1761

And who is they exactly? Gamergate barely has central leadership, and the people they are targeting certainly don’t. I know the conspiracy theorist out there thinks there is some giant governing body trying to destroy their fun and social lives, but as far as I can tell, these are just women who became targets for their various beliefs and the fact they are vocal about it. There is no they, and the spotlight was brought on by her harassers.

1762

Are you implying that it isn’t a joke? It’s pretty obvious from the fact that it assigns scores and the choices of the games it reviews, which maximize the comedy value. Check out this review for example:

Anyway it only seems to have run from January to May 2014. Looks dead now.

1763

Uh, no… I don’t mean Gamergate. I mean “they” as in who you consider the good people to be. You know, the “let’s stop being shitty to women, encourage more talk about gender representation in games…” those people. She isn’t helping them.

Magnet, have you ever written professionally anywhere? You’re not supposed to be able to just write anything that pops into your head. When you work somewhere, you’re a public facing representative of the institution. You’re expected to conduct yourself in a manner that aligns with the image and values that your workplace wishes to express. It’s not about “let’s hire some people to just rant wildly in all directions”. This is true for all public facing employees, from those who take your order at the drive-through to CEOs of fortune 500 companies. You aren’t at liberty to say things counter to the company message, or you’ll be sent packing.

Here’s an example:

“I made a mistake by publishing the column,” Guns & Ammo editor Jim Bequette wrote in a statement. “I thought it would generate a healthy exchange of ideas on gun rights. I miscalculated, pure and simple. I was wrong, and I ask your forgiveness.” Bequette said the magazine had failed to be true to its readers’ expectations of unqualified defense of the Second Amendment, and announced that the magazine had ended its “association” with Metcalf.

Nothing scandalous or politically incorrect was said. It was just counter to what the magazine - for firearm enthusiasts - wanted their message to be. The readership cried foul, and they cut him loose. That’s how it works. Usually that sort of thing wouldn’t get that far, because the editor is supposed to police the content and kill stories that are going to piss off the readership or make the magazine look bad. Editors aren’t just spell checkers.

Deccan, I fully understood the irony of the site. I’m saying they sure did it a long time, put a lot of effort into the joke. Most people wouldn’t work that hard at it, they’d just stick up a fake front page and not actually write 100 articles. The review score at the end was putting the cherry on top. Very nice.

1764

The mission of a journalist is to communicate in an intelligent, honest, and clear manner. A stupid, dishonest, or incoherent rant may rightly get you fired. Otherwise, the media are not supposed to push any “company message” (even if Fox News can’t seem to help it).

In any case, the gaming sites under question have doubled down and taken anti-Gamergate stances, so it’s pretty clear that the “Gamers are dead” articles really do represent the opinions of their publishers.

Is that really what you think journalism should aspire to? Here’s a nice summary of the Metcalf fiasco, including this little tidbit:

Reporters and editors say that reviews are often written in close consultation with manufacturers. If a gun is judged to be of poor quality, magazines will quietly send it back for improvements rather than writing a negative review. The system is broadly accepted at these publications, gun writers say.

Mr. Venola, the former Guns & Ammo editor, described the relationship between the magazine’s editors and the gun makers as a necessarily cozy one. “You have to be in cahoots with the manufacturer, in order to make the publication appeal to the readership,”

I could practically feel the New York Times rolling their eyes as they wrote that. If anyone needs a lesson regarding ethics in journalism, it’s the clowns at Guns & Ammo.

1765

I don’t consider anyone to be a the “good” people. I just see an uncontrollable mob shifting from one witch hunt to another. Anita, Brianna, and Zoe became victims of a group with uncontrollable rage and demands. Brianna is exactly who she is. No one elected her to represent anything, so she’s supposed to change because GG targeted her? That’s a neat trick though: don’t change GG and their brute tactics, try to tell their targets to simmer down and shut-up instead. I’d rather GG just let itself die to the grown-ups can discuss the matter without trying to apply silly labels like good and evil on everyone, and to get rid of the target mentality entirely.

1766

Or maybe the readership for the sites are not in fact the GGers or the GGers only represent a tiny minority of their readership. Perhaps by allowing those articles through, they know exactly who their messaging is meant to reach and who the majority of their readership really are. Both RPS and Polygon for example seem pretty comfortable in their individual identities and clearly have made an explicit choice to veer towards SJW-type values. Both claim to be doing fine though I guess a GG-er would claim that they are lying and that they are really hurting. I guess we’ll see.

1767

Or they don’t like being bullied by assholes. I’d double down on it too because fuck you for trying to tell me what me and my people can or can’t say. It’s not like they’re passing off blatant lies as truths (which is perfectly legal even for “real” news organizations). It’s a fluff opinion piece to get clicks.

1768

From what I’ve seen GGers are a minority of gamers in general. On another forum I frequent exactly ZERO people came up to defend GG and those people will defend almost anything. Far right, far left, centrists, everyone is universal in their hatred of GG and everyone involved with it. I was expecting several people to try to go the ethics route, but nope, no one even remotely gave them positive thought at any point.

1769

Of course you don’t see it. I never made that connection, so there’s nothing to see. You might have confused me with Aszurom ;)

100% yes. DID THE ALLCAPS NOT GIVE THAT AWAY?

I think it’s safe to say everyone knows it’s a joke.

1770

An Internet acquaintance of mine who writes super-hardcore guides for StarCraft and LoL was out of nowhere accused by some GGer on Twitter of “censoring free speech” by deleting some thread on the official Blizzard forums.

This person has nothing to do with Blizzard in any official capacity and certainly is not a mod on their forums.

Within minutes, their Twitter account and ask.fm inbox were flooded with hundreds of harassing messages of the “go kill yourself” (and worse) kind.

But really, it’s about ethics in game journalism.

Bonus round: Guess the gender of this acquaintance of mine!

1771

The thing is, I think many folks have already declared the corportate gaming media dead to them as well. I pretty much have- they provide negative value to me. I just see them as nothing more than hype machines for mostly bad games these days, and if they all disappeared tomorrow, my only mourning would be for one friend who freelances for some of them.

I do think there’s a place for non-corporate games writing, but I doubt there’s enough money in it for many folks to make a living at it.

1772

Yeah, that sucks. I appreciate the story, certainly. That’s an aspect of blind reactionary mob behavior that needs to be considered.

Questions: Are they empowered to have deleted a thread at all? I assume Blizzard deleted something and someone accused your friend of deleting it, and they then got GG zerg rushed. Since you say they’re not a mod, I make that assumption but maybe Blizzard forums do something where the creator of a thread can pull it - so I ask. It seems like you can point at anyone and yell “Ethics violation” and get them griefed if that’s how it worked.

It’s interesting that GG is exhibiting the behaviors they have previously condemned, and at much harsher intensity. Remember it’s the anti-radfem folks out there who are saying “Well, all they have to do is accuse you of misogyny and point at you, and you get dogpiled by a mob of hipsters screaming about your privilege”. And that’s why they need to defend gaming from them. Hrm…

This is becoming less about competing agendas and ideologies, and more like an ant farm culture study of how humans interact when insufficient societal controls operate on their behavior.

1773

My acquaintance had nothing at all to do with whatever thread they were on about, no.

1774

This all stems from the fact that the Blizzard CEO denounced GG at Blizzcon and so they are lashing out at random easy targets, because they certainly aren’t going to boycott Blizzard or any such thing.

It’s interesting that GG is exhibiting the behaviors they have previously condemned, and at much harsher intensity. Remember it’s the anti-radfem folks out there who are saying “Well, all they have to do is accuse you of misogyny and point at you, and you get dogpiled by a mob of hipsters screaming about your privilege”. And that’s why they need to defend gaming from them. Hrm…

This is not new behavior for them, it actually follows a fairly classic political tactic of accusing an opponent of one’s own misconduct.

1775

Yeah, here’s Alinsky’s magic 12:

  1. “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.” Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood.
  1. “Never go outside the expertise of your people.” It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone.
  1. “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.
  1. “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules.
  1. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.
  1. “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones.
  1. “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” Don’t become old news.
  1. “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.” Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new.
  1. “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist.
  1. “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.” Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog.
  1. “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.” Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem.
  1. “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions

The problem is they’re too effective. They’re about shutting down conversation – and since conversation was the point – I’ve had to make an effort to avoid them while still trying to defend the various points of view. The conclusion that I reached is that without these, most of the arguments currently going on aren’t workable at all. What’s really amazing is when you’re using these 12 rules as a “bingo card” and following any twitter argument, it never fails. Yet, very few people are formally exposed to them - it’s just “what is observed to work”. I think they’re shit tactics, so that’s why I lose arguments all the time.

After this, you can get into deeper “suppression techniques”. Let’s look at a fascinating one.

  1. Make the opponent invisible. Marginalize their importance or ignore them completely.
  2. Ridicule the opponent and/or their argument.
  3. Withhold information - exclude the opponent from who makes the decision.
  4. Double bind. Catch 22 - belittle their actions, no matter what they are.
  5. Shame the opponent for disagreement. They are to blame for the argument.
  6. Objectify their appearance or character negatively.
  7. Imply a threat of retaliation.

“Check your privilege”

  1. You’re one of those people.

  2. Oh, look at you there high and mighty.

  3. You’re privileged, which means what I think it means. You know what I mean.

  4. You’re stuck being privileged because of race/class/education/ability, so you can’t deny it. You ARE it.

  5. If it wasn’t for privileged people like you, doing what you do, the world would be better. You know what you do. Be ashamed.

  6. Well, you’re just a CIS white male. No more, no less, just like the rest of your kind.

  7. Submit and back down, or you’ll have to deal with me in your face or a gang of us in your face.

It’s really a magical tactic isn’t it?

That’s why it pissed people off so bad… it works.

1776

Amazing, that is the Gamergate playbook! Hmm. You seem to know waaaay more about this than you should. Are you secretly in charge of Gamergate?? This is all starting to make sense!!

After this, you can get into deeper “suppression techniques”. Let’s look at a fascinating one.

So ridiculing the ridiculous is suppression now? This is a variant on the “you must tolerate my intolerance”, absurd on it’s face. The rest of your post is incoherent. If I write an article about the moon landings and then someone approaches me and starts haranguing me about how the moon landings were faked, am I to lend this someone any credence or spend any of my time engaging them? Sometimes idiotic opinions, positions, stances are just that, idiotic, and do not deserve to be given any respect. The “Death of the Gamer” conspiracy is one of those; a conspiracy theory so idiotic it can be debunked with a 10 minute google search.

In any case the mobbing and attempt to suppress free speech has been almost exclusively carried out by Gamergate supporters, who are screaming everyone down as loud as they can and unleashing the harassment mob on anyone who dares speak out. These guys cannot die out fast enough imho.

1777

No, but ridculing any disagreement at all is.

1778

Part of the reason #gg has to die (and can’t just be turned back, it has to be discredited in the most punishing ways) is its counter-offensive methodology directly co-ops the normal tactics of the Radical Left.

1779

I think we’ve had pretty much proportional arguments and counter-arguments in this thread. There is just nothing to be done with the conspiracy theories though.

1780

I wouldn’t know how to prove this in the general case, but consider the specific case of Kingofpol, surely one of the most odious and visible personalities in GG. Yet, following his very public denial of the scale of the Holocaust, he was pilloried far more by GG for harming the cause than anything SJWs had ever done to him, or so he claims.