Certainly, the concept of things like atoms and smaller particles were an object of speculation without the ability to investigate for thousands of years before we could design experiments for them. I wouldn't have called those ancient philosophers "irrational".

Re:SXSW are pussies

[lgw]

I'm hopeful that one day this trope will be as unfashionable as the ones about women.

I hope instead that no one will care about your bullshit. Worrying about what name people get called is a sign that civilization had brought us to a wonderful place where we have no real worries, and as a sort of auto-immune disorder, we obsess on this meaningless BS. Get over it, and become happier. Enjoy this wonderful civilization and its fruits. You live better than 99% of everyone who has ever lived, stop searching so hard for something to complain about.

 

Re:SXSW are pussies

[wisnoskij]

Pussy isn't feminine, anymore than it is feline. It is simply a word meaning soft.

Re:SXSW are pussies

[TsuruchiBrian]

There is nothing unreasonable about faith. Faith is the understanding that you will not be able to investigate the underlying mechanism of the thing you are dealing with.

False. That's not faith. That's simply acknowledgement of agnosticism.

Faith is taking one more step and believing something without evidence. It's taking something you don't know and simply switching it to the category of something you do know without actually learning anything new.

Most people have to exercise at least a little of that every day, when even when discussing scientific topics.

Science involves a lot of guessing. I don't think any part of science involves believing something is true without evidence. There's a difference. Science is very clear about when things count as hypotheses/conjectures, and when they count as theories/facts/etc (hint: it's after the experiment).

but faith is not the opposite of reason.

No faith is not the opposite of reason, for the same reason that dogs are not the opposite of cats. That doesn't mean that they are not mutually exclusive.

Science and the scientific method was the outgrowth of quite a few people, particularly minor clerics, who eventually developed the concepts of Reason and the scientific method.

I find this claim to be rather dubious.

Preachers and such may certainly be irrational, but their job description does not make it automatically so, nor does faith mean that they disable their "reason" to accept it.

I think their job description does imply some irrationality. Maybe they are not being irrational, but their job certainly involves inculcating others to be irrational. I would not assume that every preacher practices what they preach. It's quite common for them to exposed as conmen, and conmen are certainly acting rationally.

It is eminently reasonable to accept that there is something out there that you don't understand and can't investigate which, nevertheless, may be true.

That is reasonable. To then go that next step from "Something can be true even if we can't prove it" to "Something *is* true even if we can't prove it" is not reasonable.

Certainly, the concept of things like atoms and smaller particles were an object of speculation without the ability to investigate for thousands of years before we could design experiments for them. I wouldn't have called those ancient philosophers "irrational".

It would have been irrational to say "Atoms must exist even though we have no evidence", even if it turned out to be true.

I can say "I know this next die roll will be a 6". That is irrational even if the next die roll is a 6.

But ancient philosophers were not basing their speculation purely on faith. They were using logic to come to those conclusions. They were evaluating the reasonableness of substances being infinitely divisible vs. there being some indivisible smallest unit.

Not all evidence is empirical. Other forms of theoretical evidence like logical and mathematical consistency, are also valid sources of evidence.

I would also like to point out that since discovering "the atom" we have discovered subatomic particles like protons and neutrons, and even smaller particles like quarks which compose them. We also potentially have yet another level deeper to go with string/M theory.

As logical as it may sound that there be a smallest indivisible particle, it may in fact be the case (as pointed out by Feynman and others) that there may not even be a bottom. It could be smaller and smaller sub-particles forever in an infinite regression.

My point is this: There is a big difference between saying
1. I don't have any evidence, but I think maybe X is true (agnosticism + hypothesis)
2. I don't have any evidence, but I know X is true (faith)

One of those is compatible with science and one is not.

Re:SXSW are pussies

[goose-incarnated]

Misandry us going a bit far,

Likewise, claiming misogyny for "pussy" is going a bit far.

but it is somewhat problematic. I'm sure you don't intend it to be, but it refers to men being led by their dicks, acting with little thought because they are horny. It's a lame trope that belittles guys, kinda like the one about bond women being dumb or women acting irrationally because they are menstruating.

So, in addition to claiming that women undergo no hormonal changes at different points in their cycle, you also want the world to stop using body parts as insults? Let us know how your crusade to stop people using the word arsehole...

Re:SXSW are pussies

[Electricity Likes Me]

If you're an adult, you got over being called names. Expecting others to sanitize your environment wherever you go is insanity.

This exact same logic works right back at you.

Re:SXSW are pussies

[AmiMoJo]

So, in addition to claiming that women undergo no hormonal changes at different points in their cycle, you also want the world to stop using body parts as insults?

No and yes.

All human beings undergo hormonal changes during their life. It's just that women are often undermined by dismissing their complaints or assertiveness as being due to menstruation.

As for using body parts as insults, if you can try to understand the above sentences then maybe you can then comprehend what I mean about body parts. I mean, you realize that menstruation is a bodily function, right?

Let me follow the logic

[Anonymous Coward]

Plan to have panels about online harassment. Harassed into canceling those plans. Then reinstate the plans?

I don't know what the lesson is here!

Re:Let me follow the logic

[Random Nobody]

Please cite anything you said

Re:Let me follow the logic

[Random Nobody]

Please cite anything you said, the articles don't give evidence or anything. Quoting spurious accusations from known shit-people like Randi Harper or Leigh Alexander does not count as evidence. It's pretty clear you're too naive to be discussing these things.

Re:Let me follow the logic

[ClickOnThis]

I have some bad news for you. You're one of the foolish reactionaries who went nuts over women fighting back against harassment. You're what's wrong with the gaming and reactionary dork communities. Anyone who calls civilized people "SJWs" is a dead-ender who needs to grow up.

When a story about online harassment shows up on Slashdot, it's inevitable that the harassers show up to the discussion. And their friends with mod-points.

And Dice gets the ad-clicks.

Re:Let me follow the logic

[AmiMoJo]

Criticism != harassment.

One of the most well known SJW traits is equating criticism and calls for change with harassment. Are we to conclude you are projecting?

Re:Let me follow the logic

[Mashiki]

There's nothing there that says gamergate was involved at all. Here's a question, why would gamergate want it's own panel shutdown? It's not any different than the tinfoilers who claimed that gamergate tried to shut down their own gathering at Local16(which is an on-going investigation still), or claiming that they shutdown the SPJ Airplay event with multiple bomb threats(also an on-going investigation), where the SPJ actually gave them a voice, instead of what the media was claiming it was.

In my book it falls into one of two camps, either exceptionally devout SJW's did it because they believed they're doing the right thing(there is an extremely long list of SJW's who have faked things to get attention or try to stop something--from fake racism to claiming non-existent rape while claiming it was "to create a dialog) or for the lulz, or trolls doing it for the lulz. You know, people like Joshua Goldberg who was a prolific writer for a pile of left-wing sites like The Guardian, Daily Kos, Feministing, and had dozens of articles published by them. But, he uses the gamergate hashtag(which anyone can use) 35 times, when there are 3.5m+ tweets in it, but that automatically makes him a member of gamergate says the SJW crowd.

Re:Let me follow the logic

[NotDrWho]

So you're accusing "SJWs" of bigger threats of actual violence than the ones that caused SXSW to cancel the panels in the first place?

Trolls have never once tried to pass legislation destroying the very foundation of free speech. They've never bullied a single university into kicking out students for daring to challenge the accepted liberal/feminist/race-hustling narrative. They've never threatened to alter the content of my videogames/movies/TV shows/etc. to portray some artificial liberal construct of "reality." AFAIK, they've rarely, if ever, drum-headed anyone out of their profession for saying the wrong thing.

They just occasionally shoot their virtual mouths off with hollow threats and juvenile insults.

So yes, SJW's are VERY MUCH so more of a threat to most us in our everyday lives than any trolls ever will be.

Re:Let me follow the logic

[epyT-R]

Yes. In fact, I'd argue that SJWs created the controversy in the first place. This is typically what happens:
1. Find some collection of attributes or institutions in the target cultural context to dominate. In this case, gaming/technology.
2. Feign offense and put on a victim routine, the louder the better. I believe they call it 'signal boosting'.
3. Use this victim status to garner sympathy and thus political power within the target organizations.
4. Use this power to 'reframe the narrative', ie dominate the discussion before it even begins.
5. Extract whatever cultural relevance this group has and use it to 'signal boost' up to the next target. When it inevitably dies, abandon the husk and move to the next target.

Yay for parasitical political philosophies!

Re:Let me follow the logic

[Pinky's Brain]

It's entirely up in the air where the threats came from. It could be a Jace, it could be mattress girl, it could be the Jew going around his neighbourhood painting Swastikas, it could be me, it could be you.

We have known cases of SJWs getting people fired, which is why for the moment the violence of SJWs is more effective than the alleged threats of violence from GG/MRAs. For the moment SJWs have the power to ruin arbitrary people's career and they aren't afraid to use it, while GG/MRAs have the power to troll people online who make a career out of getting trolled online for pity bucks.

At some point GG/MRAs might become more violent, but going on the past you have more to fear from the SJWs.

Re:Let me follow the logic

[SofiKadaj]

Anti-feminists seem to have trouble grasping this. Criticism: A: I think your ideas are wrong and here's why. B: I disagree for the following reasons. Harassment: A: I think your ideas are wrong. Everybody, look, her ideas are wrong. You are useless and stupid because I think your ideas are wrong. I'm going to call your friends and tell them to stop being your friend and post on your facebook to let everyone know how wrong your ideas are. B: Please get out of my house. Threats: A: I'm going to kill you if you talk about your ideas. B: ???

Re:Let me follow the logic

[epyT-R]

Interesting.. I'd say the same thing about feminists shouting 'rape apologist,' 'patriarchy',' and other such idiotic things at people for disagreeing. The part that makes it unfunny is that their shenanigans are backed by the state and mainstream institutions, which make them dangerous to liberty.

It's interesting how these people bitch about labels and generalizations, yet are the ones spending more time than most applying them to people. I believe they call it 'intersectionality.'

Re:Let me follow the logic

[Random Nobody]

More seriously, in my experience when people start accusing others of dishonest behaviour based on some dubious circumstantial evidence, it's because that's how they think and how they themselves act.

The fact that we have IRC logs of GanerGate channels where people discuss doing this pretty much confirms it.

Surprisingly both of these statements existed in the same paragraph.

Re:Let me follow the logic

[PopeRatzo]

Here's a question, why would gamergate want it's own panel shutdown?

I think I can answer that: because whenever GamerGate has participated in a public forum, it has only been embarrassed and seen public support drop. For example, the recent event with that Koretzky dude from the Society of Professional Journalists turned into a monkey-show of GG e-celebs and floor-crappers. Public exposure is not GamerGate's friend. Remember Aurini's big documentary? You think GG is gonna be helped by having Oliver Campbell explain how he's in deep cover for the FBI investigating the feminists? Or Ralph Retort talking about the ethics of doxxing bitches while cleaning out his ear with a toothpick? I repeat: public exposure is not GamerGate's friend. If the past year has taught us anything, it's that fact. Every event, every happening has just caused GamerGate's support to erode.

On the other hand, if you ask the question, "Why would the blue-haired SJWs want their own panel shutdown?" now you have something of a quandary. Every time they get their mugs in public, they have multinational companies throwing money at them (Intel) or they get invited to be on Colbert or to speak at the United Nations or they have their new non-profit anti-harassment organization funded. Their Patreons get more donors and they get to be social darlings. Public exposure is the SJW's friend. They suck that shit up, and having a panel at SXSW cancelled would be a disaster for them.

In summary, one party has nothing to gain and the other has nothing to lose.

Re:Let me follow the logic

[pseudofrog]

Jesus Christ. Let's tackle a few of these.

Goldberg created alts that spouted ridiculous arguments he would later cite on his main account, the one he attached his name to, as "crazy SJWs". Those other accounts were to create strawmen for his real account, again, the one using his real name, to attack.

Your LMGTFY link points to one college student nobody's heard of making a false rape threat and links to articles claiming Anita Sarkeesian never reported threats to authorities. Here's a citation. Short story: Asshole MRAs (and GamerGate supports) call the SFPD, and the person who answered claimed to not know of any reports made by Sarkeesian. Turns out the SFPD immediately passed that info along to the FBI from the beginning. Even Milo, Gamergate's ""intellectual leader"", admits that.

But the narrative that Sarkeesian made up the threats is too useful to admit is wrong, so the original articles stay without noting that further investigation proved them wholly incorrect. Then people like you reference them, hoping that readers won't dig deeper.

Any time someone makes threats against one of the people Gamergate hates, they blame third-party trolls. Conveniently, these trolls magically disappear when threats are made against Gamergate events. Gamergaters love to ignore the fact that an infamous 8chan troll took credit for the threats. 8channers love going after "SJWs", but they fuck with Gamergaters on occasion as well. Because of lulz or whatever.

It's sad that Slashdot is taking these conspiracy whinings so seriously, but I'd encourage people to do some research. To date, Gamergate has accomplished nothing aside from calling their enemies whales and trannies while claiming the mainstream media is out to get them. Perhaps it's not surprising that they're hailing Breitbart Tech, yes, that Breitbart, as a savior of tech journalism.

Re:Let me follow the logic

[Mashiki]

I think I can answer that: because whenever GamerGate has participated in a public forum, it has only been embarrassed and seen public support drop. For example, the recent event with that Koretzky dude from the Society of Professional Journalists turned into a monkey-show of GG e-celebs and floor-crappers. Public exposure is not GamerGate's friend. Remember Aurini's big documentary? ou think GG is gonna be helped by having Oliver Campbell explain how he's in deep cover for the FBI investigating the feminists? Or Ralph Retort talking about the ethics of doxxing bitches while cleaning out his ear with a toothpick? I repeat: public exposure is not GamerGate's friend. If the past year has taught us anything, it's that fact. Every event, every happening has just caused GamerGate's support to erode.

Really? You mean the same thing from the SPJ which has a gaming-only related journalism reward that only goes to sits that show they have no conflict of interest? Or people like Lynn Walsh who are on the savepoint panel because of it? Strange I don't seem to remember Cambell ever saying that, link? But if you're right and all that has cause GG's support to erode, then why do subs continue to increase, and why do subs and sites continue to consistently draw more people?

On the other hand, if you ask the question, "Why would the blue-haired SJWs want their own panel shutdown?" now you have something of a quandary. Every time they get their mugs in public, they have multinational companies throwing money at them (Intel) or they get invited to be on Colbert or to speak at the United Nations or they have their new non-profit anti-harassment organization funded. Their Patreons get more donors and they get to be social darlings. Public exposure is the SJW's friend. They suck that shit up, and having a panel at SXSW cancelled would be a disaster for them.

In summary, one party has nothing to gain and the other has nothing to lose.

Really GG has nothing to lose anyway. Gamers themselves have been bullied, called mass murders, the cause of all of societies ills since the 1990's. You're basically looking at one of the most bullied sections of society who've already been beaten down, and saying "no fucks are given." But if they had nothing to gain, or provided nothing then all those gaming sites wouldn't have changed their disclosure and ethics policies, the FTC wouldn't have changed their native advertising rules, and the media wouldn't be so obsessed with us as the "new 4chan" that hacks, rapes, destroys, doxes, and takes candies from babies. You literally can't go a week without some new article claiming that GG is evil, or GG did this or that because they're GG. It's almost turned into a dank meme all because of their hard work.

Re:Let me follow the logic

[epyT-R]

Nah, it's usually the feminists who have that problem. They squawk at people who criticise and try to get them removed from whatever platforms are in play. Typical examples include fired from jobs, kicked out of schools (eg Duke, Dalhousie), and of course, nuisance sexual harassment law suits. It's not the anti-feminists who are building soviet show trial style 'tribunals' in every institution they can in order to intimidate and shout people down. Anti-feminists aren't also building coalitions to censor speech they don't like either.

Re:Let me follow the logic

[KGIII]

I mentioned this yesterday. Ain't nobody got time for introspection and self-improvement. It's Friday, time for the SJW Showdown. The MRA group is in one corner, trying hard to not look at the other side and the SJWs are prattling on about being enlightened, tolerant, and CORRECT while actively showing everyone that they're the exact opposite of what they claim to be.

Who's going to win this week? The show continues.

"Welcome back my friend, to the show that never ends. We're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside."

So they proved that bullying works!

[quietwalker]

First by cancelling the panels due to threats, then by reinstating them due to threats!

The lesson to learn here kids: threats works!

Re:So they proved that bullying works!

[Anonymous Coward]

You're saying those who wanted them not cancelled were making threats equivalent to threats of actual violence?

I don't know about you but I think pulling out of participation of an event, or withdrawing an advertiser, is not actually quite the fucking same as making threats of on-site violence.

FML

Re:So they proved that bullying works!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... threats of hyperbolic violent harm that couldn't POSSIBLY happen or

Threats of actual economic harm that was ABSOLUTELY going to happen.

Definitely not the same at all.

Re:So they proved that bullying works!

[AmiMoJo]

Fucked if you do, fucked if you don't.

They owned up to their mistake, and listened to what people were telling them. They deserve some credit.

Re:So they proved that bullying works!

[Kierthos]

It's amazing that you know that the threats of violence at SXSW couldn't possibly have happened.

O great Karnak, what are this week's lottery numbers? I mean, if you're already peering into the future....

What happened to SXSW

[Sir_Eptishous]

SXSW used to be about puking your guts out at 9am after an all nighter, then killing it at shows later that night.

Panels about online harrasment?!?
That is on par with assigning an ip to your bidet, logging in to FB through it, then posting updates while using it.

Re:What happened to SXSW

[quietwalker]

You're thinking of SXSW Music. SXSW has split into 3 parts: Music, Film, and Interactive. This is SXSW Interactive. SXSW Music doesn't even start until SXSW is over.

There's also 7 different exhibitions: http://www.sxsw.com/marketing/...

Re:What happened to SXSW

[bluefoxlucid]

Harassment isn't a growing problem; it's getting media attention at this time.

Throughout all of history, even in the Victorian age, people have fucked other people's wives; why do you think mistresses are a long-time common theme of a man's life in old stories, or weddings end with something about reasons two people shouldn't be married? The priest isn't asking you if the bride is a lying bitch; he's asking if the bride's dad secretly fucked the groom's mom one drunken night and so the dude is marrying his sister. We have a huge narrative about how the moral fiber of society is degrading, how teenagers are starting to sexualize themselves, how you never had people fucking their teachers in the 1920s or 1950s, teen pregnancy is the new thing, etc; all of that's been a constant theme through history, and teachers kept on fucking 12-year-old schoolgirls right through the ages where we pushed marriage from 12 to 18.

The same narrative is happening with harassment. It's a problem, sure; it's not a new or growing problem, though. Harassment has been with us since man figured out how to call some other man an ignorant little shit in front of his friends in order to elevate his own social status. Now instead of being afraid to leave your house because the big kid from school is waiting around the corner to jump you and give you a wedgie, you're afraid to get on Facebook because the big kid from school is waiting to tell you your tits are too small. Same shit, different day.

Re:What happened to SXSW

[Kierthos]

But being able to harass someone while not even in the same city/county/state/country is relatively new.

Back in Victorian England, if you wanted to harass someone, you pretty much had to be where they were. I really don't see there having been a whole lot of harassment by telegraph. Maybe newspaper, sure. But that was about the limit.

Now? You don't even have to be in the same state to dox someone or SWAT them. So, the nature of harassment may not have changed a lot, the method of delivering it has.

Re:What happened to SXSW

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

The priest isn't asking you if the bride is a lying bitch; he's asking if the bride's dad secretly fucked the groom's mom one drunken night and so the dude is marrying his sister.

While this moment has been used for many things in movies, it's really for a previous spouse to stand up and state they are still married to one of the two. Even then its use as more than a formality (a marriage is a public statement of committment before God.. and witnesses) is long over.

The metaphors around this are hilarious.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm laughing so hard. I might piss myself. Please, send help.
This is just too funny.
First they cancel a harassment panel due to harassment, now they reinstate it due to more harassment.

Their submissiveness is hilarious.
Grow a fucking spine. No wonder nobody takes you people seriously.
Back in the stupid ages, people like that died young, or became slaves to others.
Oh, wait, it still happens now. I repeat, grow a spine.

They'll still not be taken seriously. They already doomed their panels, this is just more salt in the wound.

Re:The metaphors around this are hilarious.

[Kierthos]

They cancelled the panels due to harassment and threats.

They reinstated the panels due to several organizations saying that if the panels weren't reinstated, the organizations wouldn't show up to the event.

There's a bit of a difference there.

Re:The metaphors around this are hilarious.

[Kierthos]

It's a matter of scale.

"Cancel {X} or we'll do violence to you!" vs. "Reinstate {X} or we're not showing up."

There is no crime committed by the latter.

Re:The metaphors around this are hilarious.

[Raseri]

A declaring of one's intention to cause harm or loss to another's person or property or to limit one's freedom to act in a lawful voluntary manner

Strange, I'm not seeing the word "violence" anywhere in that definition. In fact, there's no specification of what type of harm can be intended or not, so one could assume that this could include financial or social harm.

Did you actually read and understand what you posted?

Re:The metaphors around this are hilarious.

[Kierthos]

There's a difference between a boycott and threats of violence.

One, a boycott is not inherently a crime. I could choose to boycott, oh, say, Wal-mart, and if I announce I am boycotting Wal-mart, it doesn't necessarily follow that this boycott is illegal (because it isn't), or that if I follow through on boycotting, that I have committed an illegal act.

Whereas, if someone threatens violence, depending on jurisdiction, it IS a crime. (In some states, threatening others with the intent to cause harm is considered assault. Actually harming them is a separate crime.)

Now, consider the following:

1) A statement by a group that if Wal-Mart is open on Thanksgiving Day, the group will boycott Wal-Mart for the duration of the Christmas season.

2) A statement by a group that if Wal-Mart is open on Thanksgiving Day, the group has threatened to attack Wal-Mart employees.

The first is a boycott. The second is a crime.

Class is dismissed.

Online text does what now?

[Raseri]

[text on a screen] is a menace that has often resulted in real world violence

Oh, really? And where can we view these spooky words with magical powers?

Re:Online text does what now?

[truck_soccer]

If only all those kids that killed themselves because of being bullied online could have just seen this comment,you could have saved them! I suggest sharing this post all over the internet! More people need to see this great wisdom you've bestowed upon us! Rejoice! YOU HAVE SINGLE-HANDEDLY ENDED ALL HATRED AND EVIL JUST BY POINTING OUT THAT WORDS ARE NOT PHYSICAL THINGS

Re:Online text does what now?

[Raseri]

No, you're right. Everyone who ever read Mein Kampf or watched a video of Hitler giving a speech immediately went out and killed Jews. Because words have that much sway over mentally stable humans.

Re:Online text does what now?

[AmiMoJo]

Head over to google.com and look at the text ads. Turn on the TV, wait for the advert break. Read some paid articles in the newspaper.

If words were really powerless advertising wouldn't work. Like it or not, things people read clearly affect them.

Head over to /r/RedPill and tell me that the people there are not profoundly affected by the stuff they read. They just decided to act like that one day and post about it, up to and including violence.

Re:Online text does what now?

[Kierthos]

No, but you apparently need this explained to you.

You are attempting to argue that because everyone who has ever read Mein Kampf hasn't gone out killing Jewish people, then it follows that no one is ever affected by words/speech to do something.

That's a logical fallacy.

Some people are more easily swayed by propaganda. Others aren't. Just because some people aren't swayed by a particular piece of propaganda doesn't invalidate the effectiveness of propaganda or nullify the psychology behind it

Re:Online text does what now?

[dskoll]

Words can affect anyone, not just the mentally instable. To use your Mein Kampf example, most Nazis were certainly not mentally unstable. They were just manipulated into believing evil things and doing evil acts.

And if you believe you're too smart to be manipulated that way, you're almost certainly wrong.

Please note that I'm not advocating censorship or banning of Mein Kampf or anything like that. But the reactionary outrage to a panel about online harassment is completely stupid and childish. Online harassment is a real issue, and if you get offended just by people discussing it, then you're worse than all the SJWs you put down.

GamerGate

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait for day when we all look back on this drama and realize how silly we were back end.

It's strange how people on the internet will get emotionally invested in something so menial and use it as a battleground for their political ideologies.

And before someone says "Well its because of the..", No. Both side are guilty of this and both sides are equally annoying.

Re:GamerGate

[TooManyNames]

Careful now, there's real money to be had (by both sides) pandering to those overly sensitive to this menial stuff. Oh, and you just initiated a countdown for some butt-hurt keyboard warrior to come to the defense of their cause saying, "there is no moral equivalency" for whatever side they fall on.

A sterling example of SJW outrage/harassment

[Anonymous Coward]

After searching through a few pages of /r/games and /r/gamernews you don't see a blip about this event, but if you look on /r/girlgamers it's right on the first page. Below is a response to the original cancellations from one of the SxSW panelists. You should honestly read the whole thing in the link provided. It gets nasty. REAL nasty and paints a perfect picture of what happens when a SJW with an agenda doesn't get his or her way right down to threatening to publicly shaming the event during their own panel.

https://the-cauldron.com/sxsw-s-astounding-ideals-of-cowardice-871764d3eb45

"Your conference is the corrupt, decaying edifice of the status quo, no matter how much you pretend otherwise, because you lack the common decency to take a stand against those who would hurt others merely because they’ve always been able to do so. The women who presented this panel knew there would be risks. Threats of violence, of bitter hate, of crude and salacious intimidation tactics—these women, and many others, deal with those risks every day, simply because they dare exist. They wanted to have a conversation about those risks, discuss ways of mitigating, or perhaps even solving them, but thanks to your impotent leadership, they now will not have that opportunity.

So I say to you, SXSW, and every one of your toadies who failed to stand up for what was right, even though it might have been what was difficult, that your conference is garbage. You, collectively, are garbage, a sad accumulation of fears squirming inside the skins of what could have been human beings, and I hope that one day, all of you will take stock of your lives and determine whether or not you are the people you wish to be. Until that day, you have proven yourselves unfit to steward nothing more than the ferrying of waste through your own body.

Sincerely,

SXSW Panelist For ‘The Art of The Own: Internet Etiquette and Sports,’ And You Better Be Damn Certain This Is Going To Be In The Panel —

Chris Kluwe"

Re:Good, talk about professional victims as harass

[Mashiki]

An example would be Twitter who has banned people for claiming they posted doxs, or harassment like Leothepirate or Thunderf00t for example but allowed people like Quinn, Harper, Sarkeesian and Wu to run free, who've posted doxs, harassed people, or even sent their followers out to attack others. I think that's what they're talking about, the rules don't apply equally. If you're in the right kind of clique, you can do whatever you want.

good job AC!

[Thud457]

OH NO YOU DINNINT!
We haven't had a good ol' fashioned thermonuclear flamewar around here in ages.
Just what this thread needs!

Re:Good, talk about professional victims as harass

[jedidiah]

Liberal journalists are all bending over backwards and tripping over themselves to prove how liberal they are. They're being played like a cheap crank activated organ.

Re:Good, talk about professional victims as harass

[Mashiki]

I want to point out something interesting. Those men are referred to by their by their adolescent-y pseudonyms, but the women are referred to by their real names.

Well I could post leothepirate or thunderf00t's real names, but those pseudonyms? Those are the names they are known by, much like how Quinn, Haprer, Sarkeesian and Wu are the names they're known by. It's pretty simple isn't it. If I said Phil and Leo would you know their real names and how they played into this? The answer would be no.

Besides, when everyone is anonymous and using a pseudonym you don't know who that other person is. You're not clouding your views based on who they might be, their race, sex, or anything else. You're basing the merit of their statements and ideas. And I know that many on the far left, especially in the social justice circles and modern feminism have a real problem with merit and meritocracies which they call sexist, sometimes racist, and I've even seen merit called homophobic.

The beatings will continue until morale improves

[evilRhino]

There were two panels that were cancelled. The one anti-harassment and one media corruption. It seems like the media boycott got the anti-harassment panel reinstated, but they don't have any serious problem with nobody caring about media corruption for some reason. It must be because the only ones that care about media corruption are all serious harassers like Anne Rice, The David Pakman Show, or KFC.

False equivelence

[friesofdoom]

Calling a guy a "pussy" is not making out that female genitalia or having female genitalia is a bad thing, it's making fun of the guy's lack of masculinity, which in the real world, for a male, isn't usually desired.

Its the same as when calling a women a "dog" - you're not saying that you think dogs are bad, but rather that the woman has taken on the visual features of a dug, ie. she's ugly.

It's a Trap!

[SuperKendall]

Whole day of panels on harassment

Oh right, they put together a whole day teaching people how to harass others online, gathering all of the most epic trolls from around the world to one location...

Obviously gathered for the purpose of a targeted military strike by forum moderators the world over.

Remind me to stay the hell away from Austin that day!

two unrelated things. pusillanimous earlier use

[raymorris]

One can SET the table, have a SET of tools, or SET something down. These are unrelated meanings which happen to have the same spelling, mostly because English speakers prefer their words to be shorter than the Latin and Greek from which they derive.

PUSI-ll-animous is latin for cowardly. A long time ago it was brought into English as "pussy" (other origins are also possible, it was a long time ago).

Some time later, cat or pussy was separately used as slang for vagina.

Two unrelated meanings that happen to have the same spelling because pusillanimous is "too long; didn't say".

Re:About time they manned up

[Raseri]

Was it also frustrating for you to see a woman and her children being threatened by extreme left-wing lunatics for being a GamerGate supporter? Or does your sympathy extend only to those who have the correct politics?

Also, this:

those of us who created the whole gaming industry in the first place

is the most hilarious thing I've read on here all day. You did no such thing. Get over yourself.

Re:GOML.

[Mashiki]

That's great. I'm a grey beard and I'm "in this mess." And going by your post, I've been here longer than you, especially since I remember writing out games that came in magazines to play them. I'm disabled, my back is broken in two places, and I do game as well. You know what happened when this all started up though? There was this tag called #notyourshield, where those SJW's started saying that a disabled minority like myself didn't exist. They told women that game they don't exist, they told other minorities they didn't exists. And to round it all up, when people proved that they did exist and didn't agree with them. They started calling people house niggers, uncle toms, and so on. Oh SJW's full of love and kindness right?

If you've been gaming as long as you have, then you'll remember the ye olde days when gaming magazines would shill out for corps, and people who were friends without disclosing it. You'll also remember when the internet started catching on, how everyone and their brother started launching their own site and become their own game reviewer. You'd have been in that bluesnews/voodoo3d/etc clique that existed at the time. You'll remember that those gaming magazines started dying, and were replaced by online sites.

And you jump a head, you'll remember the Dorito Pope among other instances of corruption, conflicts of interest, and collusion. You'll also remember saying fuck this, and a few years after that you'd start seeing the rise of Let's Plays and 'tube related reviews of games and being happy with them. And jumping to the present, unless you buried your head in the sand you'll have remember the number of authors on the big name sites getting caught shilling for their buddies indie games, authors shilling for xyz companies games and so on.

SJW's pushing 'diversity' or what they claim as diversity is only a small part. It's claiming to be the only voice that can speak for you, or me. If you don't want to be in this mess, that's fine. The game journo's and the vast majority of those who were in Game Journo Pro's created it. You're now seeing the fall out. Oh and a fun bit, look up people like Arthur Chu, Geordie Tait, or Randi Haper or Zoe Quinn. Who've either wanted to commit or openly support violence, or doxing people who don't follow their lines of belief.

Re:The beatings will continue until morale improve

[Yosho]

It only turned into gamergate because someone's jilted posted a bunch of lies and it exploded when all those basement dwellers felt offended that a woman should dump a guy that seemed so thoughtful and well spoken in his drunken rant.

That's not quite what actually happened or why GamerGate became a thing. After a man went public about the emotional abuse and infidelity he had dealt with from his ex-girlfriend, it turned out that one of the men she had cheated with was a writer for Kotaku and had given her favorable coverage without disclosing their relationship. GamerGate happened because, instead of admitting the mistake, Kotaku released an article claiming they had investigated and decided nothing improper was going on, despite photographic evidence otherwise. Personally, I find it very confusing that anti-GG keeps insisting that the entire incident was lies from a jilted ex despite the provided evidence and Quinn later admitting to it.

Many gamers were upset about the coverup, and it might have died down on its own, except several gaming news sites then seemingly independently produced a series of "gamers are dead" articles, which attacked and criticized gamers as a whole and accused gamers of widespread, systemic misogyny because they dared to be upset about a reporting scandal that involved a woman who cheated on her boyfriend. Making things even worse, it was discovered soon after that the series of articles was coordinated through a private mailing list used by all of those publications, where they colluded to decide what should be published.

A lot of people were very upset about this, and what's when GamerGate really took off. Since then, the involved sites have continued to hammer down on their accusations, and a large number of third-wave feminists have joined in after hearing calls of misogyny, trying to claim that strong criticism is the same as harassment, even though men like Jason Schreier, Nathan Grayson, and Jonathan McIntosh have been just as harshly criticized as any women involved. Meanwhile, the examples that anti-GG tries to point to as harassment and threats regularly turn out to be either unassociated with GG or complete fabrications. I keep trying to find somebody who has actually committed physical violence in the name of GG, and I still haven't found any. Women Action Media even did a study and released a report indicating that only a tiny percentage of GamerGate-related activity was involved in harassment at all. If you're going to judge the group based on the actions of a few outliers, then you can condemn pretty much any group.

And it might make you feel better to tell yourself "10 people still believe that gamergate is still about ethics", but KotakuInAction is up to well over 53k subscribers now and is still working hard at exposing corruption, censorship, and collusion. Calling them misogynists just makes them even more determined.