Game journalism backlash - the microcosm theory

[Quaro]

As far as I’m concerned, use of a blockbot isn’t a free specch issue, but it is a sign of a low-quality thinker. There may be exceptions, I’d understand locking things down if you’re being harassed, but if someone wants to harass you a blockbot won’t stop anything. People have the right to be narrowminded, but I have the right to think poorly of those people.

I’ve never been tweeted at by anyone in GamerGate. I recently installed the GG blocklist. It was necessary to make twitter usable for me, trying to follow GDC on twitter year. Like night and day, after I installed it, the GDC hashtags were full of awesome discussion and impressions again. As simple as that.

I imagine that for higher profile people the effect is the same. They just want to use twitter for their things and the volume of crap they can get simply makes it unusable in that way without a blockbot.

[LockerK]

Having dealt with IP blocklists in the past, and more specifically trying to get an IP that was wrongly added removed from one, I have a very low opinion of a bot that tells me who is ‘safe’ to interact with on Twitter.

I’m pretty sure it’s because Kuchera knows that Milo has been instrumental in direct harassment of countless women, and is not merely a humor figure as the other guy wrote about. He is directly responsible for the destruction of many peoples’ lives, and indirectly responsible for countless others.

Kuchera is hardly what I would call a paragon of virtue, either. Are Polygon staff still sharing the blocklist that includes people who tweets Kuchera and have an opinion he doesn’t agree with? Is the above blocklist an extension of that one?

[Nesrie]

Isn’t that just trolling though? I mean, obviously trolls are gonna pick on you because you are a girl and they probably think that is the easiest way to get a rise out of you. Just like how they call men faggots, because that’s an easy thing to use to piss off a lot of men. I certainly can understand how that would get old really quickly, and I imagine it happens a lot because not only do you have to deal with trolls, but also those weird lonely type people too.

I would say it’s not just trolling. I mean my headset can disguise my voice if I want it to, which can be cause a few laughs… but not rape jokes. Some of them are trolls, but the level of attacks, and then the out of game stalking… sure it happens to others, but it’s worse with women. In longer games, like an MMO, how often do you get hit on by trolls?

[Alstein]

Trust me, it goes beyond trolling, I’ve seen it in person and online enough to understand why something does need to be done about it.

[sether01]

Rape “jokes” are still trolling. Out of game is not trolling. As soon as it leaves the internet, that becomes credible harassment and something that action should be taken over. No question, that is crossing a line. If you are being stalked out of game, that person should feel the fury of a a thousand suns upon his head.

[sether01]

Trust me, it goes beyond trolling, I’ve seen it in person and online enough to understand why something does need to be done about it.

Trust you about what? Trolling? Or real life harassment? They are two different things and I don’t think you would find anyone who was okay with offline stalking and harassment of a person. Of course there is a small subset of idiots who are ok with it, but to subscribe that mindset to a majority is kinda silly, no? To try to lump the trolls in with the legit harassers is a fools errand because the trolls will never stop and will only get louder the more you try engage with them, which seems to keep happening. That’s like internet 101.

[playingwithknives]

More on Kuchera, two views.

Devs speak.

No, you aren’t allowed to speak.

Elsewhere in the wonderful world of identity politics.

Dont read those books, read these books.

Are you reading too many books by straight white men?

What’s even more curious is that, often, the white bashers are white themselves – and in a further bizarre twist, often it is liberal, middle-class white males doing the knocking. Are they consumed by a “white guilt” that fills them with a need to self-flagellate for the sins of their forefathers on Twitter,

Where have i seen that before.

looks innocent

and what are these books that we shouldn’t be reading? Let’s start at the extreme end of bigoted literature.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/22/thomas-the-tank-engine-children-parents

You can't ignore racism and raise anti-racist children. You have to tackle it...

[Kemper_Boyd]

Well, pwk, as far as that last link goes, I have to finally agree with you. That mother is living in a fantasy world. How about if she - during her many discussions about race with her daughter - actually puts the depictions of blacks in the Babar book in the context of the times it was published in and then explain how things have changed and why. Hopefully her daughter’s class won’t be reading any Mark Twain soon; that could cause quite the uproar! I hate it when people assume everyone else is an idiot and needs to be protected from any exposure to controversial materials by banning them. And shame on the school’s administration for complying with her request to have the book removed from the library - although school administrators prostrating themselves before vocal parents is not that unusual, particularly at a private institution. Gotta keep that cash flowing!

[ShivaX]

Rape “jokes” are still trolling. Out of game is not trolling. As soon as it leaves the internet, that becomes credible harassment and something that action should be taken over. No question, that is crossing a line. If you are being stalked out of game, that person should feel the fury of a a thousand suns upon his head.

So as long as the rape threats and stalking stay online it’s totally cool and just fun and games?

What a complete load of bullshit.

[Synth]

Well, pwk, as far as that last link goes, I have to finally agree with you. That mother is living in a fantasy world. How about if she - during her many discussions about race with her daughter - actually puts the depictions of blacks in the Babar book in the context of the times it was published in and then explain how things have changed and why. Hopefully her daughter’s class won’t be reading any Mark Twain soon; that could cause quite the uproar! I hate it when people assume everyone else is an idiot and needs to be protected from any exposure to controversial materials by banning them. And shame on the school’s administration for complying with her request to have the book removed from the library - although school administrators prostrating themselves before vocal parents is not that unusual, particularly at a private institution. Gotta keep that cash flowing!

Yeah, its every parent’s dream to have an in depth discussion about racism with their 6 year old. :) Its a book aimed at very young kids, there is little reason to be exposing children of that age to stuff like that. And pretending you’re going to have some discussion with them about context is frankly silly.

[Tortilla]

Trust you about what? Trolling? Or real life harassment? They are two different things and I don’t think you would find anyone who was okay with offline stalking and harassment of a person. Of course there is a small subset of idiots who are ok with it, but to subscribe that mindset to a majority is kinda silly, no? To try to lump the trolls in with the legit harassers is a fools errand because the trolls will never stop and will only get louder the more you try engage with them, which seems to keep happening. That’s like internet 101.

I take your point that trolling, as defined as people who just want to piss off anyone they interact with on the internet regardless of race/gender/sexual orientation/etc, is somewhat inevitable. People just need to be thicker skinned or avoid certain portions of the internet to deal with that.

I really don’t think that’s what being discussed in this thread though. Gender-specific harassment of women eclipses trolling and is far more intense. There’s plenty of examples of men and women speaking out with similar points and the degree of social media backlash is an order of magnitude greater for the women.

[Soapyfrog]

Trust you about what? Trolling? Or real life harassment? They are two different things and I don’t think you would find anyone who was okay with offline stalking and harassment of a person. Of course there is a small subset of idiots who are ok with it, but to subscribe that mindset to a majority is kinda silly, no? To try to lump the trolls in with the legit harassers is a fools errand because the trolls will never stop and will only get louder the more you try engage with them, which seems to keep happening. That’s like internet 101.

I think that part of the problem is that even in the realm of “trolling” as you call it, women receive disproportionate attention online. If you are a female then you automatically have to put up with a lot more bullshit the moment that fact becomes revealed. It’s probably pretty tiring!

[sether01]

So as long as the rape threats and stalking stay online it’s totally cool and just fun and games?

What a complete load of bullshit.

I don’t think it’s cool or fun, but to those people that enjoy trolling yes I think it’s just a game to them.

I think that part of the problem is that even in the realm of “trolling” as you call it, women receive disproportionate attention online. If you are a female then you automatically have to put up with a lot more bullshit the moment that fact becomes revealed. It’s probably pretty tiring!

I take your point that trolling, as defined as people who just want to piss off anyone they interact with on the internet regardless of race/gender/sexual orientation/etc, is somewhat inevitable. People just need to be thicker skinned or avoid certain portions of the internet to deal with that.

I really don’t think that’s what being discussed in this thread though. Gender-specific harassment of women eclipses trolling and is far more intense. There’s plenty of examples of men and women speaking out with similar points and the degree of social media backlash is an order of magnitude greater for the women.

These are both true and women do tend to get a substantial amount of negative attention just for being women. Not only do they have to deal with anger and aggression, but also sexual trolling, which I can imagine gets extremely tiring quite quickly.

On another note, here is an interesting article that I’m working through that offers a different take on feminism in gaming and Anita Sarkeesian that I thought some of you guys might enjoy

Why Feminist Frequency almost made me quit writing about video games: Part 1

[Nesrie]

Rape “jokes” are still trolling. Out of game is not trolling. As soon as it leaves the internet, that becomes credible harassment and something that action should be taken over. No question, that is crossing a line. If you are being stalked out of game, that person should feel the fury of a a thousand suns upon his head.

It’s not just gaming. It’s social media, events, articles… our lives… the fact that a woman can say the exact same thing a man does and get endlessly harassed for months while the guy just continues on with his life. This is more than trolling; it’s sanctioned. Like somehow it’s okay if you can can just get the other five guys on the line to laugh nervously or just be silent, or I don’t know, when it becomes clearly open harassment outside of the narrow definition even you are using, get everyone to talk about journalism integrity instead of remembering there are women being harassed, even by your definition, for doing what exactly, oh right participating, speaking about or otherwise being guilty of being female and doing something that is related to gaming.

[Alstein]

Harassment needs to be dealt with as its own issue, and all forms of harassment, not just harassment by folks you disagree with.

One of my friends has been repeatedly receiving rape threats from SJW-types.

The question is when does it become harassment? That’s the part where everyone has their own definition. Mine is when it actively is designed to make someone uncomfortable. Others would object to the actively part, and I can see their argument, and would agree with it in some cases, but “microaggressions” are not harassment.

[Kemper_Boyd]

Yeah, its every parent’s dream to have an in depth discussion about racism with their 6 year old. :) Its a book aimed at very young kids, there is little reason to be exposing children of that age to stuff like that. And pretending you’re going to have some discussion with them about context is frankly silly.

Hopefully, you are not a parent yet.

I have never treated my daughter as this fragile little doll that will crumble to dust upon exposure to some of the world’s nastiness and I think it is perfectly reasonable to have a discussion with your 6 year old about racism. They are children, not idiots. I totally disagree that we should bury our heads in the sand and censor media to protect the children from ideas we find offensive.

[Synth]

Hopefully, you are not a parent yet.

Classy.

[Brad_Wardell]

I agree. “Top of the food chain” was a poor phrasing.

Oh please, what white male hasn’t dabbled in canibalism at least…a few times?

[Brad_Wardell]

The step where talking about GamersGate was a good idea, maybe?

(But frankly, anyone who thinks retweating Milo (who has more than a BIT of a history) is a good idea…seriously? I can’t blame people for using unfollow-bots for that)

Couldn’t the same be said of Kuchera?

I don’t have a problem with block bots. It keeps intolerant, proto-fascists out of my feed. Who do I need to follow to get added to it?

[Brad_Wardell]

I’m pretty sure it’s because Kuchera knows that Milo has been instrumental in direct harassment of countless women, and is not merely a humor figure as the other guy wrote about. He is directly responsible for the destruction of many peoples’ lives, and indirectly responsible for countless others.

“Destruction of many peoples lives…”

Hitler
Stalin
Milo

I look forward to the History channel special.