Important message to our users regarding online harassment

I think as long as the rules are strict enough on certain sites like twitter people won't be able to use these sites for nefarious reasons. I also think one issue with gamergate that is still affecting it today is that the sites or people that helped influenced and control the movement are so powerful and really organized they can push there opinions(that may be dangerous at times) around the web with little to no repercussions.Twitter is also making it easier for these guys to push their agenda.It's impossible for anyone that doesn't believe in these guys opinions about certain subjects to take control of a movement like gamergate. There has to be something that can prevent this. The more I think about it not supporting the gamergate movement may not help as much as I thought it would but I think if the people within the gamergate movement that don't care about social issues and etc(but journalist ethics for example) were able to show these people an sites that it is not okay for them to do what they are doing currently and these sites/people won't be able to control the gamergate movement that well.They will have to be really organized to get rid of the sites and people controlling the gamergate movement currently.

That is pretty much what it is. All of these so called issues in the gaming world are made up by these feminists and greatly exaggerated. Before people like Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn showed up we had no problems, but then those 2 and many other feminists saw how they could use the video game industry to advance theirs careers.

There are plenty of female characters in games. Faith, Bayonetta, Lightning, Claire Redfield, Aya Brea, Chun-Li, Samus, The girls from Fatal Frame, Heather Mason, Alice, Zoe Castillo, Jade, Zoe from L4D, Jill Valentine, Ada Wong, the female characters in Borderlands, Joanna Dark, Chell, Lara Croft, Fem Shep, Fem Warden, Fem Hawke, Sofia from Bio Shock 2, Elizabeth from Bio Shock Infinite, Yuna, Alexndra Roivas, Ashe, Aeris, Tifa, Zelda, Aveline, Oracle, Harley Quinn, and that is just some. Don't listen to the lies of Anita Sarkeesian, Zoe Quinn, or any White Knight. As for female's in game development there is nothing stopping them getting a job in gamer development, but game development might just be one of those jobs that women aren't interested in.

I've been following this site for years and I have never seen any actual threats or violence targeted towards anyone, writer or otherwise. That doesn't mean it hasn't happened, but it is hardly the epidemic these guys make it out to be. I've seen way more missteps by staff and moderators than I've seen from posters. What I do see are people strongly not agreeing with people, insults, mature and immature logic and general trolling. If you cant handle that, then you may want to just unplug that router from your wall and stay inside where you belong. Hurting someones feelings is not crime, wishing someone would shut up is not a threat, and losing an argument is not a legitimate pretext to censoring someone. There is a lot of Intolerance and ignorance everywhere and while it is distasteful, backwards and plain silly, it is a persons right to be in the dark ages as long as they don't deny others access to what we all have.

A little part of me finds it suspicious that the comment system on this article is having 'issues'....

@toddx77: Anita whateverhersecondnameis has some valid points, it's a shame she's a cowardly censoring type.

Well Lulu_Lulu likes to harass the dark souls and RPG fan minority. Please let it count as an harassment. :p

No, it's just another busted feature of this website. It's affecting all articles.

Where is the GS article on the death threats against supporters of Gamer Gate?

BTW, another slanted and poorly researched opinion piece on CNN popped up, it was bile inducing. But I found a real gem in the comments.

As a female supporter of Gamergate, this article makes me absolutely cringe. Horrible. If you can't write a piece that accurately describes what Gamergate is about, please, just don't bother. The journalism ethics is what pulled me in initially, but the broadening scope of neo-feminists and sex-negative feminists - who do NOT speak for all women - deeply disturbed me. I have been a gamer since I was a child and have never been made to feel the way these women, some of whom ARE NOT EVEN GAMERS AT ALL (I'm looking at you, Anita Sarkeesian, who claims in her video series to love games but then can be found in another clip saying she doesn't know much about games and had to do a lot of research for the project, all the while cherrypicking examples and using them completely out of context) say they supposedly feel.

And please, do not hold Leigh Alexander up as a pinnacle of *anything* - I urge you to go look at some of the tweets she's made over the last several years. She's as vitriolic and bullying as anyone on the Gamergate side might be. I have personally felt more bullied and vilified in one month of reading about Gamergate than I have in more than 25 years of being a gamer. I'm a proponent of equal - read that, EQUAL - rights for everyone. What some of the anti-GG movement moves toward goes well beyond that, to preferential treatment for females, elimination of the patriarchy, and a mindset that sex is an awful and shameful thing. If you don't want to play those games - DON'T. Play other games. Patronize developers that make the games you want. But don't spoil gaming for the rest of us by trying to change the entire culture.

There *is* room for everyone, but that means people backing off and respecting the fact there will always be some game released that someone isn't comfortable with. And please, for the love of everything unholy, someone research the ethical issues with the collusion of the major gaming "journalism" sites, their use of Patreon to fund developers they like (and subsequently give good reviews to), and the whole debacle behind IndieCade. Come back with an article, CNN, that actually addresses all these things. I sincerely urge anyone who read this article to go seek out a Huffington Post interview from last week with three female Gamergate supporters.

The problem with almost every piece in the mainstream media right now is that they are only covering one side - and when they are covering the pro-Gamergate side, it is still severely slanted toward being anti-GG. I'm just tired of it, and I'm tired of feminists trying to speak for me simply because of my gender - sort of ironic, isn't it? No matter how much I tell them their views aren't mine, they continue to insist that I must listen and believe because they supposedly know what's best for me - to the point of being harassing, rude, condescending, and denigrating a hobby I've had for more than a quarter of a century.

So yeah, lets not forget about #notyourshield, and the way it shone a light on the anti-GG/SJW faction having every bit as many misogynists, racists, and homophobes as the GG side does. It's kind of like how they are actually just as many racists in the north of the USA as the South, just in different forms and at different volumes.

Just thought I'd add this.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/9695-Quit-Using-The-Term-Social-Justice-Warriors

I especially like what he said about Anita Sarkeesian. Just because you say someone's not deserving of abuse does not make you an SJW. In fact, I really hate that term now.

@JustPlainLucas:

Hmm ok. but I'm personally only seeing that issue on that story.

I'm looking forward to a more direct response to what I posted than an attempt at distraction and misdirection.

Sorry for the randomness. It wasn't my intent to distract or misdirect. The video just shared my thoughts on the whole SJW thing.

Like what? I have never seen her say anything valid.

Depending on which aspect of it you're referring to, Gamergate's either tremendously worthless, impotent, ignorant, confused, naive, unfocused and misguided. Or it's immensely abhorrent, misogynistic, unethical, sexist, corrupted, hateful, spiteful, harmful and toxic. Look at what has been accomplished these past two months.

Today, some GG asshole attacked a suicidal game developer. Yesterday I was told by some GG supporter that GG has resulted in three game sites changing their ethics guidelines.

Is it worth it? Has it been worth these two months of suffering?

Some might come with the "not all gamergaters!" "we don't condone harassment!". Sure you don't. Others in your movement do. They will continue. You are standing next to them, acting as a shield and supplying momentum. You are all Gamergate. It's not a religion, an identity, a group of oppressed people, you are not fighting for civil rights, it's a fucking hashtag. If you want to talk about ethics or audience alienation, then please, by all means. Just don't let that microphone-shaped turd fool you.

Nowadays all that seems to be going on is the assholes run wild, other assholes react with empathy-deficient shit like "she did it to herself shill false flag attention!". And for some excruciatingly incomprehensible reason, the moderates try to run PR for this thoroughly appalling circus. Again, what the hell is there that's worth defending? If you say "ethics" or some such, well, first of all, your priorities are fucked up.

But beyond that, Gamergate's complaints regarding ethics in games journalism have been any combination of these; petty, baseless, quickly proven false, bullshit, delusional, nonsense, not about ethics, not about games journalism.

Beyond that, actual ethics issues are being ignored. Such as Warner Bros/Plaid Social only allowing entry into Mordor if the recipient signed a contract stipulating the person abide by the PR firm's wishes.

And beyond that, your potentially valid concern worthy of discussion, will suffer from its Gamergate association by getting drowned out amidst the madness, or dismissed as part of it. Unless it's about "politics", "agendas", "SJW's" or "women talking about or doing things", in which case it may reverberate within Gamergate to some degree and eventually become another one of the complaints in the post linked above.

Anita Sarkeesian is doing criticism, she is not dictating or forcing anything. You are free to disagree, criticize back. You are free to not listen. You are free to listen and consider. Disagree with some parts, consider others. Whatever. Youtube comments are mostly worthless on an average day. On an average day of someone who's been stalked by obsessive internet psychos for years and is constantly spammed with harassment, threats and bullshit, Youtube comments are....you are not free to Youtube comment.

Anti-GG is a nebulous group that no one has joined and consequently doesn't really exist. This person did a bad thing, this person is anti-GG, anti-GG is bad, if you oppose GG you are bad. The thing with this is, anti-GG is not something you can step out of, because you never stepped in. Please do snip my membership card in half if you find it. And please snip your GG card. Snip it good.

@McStrongfast:

By the sound of your post you don't really seem to know many of the issues. If you can't be arsed to read through god knows how many threads etc, these four videos go into a decent amount of detail. If you think it's all just BS after listening to all the videos, I'd be surprised.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5-51PfwI3M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKmy5OKg6lo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km3DZQp0StE&list=UUWB0dvorHvkQlgfGGJR2yxQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dbi-8rPShE&list=UUWB0dvorHvkQlgfGGJR2yxQ

@toddx77:

Like women being very often only being portrayed as sex objects or sexual/weak/etc. Very valid points, regardless of her other faults.

I expect I will click those links and shut them down the instant I hear "SEKKS FUR FAIVHURS"
Oh you timestamped the first one you clever bastard. I don't know how you even did that with that link, there's none of the usual code in it. Tell me your secrets.

Meanwhile a smart guy said sensible things.

No one's gonna click it, so I'll just post the whole thing. That way you might read some by accident as you scroll past it.

https://np.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2h36ue/another_poorlyresearched_hitpiece_from_the_boston/cldrqeu
Written by this guy: https://twitter.com/jessesingal

So, to recap:

Me: I don't think this is really about corruption as much as it's about discomfort with feminism. After all, a lot of the heat seems to be aimed at small female devs/commentators of a feminist bent.

GamerGaters on Twitter: Not true! So unfair! Go to KIA!

[Goes to KIA. Suspicions appear to be mostly confirmed.]

This has happened over and over and over again (I also looked into the 8chan board and some other “approved” places). As a journalist trying to be fair-minded about this, you can't fucking win. If I'm arguing with someone from the NRA or the NAACP or some other established group, I can point to actual quotes from the group's leadership. With you guys, any bad thing that happens is, by definition, not the work of A True GamerGater. It's one of the oldest logical fallacies in the book.

So what is GamerGate “really” about? I think this is the kinda question a philosopher of language would tear apart and scatter the remnants of to the wind, because it lacks any real referent. You guys refuse to appoint a leader or write up a platform or really do any of the things real-life, adult “movements” do. I’d argue that there isn’t really any such thing as GamerGate, because any given manifestation of it can be torn down as, again, No True GamerGate by anyone who disagrees with it. And who gets to decide what is and isn’t True GamerGate? You can’t say you want a decentralized, anonymous movement and then disown the ugly parts that inevitably pop up. Either everything is in, or everything is out.

Anyway, faced with this complete lack of clarity, all I or other journalists can do, then, is journalism: We ask the people in the movement what they stand for and then try to tease out what is real and what is PR. And every every every substantive conversation/forum/encounter I've had with folks from GamerGate has led me to believe that a large part of the reason for the group's existence is discomfort with what its members see as the creeping and increasing influence of what you call social-justice warriors in the gaming world.

I’m not just making this up based on the occasional Tweet or forum post. After my HuffPost Live appearance, I was invited into a Google Hangout about GamerGate by Troy Rubert, aka @GhostLev. I accepted, and when I got in just about everyone who spoke openly talked about how mad they were that progressive politics and feminism were impinging on gaming, which they saw as an area they had enjoyed, free of politics, forever. They were extremely open about this. A day or so later, another GamerGater, @Smilomaniac, asked me to read a blog post he’d written about his involvement in the movement in which he explicitly IDs as anti-feminist, and says that while some people claim otherwise, he thinks GG is an anti-feminist movement.

I believe him; I think GamerGate is primarily about anger at progressive people who care about feminism and transgender rights and mental health and whatever else (I am not going to use your obnoxious social-justice warrior terminology anymore) getting involved in gaming, and by what you see as overly solicitous coverage of said individuals and their games. And that's fine! It's an opinion I happen to disagree with, but “at least it’s an ethos.”

But this is only going to be a real debate if you guys can cop to your real-life feelings and opinions. You should have a bit more courage and put your actual motives front and center. Instead, because some of you do have a certain degree of political savvy, as is evidenced whenever GamerGaters on 8chan and elsewhere try to rein in their more unhinged peers, you've decided to go the "journalism ethics" route.

Unfortunately, that sauce is incredibly weak. There was no Kotaku review of “Depression Quest,” and fair-minded journalists will see through that line of attack right away since ZQ was receiving hate for DQ long before her boyfriend posted that thing. Journalists donating to crowdfunding campaigns? I bet if you asked 100 journalists you'd get 100 different opinions on whether this should be inherently off-limits (personal take is that it isn't, but that journalists should certainly disclose any projects to which they donate). Collusion to strike at the heart of the gamer identity? Conservatives have been arguing that liberal journalists unfairly collude forever—I was on the “Journolist” that people wrongly claimed was coordinating pro-Obama coverage when really what we were doing, like any other listserv of ideologically like-minded people, was arguing with ourselves over everything. What happened was Gamasutra ran a column, that column went viral, and a lot of people responded to it. That sort of cross-site collusion doesn’t happen the way you think it does. When everyone’s writing about the same thing, that’s because the thing in question is getting a lot of discussion, which LA’s column did.

You guys know as well as I do that a movement based on the stated goal of regaining gaming ground lost to feminists and (ugh) SJWs would not do very well from a PR perspective. But you’re in a bind, because the ethics charges are 1) 98% false; 2) complicated to follow for the layperson; and 3) pretty clearly a ruse given the underlying ideology of the folks pushing this line forward.

(Important side note: A lot of the people calling for “journalistic ethics” quite transparently don’t know anything about journalism — to say that sites should clearly label what is and isn’t opinion, for example, is just plain weird, because a) that distinction is less and less relevant and is mostly a relic of newspaper days; and b) it’s a basic reading-comprehension thing; anyone who reads on a daily basis can tell, pretty simply from various cues in the narrative, whether they’re reading a work of “straight” journalism [outdated, troublesome term], “pure” opinion [again, bleh], or some combination of the two [which is what a lot of games coverage is].)

So I’d make a call, one last time, for honesty: Stop pretending this is about stuff it isn’t. Acknowledge that you do not want SJWs in gaming, that you want games to just be about games. Again: I disagree, but at least then I (and other journalists! you do want coverage, don’t you?) could at least follow what the hell is going on. If your movement requires journalists to carefully parse 8chan chains to understand it, it gets an F- in the PR department.

You guys need to man and woman up and talk about what’s really on your mind, or stop whining about “biased” coverage and/or blaming it on non-existent conspiracies. And that’s my overlong two cents about your movement and why I’m having a lot of trouble taking it seriously.

(Edited right away to fix some stuff; more edits surely to come given that I wrote this quickly and in an under-caffeinated state. Feel free to snap a screenshot—I won’t be making any substantive changes.)

GameSpot was my first video game related site. I come here daily for everything I need when it comes to video games. Keep up the great work GS staff and don't let a minority ruin it for the the rest of us who really do care about GS and it's content.

Kyle (Shantmaster K)

My organization, Working to Halt Online Abuse (WHO@) at haltabuse.org offers free help to anyone who feels they are being harassed, stalked or bullied online. You are not alone - we can help.

@McStrongfast: This is spot on. The higher profile GG people keep saying it's about ethics in journalism and not opposition to inclusiveness in the gaming industry, but all you hear from their rank and file is opposition to inclusiveness in the gaming industry.

@WolfgarTheQuiet Freedom of expression includes people that wish to enter into communities that have moderated rules of civility. It exists in businesses, groups, and organizations all over any country with free speech rights. Gamespot doesn't have to be that kind of community, but it is just as much a right to think it should be as such as it is to thinks it shouldn't.

@McStrongfast: I love that statement so, so much. Sad part is, few (if any) are probably going to listen to it.

Agreed, and an interesting read, too.

Often? I find that to be highly exaggerated. Not every female game character is Bayonetta and big deal if Bayonetta is highly sexualized. Yes women in video games sometimes are wearing sexy clothing, but these are games. no one wants to play as an average Joe or some obese person. What about the way men are portrayed in video games? You don't hear men getting all upset and accusing the video game world of misandry because majority of male character are buff with huge muscles and are usually just action heroes who serve nothing more then a function. She makes it out that there is some type of illuminati of men in the gaming industry out to get women.

It should add more forums, the lack of them is disturbing. The only other places i really go is the PS and Games Discussion