Tauriq does a marvelous job raking #gamergate over the coals on the issue of ethics — which they know nothing about. We already know it’s not about journalism, or they’d be targeting journalists and ‘zine publishers that have a cozy relationship with game publishers, and we can also see that the foaming-at-the-mouth GG advocates haven’t got even a passing acquaintance with the content of a first year philosophy of ethics course, so what can we conclude?
This must be a lie, and they actually do want to destroy humanity because they’re evil. I figured that out by applying the level of understanding of ethics that they have to logic.
Just think – if Rebecca Watson had cast “Don’t do that” as a critique of ethics in games journalism, all of those people would have enthusiastically supported her!!!!
It’s not too late. Gamergate has shown that you can retroactively assign any motive you want to any cause.
Add PR to the things they don’t know about.
I think we missed a really good opportunity to create some solid, derailing hashtags.
#NotAllWomen
#NotAllWomenDevelopers
#NotAllVideoGameJournalists
#NotAllGirlfriends
Gold mine, there, people.
HT, PZ.
@ 4 Frugal: Ha. https://twitter.com/tauriqmoosa/status/529245983067357184
They are explicitly targeting journalists. See this blog post for evidence.
qwints:
Except when they aren’t.
You know. Sarkeesian, Quinn, Wu, Day. Hell Gamasutra isn’t even really games journalism per se (it’s media for other developers, not for gamers or the general public).
Well, the latter is another thing that annoys me. They claim it is about “ethics in journalism,” so they attack one of the few places (Gamasutra) that isn’t just a cheering section for whatever AAA game is throwing money around? (In fact, all of their “journalism” targets seem to be exactly and only those media that occasionally try to wrestle with deeper questions then whether “Rise of the Tomb Raider” will have more DLC in the Xbox version.
@anteprepro – Yes, gamergaters have harassed and terrorized people who have nothing to do with ethics in journalism. They have also explicitly targeted journalists which makes PZ’s line “it’s not about journalism, or they’d be targeting journalists and ‘zine publishers that have a cozy relationship with game publishers” silly.
Why don’t you show us the rape and death threats against those real journalists of the gaming industry? Especially the male journalists. Fair is fair, but if only women are targeted, it says something about your ethics.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure “Dear Intel, please stop sending add money to people who are mean to us” is a wee bit different from, “Shut up you ****, or this friday morning I will come out to your house at *** and shoot you in the face.”
They haven’t been making terroristic threats against journalists, they’ve been targeting them by organizing boycotts. And of course the terroristic threats against women make gamergate irredeemable. And if that wan’t enough of an impediment, the central demands go beyond ethics to dictating content – such as demanding the silencing of all cultural criticism.
There’s more than enough to condemn the movement without saying things like they’re not targeting journalists.
I find the whole “ethics in journalism” bit to sound like they need scriptures that they can blindly trust.
@qwints
There goes the point. Whooosh! It sailed right above your head!
Then why haven’t they been doing the same to the women involved in the case? Ignoring them. Instead that tormented by them. Or, are you honest enough that the alleged boycotts are nothing but a smoke to try to legitimatize their organized harassment of women?
Yah….
“We need ethics in journalism….so let’s boycott anyone who says things we find controversial.”
On top of the rather more problematic “Critique is necessary of their work — naw, too hard, let’s just threaten to blow up any building where they are allowed to speak.”
That second part of the sentence, conveniently forgotten by qwints, is quite crucial. They target journalist who are anti-GG, NOT journalists who behave unethically.
qwints, #13
There you go flirting around the boundaries of the real problem. I wonder why you don’t want to come out and say it.
It’s not silencing of all cultural criticism. It’s silencing of female gamers’ and game developers’ cultural criticism.
It’s stomach-churning, disgusting misogyny of Biblical proportions. GamerGate is not and has never been about journalism. It’s obvious. A critique of journalistic practices does not involve misogyny. Someone who wants to stop corruption in journalism isn’t at risk of saying and doing sexist things. It’s all a front. They want to do the misogynistic stuff; the ethics bullshit excuse came later. Telling someone they shouldn’t speak seems quite contrary to ethics of all kinds.
The terrorism and harassment completely discredits the movement. Why do people feel the need to feed the gamergater narrative by making false statements about the other things they are doing? The problem isn’t that they’re not going after journalists, it’s that they are threatening women.
qwints,
Not a false statement at all, see 18. Why are you so invested on this?
Them not going after journalists is a problem because that’s what the use as an excuse as they’re being fucking assholes to women and issuing awful death threats. So of course it’s relevant to say, “but you’re just being misogynist criminals and hardly seem to be going after journalists.”
Why are you against people calling them out on their bullshit (i.e. we’re for ethics in journalism)? Sounds to me you want to shield them from criticism for some reason.
And I’ve said before…
IF there is a severe and endemic problem with ethics in game journalism, then there is no need to hang on to a discredited tag, a discredited movement, or a very…selective…series of targets. Surely it wouldn’t be so hard to start a new discussion, about real issues, and thus divorce themselves completely from what the gatergate defenders keep trying to characterize as a lunatic fringe.
Oh, wait; that discussion IS occurring. At places the gaters don’t like, as it is being honest in ways the gaters don’t want.
qwint, you are showing extraordinary levels of obliviousness on this subject.
1. Gamergate started when Zoe Quinn’s ex-boyfriend wrote a bitter rant about how awful she was, including sleeping with a games journalist to get a good review of her game — this despite the fact that said journalist has never written a review of her game…and neither has anyone else at the journal he worked for (Kotaku).
2. Despite the transparent falsehood in this complaint, the gamergate mob first went after Zoe Quinn, not the journalist or Kotaku.
3. Despite the transparent falsehood in this complaint, it turns up as a justification in the so-called SPJ Code of Ethics. (You know, if your code of ethics is built upon a vicious lie, you have no business writing a code of ethics.)
4. Despite being supposedly about ethics in journalism, almost all of the energy has been directed towards harassing women in gaming, especially Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, Brianna Wu, and Felicia Day…none of whom are journalists. The only men they’ve harassed have been those who argued against the gamergate movement…even those who are not journalists such as Phil Fish.
5. When celebrity figures Felicia Day, Will Wheaton, and Chris Kluwe spoke out against gamergate, only Felicia Day received online harassment.
6. Even when the gamergate mob directs its energies towards attacking journals and working to create an advertiser boycott, they choose journals that do not review games at all (Gamasutra, a games developer blog/magazine), journals that have taken a stance against corrupt practices in gaming reporting (Kotaku), and a journal that has developed a novel updating system that allows games reviews to evolve as the game is patched and as DLC packages are released (Polygon). What sets these sites apart is not their corruption of journalistic principles but their public opposition to gamergaters.
Really, qwint, there is not a shred of evidence that gamergate has ever been about journalistic ethics. Even when they target journalists/journals, they’re doing it to harm their critics and not to improve ethics in the business. You should stop supporting them. Especially if you care about ethics in gaming journalism.
It also started because 4chan already had a mob of entitled nerds angry that women and non-whites were demanding to be represented in the products they consume. That explains why a group who always proclaims they “aren’t your personal army” suddenly jumped at the opportunity to become someone’s personal army. I don’t doubt these were the same bozos that were already harassing Anita Sarkeesian.
Quite true, vaiyt. All I meant was the the gamergate debacle started with Quinn’s ex-bf having a public tantrum. The underlying mechanics (misogyny, racism in gaming) have been around since forever, and the gamergater anger is directed towards those, especially women, who want to change that.
qwints @ 20
There’s a LOT of problems there. Like which journalists they go after. RockPaperShotgun has been in their crosshairs since day one, despite never publishing a favourable review of Quinn’s game, and despite being one of the few online game sites that regularly criticises the ethical failings of the industry. What has condemned it is that one of its ethical concerns has regularly been the depiction of women in games and their treatment in the industry.
Because there is no centralised movement? Because it’s a bunch of assholes all invested in often conflicting end games?
No one here is muddying the narrative, the “movement” is doing it all on its own.
vaiyt @25
By Anita’s own admission many of the loudest trumpeters for #GamerGate were the people who have been harassing her for years.
Why aren’t people reporting on these wonderful highways we’re building?
Just in case someone needs a bit of info on some strange things the Gators may say, there is a handy video that explains some of it (well, the video is about “base assumptions”, so it goes a little beyond just that): http://blip.tv/foldablehuman/s4e7-gamergate-7071206
I found it useful since I’ve seen the Gators talking about LWs (“Literally Who”, or codenames so that they can talk about Anita Sarkeesian, Brianna Wu, and Zoe Quinn, while denying that they’re talking about them), and a few other bits of jargon that they’ve created or (mis-)used.
Sort of off topic, but I just wandered into the Bioware forums today ahead of Dragon Age Inquisition’s release, and there were threads (closed by mods, naturally) lamenting the lack of hot fuckable babes in the game and pissed off at Bioware’s “social justice warrior agenda”. Not kidding. Because having a gay character in a game is an agenda. But it’s about role-playing, not the babes or the gays. Right.
Here’s a piece by Kotaku writer Mark Serrels about being confronted by a Gator at a gaming con. I imagine the guy asking the question feels he was a brave hero for walking out, but that’s unlikely to be the impression which most other people will take away from the incident.
Denverly wrote:
Sadly, this has been standard fare for years now. Gamergate didn’t create these idiots. It just gave them a banner to march under, and RWAs to lead them (but they’re totes decentralized, guys!).