Is it ethical to refuse to talk about ethics?
Yesterday concluded Ethics Week for the Society of Professional Journalism. The end didn’t arrive fast enough for the freaked-out leaders of the world’s largest and oldest organization for reporters and editors.
If you followed the hashtag #SPJEthicsWeek, you surely noticed it was hijacked by GamerGaters.
Explaining GamerGate to those who don’t have a clue is like explaining the Israel-Palestine conflict to a child who asks, “They’re neighbors, so why are they killing each other?” The controversy is so molecular, you can’t recount a single historical fact that isn’t in dispute.
In GamerGate, the battle is also between neighbors: videogame enthusiasts and videogame journalists. The former say the latter are colluding with developers and PR agents — even exchanging sex for positive coverage. But their war crimes have included hijacking, flaming, hacking, doxing, and rape and death threats so severe, women have fled their homes in fear.
Here’s a popular and critical GamerGate definition from Vox…
“Ostensibly, it’s a community of gamers who are concerned about ethically problematic relationships between independent game developers and the journalists who write about them. But in practice, the movement has mostly been about deplorable harassment and intimidation of critics — usually women — who dare to disagree with them. It has becoming a misogynistic mob masquerading as a social movement.”
The other side is best defined by the GamerGate Wiki…
#GamerGate is a consumer revolt triggered by the overt politicization, ethical misconduct, and unprecedented amounts of censorship targeted at gamers and video games as a whole that is presently being perpetrated by many entities within the industry. … The GamerGate revolt has also been the focus of heavy criticism from influential feminists within the gaming industry, as multiple reports of third party trolling and other forms of abusive behavior, mostly directed towards prominent women in the video game industry, are common. As a result, GamerGate is commonly referred to as a “misogynistic hate campaign” by its detractors, although statistics suggest that this view of GamerGate is inaccurate.
Whether it’s most GamerGaters or a vocal few who have terrorized their critics, the barbarism of the debate has unnerved journalists who might otherwise cover it.
The irony, of course, is that GamerGaters accuse the media of ignoring their legitimate claims, so some (many?) ramp up their antagonism to get attention, which drives away reasonable reporters and readers, which just makes them madder at being ignored, so they heap on more antagonism.
That scared the hell out of SPJ, which explains why the 100-year-old organization said nothing until yesterday about the deluge of GamerGate tweets on its hashtag last week.
According to Keyhole, more than 700 posts flooded #SPJEthicsWeek. Almost all were pure crap: anti-semitic, misogynistic, and homophobic. Click those links at your own peril, because they’re disgusting.
Thankfully, the sickest shit came from just a dozen anonymous accounts, and other GamerGaters noticed…
@Thyblight They are sperging out on the hashtag #GamerGate and #SPJEthicsWeek with gore, porn, etc… basically acing like 14 year olds.
— sinister (@_sinisterBen) April 30, 2015
Lost in the noise were some legitimate posts about journalism ethics. One GamerGater did some reporting, studying both SPJ’s Code of Ethics and the policies of a videogame news site…
Another quoted the Twitter feed of a gaming journalist and commented…
Yet another pointed folks to a Pew Research Center study that all journalists should read…
I’m an SPJ board member, so I urged us to talk about this — not to take sides, but to discuss the ethics of both sides. SPJ leaders said no way. When I offered to write something on my SPJ blog, they urged me not to. When I asked for an official statement about our reluctance, they refused.
Finally, when they realized I was going to write something anyway, SPJ’s Ethics Committee chairman Andrew Seaman hastily wrote a post yesterday, in which he explained…
I — along with some other people in the Society’s leadership — decided to abandon the Twitter hashtag #SPJEthicsWeek. … I also urged people not to address the chorus of posts for the protection of the Society, its leaders and its members who would engage with each other over the Internet throughout the week. After all, the week’s theme was “minimize harm.” I did not want to take the risk of exposing anyone within the organization to harassment or threats.
While I was pleased SPJ finally said something about a movement that found them, I was irked its ethics chairman used SPJ’s vaunted Code of Ethics not for the protection of others, but for the “protection of the Society.”
So much for the bravery of journalists. SPJ looks at its hashtag hijacking as a tragedy. I see it as an opportunity.
Ethical questions I’ll ask and answer.
All last week, I tried to talk to “professional” journalists about GamerGate. Most didn’t want to or muttered lame excuses. So I’ll talk to myself. But I welcome other answers and other questions.
1. Why should SPJ say anything about GamerGate?
Whenever someone says “journalism ethics” in a big way,SPJ should enter the fray.
Last October, actor Adam Baldwin (who coined the term GamerGate) told The New York Times, “We’re about ethics in journalism.” That seems like a big way to me. It doesn’t matter if he’s right, wrong, or lying. He said the magic words on a national stage.
SPJ calls its Code of Ethics “the definitive statement of our profession’s highest values” and “an important reference for professionals, students and citizens.”
How definitive and important can you be when you ignore people who come to your hashtag during Ethics Week — a week you tout as “a means of placing a spotlight on our ethical responsibilities and reaching out to the communities we serve”?
2. But GamerGaters don’t care about ethics, they just want attention! Why give it to them?
I believe SPJ should obey its own code, which says, “Avoid stereotyping.” How do we know all GamerGaters are evil?
While I condemn the ones who are — more on that in the next self-serving question — there are women who defend GamerGate. Then again, a meticulous Medium post aggregated The Bad Apples of #GamerGate and concluded, “There may be ethical, honest people involved in #GamerGate. But a few good apples won’t magically make a rotten barrel edible.”
I don’t pretend to know the distribution inside that barrel, but if SPJ has to wade through 1,000 bad apples to reach 10 good ones, I’ll take those odds. Why? I volunteer as an adviser to a college newspaper, and I know many professors who say, in a class of 20 students, only 2-3 actually give a damn. Yet they keep teaching. So should we.
3. Even if a few are thoughtful, they’re mostly dangerous jerks. What can SPJ possibly gain?
SPJ should comment because so much of GamerGate is unethical. That’s what ethics codes are for. Let me turn the question around: If we talk about ethics only in polite company, what does SPJ gain then?
GamerGate has seriously hurt people. SPJ should be brave enough to say so. Those who inflicted the damage say they want journalism ethics applied to the gaming media, but they’re acting as journalists themselves when they opine or dox. SPJ’s Code of Ethics applies to them, too, and we should cite these five entries…
- “Weigh the consequences of publishing or broadcasting personal information.”
- “Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance or undue intrusiveness.”
- “Diligently seek subjects of news coverage to allow them to respond to criticism or allegations of wrongdoing.”
- “Avoid pandering to lurid curiosity, even if others do.”
- “Encourage a civil dialogue with the public about journalistic practices, coverage and news content.”
Will the worst GamerGaters listen? Hell no. But maybe the best ones will. Anyway, journalists should talk about ethics whenever it’s relevant, regardless of what we think the response will be.
4. If “good” GamerGaters aren’t speaking out against the hate, isn’t that proof enough to stay out of this?
If SPJ — with more than 7,000 members and a full-time staff of 15 — is too intimidated to whisper an ethical warning, you can’t really expect individuals to do it.
Besides, to quote SPJ’s Code again, “Journalists should support the open and civil exchange of views, even views they find repugnant.” Maybe if we do this, others will be emboldened by our bravery. Maybe, as the Code says, we can “give voice to the voiceless.”
5. Don’t we have better ways to spend our time than on this rabble?
Like what? Name an Ethics Week event that would’ve reached more people. According to SPJ’s own press release, it hosted two tiny Twitter chats. Instead of talking to the world about journalism ethics, SPJ members talked to each other — and, as it turned out, a few GamerGaters.
The second chat, #SPJEthicsChat, attracted four GamerGaters who contributed to the conversation (about the ethical failings of Brian Williams and Rolling Stone) without derailing it.
Afterward, they were quite polite, which should blow a few minds…
6. Good GamerGaters aside, you’re exposing SPJ and yourself to the web’s worst attackers. Don’t you care?
Of course I care. I don’t want SPJ to suffer. I sure don’t want me to suffer. But I believe it’s unethical to ignore ethical problems out of fear or disgust. Plus, if we say nothing, we’ve just handed the Internet’s biggest assholes the blueprint for how to intimidate journalists: Be really evil, and we’ll be really quiet.
How I know GamerGate is ethically legit.
If it can cast aside the anonymous atrocities made in its name, the movement has a point. I’ve seen it for myself — 15 years ago.
In 2000, I was content director for a short-lived website called Jester.com, created by the former college roommate of Hollywood producer Michael Bay. I oversaw editors for skateboarding, snowboarding, surfing, and videogames. Because most people were still on dial-up back then, gaming magazines were more popular in print than online.
It wasn’t rare for my gaming editor to try a new game and declare it “suck-ass,” then get the print magazine in the mail a week or so later — and a review would fawn all over that suck-ass game. We knew what was happening: Those magazines had full-page ads from the developers of those games.
This wasn’t shocking. It happened all the time, and we just accepted it because we couldn’t imagine a different world — kind of like how I accepted people smoking on airplanes when I traveled as a kid. I’m glad times are changing in all sorts of ways. That includes gaming journalism.
Of course, I’ve heard from (mostly older) journalists who wonder, “Why should we waste all this time on kids who play videogames?” One actually asked me if GamerGate was about casinos.
My answer…
Mainstream journalists should read their peers’ reporting. They’d learn over half of adults play videogames, and the industry is bigger than Hollywood. Consumer Reports has announced, “It’s Time To Start Treating Video Game Industry Like The $21 Billion Business It Is.”
It’s time for journalists to do the same.
So what happens now?
I pray that after today, GamerGaters don’t live down to the opinion SPJ leaders have of them. I pray they don’t do to me or SPJ what they did to #SPJEthicsWeek.
I don’t mind being wrong, but if SPJ leaders are right, it’ll just convince them to ignore GamerGate forever, plus future movements like it. (If you think GamerGate is unique, just wait.)
But if this is a clarion call for all rational GamerGaters to assert themselves, and for the antagonists to shut up so they can win, that’s the best-case scenario.
The worst-case scenario? Both me and SPJ catch hell from GamerGater hackers and attackers, and mainstream media continues to cover only the crap and never the core issue.
Here’s what it comes down to: GamerGate has an opportunity to go legit.
It got the attention of the world’s largest journalism organization through unethical means, and it can turn that right around. Even if SPJ says nothing more, its 7,000-plus members might. If the stupid shit can be tamped down over the next few weeks, I’ll even push for a session on GamerGate at an SPJ conference I’m helping organize in Miami this summer.
Your move, GamerGaters.
Update May 5: Moves have been made. Details below.
It is difficult to accept the handwringing of a journalist on this topic when he doesn’t know the style for “video games.” Two words, my friend. This makes me wonder what else you’ve mistaken.
I want to thank you for cutting through the noise and BS to reach out to Gamergate.
We do care about Ethical Journalism, but as twitter is open to anyone, we get trolled like anyone else. We know who is and is not serious about GG because of our daily use of the tag on twitter and we can spot them right away. GG made some bad enemies of some radical ideologues early on so their trolls post under the GG tag occasionally to try to make us look bad.
But there really isn’t any way for others to distinguish between GG and anti-GG trolls if they don’t follow the tag regularly. If you give us a few days, look at who are regular GG posters on twitter (who regularly point out and report trolls), you may begin to see how many more good apples there are than you might think, given how we are represented in the media.
Once again, thank you for reaching out.
I very much enjoyed reading your piece. While I would disagree with some statements, which I feel are most likely due to ignorance and the complex nature of interactions, I will say this; those flooding the #SPJEthicsWeek tag with tripe were NOT supporters of Gamergate. They were trolls, most of whom collectively identified at #ayyteam, which is a group from ‘chan-culture’ dedicated to what they call ‘shitposting’, or trolling. They’re actively trying to disrupt because they find it humerous. There is no goal other than that, and they are relatively uncontrollable because you can’t reason with them to get them to do anything other than ‘for the lulz’. Another group are trolls from the Somethingawful.com website, who tend to be antagonistic toward Gamergate supporters.
There is, no doubt, some overlap, but there are tens of thousands of supporters of Gamergate, spread across Twitter, Reddit, and 8chan. Statistical analysis shows it’s unlikely to be a hate movement.
http://chrisvoncsefalvay.com/2014/12/07/Gamergate.html
In the conclusion:
“The results of my network analysis is incompatible with the description of #Gamergate as a hate group. For one, a hate group would have a high degree of centrality, very often centered around a charismatic leader. Decentralised structures provide for more liberal organisational ideologies in the long run. The network analysis is also incompatible with the assertion that #Gamergate is regularly harassing particular personalities, since if that were the case, there would be clearly visible evidence in the form of numerous, highly weighted edges converging on the same handful of targets. Instead, the inner ‘heart’ of the network, which is the only area with high-weight edges, is almost exclusively populated by leading commentators supportive of #Gamergate.”
Other analysis has shown something like .02% of tweets could be considered harassing in nature. To characterize such a diverse group of individuals by such a tiny minority of statements is ridiculous, yet this is what’s occurred over the last 9 months.
In the meantime, it’s been relatively proven that Briana Wu never fled her home (she did all her interviews from there while having fled her home), that Zoe Quinn went on a planned vacation to Europe, which she’d planned months in advance, and that Anita Sarkeesian’s threats have not been shown to be linked to Gamergate in any way other than to claim it so. In Anita Sarkeesian’s example of hate messages he gets weekly, two examples in thousands were from #gamergate, and of those, neither was a threat or particularly hateful, though one did tell her to shut up.
In particular, two of these women inserted themselves into this issue. Only Quinn was pulled in, and that’s only on the basis of Nathan Grayson, because he reported on her while in a romantic relationship with her, while having close personal ties of friendship he didn’t disclose. He’s reporting on her game as being one of the most important Indie games of last year while mentioned in the credits. And she wasn’t the ‘target’, Grayson’s behavior was.
In the meantime, Gamergate has succeeded in getting these sites to update their ethics policies (though they might claim they were doing so anyway. Perhaps they were.), in getting the FCC to revise rules regarding affiliate links, to get the disclosures of potential conflicts of interest made… we’re actually working on the ethics.
I would not ask the SPJ to support us. I believe in what you do, and I support it,and I feel no need for it to support what I do, even if I think they are aligned. Gamergate supporters do not ask those neutral to it to do anything other than investigate the evidence directly, to be suspicious of the ‘narrative’, and do what they feel is right. That’s all I would ask of you or the SPJ. If the SPJ feels it best to stay out, so be it. I will continue to support it’s work, because I believe in doing what is right, not currying favors.
I thank you for being willing to talk to us; I think you’ll find that the more you do, the more you realize what you’re being told isn’t true, and that supporters of Gamergate are diverse, mostly liberal (some classically liberal), support free speech and expression, free press, free association, and do not support harassment or threats for any reason.
And yes, Chris Edwards is my real name.
Interesting contrast between the first two comments: The first is whining from a journalist, the second is explaining from a GamerGater.
OK, Woodstein, let’s wander into the journalism weeds…
I used “videogames” as one word on purpose – because it wasn’t too long ago that “web site” was two words. My hypothesis: When terms get truly familiar to most people, they merge into one word.
Hence, “teen ager” and “Viet Nam” in the 1950s, “teen-ager” and “Viet-nam” in the 1960s, and “teenager” and “Vietnam” in the 1970s.
…Christ me kill me, but I think I’d prefer getting flamed from evil GamerGaters than nitpicked by anal journalists.
Thank you. This was a very insightful read. I do my best to be civil, but I also try to understand not everyone knows how to express themselves and, you’re right, sometimes by not letting others express themselves it leads to further frustration and further bad behavior.
Of course there are always going to be those trolls who just want to ruin everyone’s day, or those opposed to the spread of certain ideas that might take an opportunity to create anonymous accounts to further degrade the image of a group they disagree with.
I really enjoyed reading the storify, linked above, that came up last week in my feed. I think we can have a positive discussion, help watch out for, signal boost and find ethical violations. One thing being part of GamerGate has demonstrated to me is there are lots of great people with excellent digging/research skills. Unfortunately it seems that’s exactly what journalist are afraid of.
It never ceases to amaze me when I read neutral’s comments that are like, “GamerGate started out as a call for ethics, but so-and-so started throwing crap and now neither side has anything useful to say”. No, when one side is right, you don’t discount them when the people they’re accusing of acting badly start flinging crap.
IF that’s the case then feminism is also a lost cause because their opponents can be horrible people as well so obviously both sides are bad. Don’t decide how bad someone is based on their opponents, or anonymous trolls, actions that’s just stupid. Smearing EVERYONE with the crap some people throw is how unethical journalists cover their tracks.
“Your move Gamergators”
There are no links to the threats that have been done and Gamergate, please by all means do your research and try to find some concrete evidence.
And no an anonymous post on an anonymous message board does NOT count as evidence.
A public chatlog which anyone can join does NOT count as evidence
A hashtag which anyone can use does NOT count as evidence.
Random twitter accounts that were just made do NOT count as evidence.
You know what counts as evidence?
Advertisers pulling out from gawker due the dissatisfaction of their poor journalism
Ethics policies being invoked because of Gamergate
Thousands of women and other minorities under #NotYourShield stating that Gamergate is not sexist, not homophobic, not racist, not transphobic.
The ball is in YOUR court, you are the one who still accuse us of something we’re not, YOU are the one who refuses to listen to us when we speak up for ourselves, YOU are the one who bought into the narrative from a bunch of journalists who WE claim are corrupt. And you expect them to be completely truthful when representing us? Thats insanity.
Hi there,
I’d like to say first and foremost, thank you for the read. I’m pleased that there are a few people who’ve taken it upon themselves to look in and see the diversity that exists in the gamergate hashtag. I will not say that gamergate doesn’t have it’s trolls and it’s harassers. It almost certainly does, as most hastags do (The movement isn’t organised), but that doesn’t take away from the key premise that it is trying to promote. That premise is anti-stereotyping, freedom of artistic expression and ethical standards to be imposed correctly within journalism.
I’m happy to discuss at any time what I believe is the problem, as will many other people. If you take the time to look through the hashtag and find the legitimate posters, I’m sure you’ll find many willing to do the same.
Thanks for you time.
Thank you for writing this. I am what you would probably call a “gamergater”, though I hate that label. GamerGate is a scandal not an identity. Twitter is probably the worst face of GG and always has been. It’s easy for a loud minority to get in and post into tags claiming to be whatever they please. Twitter has no moderation that prevents this kind of thing. This is why the best discussion of these topics is best on boards that have rules and mods to enforce those rules so that those with ill intent have their posts removed.
You’ll actually find that the boards that discuss GG in any capacity actually have decently strict rules against doxing and the like. While you’ll probably find a few political opinions you don’t like much of what you’d wade through would be cynicism and sarcasm. I’d encourage you to come ask questions in a place like KotakuInAction. There are more people than you’d expect who really care about the media and want to make changes for the better.
Once again thanks for putting out a line of communication, it is very much appreciated.
It is unfortunate that the particular squad of clowns, seeking attention and fun, decided to dump on what should have been a strong chance to really discuss the ethics concerns of GamerGate. Thank you for even this much, in light of their shenanigans.
What is your name?
You first…
Okay, here’s a job for you dear SPJ journalist.
This is a meetup of “GamerGaters” in London: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuobI2cska4
This is a meetup of “GamerGaters” from Washington D.C. not too long ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCSmfaCS9BQ
A meetup that was disrupted by a bomb threat by an as yet unidentified party, an event that for instance gaming Website Polygon for once managed to somewhat depict neutrally without assigning blame: http://www.polygon.com/2015/5/3/8539733/gamergate-bomb-threat-washington-ggindc-milo-yiannopoulos-christina-hoff-summers
Here is a video featuring minority members of “GamerGate” trying to reach out and have a fair hearing by the media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzwGIHUCtjU
Do all these people look like the horrible terrorist, misogynist, white-nationalist, homophobic basement dwellers that the media was telling you about, to the point that the SPJ is apparently afraid of talking about it?
There have been just SOOO many lies and misrepresentations involved in all of this, from the initial now dubbed “Gamers are Dead” articles that were pushed through the gaming media: http://i.imgur.com/wo6oQhv.jpg
To the exposure of what was called the “Game Journo Pros” mailing list with journalists from almost all major gaming publications on it, talking about how to construct narratives around stories: http://www.breitbart.com/london/2014/09/17/exposed-the-secret-mailing-list-of-the-gaming-journalism-elite/
To deliberate lies and narrative misrepresentation of “facts”, did you for instance know that “GamerGate” at large equally has no friggin idea who has been sending threats (if they have) and most of the ones attributed to it do not have an identified person responsible for it, or that “GamerGate” participants have also been getting harassment all along, but this was never reported on by the media until the late threat on the meeting in Washington D.C.: https://jennofhardwire.wordpress.com/2015/01/06/gamers-discussing-gamergate-scandal-are-being-harassed-wheres-the-coverage-this-article-will-be-regularly-updated-with-documented-harassment-of-gamers/
Did you know that there have been complaints to major media organizations over these misrepresentations and some journalists like William Usher even got the response that they aren’t interested in any other aspect of it outside of the “harassment” and “misogyny” narrative they were presenting?
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/02/abc-reporter-admits-they-have-no-interest-in-the-whole-gamergate-story/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/11/producers-didnt-want-the-full-story-of-gamergate-according-to-journalist/
There are just so many things that an “ethics committee” or Watchdog could possibly talk about or clarify that haven’t gotten a fair hearing.
One late example of an extraordinarily horrible smear piece and example of botched “ethics” nearing libel was for instance against the more-or-less unwilling “initiator” of GamerGate Eron Gjoni, who has blogged about the abuse he has been through with his previous partner and subsequently legally court-gagged from talking about specific persons or details without the chance of speaking out breaking his First Amendment Rights and can’t even defend himself against certain accusations made therein: http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2015/04/28/gamergate/
There is a write-up of his this happened here: https://medium.com/@brokenomelette/understanding-the-zoe-affidavit-29d001415f23
Nonetheless he responded to what he could, reading both accounts, what do you think about this “story” being paraded around?:
http://antinegationism.tumblr.com/post/117661182576/what-the-hell-is-journalism-even-part-1
http://antinegationism.tumblr.com/post/117729753311/what-is-journalism-even-part-2-zachary-jasons
If you want to talk to members of the movement or to know more about all of this, feel free to drop by Reddit and participate in an AMA where people can ask you questions or Reverse AMA where you ask people about what you want to know: http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/
Hello,
I wrote one of the twits that you quoted.
SPJ shouldn’t be afraid of #gamergate. Also, understanding why it started and most important why it is lasting for so long will give some interesting insights about the future of journalism itself.
This is a long read, but can help you understand the actors in place: http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/articles/2014/12/10/debate-gamergate.html
I strongly suggest that you try to contact David Auerbach (@AuerbachKeller) | Twitter https://twitter.com/AuerbachKeller
He knows “how to Internet” and follows the “happenings” since the beginning.
To understand why #gamergate exploded:
– Improper relationships between journalist from Kotaku (Gawker sub site) and a “game developer” were revealed by a betrayed boyfriend. IMHO, this would have lasted a week or two maximum (as in past polemics like Mass Effect 3 ending and the recent payed MODs in the Steam Workshop).
– Discussions about this subject were (still are) censored all over the Internet. The only publication that allowed discussion was The Escapist. Even 4chan made the subject a reason to ban users and squash free speech.
One example is this thread with 25k comments deleted:
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/2dz0gs/totalbiscuit_discusses_the_state_of_games/
Naturally, people started to say wow… “What’s happening?” and people started to investigate.
You can see here Ben Kuchera from Polygon (Vox Media) pressuring Greg Tito (then editor of The Escapist to censor the discussion)
http://yiannopoulos.net/2014/09/19/gamejournopros-zoe-quinn-email-dump/
Since then #gamergate has been misrepresented in the media (gaming and mainstream) and many many many other ethical violations (according to SPJ code) were discovered.
About the “feminism”… The “game developer” is a known feminist (SJW type) so it was easy for the corrupt to raise an army of twitter warriors to silence the discussion.
This was the situation in September 2014… This is getting a bit long, and lots of things happened since then.
Feel free to contact me via twitter. Sorry for the bad english.
[]s
Here’s the thing, and this is actually not in our favor (i’m pro gamergate), we refuse to say that we’re sorry for something that we didn’t do, doing so would be taking responsibility for someone elses actions. The “gaming press” ofc interperted that as just “we’re not sorry” mostly so they could keep on pushing their narrative (speculation on my part).
And secondly, the general attitude seems to be that we don’t really care if people (publications) like us or not, as long as they don’t lie about us. An endearing position one might argue (sticking to your guns no matter what), but it has in more than a few cases i suspect (again, speculation on my part) scared off reporters that might have otherwise reported on the whole kerfuffle. If you do decide to look into this deeper i’d suggest talking to Eric Kain from Forbes, He’s neutral on the matter and has a good overview of things i’d say.
If you want the best avenue of getting the representative GamerGate view of things, I would advise you to stop by the KotakuInAction subreddit on reddit. Because while trolls can’t be accounted for on twitter, the community will quickly act on the ones in the reddit board where they actually have the ability to do so. Twitter is really awful for conversations.
Well, not positive of gamergate, still more fair than 90% of coverage we’ve received from neutrals so far. As was said above, take some time to stop by KOtaku in action on reddit, that’s where a large core of gamergate is. Or have a chat with @ice4zr on twitter, she’s a good egg.
Thanks for looking into this and making this post. I’ve noticed a number of misconceptions in your post, but I hope that with more time and research those will be cleared up. More than that, I hope you stick with this after you find out just how much of the bad behavior comes from the other side and targets anyone who so much as speaks to GG.
I’d like to suggest talking to reddit/r/kotakuinaction to discuss things with GGers. This is one of the more outsider-friendly venues (8Chan suffers from that impenetrable chan-culture), allows more thoughtful discussion than twitter, and it’ll make it easier to tell the actual GGers from the trolls.
First Of all, thank you for posting this. In my opinion this is fair, if maybe a bit uninformed criticism.
First of, the problem with a hashtag, be it #GamerGate or #SPJEthicsWeek is that it’s very easy to hijack, or in the case of #GamerGate, pretty much impossible to say, who is actually “pro-GamerGate” or a “Gamergater”. What you experieced was “shitposting” from people, who are more interested in their own entertainment, then anything else. The question wether they are “in” GamerGate or not is hard to answer and depeden on the indcator, which one uses to qualify what being “in” Gamergate means.
That said if you DO want to engage, Reddit is probably a better palttform than twitter. The Subreddit /KotakuInAction would be the place for that.
Here is the Thread regarding the week http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/33ydv2/spjethicsweek_megathread/
here is the thread reagarding the
And here is the thread regarding this article, which DOES have critical comments about it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/34toef/media_ethics_isnt_a_game_article_on/
Maybe the best way to engage would be an AMA, for which you could contactct the mods to get verification, make a specific account and answer a lot of questions!
If you have question you can contact me, altough there are probably way more qualified people to aswer them.
I’d recommend only taking seriously the opinions of Gamergaters who are willing to use their actual names. They’re out there, there’s tons of them, and they’re the only ones you can guarantee aren’t being paid by a social media team to smear the tag.
While I disagree with several points you’ve made, you’ve at least had the integrity to speak on the matter, which puts you miles ahead of your SPJ colleagues.
Thank you.
It’s almost like he’s attacking, insulting, and jumping to conclusions about the gamers to “win over” those who have these views of gamers as fat neckbeard “misogynerds.”
Prove to me one person directly involved with #gamergate has resorted to publishing private information on others.
What’s more, “Hijacking your hashtag–” it’s likely your organization would have done/said all jack otherwise.
It’s positive that you’re finally coming around and willing to listen to their legitimate gripes; it’s annoying as hell that you have to do it like some snooty hipster pretending he’s got a gun to his head when all that happened was people went to the tag and posted to it.
… and of course the usual brats that don’t want you to take those folks seriously decided to behave as 14-year-olds on the internet usually do.
I guess I should just say “Thank you for attempting to listen” rather than “Thank you for listening” and leave it at that?
DISCLAIMER — ONE PERSON’S OPINION
If you’re really interested in finding out GG’s opinions go to their subreddit reddit.com kotakuinaction, they will quickly be able to list all of their various ethical concerns about not only video game targeted websites but bigger sites like the Guardian. I would suggest that as it will be more productive than a bunch of comments on a blog or a handful of tweets.
It will also be a lot less trollish.
Greetings,friend!
I am disheartened to see you put so much stock in the accusations that Gamergate is a perpetrator of such vile acts as doxing, harassment and sending death threats. It is not uncommon to find that a consumer revolt opposing the media would get smeared as villains by this very media and the people they have mislead,no?
However, I am absolutely delighted on your statement that even if such people were the majority of Gamergate, you would still accept any evidence about corruption in gaming journalism coming from us.
So in light of that, i’d like to share a link of something Gamergate has been working on, a site documenting many ethical breaches we have discovered over these past 8 months by each journalist.
I urge you to consider two things: the site does not contain ALL the corruption we’ve uncovered(so please be on the look out for other links as well) and that it is not yet officially launched,so there may be a few spelling errors here and there.
http://deepfreeze.it/journo.php
The site owner may be contacted on twitter via the handle @bonegolem if you desire further information on it, I am merely forwarding the link.
Do consider that #gamergate is a hashtag, and as such is susceptible to intrusion by third-party rabble-rousers, harassers, trolls, and the unsavory folk of the Internet.
Do not let this divert your attention from the concerns we have about both journalistic ethics in video games, and the political, intersectional and post-modernist ideologies that caused this to happen.
Since the majority of the shit you’re talking about come from trolls how are supposed to tamp it down? It kinda feels like GamerGate is being set up to fail.
i’ve been a part of this madness for 9 months and have seen more unethical instances uncovered by corrupt journalists than ever have been in years.
We need more journalists to hold themselves to ethical standards and we’ll go away. Until then, we’re here to stay
You know how I know #gamergate isn’t a hate movement? I open up Tweetdeck, set up a column to monitor the hashtag, and read the posts. The vast majority of them are about ethics in journalism and supporting free expression in gaming, with a few anti-gamergate ideologues setting up and knocking down straw men. That’s it. Try it yourself and you’ll see.
There are certainly facts which are verified, and which exonerate #GamerGate of the worst accusations leveled at it. For example:
1) Utah State Univeristy, in conjunction with the FBI’s Cyberterrorism Unit, determined “no risk” and “no threat” to anyone at Anita Sarkeesian’s speaking engagement in October of last year. This was determined on the same day this threat arrived.
http://www.usu.edu/ust/index.cfm?article=54179
2) The threat’s sender cites, as his inspiration, mass-murderer and anti-feminist Marc Lepine — and nothing else. The threat is generically anti-feminist.
3) Regardless of the above, Ms. Sarkeesian immediately went on a whirlwind media tour where she repeatedly declared that #GamerGate was responsible for the threats. At one point she tweeted that “one of the threats carried the hashtag”, but no other threat beyond the one email, noted above, has surfaced. Below is her Nightline appearance in what seems to have been an armored car, and with definitely armed police at her side, doing a run-through of ABC’s studio as though expecting an assassin to pop out at any moment.
Ms. Sarkeesian released her financial records for Feminist Frequency for last year — until the USU “shooting threat”, she hadn’t been getting much in the way of donations, achieving a low five-figure sum despite Time Magazine’s recent portrayal of her as part of the “Top 100 Influential People” in the world. AFTER her claims of GamerGate being out to kill her, roughly $350,000 was donated to her organization.
Without hyperbole, this is simply a scam artist at work.
If you want someone to make a move, then here’s mine:
http://lunararchivist.tumblr.com/post/109644115186/gamergate-media-watch-part-2-gamerella-girl
The CBC claimed that a young woman suffered “swift and vicious retaliation for tweeting her support for a high profile female game developer” but conveniently neglected to mention that the individual in question, after being antagonized by an established Twitter troll, proceeded to hurl vitriol and expletive-laden verbal abuse at GamerGate supporters for nearly three quarters of an hour. She thus not only attracted the attention of people who did not appreciate being insulted and falsely accused, but also of other trolls in the process.
If you want examples of pretty horrible mainstream media bias against GamerGate, look no further than the CBC. They’ve done less than seven news stories on GamerGate. Exactly none of them featured an interview with a prominent GamerGate supporter, but they’ve done two interviews with Brianna Wu, they intentionally ignored and buried a pre-interview with pro-GamerGate video game developer Jennifer Dawe, they ignored the existence of NotYourShield, and they used an audio clip from the infamous “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” based on GamerGate – a clip where gamers were portrayed as kidnappers, terrorists, and rapists – to frame an upcoming debate on the issue.
You’re wrong, but in a way that you might find really positive. The hashtag of SPJ was brigaded by a group of trolls that specializes in trying to aggravate Gamergate. Someone put it very well “They are the angry ex-girlfriends of Gamergate”. If Gamergate was a real-life boycott much like Occupy, those trolls wouldve been the people Gamergate kicked out a long time ago because they started breaking windows, so now they try their hardest to damage Gamergate as retaliation.
SPJ itself does not really have to fear anything, The Code of Ethics-page of SPJ is basically the “Bible” of the Gamergate boycott, we’ve linked it as a source for whenever we’ve critisized the corrupt gaming media countless times by now. This video explains all of Gamergate and its happenings within very well: https://youtu.be/wy9bisUIP3w
SPJ should not fear us, on the contrary. We’re the consumers who want to support the SPJ ideals, for being fed up with how many unprofessional and unethical journalists there are nowadays, that do not take any responsibilities in their jobs. We’re the kind of audience you yearn for, we’re the people who appreciate the fact you try to stay ethical in your job.
Gamergate critisized corrupt media, so corrupt media went and smeared Gamergate as a result. We’re not a group of “ISIS terrorists” or “rapists” like so many of these corrupt sites say and regurgitate the same message without ever doing their homework on the subject. We’re SPJ’s consumer allies. SPJ is something we aspire from our gaming media, we WANT them to follow your rules.
Sorry your tag got hijacked by the ayy team. They’ve been aggressively trolling both those in the revolt and those opposed to the revolt consistently since August and probably even before. Anytime anything major happens or is planned, they show up with the intention of derailment and harassment.
I highly suggest talking to Oliver Campbell (@oliverbcampbell on twitter) or Allistair Pinsof (@megaspacepanda) if you want to talk to someone with experience in games journalism and the revolt. They’re probably some of the best people to start with.
And yet another link I would like to share with you
http://press.gamergate.me/dossier/
As you can see we’ve been taking this topic very seriously
Thank you for the article. The “ayyteam” are made up of people who are jaded the GG movement didn’t go as quickly or in the direction they liked so they exert all their resources in trying to “get back” at the rest of GG.
At any rate, please take a look at this dossier, it’s the best thing we’ve got so far.
http://press.gamergate.me/dossier/
Demonizing (probably due to ignorance), but at least you are giving us a chance. It really annoyed me to see all given three examples of “misogynistic, antisemitistic and homophobic” tweets being from non-GG people, none of which I, as a very regular Twitter user posting under the #GamerGate hashtag, have never heard of. GamerGate has also been connected to harassment and threats that are not proven to be made by GamerGate supporters incredibly often and all shit slinged on our direction systematically ignored, and even encouraged by our opposition.
In the end, lies live on, but at least someone is curios enough to let us speak for ourselves. I hope assholes from third parties won’t ruin it this time.
The SPJ hastag was hijacked by GamerGate. Then it was hijacked by people who spammed porn and nazi stuff in order to make GamerGate look bad. I think it’s just slightly surreal that the basic nature of Twitter ecology seems to have escaped the SPJ and this author, considering Twitter was invented for them in the first place.
I welcome the opening of the dialog, and I agree with others that Kotaku in Action is the place to go. Reading more of the articles at gamergate.me would be wise as well.
While this article certainly is more fair than most and does genuinely show an interest in actual ethics within journalism, though there are a few problems, most are nitpicks, such as many of the questions you asked yourself seemed to come from an anti-gamergate perspective, yet no questions seem to come from a pro-gamergate perspective (for example, “regardless of the actions of gamergate, why has nobody at the SPJs addressed the mailing list “gamejournopros?” or perhaps “what actual evidence is there of someone from gamergate actually doxxing someone or sending a death threat?” Though this is merely a nitpick.
One problem I do have is in the fourth paragraph. All criticism can be neatly summed up with two words, “citation needed”. Those are some very hefty accusations, I would encourage you to provide evidence for them, though with the possible exception of hijacking and flaming, I doubt you can come up with any. I’m not at all blaming you, several months of concentrated media propaganda spreading certainly can leave one not heavily well-read in a certain matter very befuddled. As for hacking, after some searching the only thing I could find is one tweet from Brianna Wu saying her finances were being hacked. (and we all know how reliable she is. imgur.com/5rVctQc ) and I hate to break it to you but Twitter isn’t reliable. Just because someone says something happened to them, doesn’t mean it happened. However it seems that the author of this is under the impression that people always tell the truth on twitter and if you are going to continue to live under the opposite impression, I demand compensation for you killing my dog (twitter.com/stratagemmedley/status/595253866226126849). Similarly for doxxing, though people on both sides have been doxxed (though it seems the media is content to ignore one side of it), in fact the poor victim damsel Zoe Quinn has done it herself (crimeandfederalism.com/2014/12/margaret-pless-zoe-quinn.html). However in most cases you can’t tell who the doxxer was, due to online anonymity, it could be a gamergate-er who doxxed person X, it could be an AntiGG-er who doxxed person X, it could be person X who doxxed person X, it could be someone else entirely, you simply don’t know and in these cases, it is prudent to admit that instead of whacking any side with the blame stick. Though I will say this, it makes zero sense for a gamergate-er to directly and openly harass or dox someone, as it discredits their own movement and gives ammunition to the side they supposedly hate so much.
Finally onto the death and rape threats, for one I’d like to point out it’s not really severity that matters in death threats, you could receive the most detailed and disgusting threat entailing your grisly demise but that is irrelevant because any old fart can say this because it’s the internet. What does matter is credibility, for example listing someone’s address (or addresses of relatives and friends), their routine/s, the locations they will visit, their employer/s, perhaps even describing the victim’s home. That is what makes a death threat serious. There is one reason I would say the three notorious victims don’t receive such threats, simply put, you don’t feed the trolls, they know this, they just pretend not to in order to get the biggest slice of the victim pie (why do you think Anita made most of her yearly profits at the last quarter, where she got a “death threat”?).Also I’d like to point out, that everyone with notable presence receives death threats, it is terrible, it’s awful, it should stop but that doesn’t mean people should pretend it only happens exclusively to certain people because frankly, it doesn’t. Otherwise I think this is one of the most fair assessments from outside gamergate and I thank you for trying to extend an olive branch, differences aside, these issues need addressing and honestly that’s much more important than gender politics or any hashtag.
” GamerGate has an opportunity to go legit.”
GamerGate has been legit since day one, it has no need to “go legit”.
You only believe it isn’t legit because you listen and believe the lies of the UNETHICAL journalists that have heaped lies upon lies on an ethics movement rather than to accept their ethical failings that have been proved ten times over.
If the answer of the SPJ is what you say it is then it only proves what we have suspected all along: that the entirety of journalism is unethical, not only games journalism.
Now just go and investigate all the other “women in _______” this and “internalized misogyny” that in other fields, and you’ll stumble upon the story few journalists want to get close to: the obvious, unethical and persistent bias to report on female victims, to personalize their grief, and to make excuses for female perps.
I tried talking to the CBC ombudsman about this, even provided citations. No reply.
Speaking as a former GGer (I stepped away around the time the FTC got involved, figuring that was enough to declare victory), are… Are you actually inviting discussion? Holy crap that’s a breath of fresh air. Nice to see.
I urge you to try and be charitable when approached by GGers. Even the best of them have had to deal with months of being harassed for being associated with the movements worst elements, and the… I don’t know what to call it really. The best way I can think to describe it is that it’s difficult to have an even-handed conversation when one party has megaphones and has made a career out of shouting through them.
If you wish, I’d be willing to talk more on the subject by email. I’ve got something of an outsiders perspective by now, I suppose.
Reblogged this on androlphegax.
If I had to sum up how GamerGate has been covered?
It’s the Rolling Stone UVA Rape Hoax, but with numerous news outlets doing the same thing that journalist did. Allegations are made, little to no support is presented, but a desire not to make the alleged victim feel put-upon becomes the overriding concern. In today’s Internet, attention plus victimhood often equals income… and all three of the major claimants against GamerGate are making VERY good money off the controversy.
We aren’t really journalists we aren’t trained in such we’ve been winging this thing ever sense it started 9 months ago.
Yes we over do it yes we make mistakes yes we seem to attract trolls but what do you expect. We aren’t educated elite we are the unwashed masses who have simply had enough.
I’ll speak for myself here I have a 7th grade education I know next to nothing about journalistic standards. What I do know is all these bias news stories ignoring and justifying and endless torrent of abuse and harassment to a group of people who simply wanted to be able to talk is not only unethical it’s immoral. Why did we invade the SPJethicsweek tag simple no one else would listen and by the sounds of it we were wrong to think the SPJ would.
“According to Keyhole, more than 700 posts flooded #SPJEthicsWeek. Almost all were pure crap: anti-semitic, misogynistic, and homophobic. Click those links at your own peril, because they’re disgusting.”
All 3 accouns who made those tweets is connected to #colorcabal which is a troll group. They have for example tried to pin their trolling on gamergate trough #BaltimoreLootCrew,which buzzfeed reported on as being GG because their “source” (one of the trolls) said so. The troll then went on to mock buzzfeed for believing him/her, which resulted in the editors note
“Editor’s note: The people interviewed in this story have since claimed online they were dishonest in interviews. BuzzFeed cannot verify the accuracy of their statements or their involvement. Original story continues below. ”
Basically admitting that the source claiming that colorcabal related to GG is not credible because they were fooled by trolls. The same trolls which also (unfortunately) spammed the SPJEthicsWeek hashtag.
I won’t deny that GG is surounded by trolls, even have some of them ourself. But it’s unavodable from our side, which brings me to
“4. If “good” GamerGaters aren’t speaking out against the hate, isn’t that proof enough to stay out of this?”
We are speaking against the hate, shouting it from the rooftops. What we’re not doing is taking responsibility for every troll or harassers’ actions. You link to the New York Times’ article, an article which for months have been used by people saying GG are terrorists. But looking at the actual treath you’ll find nothing even related to GG. http://www.standard.net/.media/1/2014/10/14/f43adaf9-0a46-46d6-9026-cc0f0acf8df0.jpg
And us saying it’s terrible, but not related to GG is looked as us not wanting to distance us self from the hate. We have NOTHING to gain from treaths or harassment and of course we hate that such things happen. But after 8 months of being called nazis, KKK, worse than ISIS, subhuman people wanting to start death camps for people supporting GG (actual things said, some of them by “journalists”), while the same people claim you’re responsible for things you’re in no way related to or has any way to stop you do grow tired of always having to constantly say you’re against treaths and harassment. Because OF COURSE you are, what kind of question is that to ask?
As you noticed with SPJEthicsWeek, it’s impossible to efficiently moderate a hashtag. But with as many people activly engaging with GG on a daily basis as SPJ has members (my estimation), almost 5 times as many folowers of the KotakuInAction subreddit and all the other GG supporters who talk about it other places, I’m sure your 1000 to 10 bad apples is the wrong way around.
The ball is on our court, but what game are we playing? How would you like us to reach out to you, and how would you prefer to talk to us? We’re always up for a good discussion. Though I would prefer reddit (or just about anything else) over twitter.
(And sorry if you felt we hijacked your hashtag, we’re just trying to reach as many people as possible)
I’m genuinely sorry that your hashtag was hijacked, we’ve been putting up with the AyyTeam trolling both side because they’ve found it funny, anytime there is some serious discussion that may bridge a gap between the two sides or work towards some serious ethical change, they come in for the sole purpose of derailment and leave it sour.
The best people, who, although it’s an amorphis movement, pretty close to the top to talk to are;
Oliver Campbell
TotalBiscuit (John Bain)
Sargon of Akkad
and Alistair Pinsof.
To those of us that want ethical change and adamantly oppose harrassment and the large amounts of censorship that has occured since august, this opportunity means a lot, thank you for it. We’ve had to deal with hit piece after hitpiece becuase the games media went into defensive mode and attacked the group instead of addressing its criticisms, it’s good to know that somebody has taken notice, even if it did spawn from the wrong reasons.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on GamerGate — it’s quite clear that you put a hefty amount of time and effort into forming a fair opinion, and I greatly appreciate that.
As a GamerGate supporter, I’m very sorry that you and your associates at the SPJ had to undergo the trolling/attacks from people in the GamerGate hashtag. A majority of GamerGate supporters using the SPJEthicsWeek hashtag merely wanted to engage in productive discussion about media ethics — a big victory for the group was getting several games media outlets to adopt ethics policies, and your Code of Ethics served as a blueprint and model for us to encourage these publications to follow.
Please be aware that there are groups that specifically co-opt hashtags that GamerGate supporters are using and fill them with gore, racist/sexist/anti-Semitic messages, and other foul things in an attempt to damage the perception of GamerGate supporters (mostly comprising of people who were in GamerGate, but became dejected when GamerGate supporters voiced displeasure with their behavior).
I hate this behavior just as much as you do, if not more — it’s being used to make me look stupid.
I would implore you (and other journalists) to listen to a representative sample of GamerGate supporters and opponents before coming to an opinion on their merit. The people you ran into in the #SPJEthicsChat are much more akin to a majority of the people I’ve personally met in GamerGate — these are people with legitimate grievances that deserve to be addressed by media outlets and organizations like the SPJ.
Feel free to get in touch with me at @WillGarciaSays if you’d like to discuss these matters further.
Thanks again for your thoughts and for the work you do to keep journalism fair and honest.
Best regards,
William Garcia
Like you said, the two sides are molecular in nature. In fact, what you saw, that “Ayyteam” the tweet you quoted was referring to, is in fact a bunch of hangers-on that were a part of GG to cause trouble and drama from the beginning. They “left” after people got tired of them more or less sabotaging others’ efforts for fun, or due to an argument, and now actively try to troll, false flag, and undermine those who honestly care at every turn. Needless to say, those that honestly care about the cause we fight for do not care for these people at all.
What needs to be understood is that “GamerGate” is not some united vanguard or top-down organization in which everyone approves of the actions of the other. Various people come in with their different agendas, views, backgrounds, morals, attitudes, and even causes for being a part of one side or the other. It’s not something that can be nailed down and defined because it means different things to different people.
I would also encourage you to look in to the behavior of both sides. Just this last week, a meetup in DC had to be evacuated due to a bomb threat called in. Adam Sessler, a notable and famous games journalist and personality, is on record being in favor of doxing those he doesn’t like. It’s not like the pro-ethics side has a monopoly on “war crimes,” as you put it.
“War crimes” from the side against us (warning: graphic content as one of the people against us decided to have his friend “tribute” on a picture of a prominent female pro-ethics supporter)
Adam Sessler promoting doxing to a roaring crowd at Screw Attack’s convention
Games journalist and former EiC of Gamasutra promoting doxing
https://archive.is/PMr2W
Games journalist and former EiC of Gamasutra publishing someone’s email address that emailed her
https://archive.is/CmkHy
EiC of Polygon Ben Kuchera trying to get someone fired from his job
Zoe Quinn and a friend use a blog post to put up the dox of California Lawyer Mike Cernovich to get their friends to “call the cops” (read: SWAT) him
http://www.crimeandfederalism.com/2015/01/gamergate-swatting-and-zoe-quinn.html
http://www.crimeandfederalism.com/2014/12/margaret-pless-zoe-quinn.html
http://idledillettante.com/2014/10/24/how-to-report-mike-cernovich-to-the-lapd-wo-a-single-deadlift/
These are just a few examples. I’m not going to sit here and say that everyone that uses the GG tag are a bunch of saints, but I can’t sit back and let someone make it sound like one side’s overly vicious. Both sides have incredibly dirty hands here. And you know what? A little acknowledgement from the media that this isn’t good vs. evil would go a LONG way to get the side you engaged to “clean up its act.” These unethical actions, as you put it, are put in place to try to fight what is seen as a massive, reactionary smear campaign put together by a media unwilling to take the look in the mirror and do their jobs in an ethical manner.
I forgot to give an example here’s what happens when we try and have a meet up http://reason.com/archives/2015/05/04/bomb-threat-targets-gamergate-meetup-hea
after 9 months of news stories calling us monsters the dehumanizing worked now it’s ok to threaten to bomb a bar because some of us were inside at least in some peoples minds.
[…] Some thoughts on journalistic ethics. […]
AyyTeam has been a problem lately. They actually killed the board we were using on 8chan. They’re the ones who flood tags with gore and porn, and they actively enjoy trying to make GamerGate look bad. They did the same with ColorCabal, and actually convinced some idiot Buzzfeed writer to claim that they were racists trying to make black people look terrible to drive them out of gaming.
A friend of mine is part of the ColorCabal. He’s a gay black dude from a poor neighborhood. He’s a good guy, not some bigot trying to make himself look bad. Someone wrote a hit piece that actually made it necessary to delete his account, because she took the trolls on AyyTeam at their word.
Other friends of mine involved in GG have had their employers called, and people have generally tried to screw them over because of claims others have made about the tag. This problem has actually prejudicially affected women and minorities, since we were the ones that used our actual faces to fight off false claims that we were sock puppet accounts. A lot of women have received rape threats as well. Basically, the negative claims about GamerGate have adversely affected women and minorities the most.
Some aspect of mitigating harm HAS to be ensuring that you don’t harm people’s employment prospects by falsely labeling them as bigoted terrorists. People have been making very serious accusations, and maybe it’s just because I fell into the NotYourShield bubble, but they don’t largely seem to be true.
If you really do want an unbiased look at GG, talk to Liana K (@redlianak on Twitter). She’s neutral, but she has interacted with people. She actually disagrees with a lot of common GG claims, and thinks a lot of it is conspiracy theory crap, but she thinks the media’s gotten it wrong too. She’s a woman, a games journalist, and a feminist, so she should really be a target of the “hate mob” on three fronts. She HAS taken shit from some GG folks, and definitely from AyyTeam, but she’s kept a pretty level head about things.
There were many factual errors in this post that I believe the comments correctly addressed, and I chalk them up to misinformation and ignorance on the subject. We have been dealing with being blamed for things we haven’t done for the past 9 months and would be glad to talk to you regarding it. KotakuInAction subreddit is a great place to go for information, but feel free to talk to us, any of us.
While your post had many errors in it, your tone is exactly what we want. We want people to be open to dialogue, to discuss the issues and concerns we have, and I want to thank you for that. We haven’t acted unethically, in spite of what you may think (aside from possibly hijacking the spjethicsweek hashtag, though we weren’t the ones with the racist, homophobic, and transphobic material, that was ayyteam, trolls we’ve been dealing with for some time).
As was mentioned in a couple of the other comments you mention the ball is in our court, but don’t explain what to do with that ball. We want this discussion, it’s all we’ve ever wanted. We’re here to talk, we’re open to it all. Talk to us, tell us how to talk to you and everyone else and we will be there. We will explain everything. While I’m not a prominent figure in the GG movement, feel free to hit me up on twitter or kia and I will gladly give you the opinions of a lowly grunt in the GamerGate army.
This is an amazing post, thank you for this. It almost inspires me to get back into the GG discussion despite its politicization and the descent into an unproductive flame war, as well as the trolls who latched on to it.
I’m sorry the hashtag got such vile things posted to it, and I have to say I had no idea anything like that happened. I only follow GamerGaters who consistently are civil and respectful about their cause, so I almost never get to see these ‘bad apples’, so to say.
Unfortunately, I can’t say I’m too surprised that trolls have latched on to the GG hashtag, either. I agree pretty much completely with David Auerbach on this:
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2014/10/how_to_end_gamergate_a_divide_and_conquer_plan.html
Relevant quote:
“Whatever a troll does under the cover of Gamergate—such as doxxing actress Felicia Day or offering free game codes to accounts that send death threats—is guaranteed to get a lot of attention (far more than typical Internet harassment) and to be blamed not on the individual but on Gamergate collectively. For a troll, this is a perfect setup: maximum effect, minimal exposure.”
Trolls live and breathe on attention. ‘Don’t feed the trolls’, as they say. Unfortunately, everybody just follows their own incentives: Journalists who are being heavily criticized (and sometimes slandered) by #GamerGate jump on the opportunity to discredit the movement, and feminist and left-leaning journalists love stories that bring women’s issues (eg. online harassment) to the forefront.
On the other hand, few people would be interested in stories like “#GamerGate: Backlash against poor journalism in the gaming community”, so there really isn’t much of a market for commercial media here… An organization like SPJ would actually be ideal in bringing the actual issues up (with or without mentioning the ‘GamerGate brand’).
Someone has linked the incomplete Deepfreeze site already but note it’s a successor to this series of infographs summarizing things from the same person:
Here’s a more comprehensive compilation of some of the COIs uncovered over the course of GG:
http://pastebin.com/dRYg8v95
Most of them are journalists covering and promoting people they have close personal relationships with without disclosure. Also has some minor financial entanglements with journalists either donating to or receiving donations from subjects on a regular basis via Patreon. Created by @Boogiepoprobin on twitter who you can talk to for elaboration.
Boyer isn’t included in that compilation currently but I think his behaviour is worth taking note of:
http://techraptor.net/content/allegations-improper-relationships-igf-chairman-brandon-boyer-indie-dev-steph-thirion
reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2y732f/brandon_boyer_involved_in_5_more_conflicts_of/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/03/gamergate-igf-chairman-brandon-boyers-undisclosed-conflicts-of-interest
Probably the most comprehensive compilation of events during GG, though lengthy:
https://gitgud.net/gamergate/gamergateop/tree/master/Current-Happenings
Wiki timeline, which is shorter but less complete:
http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Timeline
While there are obvious things i disagree with i think most of your opinion about the majority of Gamergate might Be misinformed due to the actions of some trolls for instance… Mostly going by what we call ayyteam wich is a group made of trolls and some former people involved in Gamergate.
I appreciate any journalist willing to take the time to look into our complaints! I believe many have posted the press kit we put together but there have been many more ethical failings we uncovered over time.
I am at the movies but I’m sure many people will be willing to share those to add to the discussion!
Anyway thank you for writing this any step in this direction is definitely appreciated!
Someone has linked the incomplete Deepfreeze site already but note it’s a successor to this series of infographs summarizing things from the same person:
Here’s a more comprehensive compilation of some of the COIs uncovered over the course of GG:
http://pastebin.com/dRYg8v95
Most of them are journalists covering and promoting people they have close personal relationships with without disclosure. Also has some minor financial entanglements with journalists either donating to or receiving donations from subjects on a regular basis via Patreon. Created by @Boogiepoprobin on twitter who you can talk to for elaboration.
Boyer isn’t included in that compilation currently but I think his behaviour is worth taking note of:
http://techraptor.net/content/allegations-improper-relationships-igf-chairman-brandon-boyer-indie-dev-steph-thirion
reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2y732f/brandon_boyer_involved_in_5_more_conflicts_of/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/03/gamergate-igf-chairman-brandon-boyers-undisclosed-conflicts-of-interest
Probably the most comprehensive compilation of events during GG:
https://gitgud.net/gamergate/gamergateop/tree/master/Current-Happenings
Wiki timeline, which is shorter but less complete:
http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Timeline
The trolling of the #SPJEthicsWeek tag irked a lot of people in #GamerGate, so much so that it sparked a lot of both angry and civil arguments between people who said they “wanted to save their hobby and still have fun.” Having fun is very important to any movement – at least to its sustainability in the long run – but what people define as fun is up for discussion.
I didn’t know that #ayyteam was behind some of the shitposting, but, at the time, I called them out on it. I kept seeing people tweet photos of gore and pornography and nothing else but the images and the #SPJEthicsWeek tag. I didn’t know where it was coming from – I’d never heard of any of these accounts, either retweeted or mentioned by the hundreds of people on my GamerGate Twitter list (I have a kick ass memory, for the record).
@CultOfVivian and @Foxigon, two of the most recognized supporters of #GamerGate, took on many of them on April 30, which seemed to be the worst day for the #SPJEthicsWeek tag. That was when I realized this was some kind of coordinated attempt to mess with people’s attempts to get the attention of SPJ concerning unethical behavior in the game press. And that’s exactly what the intent was: they didn’t want SPJ to bother. They don’t want anyone to take #GamerGate seriously because it’s much more fun to troll both sides and, in order to have the game never end, they have to keep the groups marginalized as much as possible – so they mess with #GamerGate and try to make us look like idiots and creeps when the truth is far from it.
Like I said, I follow hundreds of people with my #GamerGate Twitter list. Except for a few imbeciles who have been called out for doing so when it’s extreme or used under the #GamerGate tag, I have yet to see a single person behave in a way that I wouldn’t want my own mother (a very saintly Hispanic Catholic woman) to see.
You’re a rarity. It’s very rare to see anyone take #GamerGate seriously, even marginally. Whenever anyone tries to write about something done TO #GamerGate, they quantify the cares that their readers should give (few to none) and divert attention to the news reporting about #GamerGate and the kind of crap the #ayyteam produces (this is why the cares you should give are so few!) – but they don’t mention the #ayyteam or the activities behind other troll groups (e.g. SomethingAwful, which a previous commenter mentioned is overtly anti-#GamerGate) and negligently leave it up to their readers to assume that #GamerGate is behind all the vile activity.
And that’s partly because they don’t ever pay attention to what #GamerGate says and only care about what ever way they can make #GamerGate look bad. Consider how one Kotaku writer who felt like he was eligible to write about the bomb threat against #GGInDC (a meetup of #GamerGate supporters in Washington, DC). He did not know, after 9 months, who Oliver Campbell was. He flat out told Oliver Campbell, arguably one of the 5 most recognized names in #GamerGate, that he didn’t know who he was and never heard of him. I don’t know if the Kotaku writer uses the blockbot (I guess not since he was able to see Campbell’s tweets), but that’s clearly indicative that he hasn’t done due diligence to make him a good candidate to write about anything related to #GamerGate. He should have recused himself and, sadly, so should have every single person from Kotaku – at least until they decide to take on the SPJ’s ethical guidelines.
Good luck with that.
Thank you for being willing to wade into this. I recommend approaching Mark Kern (@Grummz on Twitter), veteran game developer formerly of Blizzard, who attempted to act as a neutral bridge between pro- and anti- sides but who was rebuffed by games media. He can provide some perspective of the more granular issues in play.
I, like many, believe there is a powerful narrative at work against gamers who have advocated against censorship and undue influence in games journalism. As you’ve noted, gaming is considered childish (in a world, ironically, where hitting a ball with a stick is newsworthy). Stereotypes about “geeks” and “nerds” appear to make it socially acceptable among mainstream media to dehumanize tens of thousands of people.
Gamergate seems to also coincide with a social movement ostensibly dedicated to giving voice to the marginalized, but which in practice seems to favor advocacy over objectivity. Games media personalities ranging from Leigh Alexander (formerly editor) of Gamasutra to reporter Jason Shreier of Kotaku have flatly stated that objectivity essentially gets in the way of relating a certain narrative. They represent a world view that, in my experience approaching journalists on Twitter, appear to be increasingly popular.
Add to all of this the smoke and noise from anonymity driven abuse that is becoming increasingly common across all spheres of the internet and you have a toxic brew which has driven media personalities to declare, straight-faced, that gamers are “worse than ISIS.” Despite FBI disinterest, despite no arrests, hyperbolic rhetoric seems to have become normalized when the subject is gamers.
Month after month the GamerGate consumer revolt has decried harassment and helped to report trolls and abusers in social media. Gamers have been threatened, fired, doxed, harassed, kicked from conventions and driven from social media; and now have faced a bomb threat police deemed credible.
The ethics issues here are, I believe, grave. The media acts as a reality filter. When one-sided reporting is echoed so frequently that it rises in the public consciousness as indisputable truth despite the facts, what real hope do we have of transcending stereotypes and achieving real understanding? For this reason, I agree that this *IS* (or should be) a concern of the SPJ. As others have said, I don’t think SPJ should take sides, but you’re right: This is a golden opportunity to exhibit principles.
Thanks again for listening to us. I suspect any who address this issue have a difficult road ahead– not just from trolls, but from social advocates who believe they are on the side of right and that, as notable anti-GamerGate media reviewer Bob Chipman stated on Twitter, “there are no bad tactics, only bad targets.” As Gamergate neutral Mark Kern may likely testify, there has been far more abuse coming from the anti-GG side than pro-GG.
Like other people have stated, Twitter is a platform full of troll and shit stirrer. It’s not strictly related to GamerGate.
For example, in Quebec right now, where im from, with the separatist party leaders race, the students protest and the poor performance of the current government and other on-going scandal, we see tons of political shitposting and hashtags highjacking. For example, looking at #TLMEP, the hashtag of a popular french tv show you would think that fans of the show are mostly angry separatist that seems to believe every conspiracy theory they could find.
On twitter, the truth is distorted in atypical ways.
On a final note, this morning i red Cathy Young latest article on the GamerGate DC meet-up bomb threat and it was refreshing. I encourage everyone to read it https://reason.com/archives/2015/05/04/bomb-threat-targets-gamergate-meetup-hea
Thank you for reaching out to GamerGate. Other voices have claimed that we don’t want a dialogue, but they’re lying.
Also, don’t listen to the guy who conflates #colorcabal and #ayyteam, at least not on that point. The #baltimorelootcrew thing was a slam campaign ran by #ayyteam against #colorcabal. The #colorcabal are nice people. There aren’t a lot of them and one of the actual members is even affiliated with social justice. The actual culprit in getting “the attention of the world’s largest journalism group through unethical means” was #ayyteam.
GG really does speak out against hate. Something to note about GG vs aGG is that both sides see themselves as fighting against an internet harassment machine. This is how each side conceptualizes the other. aGG sees GG as a reactionary hate mob. GG sees aGG as a populist hate mob.
I think GG has the much better argument about who is the hate mob. GG doesn’t rely on slurs, but aGG relies on them incessantly. GG doesn’t rely on violent rhetoric, but aGG relies on it incessantly. The problem is that aGG is rallying against men and nerd culture, and these things are “fair game” in our culture. Nobody protects nerds except other nerds. Nobody protects men except “creepy MRAs”. The slurs that aGG are using are anti-male and anti-nerd. So of course, the media loves aGG, because these are the same slurs that go unchallenged when media professionals use them.
It’s important to remember that the hate pouring down on GamerGate is pouring down on it from media professionals implicated in corrupt practices. The whole “misogynistic campaign against women” angle comes from the top, not the bottom. It comes from people fingered for ethical misconduct, not from actual misogynists on the ground. One of the many infographics flying around in #GamerGate is the one that says, “I criticized a journalist. Don’t believe anything you read about me.”
I want to second the voice earlier in the comment thread who recommended Oliver Campbell as someone you should talk to. @oliverbcampbell
I would like to make a point about the “bad apples” of #GamerGate.
As someone who supports #GG, and has supported it since it started in late August, I feel compelled to point out where things may have gone ‘wrong’ regarding these ‘bad apples.’
People who support #GG have had their information splashed across the internet, (aka ‘doxed’) and have suffered the consequences as a result.
Their employers have fielded phone-calls and e-mails lobbying for these individuals to be reprimanded, censured and ultimately fired. This has been a blind, carpet-bombing approach, as well; it wasn’t the “trolls” who have gotten this treatment, but anyone supporting #GamerGate who’s name is publicly available.
Among that group was a clinical psychologist who had to cease participation in #GG related activities after New Years due to the overwhelmingly negative attention his participation brought to his employers. This man worked with people who were mentally ill; he did so for the state, as a public servant. This wasn’t a “bad apple” – this was a medical professional who is spending his life helping others.
A professor of architecture who encouraged everyone to be better was doxed, her information spread and she received e-mails threatening to get her fired… or worse. The language in those e-mails called her a “bitch,” a “slut” and a “stupid whore.” Was it the “bad-apples” of #GG acting up again? No; this person demanded that she stopped “attacking feminism,” which she wasn’t. She wasn’t a ‘bad apple,’ and she actively took time out of her life to tell people on twitter to be better; to be polite; to engage in good faith; to be see others as humans, instead of opponents.
When approached with this information, regarding the professor of architecture, Kotaku reporter Jason Schreier waved it away, claiming on social media that, “If that had happened, it would be on the front page of newspapers.”
A week later, his EiC Stephen Totilo wrote an article which confirmed this incident had in fact occurred, but it was #GG’s fault, regardless.
I do not point out these episodes because I want “pity-points.” I point these out to illustrate a point.
For 8 months, since late August of 2014, people who support what #GamerGate stands for have been ignored. We have had the same talking points for 8 months. We have been collecting evidence of corruption, collusion, cronyism and slanted coverage inspired by political bias for 8 months. For this, we have been branded misogynists, terrorists, “worse than ISIS,” many have received death threats, many have received phone-calls and many have been intimidated; for 8 months, nobody who wasn’t around #GG gave a damn.
The actual work done to present a solid case that there were real ethical violations, especially in the cronyism and political bias of the gaming press? All of it was ignored, while “bad apples” – many of which were merely hypothetical and never actually shown in a demonstrable sense – got all of the attention.
There have probably been at least 200+ articles written featuring #GamerGate, and how many have ever acknowledged that, yes, there were real ethical breaches by the SPJ’s standards?
I’ll now share an anecdote, one that features the aforementioned Jason Schreier. Someone had been sending death threats to Anita Sarkeesian on twitter. People who participate in #GG took the necessary steps to find out who this person was. They collected evidence, shared this information both with the FBI (USA) and Brazilian authorities (the threatener’s country of origin) and publicized their results.
Schreier of Kotaku actually wrote an article about this incident, but he preceded to blame #GG for creating a “culture” of death-threats and intimidation.
That’s playing tennis without a net. When Mrs. Sarkeesian was threatened, #GG was to blame; when it was shown that nobody involved in #GG was threatening Mrs. Sarkeesian, #GG was to blame. In a very literal sense, that is Kotaku in Action.
This anecdote is among my favorites, because Schreier had written about death threats before August of ’14, when #GG began. We’re clearly being blamed for a “culture” that had, by his own published history, existed before. I don’t see anyone terribly concerned about the people in #GG who are also experiencing this “culture.”
Yes, the #SPJ tags got themselves caught by a group of mask-wearing shitposters who crashed their hash-tags with no survivors; it was not part of their plan.
It’s regrettable, but what could anyone in #GG do to prevent trolls from tweeting with a hashtag?
This is easily the most frustrating thing. Thousands of people pointed out media breaches of ethics, and a handful acted like jackasses. Media violations were ignored; jackasses were promoted. Did the SPJ receive no legitimate information about media violations in their hash-tag? I know I sent more than a few clear pieces of evidence via twitter.
I can put a much finer point on this. Many of the most followed and respected voices in #GG aren’t sending death-threats, aren’t engaged in harassment and they aren’t acting like “bad apples.” Many of the most despised are.
One final note before this extensive and unnecessarily bloated comment comes to an end. On other e-mail accounts, I sent no fewer than 4 messages to the SPJ’s leadership, urging them to take a look into #GG. These messages were ignored.
I would like to point any and all SPJ members interested in learning more on this topic towards this dossier that gamers in gamergate compiled last year. It enumerates many of the questionable ethical practices carried out by games press. It doesn’t cover the instances that have been found out since it was published though.
http://press.gamergate.me/dossier/
This is probably the most comprehensive compilation of events during GG, though lengthy:
https://gitgud.net/gamergate/gamergateop/tree/master/Current-Happenings
Check out some of the links at the top for more concise summaries of some important information, in particular “BoogiepopRobin’s Findings” for some of the conflicts of interest uncovered over the course of GG (not just those discovered by Robin despite the name) and “Bonegolem’s Infographics”. Most of the COI’s are journalists covering and promoting people they have close personal relationships with without disclosure. Also has some minor financial entanglements with journalists either donating to or receiving donations from subjects on a regular basis via Patreon.
I think my earlier comment was spamfiltered because of the number of links, so I’ve made this one with only one link. I apologize if I’m accidentally bombarding your comment filter if it’s something you manually review.
Was an interesting read. Bought into the harassment narrative about as being “hackers on steroids”. Using Vox – AKA UBM media in your blog post. When Vox writes about Gamergate, when some Gawker site writes about Gamergate do they disclose that Gamergate has cost them money? Gawer Media at least a million, UBM which owns vox and polygon we don’t know how much money but at one stage Polygon the video game site was hit very hard and had to reply on google ads.
Just something I’d like to point out at how reliable those types of sources are when the people they’re writing about are even hitting their bottom line.
Hi! Thanks for at least trying to broach the subject of #gamergate!
If you actual want to discuss the matter with the people who are actually involved in gamergate, why don’t you speak with us directly? Do an AMA on reddit!
I promise you that you would be very welcome, and we can promise lively and robust debate!
The gamergate subreddit is called https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/
You can get in touch with the reddit moderator, “The Hat”, on twitter here: https://twitter.com/TheHat2 I’m sure he’d be happy to organise something.
Interesting read. I am not a Gamergate supporter. However I find myself more often agreeing with Gamergate than their rivals in this dispute. As a gamer I have been following the hash tag movement since the very beginning and I must say that the notion that Gamergate has more bad apples than good ones is a falsehood. What is closer to the truth is that, this being the internet, there are anonymous trolls – those individuals who like to shake the beehive and lay back watching who gets stung. The actions of these individuals are usually attributed to the Gamergate movement, even if there is often no connection between the perpetrator and the hash tag. Even when there is, time and time again it has been shown that most of them are Twitter accounts which have been made foe the sole purpose of trolling ie. it is usually not someone who was consistently involved in the pro Gamergate debate.
Add to this the fact that anti Gamergate have a very broad definition of the word harassment. I was involved in a couple of civil discussions with anti Gamergaters where I was accused of harassment just for politely disagreeing. I never had this kind of problem with any Gamergater. Furthermore I have been openly critical of both sides. I have received more flak from the anti side than the pro side (although I am fine with that – If I put my opinion out there I expect people to disagree with it).
Are there bad Gamergate supporters? Of course there are. How can there not be in a mostly anonymous online hash tag movement backed by thousands? However by following the hashtag yourself you will see that most of it is legit criticism. Some of it may be childish, rude even, but this is par for the course with gamers who seldom take things seriously and are accustomed to the ways of the internet where most things go. The flip side to that coin is that there are bad anti Gamergaters too who engage in the same tactics they accuse Gamergaters of. By way of example the website gamersgate.com, which has nothing to do with Gamergate and existed way before the movement started, got inundated with threats and abuse. Clearly this is the work of people who oppose Gamergate. The latest event was a bomb threat used to disrupt a friendly GG get together in DC. http://reason.com/archives/2015/05/04/bomb-threat-targets-gamergate-meetup-hea
The fact that many people who do not follow the hash tag closely believe that GG is evil is a testament to how utterly unethical the reporting on the hash tag has been, with many journalists (even mainstream ones) reporting on what was told them by one source without ever trying to verify that source. It is the reason why I lean towards GG in this. Seeing all this unfold makes me certain that the cry for ‘more ethics in gaming journalism’ is essential.
Thank you for speaking out, some of us really appreciate it. There’s a bit I disagree with in the article, particularly the assumption that GG is misogynistic and barbaric first and foremost. I can understand where you may assume the vast majority of people who support #GamerGate are thus from the distasteful tweets that you linked and attributed to the hashtag, but I would like to argue that there’s a good number of third-party trolls, such as AyyTeam or /baph/ and /cow/, that enjoy infighting by posing as supporters and posting shock-inducing material. For example, the three tweets you did link have shown no interest in the tag at all.
Oh, and also, do take the things you read from sites like Kotaku, Vox, and Polygon with a grain of salt, if a group has suggested that journalists are not doing their job ethically, you can expect them to retaliate using slander, demonization, and shifting the conversation from their own failings to the nature of the people who bring up the conversation. They’ve also ignored a large amount of doxes, boycotts against, and harassment(especially towards women in support of GG) towards GG early on and any charity work people have done in order to craft the narrative that GG is some sort of soulless hate group.
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sbikmi
If you’d like a fairer viewpoint, I suggest you look into KotakuInAction rather than base anything off Twitter, a site where any odd person can disrupt a conversation and the 140 character limit inhibits a proper conversation. If you haven’t seen this yet, I highly recommend you do.
Thank you for your time! I do apologize if any of this sounds bitter, feel free to message me if you’d like if you have further questions, or contact some well-known people like @olivercampbell.
I have to come back and second Rakeela Deskairn (@Deskairn) comment on the #ColorCabal thing. Most of the #ColorCabal are the nicest people you’ll talk to.
Also, as others have said, I’d love to see you do an Ask Me Anything (AMA) on http://www.reddit/r/KotakInAction/
This narrative saddens me. We’re slandered by the media, called terrorists, dozens of us had our employers called with lies to get us fired and at least one female supporter of GamerGate ended up homeless for 4 months as a result, several people got SWATed or Firetrucked, many people got hacked, and yet the media has covered next to none of that. Instead they have been galvanizing their bully pulpit to attack us further.
The true narrative of what’s happening has been an utter abdication of harm minimization and of not permitting the accused a chance to respond to allegations. This has happened on such an unprecedented scale as to bely belief.
I’d love to contribute to a discussion on journalistic ethics. If you have any interest in following up with me specifically, my Twitter hashtag is @livebeef
Sorry, the address is http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction
It’s awfully unfortunate that trolls ruined the SPJ tag.
This exact sequence of events has happened in the past however.
Think about it, if you were the kind to try to discredit a movement for ethical journalism, how would you go about doing that?
Well spamming the SPJ ethics week tag with gore and porn in their name would certainly do it right?
Sadly you and others have fallen for this tactic.
Most of us in GG who have been around for the better part of a year, know all these tactics, and know how to look past them. The uninformed public of course does not have this experience with these deplorable people, and will see what you saw.
Evil monsters that spam gore and porn.
Well then. It seems our opposition (unethical journalists, and the ideological extremists they egg on with their unfair, biased and harmful clickbait) have an advantage
However, is it not a part of the SPJ ethics code to be fair, unbiased, and to avoid harm?
I do hope that you as a journalist that supports the ideals of ethics will consider these things.
Reach out to some folks that do seem legitimate, they can direct you to more.
But there are several thousands of us, who do care about ethical journalism when it comes to games media, and letting the trolls win by assuming we are as they are.. Well that sucks.
Also, I deplore you to do an AMA on reddit.
KotakuInAction is a big hub for gamergate activities, and is fairly well moderated.
We’d love to talk ethics with a person such as yourself.
Both as someone peripherally involved in the game journalism industry durin. My off time (I’ve written as a contributor for a gaming site, RPGFan) as well as being a medical professional as my day job, I’m very pleased the response I’ve lent my voice to has started gaining traction. I lent my voice to GamerGate because of the numerous blatant ethics violation that violated not only the core tenets of journalism but also the core tenets of medical ethics – in fact, I was hesitant to lend my voice to GamerGate until I discovered the journalists in question had executed targeted abuse and harassment on a vulnerable group of suicidally depressed individuals, an action which was covered up at first by cries of discrimination, then, later, by claims that they were “male virgins” and “nobody cares about them anyway.”
They’re wrong. I care. I care that ethics is no longer the rule of the day in a profession vaunted for revealing the truth to the populace. I care that any criticism against them is rebuffed by claims of misogyny, racism, or even terrorism. I care that “do no harm” is considered an optional rule by those with the power to ruin others’ lives. I care that innocent people have been hurt for no reason other to stroke the go of a chosen few journalists who wanted recognition without hard work.
I think what you’ve written and the ideas behind your words are important to the discussion of ethics we are having, primarily because the journalists involved have none. They have acted very unprofessionally (one has called me a “shithead Asian” for disagreeing with him, another doubted my minority status and told me to “shut the fuck up”), have been revealed to be guilty of countless ethical breaches, and have dodged the consequences of their actions at every turn. While you have a skewed opinion of the hashtag (admittedly for good reason, because of anonymous users who rock the boat) I believe that you are on your way to realizing there is a prevalent problem not only in game journalism but journalism in general, and that what’s been said about GamerGate may not be the whole truth.
Discourse like this is the only way to return journalism to its rightful place of respect as an occupation that holds truth to be sacred and opinions to be relegated to columns that don’t belong on the first page. I hope you’ll continue to engage us and research what we’ve been saying all this time.
Oh I also need to add,
talk to Oliver Campbell.
He’s the best guy.
find him at @oliverbcampbell
Please talk to Oliver.
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/09/gamergate-game-journalists-ignored-facts-to-push-gamers-are-dead-agenda-
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/09/the-escapist-gets-hit-by-ddos-attacks-for-supporting-gamergate/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/09/gamergate-ea-outed-for-covering-up-40000-users-being-hacked/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/09/gamergate-former-games-journalist-outs-australian-games-media-cronyism-collusion/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/09/gamergate-we-dont-need-kotaku-polygon-threats-says-indie-dev/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/09/gamergate-destructoid-updates-disclosure-policies-due-to-controversy-thank-you/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/04/cd-projekt-red-community-manager-apologizes-for-gamergate-kkk-comment/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/04/mewtwo-dlc-codes-used-as-bribe-to-tarnish-gamergate/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/01/gamergate-sped-up-the-demise-of-video-game-journalism/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/04/games-journalist-complains-about-gamergate-while-more-corruption-surfaces/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/04/gamergate-succeeds-with-ethics-reform-fails-as-a-harassment-campaign/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/03/dev-interview-denied-publication-because-it-wasnt-anti-gamergate/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/03/gamergate-igf-chairman-brandon-boyers-undisclosed-conflicts-of-interest/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/03/gamergate-igf-chairman-nathan-grayson-financial-conflict-of-interest-uncovered/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/03/gamergate-mark-kern-calls-for-devs-to-stand-against-corrupt-media/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/02/gaming-press-coverage-of-gamergate-is-one-sided-says-vanishing-of-ethan-carter-
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/02/gamergate-phil-fish-brandon-boyer-highlighted-in-alleged-fez-igf-corruption/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/01/gamergate-hackers-botnets-responsible-for-harassment-doxxing-information/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/01/gamergate-aaa-dev-says-most-people-know-game-journo-sites-are-corrupt/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/01/gamergate-pc-gamer-editor-has-conflict-of-interest-with-ubisoft/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/12/gamergate-game-journo-pros-interview-blacklisting/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/11/gamergate-gaming-journalists-further-exhibit-conflict-of-interest-with-devs/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/11/gamergate-your-check-from-a-publisher-is-in-the-mail-states-gjp-thread/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/11/gamergate-ben-kuchera-and-the-life-and-nepotism-of-game-journo-pros/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/11/gamergate-abc-reporter-admits-they-chose-harassment-coverage-over-corruption/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/11/gamergate-ill-condemn-kotaku-for-shtty-journalism-writes-former-bioware-dev/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/11/gamergate-igf-criticized-over-game-journo-pros-connection-judges-tweets/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/11/producers-didnt-want-the-full-story-of-gamergate-according-to-journalist/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/11/gamergate-igns-disclosure-code-of-ethics-public-policy-coming-soon/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/10/gamergate-an-honest-discussion-about-games-journalism-ethics-part-1/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/10/gamergate-destructoids-battle-with-abuse-lies-and-scandals-part-1/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/10/gamergate-nowhere-on-my-site-does-it-say-we-are-journalists-says-destructoid-
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/10/gamergate-shadow-of-mordor-brand-deal-sees-plaid-social-warner-bros-on-lockdown/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/10/gamergate-this-has-the-appearance-of-a-conflict-of-interest-says-game-informer-
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/10/gamergate-if-you-said-something-you-regret-be-prepared-says-game-journo-pro-
Author of the Articles – WIlliam Usher
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/william-usher/b/131/94b
Some members of Gamergate have also been digging into UBM/IGF the series is located here:
Latest UBM/IGF video hour long:
I just want to say..that we -are- speaking out against abuses and harassment. We have an entire anti-Harassment brigade called the #GamerGate Harassment Squad. These were volunteers who stepped up to mass report and attempt to police harassing Tweets on Twitter. Memebers identified one of Anita Sarkeesian’s harassers (who had actually made death threats against her) and provided that information to -her- to report it (since we couldn’t file the report ourselves – he is/was in Brazil and the Brazilian authorities would only accept reports from the victim herself).
But no one seems to notice. Even you, sir, don’t seem to have noticed that we’re here and we’ve been fighting for civil discourse from the beginning.
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/09/gamergate-game-journalists-ignored-facts-to-push-gamers-are-dead-agenda-
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/09/the-escapist-gets-hit-by-ddos-attacks-for-supporting-gamergate/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/09/gamergate-ea-outed-for-covering-up-40000-users-being-hacked/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/09/gamergate-former-games-journalist-outs-australian-games-media-cronyism-collusion/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/09/gamergate-we-dont-need-kotaku-polygon-threats-says-indie-dev/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/09/gamergate-destructoid-updates-disclosure-policies-due-to-controversy-thank-you/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/04/cd-projekt-red-community-manager-apologizes-for-gamergate-kkk-comment/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/04/mewtwo-dlc-codes-used-as-bribe-to-tarnish-gamergate/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/01/gamergate-sped-up-the-demise-of-video-game-journalism/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/04/games-journalist-complains-about-gamergate-while-more-corruption-surfaces/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/04/gamergate-succeeds-with-ethics-reform-fails-as-a-harassment-campaign/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/03/dev-interview-denied-publication-because-it-wasnt-anti-gamergate/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/03/gamergate-igf-chairman-brandon-boyers-undisclosed-conflicts-of-interest/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/03/gamergate-igf-chairman-nathan-grayson-financial-conflict-of-interest-uncovered/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/03/gamergate-mark-kern-calls-for-devs-to-stand-against-corrupt-media/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/02/gaming-press-coverage-of-gamergate-is-one-sided-says-vanishing-of-ethan-carter-
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/02/gamergate-phil-fish-brandon-boyer-highlighted-in-alleged-fez-igf-corruption/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/01/gamergate-hackers-botnets-responsible-for-harassment-doxxing-information/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/01/gamergate-aaa-dev-says-most-people-know-game-journo-sites-are-corrupt/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/01/gamergate-pc-gamer-editor-has-conflict-of-interest-with-ubisoft/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/12/gamergate-game-journo-pros-interview-blacklisting/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/11/gamergate-gaming-journalists-further-exhibit-conflict-of-interest-with-devs/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/11/gamergate-your-check-from-a-publisher-is-in-the-mail-states-gjp-thread/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/11/gamergate-ben-kuchera-and-the-life-and-nepotism-of-game-journo-pros/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/11/gamergate-abc-reporter-admits-they-chose-harassment-coverage-over-corruption/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/11/gamergate-ill-condemn-kotaku-for-shtty-journalism-writes-former-bioware-dev/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/11/gamergate-igf-criticized-over-game-journo-pros-connection-judges-tweets/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/11/producers-didnt-want-the-full-story-of-gamergate-according-to-journalist/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/11/gamergate-igns-disclosure-code-of-ethics-public-policy-coming-soon/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/10/gamergate-an-honest-discussion-about-games-journalism-ethics-part-1/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/10/gamergate-destructoids-battle-with-abuse-lies-and-scandals-part-1/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/10/gamergate-nowhere-on-my-site-does-it-say-we-are-journalists-says-destructoid-
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/10/gamergate-shadow-of-mordor-brand-deal-sees-plaid-social-warner-bros-on-lockdown/
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/10/gamergate-this-has-the-appearance-of-a-conflict-of-interest-says-game-informer-
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/10/gamergate-if-you-said-something-you-regret-be-prepared-says-game-journo-pro-
Author of the Articles – WIlliam Usher
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/william-usher/b/131/94b
Some members of Gamergate have also been digging into UBM/IGF the series is located here:
Latest UBM/IGF video hour long:
Some folks seem interested in you doing an AMA on the GG subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/34toef/media_ethics_isnt_a_game_article_on/
If you’re up for it, that can be a good way to start a discourse.
Well, there’s an important take away from this. As easy as it was for us to take over your hashtag is as easy as it is for anti GamerGate groups to mess with our own Twitter events. So now you have first hand knowledge that you shouldn’t judge a group by who uses its hashtag. I second what others say- read the Dossier, check us out on Gamergate.me and Kotaku in Action, and see Twitter for what it is.
Hello
If you’re looking for journalists to talk to, the most intelligent , unbiased and most ethical that covered GamerGate are :
@CathyYoung63 , she covered GamerGate neutrally and with a lot of research.
http://reason.com/archives/2014/10/12/gamergate-part-i-sex-lies-and-gender-gam
@AuerbachKeller
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2014/09/gamergate_explodes_gaming_journalists_declare_the_gamers_are_over_but_they.html
Thank you for taking the time to reach out
I really appreciate your integrity and devotion to ethics. And despite all of your fears and the detractors you wish to pursue this issue. Much respect.
That being said here is a big long post that does include some criticism of you and the SPJ. Hopefully, it’s not too hard on you.
You know what the biggest problem is for “GamerGaters”? (using this term to keep things simple) It’s the media, at large. Ethics in Journalism is why GamerGate is seen as a hate movement, even when it does not fall under the definition of a hate movement in any way. The problem we face is the same as the problems in the Rolling Stone’s article on rape at UVA. Everything the media has posed as fact are allegations of the same caliber as the UVA rape case. They are nothing more than the story of historically known to be unbalanced women who are believed unquestionably by journalists who write stories that are echoed in the rest of the media, without so much as a scratch of investigation.
I am extremely grateful you have taken it upon yourself to look into the ethics concerns in gamergate. However, it is deeply concerning that you have bought the narrative fabricated by those same entities who’s ethics are in question. Though you do rightfully question the extent the harassment is representative of the movement, you fail to question the veracity of the allegations to any extent.
As a journalist there are some things you could and should research about all of this. Fortunately for you, most of the work has already been done. You can find quite a bit of evidence on gamergate.me as you have already found. And strangely enough, Encyclopedia Dramatica has some very solid (and I want to emphasize this next word) EVIDENCE. But there is much more on reddit and 8chan that may or may not be so well organized.
What you should really look into is the claims about how gamergate has harassed and threatened women in the gaming industry. The most specific items are the original “harassment” claims against gamergate that to this day, nearly 9 months later are the only covered incidents of gamergate harassment. For a misogynist hate group, that has been so vocal and disruptive to hashtags and major media outlets like Gawker, you’d think they’d be a bit more successful on their alleged primary attribute.
1. Zoe Quinn was already extremely contentious prior to the Zoe-Post. She has a history of being mentally unstable, manipulative and abusive. She even harassed herself in order to promote her game. She was playing the professional victim before any of this started.
2. Anita Sarkeesian claims she was harassed by gamergate. Fortunately she’s published a large amount of the “harassment” that she has received (while simultaneously doxing the sender). An analysis of her published “harassment” and tweets to her have shown, first of all, that most of this “harassment” was simply disagreement with points she has made. And there were only a handful of messages related to games. And even less (I’ve only seen one so far) that said anything about gamergate. In fact the biggest claim, that gamergate threatened her Utah lecture, specifically says it’s because of feminism, it says nothing about game/gamergate/gamers at all. THEN it turns out to be some random person from Brazil.
Anita has a history of working with the well known scam artist Bart Baggett.
There is also very much evidence of the Feminist Frequency Twitter account being run by Johnathon McIntosh, as it tweets verbatim contentious tweets he had made much earlier.
3. Brianna Wu aka John Flynt (Seriously, the digging powers of the internet are unbelievable sometimes) claims gamergate harassment had driven her from her home. This is a doosey. First of all, there is a significant amount of evidence that shows all of her interviews were conducted from her home. So she obviously wasn’t that frightened. And second, many of the “threats” she received were unusual to say the least. Allegedly someone made a twitter account of her recently deceased dog, Crash, to harass her. Of course this was something so specific that only someone extremely close to her would be able to even know. But when you examine the screenshots posted by Wu, it shows the time posted as 1s or 1 second ago. The only way to see this is to make the post yourself. So Brianna Wu actually made the account of her dead dog, sent herself threats, screen shot the threats she made immediately after tweeting them while still logged on to that other account then posted them on her main account. Couple this with the fact that she has been caught and admitted to using a sock puppet, it should be very hard for anyone with any integrity to consider this a reliable source of harassment by gamergate.
The one thing all these women do have in common, they have all profited SIGNIFICANTLY from being portrayed as victims of gamergate harassment. As an ethics oriented Society of Journalists, it would seem in the best interests of the organization’s integrity to do their own research on the claims of harassment attributed to this group of people. It is a shame that members of the SPJ has bought into the narrative without so much as a second thought. Even you, with the integrity to tackle the ethical issues in spite of the “harassment” has come in with the preconceived notion that the harassment is without question.
Another significant problem is the conflation between gamergate and internet culture. What is a problems with the internet in general (harassment et all) that has traditionally been conflated (also incorrectly) almost exclusively to 4chan is now suddenly being attributed almost exclusively to gamergate. Gamergate does not represent the internet as a whole. Gamergate is an eclectic collection of people with varying identities and ideologies. It is possible that some of these people may be internet trolls or harassers. But what gives them and everyone else the identity of *GamerGater is the shared concern about ethics in journalism and the concern that this has also turned out be indisputably connected to social justice culture and it’s implications.
Gamergate has done everything possible to preserver it’s good reputation. It is responsible for funding many charities, promoting women and minorities in gaming and has even done all the research and documentation for any journalist who gives half a crap about accurate reporting on gamergate allegations. (To question #4) How can we speak out against this hate if we don’t have a voice?
Ethics indeed.
Hello
Thank you for reaching out. Keeping this short. The most neutral, ethical and intellegent journalists that covered Gamergate are
Cathy Young
@CathyYoung63
http://reason.com/archives/2014/10/12/gamergate-part-i-sex-lies-and-gender-gam
http://reason.com/archives/2015/05/04/bomb-threat-targets-gamergate-meetup-hea
David Auerbach
@AuerbachKeller
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2014/09/gamergate_explodes_gaming_journalists_declare_the_gamers_are_over_but_they.html
I think both of them will be interested in talking
If you know how to deal with a troll online you have nothing to fear, GamerGaters won’t actually “attack” you or anything, I personally think you’ve been fair, and I want to address your 5 ethics entries
1 “Weigh the consequences of publishing or broadcasting personal information.”
when you say personal information, do you mean like a dox (private information) Because afaik GG’ers has never published personal information unless it was already publically published by the person itself. Or do you mean things this person has done or ideas this person has published?
2 “Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance or undue intrusiveness.”
I can’t really speak on behalf of the ones digging, however most of the information that has been dug up, has been released by the people in question which is why the movement has been so factual.
3 “Diligently seek subjects of news coverage to allow them to respond to criticism or allegations of wrongdoing.”
This one hit me, sure, we’d like to talk with the people caught in ethical violations, some of the problems we face is that when we raise concerns we get blocked
4 “Avoid pandering to lurid curiosity, even if others do.”
Define lurid curiosity, is this like the twitter drama that goes on sometimes?
5 “Encourage a civil dialogue with the public about journalistic practices, coverage and news content.”
See 3
I believe GG’ers will see this as a step in the right direction, thank you for listening. I don’t think GG’ers will do anything about the board members who are silent, we try to focus on the positive and self-police, and we are so used to being ignored that it does not matter as long as they will listen later. I hope you will not let fear dictate your actions but instead improve to attack some of the problems todays media face, as I have understood from your article, you hinted that GamerGate would expand to mainstream with GG remaining in the scope of gaming Journalism?
You have nothing to fear, so far no one has been harmed in the real world due to GamerGate, and if you know how to deal with trolls, you got nothing to fear. I hope conversation will be opened.
To answer the question of threats and harassment tied to GamerGate, none of the threats have been tied to GamerGate, it has always been new accounts with no history doing it.
I will be happy to answer any questions about the movement you should have, I consider myself well versed in the movement and hope for further dialogue here on out.
Heres hoping SPJ or at least part of its members will do something about this. One interesting thing in particular for SPJ could be the GamesJournoPro-group, an email group created for games journalists to decide which stories to cover and which people to blacklist. The creator of this group was also one of the creators of the original Journolist.
http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/tag/game-journo-pros/
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2014/09/17/exposed-the-secret-mailing-list-of-the-gaming-journalism-elite/
If SPJ decides to ignore all of this, it will be a sad thing indeed. Gamergate then has to fix their corrupt gaming media by themselves. I do realize video games seem like a childish subject. But what essentially happened here was a specialty-industry journalists attacking their own audience as a response when their own unethical, borderline illegal behaviour was found out. What would happen if the same would happen with Sports-media?
READ THIS.
http://press.gamergate.me/dossier/
Thank you for making the attempt to look beyond the bullshit. That takes some guts and should be acknowledged. I hope you perservere and wish you well of it.
That said: No.
GamerGate doesn’t need to ‘go legit’. The only support for the position that it ever wasn’t a legitimate consumer revolt is the narrative generated by profiteers, shitposters, and your less than ethical professional colleagues.
MEDIA ETHICS ISN’T A GAME, says your title. There is no court, there is no ball. What those in GamerGate have been doing for months now can be boiled down to a simple refrain. It’s meant for you and your organization and those who care about what you are supposed to represent, and it goes like this: Wake up. Look around. Pay attention. Clean your house.
I have been following, posting and supporting #GamerGate for 7 months, almost everyday I’m on Twitter (and for no other reason do I own an account) reading articles, posts, debates, opinions, new found information. Consistently #GamerGate has provided information, good, usable bits that when collected and connected form a web of deceit, Collusion, ethical misconducts, lies. Everything under the sun.
I’ve been here, lurking and occasionally rambling my views from time to time and rarely have I ever seen a user (much less a high profile one) threaten harm to anyone. #GamerGate has shown an immense distaste for such actions, to the point that some even volunteer their own Time hunting down and reporting anyone who would post or threaten under the tag or harass an opponent on Twitter.
This ENTIRE narrative that it’s “bad” has got to stop. These are everyday Joes and Janes who want their hobby to be respected. They are tired of being scapegoats for the media at large, tired of being made out as people with nothing better to do and DEFINATELY tired of being talked down to as sporadic Children. We’ve approached/criticized individuals about their misconduct or outright untruths. We get banned or ostracized on Boards and articles.
We bring up issues, worthy issues, against publications, people of interest, we are labeled hateful, blocked. Left with little recourse. We ask a question and get vilified as monsters, attributed with everything our opposition finds repugnant.
I wouldn’t be here if I thought, knew, that #GamerGate was anything that people make it out to be. I take a hard stance on truth, I sincerely believe in a high standard of reporting. This rings true for ALL publications and Journalists, not just gaming, so for me this has a lot more than just to do with my hobby. We, as consumers, as people, deserve the best possible information available. We deserve to be allowed, as sentient and rational beings, to absorb raw data, to evaluate it and draw our own conclusions about issues. We do NOT deserve to be treated like sheep, told what to and what not not think, to be dictated to by agenda drivrn ideologues.
While #GamerGate may have to deal with a small portion of Journalists, its still under its umbrella and should be held to its “standards.” Yet, here we are and you, a confessed Member of an organization that WRITES AND PROMOTES THESE CODES, demonstrating the very flaws we abhor.
Light, surface level digging. Opinion and Media driven talking points, with little substance on the subject. You talk down to us, as if we are the Children in need of a stern finger wagging telling us “be mature, be civil, stop being children,” as if none of us understand this concept of civil discourse.
Yes, you make rational points that you and your organization shouldn’t belittle or stereotype everyone, but then you belittle and stereotype #GamerGate.
You talk about how its unethical to ignore possible valid ethical concerns, but give ground that “some are just afraid” to engage.
On behavior, you point out a mere 700 posts, how this details #GamerGate… But then say we are 7k strong? From a tag that gets 10k hits on a slow day and 40-50k on an active one? How at all is that indicative? Especially when you admit that good and sustainable discussion is in fact happening.
You go so far as to create the image that we have done real damage, to real people and only a few of us can even have the possibility of listening to you or anyone else about these issues.
You either omit or haven’t even scratched the surface of complaints, that entail but are not limited to:
*Placing 3 women on a Pedestal who have little to no relevance to #GamerGate ethical concerns (aside from the constant media praise). Each one guilty of something from, all part of the same ideological webmind;
-Taking Money and not fulfilling duties (Anita)
-Being an active part of an abuse site (Zoe)
-Taking advantage of Victim coverage (Brianna)
All that, they still get pristine coverage and no questioning.
*GamesJournoPro and its possible Collusion to keep out other Non-conforming Journalists, to push narratives. (which may have resulted in the infamous “Gamers are dead articles.)
*Favorable coverage to friends, on publications. Little to no coverage to outsides. (Including but not limited to awards shows, and their accolades)
*Nonstop accusations of Harassment and other immoral acts, based on here-say, refusal to interview and speak with supporters.
*The doxing of #GamerGate members, death threats and contacting of employers.
There is a plethora of issues here to sift through, AND I HAVENT EVEN MENTIONED INDUSTRY ISSUES. You want rational discussion, you don’t want to be mobbed and insulted by #GamerGate supporters, but for most of us it’s just redundant to here. All this information is THERE, its documented in various Archives (which many Supports keep tabs on), Twitter/Reddit can be searched, can be combed if some simply has the time. YouTubers like Sargon, Mundanematt, Old Internet Aristocrat, FatOtaku, and more all have detailed interviews/documentations/opinions/outlinings of #GamerGate.
There is no excuse at this point, all someone need to is just report from a Nonbiased, informed and educated stance. Thats it. Good or Bad happenings within #GamerGate, Quandaries, concerns. We can ALL own up to any failings we as individuals or as a Movement, but we will be damned if we accept the blanket narrative that we are these evil men who hate women.
Instead of talking about Ethics and its implementation, how about you put it into action? There are thousands of us, we have high profilers, Devs, sites, that you can contact and interview. The data is there for you to report on. A story does exist, its your job to report on the Climate of this movement, not just it’s stormy weather.
I have always disliked the Media since I was a child, because it always felt biased and one sided, yet I’ve always held the belief that good Journalism DOES exist and can bring truth to the surface. So me, and others, that there are people with integrity out there willing go do their job.
(if this comes off disjointed and erratic I apologize. I’m on my phone and its difficult to proof read or be consistent with ADHD without constant reexamination of my writing)
I made the comment about color cabal and would like to clearify that I meant that people who have been using it has been known to troll and make GG look bad. Tried to avoid mentioning ayyteam simply to not feed the trolls, but ended up iving the wrong impression, sorry to anyone in color cabal.
I don’t know about other GGers, but I’m only in this because Leigh Alexander called EVERY gamer an “obtuse hyperwailing shitslinger” in this article: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224400/Gamers_dont_have_to_be_your_audience_Gamers_are_over.php (note how the article doesn’t mention gamergate, it targets gamers)
And given how obsessed the antigamers have been with taking offense to every little thing, even when it has nothing to do with what they claim to be offended about, I feel I should have every right to be offended at directed insults. She never apologized. And the media defended her insults under the banner of equality, and even called us “dishonest fascists” for being offended! ( http://gawker.com/how-we-got-rolled-by-the-dishonest-fascists-of-gamergat-1649496579 )
Every week for the past 8 months has been more insults. And worse, these are the very same sites who preach that you can’t hold islam responsible for terrorist acts committed by muslims. They’re right on that, but why do they protect a group with real terrorists/murderers/pedophiles more than their own audience/a group they claim hasn’t done anything remotely as evil (while offering no proof of the claims)
They are responsible for gamergate, and are the only ones who can end it. And it starts by stopping treating us worse than terrorists.
Hearing journalists (or is it Journolists?) talk about ethics rings as true as hearing prostitutes talk about virginity. Is it ethical for political reporters to have private, off-the-record dinners with politicians? Is it ethical to display blatant political bias in reporting? Is it ethical for reporters of any kind to accept gifts of value from the people or companies they cover? If a reporter violates the ethical policies, what happens? Do they get a sternly written letter or are there career-damaging consequences? Talk about ethics is cheap and mean nothing if not backed by actions and consequences.
Hi,
I am one of the people within #GamerGate that was quoted in the #SPJEthicsChat Storify. As you can see from it, I do take ethics quite seriously, as I was quoted multiple times within it.
I read your assessment of #GamerGate, and while I don’t think it’s entirely fair, I do understand where it is coming from. A largely anonymous and amorphous movement that is distributed across several social media platforms can be hard to understand and follow, especially when your focus is on other topics. I pay attention to this daily, and even I have a hard time following all of the events and actors within it.
That being said, if you are actually willing to have a #GamerGate session at an SPJ conference, I am fully willing to de-anonymize myself in order to represent #GamerGate at it and help clarify it from our perspective. As stated before, I was quoted in the previously mentioned Storify about ethics multiple times, so your own board members believe that I have at least some merit about ethical standards in journalism. I am available on Twitter at this handle for initial contact and communications.
I think a lot of the problem is you can’t really police people on social media. In terms of legitimacy i think the best option would be to talk to the most rational voices like Oliver Campbell, Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad), Alistair Pinsoff etc.
As for me? Well I’ve written AT LENGTH on how badly covered GamerGate has been covered and misrepresented:
http://wordofthenerdonline.com/2015/02/the-shocking-inadequacy-of-gamergate-coverage-part-1/
and also written about how the SPJ code of ethics relates to GamerGate
http://supernerdland.com/the-death-of-games-journalism-part-1-journalism-101/
Most of the problem is that GG is… whatever people try and say it is. There is a legit core of people who really do want positive change who a
So if you want to talk to someone who can engage with these issues, feel free to contact me at
scrumpmonkey@supernerdland.com
I don’t know how we achieved attention through unethical means. If you’re referring to #SPJEthicsweek getting spammed by the #Ayyyteam that’s not really anything we can do about that except report their crap posts and move on.
But going through the #SPJEthicsWeek hashtag, I see a lot of people with legitimate concerns about ethics in journalism using the opportunity to engage in dialogue with you.
And I’m really happy to see our voices have reached the ears of someone who will listen. If we can’t clean up corruption in gaming journalism, what chance do we stand at cleaning up more traditional and mainstream journalism?
A lot of your descriptions and assumptions of #GamerGate are wrong, but I don’t hold that against you. When you’re crusading against corrupt journalists, you can hardly expect the stories published about you to be honest. So I’m really happy to see that you’re taking that risk to come in to us halfway. That’s all we can ask for.
If you take the time to move about in our circles and meet with us and get to know who we are, I guarantee you we won’t disappoint. We have a handful of Facebook groups you may want to look into, a channel on the 8chan image board, a board on Reddit, and as you have seen for yourself, quite a population on Twitter. Twitter is a little hard to decipher if you’re just coming into the community since there are so many different circles of us working independently. But I do recommend you look into #Ayyyteam so you can learn how to prevent associating them with #GamerGate. They talk to us, but they’re mostly interested in crapping up conversations with, as you’ve seen, spam images.
I am a rather passive supporter of GamerGate (mostly reading and retweeting). Previous commenters have expressed my thoughts better than I could. I only wanted to mention the GamerGate Timeline from the GamerGate wiki:
http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Timeline
It lists in detail what has happened, backed by a collection of almost 800 links.
You post a nice little article which mostly puts Gamergate in a bad light, but you also try to open dialogue with those who support it.
What do you get?
70+ replies that are appreciative that you are trying to see things from both sides instead of just the usual one, that are polite and courteous, that try to help you with ethics research by linking months upon months of internet sleuthing and documenting, and a few replies that are less polite, not because they’re bad apples, but because they’re tired or frustrated.
If history is set to repeat itself, there’s a high possibility that by opening up this dialogue with Gamergate, you’re going to get some harassment. You might find some mean words in your inbox one day soon, but it won’t be from Gamergate – oh my no, it’ll be from those who seek to shut us down. They’ll be angry that you give us the time of day,
Don’t let them get to you. If you need to harass someone into silence, how can you possibly represent “the good guys”?
Thank you for doing this. You’re going to learn a lot about the games journalism industry that gamers have been dealing with for years; the names and the unethical shit they’ve pulled. And don’t be afraid to ask for more information! These comments have supplied many useful names. I recommend Sargon of Akkad, he’s pretty aware of things as they’re discovered.
I think it’s important we distinguish between those who support GamerGate’s goals and common troll “shitposters”. In some places you acknowledge these people and in others you don seem to conveniently forget (like the links to those horrific tweets). Terminology aside, in one case where you address “good GamerGaters”, you suggest that we not make ourselves known to the SPJ because it will also attract trolls. Though that is true, by that logic no one should ever stand for anything ever because the wrong people *might* hijack it, no? The only way to live in a constructive and progressive (by its real definition) society is to filter out the sleaze and focus on the good. Otherwise you actively create an environment where people who have been wronged can be silenced by the opposition disguising itself as a member. This is particularly true on the internet, where unfortunately there is rarely consequence for bad behaviour, and people who are bored will create chaos just to kill time.
In the case of GG it was those who had a vested interest, the games media who portrayed us in a certain way by not distinguishing between assholes and those who actually have a point. By grouping us into one, even when the former didn’t even necessarily use or claim affiliation with the hashtag, they created their ultimate faceless enemy that they can project all the ills of society onto. These actions attracted yet more trolls, which in many ways is ideal for the opposition because they can just say: “see, look at these barbarians!”, despite having given the exact negative spin that attracted the wrong crowd in the first place. In many ways it’s the perfect crime.
One case that I think deserves highlighting is the coverage of Stardock CEO Brad Wardell, who was portrayed as a sexual harasser by sloppy and inaccurate reporting by Kotaku and others:
http://www.littletinyfrogs.com/article/458579/The_long_lasting_effects_of_dishonest_reporting
Most of the cases of unethical journalism found over the course of GG are undisclosed conflicts of interest with journalists treating positive coverage as if it is a favor to give to any friends involved in game development. The Wardell case shows how the low standards of game journalism also affects more than just games coverage itself. If you want to talk to any people involved with GG, along with the obvious choices like Totalbiscuit (John Bain) or William Usher involved with the media side of things, I think Wardell would be a good choice. He’s @draginol on twitter.
Mostly fair, though it’s worth noting how powerful the (unethical!) false narrative is since there’s a lot of misconceptions and errors in the characterisation of the scandal here. Still, I’ve been trying to foster discussion since this all started so if there’s anything I can do to help do reach out. @grimachu on Twitter.
“But if this is a clarion call for all rational GamerGaters to assert themselves”
#Ayyyteam like to watch the world burn. Some of them were pro-gamergate then attacked gamergate people then neutrals then found more fun in attacking anti-gamergate again and as much as I wish they would not do what they do, I can not stop it.
Unfortunately, they play around twitter TOS lines and they rarely tweet something reportable.
Does this count as asserting myself? When we did apologized for trolls like that, our apologies were spun as admissions of guilt. So, I am careful with wording, but I would be happier if neutral parties like you (or anyone else) would not have to deal with nonsense like this.
Thank you for taking time with us, I appreciate this article. I may leave another comment more on topic e.g. ethics you ask for, but want to read what previous comenters wrote first so I avoid repeating them.
I think if the SJW ever wanted to be concerned about ethical journalism then they would have tried making some sort of statement about the various issues with the gaming media sites that all were referring to each other as proof of their claims and often being found to just be making up things out of thin air.
The people that are friends with the gaming media, as well are a part of it at times, have generally been engaging in some pretty nasty harassment and corruption for a long while. So pretending that people complaining about corruption are some nasty bunch just comes across as willful ignorance given how people have proven time and time again how journalists and professional bloggers were corrupt.
At least all the nonsense that’s gone on has helped teach a lot of people about how vehemently journalists despise reporting on events honestly.
A lot of people have given you some names of people to talk to already. I’ll throw in my lot as well but need to lead with one sorely missing: A man who is the Senior Vice President of Defy Media and, thanks to GamerGate, provided ethical reform to 50 million people per month. His name is Alexander Macris.
Back in late August/early September, due to outcry by GamerGate from one of his sites (The Escapist), he held discussion with the various people on The Escapist, Twitter, then 4chan (the group has since moved to 8chan), and KotakuInAction (KIA for short, a subreddit). After a while he came up with a new ethics policy for not just The Escapist but also for ALL of Defy Media. In his own words:
“You’ll have impacted not just The Escapist but dozens of other websites in segments as disparate as humor, mixed martial-arts, fashion, and motherhood, with a total reach of more than 50 million people per month.
That is a noble accomplishment. Perhaps it will go unnoticed by oblivious web visitors who are unaware entirely of the battle you have fought. You will probably never receive a thank you from any of the millions of working mothers, fashionistas, comedy fans, and others who will be the beneficiaries of more transparent and candid online journalism you demanded. But I salute you for it.”
That is from, once again, the owner of The Escapist and senior vice president at Defy Media. That quote, and others, can all be found with their respective sources on his wiki entry here:
http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Alexander_Macris
You can reach him at @archon.
I’ll comment on a few other names soon but he’s one name that is particularly important, especially if you’re looking for those in higher position with authority that can discuss this a bit.
This is Internet Aristocrat 4 years ago speaking on the issues of the failures of the 4th and 5th estate.
Destroying the narrative 4 Years Ago, Gamergate
Aus
Internet Aristocrats original video on the Quinnspiracy is what helped start off gamergate.
InternetAristocrat’s #gamergate series
arbitor365
Original upload was closing in on a million views.
Adoption of Ad block by the more tech savvy had the perverse result of punishing quality material. Its no surprise that click bait feminism has risen to the top, it says a lot about their content, and their audience.
https://archive.is/20150427115023/http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/03/06/why-ad-blocking-is-devastating-to-the-sites-you-love/
Once the landscape was corrupted, the sites which fell to click bait, became the sources for wikipedia, which in turn became the sources for the main stream media, which does little more than quote kotaku or read polygon and call’s that their “research”.
Recently the Calgary Expo cited the Mary Sue as a valid source for reasons why they kicked out the Honey Badger Brigade, this click bait feminist site has a rather disturbing disclaimer page which kind of says it all about what they stand for.
http://archive.is/UXZil
In this fight, we’ve seen even media watchdogs fall.
NPR’s “On the Media” media watchdog show, which I used to respect was left licking polygons boots in this embarrassing piece. They went from holding people to account, to being little more than a PR arm for the very same corrupt media gamergate was complaining about
http://www.onthemedia.org/story/codemning-gamergate/
The comment section was displeased to say the least.
And this is just one of the few sites which at minimum had the spine not to delete comments, censorship on this issue has been pervasive, reaching as far as reddit and 4chan. Something is very wrong when a site which hosts some of the most depraved content like 4chan starts censoring on an issue of “games journalism”. We later found out that the owner moot had fallen in with the gawker crowd.
Anyways, its been 8 months of disinfo, so the sheer amount of information out there not reported is incredible.
They say gamergate is scary, but gamergate is just a hashtag. From what I’ve seen, our opponents are what people are truly afraid of, they are entrenched in the media and academia and even in tech companies, they are the establishment, and their ideology is simply “the ends justifies the means”.
This is the standard for new media now….. yes, its buzzfeed, but I’ve seen most every other outlet behave no different. One of the few honest people on this issue has been Milo Yiannopoulos of breitbart, and they have a slew of articles on gamergate, outside the “club” they had less to fear on the issue.
Harmful News – Buzzfeed’s Color Cabal Conspiracy
Harmful Opinions
Your at least trying, but you clearly have done next to no research on the topic, you say it time for GG to speak up, for almost 9 months we have been, you say the antagonists should be quiet if they want GG to move on, they won’t, GG discusses and meets in the public forum, the only forum I will note where we can discuss as those outlets such as the media who should be reporting ethically have chosen to for reasons either of political bias or greed decided it suits their narrative to demonise GG. Those of good will are often swamped by vocal detractor who openly state they are against GG yet “journalists” always, with a few outlying exceptions, conflate the two.
This whole article is a shining example of why GG is here and frankly why it is necessary, the #SPJEthicsWeek and the statements by your society show clearly they are interested in not ethics, but self protection, have no qualms in throwing opinions around as though they were facts and lack the moral fortitude to carry out there stated purpose.
Here is what I would individually say to you, your article is anonymous and in it you decry GGs anonymous nature, many of your statement demonstrate a marked bias, I believe these are from exposure to the media narrative rather than personal malice, but that is a charitable, opinion based on your willingness to step away from your societies self serving orthodoxy and look deeper yourself, if you continue to research not only GG, but also those in opposition to GG I have no doubt you will be less one sided in your attributions of harassment, or malice, in fact one need not step outside of the arena of journalism to see awful behaviour from GGs opposition, look at Sam Biddle, Ben Kuchera, Leigh Alexander, Geordie Tait, Bob Chipman, Arthur Chu, Ian Miles Cheong, I’ll stop there for the sake of brevity, of course you could look beyond the “professional” body into the sea of private individuals and find plenty to disgust you. Unlike the GG equivalents of AyyTeam and GNAA and the GamerGate council, who are all equally condemnable as malicious, hateful and spiteful individuals, GG mostly ignores these disruptive elements because speaking to them serves no function, but encouraging them and reporting them to twitter is an exercise in folly.
I am of course unsure how surprised you will be to find your comment section full, if not of glowing praise, but polite discourse and guarded gratitude for your personal endeavour of looking further into the issue despite your societies abrogation in that role, I find that commendable, bucking the trend always takes courage, but I am not grateful in that sense you have merely stuck to the convictions of your society and profession where others have failed to do so. I welcome that and I am pleased that maybe this will be yet another small step to resolving this issue, even if #SPJEthicWeek itself has only underlined the necessity of the journey.
There are many in GG who you could contact including several journalists like Oliver Campbell or William Usher. Sites such as TechRaptor might also be of interest. http://www.gamergate.me may also be a good sight to look at without the clamour of twitter drama, and lists a decent range of sites to look at as well as articles and a host of useful information. Lastly, you could even if you wished speak to me, @astragaal on twitter, if you wished.
Best of luck in your future endeavours,
Just another Leader of #GamerGate
A few more names with brief information. I don’t know if you’ll get to this post or these people but if you’re interested in other large names who may be able to shed some light on GamerGate, there’s a few more names.
David Auerbach – A writer at Slate who has been observing the fight from a more neutral position and is aware that at its core there are multiple groups on each side fighting. His main article on GamerGate already has been posted where he tries to analyze what GamerGate is and what it isn’t, as well as who they and their opponents are. As a result of that piece, an editor now banned from Wikipedia tried to discredit ALL his work but ultimately failed and was later on removed in a lengthy and nasty arbitration. He also wrote on that too, as well as the horrible articles from places like The Guardian wrote to push their agenda. If that sounds like a bold accusation, it’s not: there is no other way to interpret it as it got almost every single fact of the case wrong. Reachable at @AuerbachKeller
William Usher – Active journalist who has been involved with the industry for years and was in the GameJournoPros group, a google group created as a direct inspiration of JournoList. That is not an assumption; the creator himself admit that JournoList, the 2010 group and scandal about media collusion, was direct inspiration behind the creation of a google group that held 150 members, 2/3 of which from various gaming (primarily, gaming) and tech media with some others including PR agents. Though Usher was inside this group, he ultimately was found to be one of the main leakers of information in September and has since detailed how the people inside were discussing media responses at the start, how a man’s active firing was directly influenced by other editors – a potential criminal offense which forced the resignation of an editor in chief in October when the story broke – and other stories that show conflict of interest quietly happening in the industry. Reachable at @williamushergb
Fredrick “Hotwheels” Brennan – Not a name you’ll see many suggest but one who you’ll hear a lot of. Creator and owner of 8chan, he’s a 21 year old programmer with brittle bone disease. Though he isn’t connected to GamerGate beyond hosting 8chan and sharing some opinions most who use the hashtag do, you are likely going to find a lot of complaints coming back to 8chan and anonymous users. A brief understanding of what 8chan is becomes needed at that point and to simplify it: It’s an image message board where the only site rule is that if the material being posted isn’t illegal in the United States (California, in particular) then it’s something you can post about. Individual users can make boards and create rules of their own beyond that. If it’s legal, anything goes, and that is taken to its extreme in some places. Others, not so much. The site is (obviously) controversial and it’s home to one of the largest GamerGate boards, GamerGateHQ. The history of GG and chans goes a lot more in depth than that but it’s no secret. He’s reachable at @infinitechan, though if you’ve any questions you can browse that board yourself.
Mark Kern – Former Blizzard developer who worked on Starcraft, Diablo 2, and World of Warcraft. One of the few bigger name developers who decided to step into this mess and tried to find a peaceful solution, which was met with insults and attacks from anti and some press outlets – vg247 in particular wrote a piece against his attempts that was just insulting. Reachable at @Grummz
Erik Kain – Writer for Forbes who used to be more involved, he also saw how GamerGate began and grew to the state it’s in today. A neutral who is fairly critical of it but also of the opposition. Reachable at @erikkain
Oliver Campbell – Former gaming journalist, has been active within GamerGate since September. Reachable at @oliverbcampbell
TotalBiscuit – By far our largest media personality, an active youtuber with 2 million subscribers. Though he would not consider himself “GamerGate” he has strongly supported many of us, helping give us a platform to say that many of the core issues and accusations of a corrupt press full of conflict of interest, collusion, and clickbait, are in fact, correct and need to be looked at. Others may not be but it certainly gives off the perception of such things, which also are issues to address. Reachable at @Totalbiscuit
Chris von Csefalvay – The only statistician who has done an in-depth study to what GamerGate on Twitter looks like. Though it’s a few months old it’s a very interesting study and analysis that views how GamerGate, as a network, looks and compares it to how others claim it does. It also looks at the way Anti-GamerGate looks and how it, ironically, looks how GamerGate is accused to be. Reachable at @chrisvcsefalvay
Thank you, but we are already legit.
You see, too often people mistake those clowning around in typical 4chan/Internet culture fashion with legitimate opinion. I realize that many of the so-named “plebs” or “normies” (i.e. anyone unfamiliar with the seedier side of humour the Internet has bred for well in excess of two decades now) will look at some of the jokes and think GG is a lot of things it is not.
Keep in mind those are jokes taken from the opposition’s serious comments about us. We’ve been compared to the Nazis, ISIS and the KKK. So many people began posting seemingly offensive images, a form of Internet-based black humour known as sh*tposting. But it does go deeper than that.
There’s also the element of the rabble rousers who stir up both sides just to, as the quote from the Dark Knight goes, “watch the world burn.” I’ve even encountered them within the tag, people who openly state that they don’t care about #GamerGate, and only want to be there to antagonize people.
As you said, this is a complex issue. One could wish that #GamerGate could be a led and controlled movement, with a clear set of guidelines, clear membership, and a solid purpose. However, if you consider that those trolls and harassers lurk in the shadows of anonymity, that is just not possible. Several people on both sides have had their personal information leaked and have had threats.
On the Anti side, their stories have been made public. But for pro-GG? Only pro-GG reporters are bothering. Lizzy Finnegan, a prominent figure in movement, had her own home blueprints and address sent to her with threats against her and her child. Where was MSNBC for that interview? Why was she not in Time?
Because she doesn’t fit the convenient narrative, because she’s not with the in-crowd of the Social Justice movement. It’s been happening, everywhere. You can turn on a TV and determine the politics of the network after a couple hours of viewing. Ever since the news cycle went 24-7, the concept of ethics has become more and more loose.
Personality sells ad time, not honesty. News is now entertainment, not news. Articles are written based on Twitter research, rather than fact checking. It’s better to be first than to be right, just ask the Rolling Stone. This is the sad new reality.
That’s why it was crucial for the SPJ to stop spinning narratives and start listening. Instead, even you state that the move is ours to make. You’re wrong.
The Internet is our home now. Already, if you look around, you can see we can manipulate these corrupt, ethic-lacking outlets at our will. Look at Godwick getting on the BBC, or an entire article about Twitter group the ColourBrigade that was created, whole cloth, and sold to a so-called news outlet. Hell, the first warning signs should have been the numerous fake celebrity deaths that mainstream news tried jumping on in the early days.
It’s now up to the SPJ to wake up, and really look around at the world they live in now. It’s time for them to condemn the countless opinion-spouting “journalists” before the word journalist becomes more of a joke than it already is. Brian Williams is the tip of a very, very large iceberg, and unless the mainstream Titanic of news reporting wants to be sunk by it, it’s your turn to act.
So, to you and your fellows: Are you willing to stop with believing what you’re told, and instead investigating to find the truth?
Several thoughts, the most significant of which being:
The call for obnoxious “gamergaters” to reign themselves in will unfortunately fail. We have been at this long enough to recognize that there are third party groups who either have a vested interest in or find it amusing to undermine/sabotage anything we do, and since we operate anonymously, we have little ability to distinguish ourselves from them. Without meaning to patronize… look at the twitter feeds of the examples you give. Gore, obese nudes, swastikas, blackface, and more. Ask yourself if trolling is a possible explanation.
You shouldn’t find this particularly surprising, really. Throughout its lifespan, Gamergate has lived amidst two competing perspectives, as you mention. If the organization responsible for “the definitive statement of [journalism’s] highest values” validates the ethical concerns raised by GG, suddenly one of those competing narratives looks pretty strong, and maybe the other one looks a bit exaggerated. So, there are parties with an interest in scaring off the SPJ, and honestly I cannot promise those parties are toothless.
The typical request we receive in response to these talking points is that we should formalize a specific membership with specific goals et cetera, however this is impractical. Twitter, chan, reddit and so on would still exist. Nasty things would still be said and done anonymously, and we would be in no better a position to prove we aren’t responsible, because that’s what anonymity means.
At the same time, many have been reluctant to expose their identities that way for fear that our detractors would play the athlete instead of the ball. See for example: the packages sent to Milo Yiannopoulos (https://archive.is/UROvV), the recent bomb threat against GGinDC (google it, the differences in reporting are fascinating). and some of the delightful messages received by supporters like GGfeminist(https://archive.is/tvs2W https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ByLxF7oCYAIBLPo.jpg) or Queenymartha (https://archive.is/nPbEo).
So many have said so much. As the editor of a very small press geek community webzine and a supporter of the consumer revolt it’s great to see an honest and fair appraisal of this scandal. Thank you for being open to discussion, it’s few and far between that we see it. Many have posted before me with good information, and people to talk to. I’m always open to discussion but I’m just a small fish in this chaos. I’ll be following, and looking forward to seeing what you conclude after what I hope is an inundation of positive discussion.
If a dozen or so twitter accounts can make you declare a hashtag and all those involved in it “bad apples” and suggest the “good apples” need to be found, you are seriously in need of a new barrel searching technique.
Gamergate has been open to EVERYONE from the beginning.
That means trolls are using it too.
Unlike SPJ people using the hashtag to talk about ethics DO condemn the trolls, DO call out harassment. Many of us use our real identities to do so, knowing the risks involved.
While this article is pretty damn good and I hope your peers take note it is NOT “gamergates move”
We’re already here, ready and willing to engage. We host meetings in real life with real people you can come and meet.
You know, when bomb threats don’t cause buildings to be abandoned.
the “move” remains, as it has for months, with the media and with professional journalists.
I sincerely doubt they fear the people calling for ethics on the hashtag, not the sickening trolls.
What they fear is humanising the people their narrative needs to demonise.
They fear looking into the eyes of a real person and repeating their slander.
They fear what will happen if they realise and admit they were wrong.
Been waiting for this day.
I can’t thank you enough for being so open to listening to our side of the story. By and large, the “GamerGate is about harassing women/whatever” narrative is as close to fiction as reality can get. People in support of GamerGate aren’t violent, but we are angry. We’re angry about having our hobby and sometimes livelihood invaded. Not by women, not by minorities, but by people seeking nothing more than to shape a subculture to the narrative they push. We’re a good group of people by and large, and I hope you’ll see that. Thank you again.
By saying that #GamerGate has to behave in the next X amount of weeks you have just told third party trolls who can abuse the tag.
“Whatever you do. Don’t do this. If you do. It’ll be really REALLY bad for this group.”
The fact of the matter is this, if a group who wishes to fight for ethics will ignore ethical breaches because it was reported on a group they don’t like, how is that ethical?
How will you strive for ethics, in general, if all it takes is a biased media blitz to make you ignore any concerns made?
You don’t NEED to talk to #GamerGate you need to look into what they’ve brought up. We have some ex-journalists like @Olivercampbell and someone who has been an advocate for Ethical journalism in gaming for years @Totalbiscuit.
Keep in mind though, that #GamerGate is leaderless, we don’t have speakers who represent us because it gives those who have spun the “Anti-feminism anti women.” narrative a target to abuse and harass, you might’ve heard that only recently a #GamerGate meet up in DC had a bomb threat made?
The tag #GamerGate isn’t some professional body, nor is it something that any of us can control, it is literally a tag.
It’s consumers who are fed up with the current climate our media has got to, where collusion is rampant, disclosure is considered harassment and double standards are expected.
I’ll tell you what though, if you don’t want to speak to anyone in #GamerGate show this video to your board. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-7RLxrsJ04)
You want proof our concerns are legit, there they are, a lawyer who deals with Ethical breaches confirming all of what we’ve brought up to be unethical.
If you want to go into a more personal and less factual chat about #GamerGate give me a shout I’m @Thurinn on twitter.
I just have to ask the author…
Was getting this many well thought out, clear, concise answers part of your plan?
I’ll try to keep this short, I’ve been watching this mess since the Zoe Post from within the Something Awful forums. It has been, without a doubt, a spectacular train wreck causing upheavals all across media as we have seen people attempting to control narrative through the use of hyperbole and censorship of discussion… and be successful, for a time.
I don’t consider myself a Gamergater, but I respect those who do and appreciate how they have put lie to false narrative through keeping calm and failing to live up to being the strawmonsters they have been painted as.
I have spoken with at least someone claiming to be a journalist who went into The Escapist GamerGate thread to more or less admit that he recognized they were not monsters… but still wrote condemning, slandering articles about them because he feared his peers more than he did them.
The Right Thing wasn’t even part of the equation for him.
I wonder if the SPJ is any different.
There are bullies that have been hard at work in all this, on both sides, but the weight of them has not appeared to be on the GamerGate side of things.
The problem has proven less to be the vulgarity and hollow threats of internet teenagers and more people in positions to influence media recklessly using the words that really scare people like misogyny, racism and bigotry to silence people they disagree with.
There probably are probably no small number of ethical issues to study in that alone.
In any case, thank you Mr. Koretzky for addressing this.
Also if you do click on the blog, please keep in mind that while it is very tongue in cheek for the most part, I am quite sincere. Both the blog and myself are rather amateur however.
Here are some choice quotes from the SPJ Ethics Committee Chair:
> I responded that it’s not possible to score a person’s ethics.
> I do not comment on whether people should be fired.
Way to take a principled stand for ethics, Andrew Seaman.
Let’s not kid ourselves. The SPJ is just another internal affairs organization, chiefly concerned with shielding itself and its members from the fallout of now-rampant ethical abuses. Unsurprisingly, psychologists confirm that media and journalism has lately become an occupation of choice among psychopaths. http://www.adweek.com/fishbowlny/tv-radio-jobs-are-among-top-10-to-most-likely-attract-psychopaths/322042
Every day there’s another scandal. Lies. Hoaxes. Slander. During ethics week, journalists from the City Paper of Baltimore were caught on video physically assaulting an innocent woman in hopes of pinning a riot on her. Why? They wanted to manufacture a racially charged narrative, and she’d made herself a convenient target by selflessly stepping out to calm the crowd.
The response from the SPJ Ethics Committee? Deafening silence.
So here we find ourselves. The status of the journalistic profession has reached a new nadir in the eyes of the public. No one capable of thought heeds a word they print. Society is divided and misinformed. Those who would expose corruption at considerable risk to themselves are stoned and pilloried from every direction by reporters and their ilk. Yet amidst this background, the SPJ apparently had their hearts set on a nice, lazy ethics week full of platitudes and lip service. Then those bothersome subhumans from GamerGate (through an extraordinary effort borne of valor, charity, intellect, spirit, discipline, and no small measure of endurance) had to go and construct a platform from which the SPJ could address an audience and just maybe effect some positive change in their troubled profession. And how did the SPJ react? With supreme annoyance, they squandered the opportunity, opting instead to bury their tumescent collective head in the sand and fiddle while Rome burns.
Dear SPJ: GamerGate does not have to prove anything to you. Your organization has existed for over a century without notching a single noteworthy accomplishment, and you just wasted your one chance at relevance. Andrew Seaman can shove his unwarranted self-righteousness right up that semi-literate screed of his. Quite frankly, I’d let the US Government revoke freedom of the press in exchange for a decent roast beef sandwich. Mainstream journalism is going the way of the dodo, and it can’t happen too soon. Good riddance to the lot of you.
I don’t know whether you of the SPJ are malicious or stupid or insane or just cowardly, but we’re the good guys. Do your job, or stay the hell out of our way.
Sincerely,
someone who contributes positively to society
Best comment yet, eloquent and concise. As you say, if we the public have to source our own news, journalists become a joke, in fact I’d go one further they become irrelevant. If the SPJ want a profession to be an official body for, they need to act to keep it relevant and extant.
(Long slightly rantish post. Beware!)
I will say that I am – for the most part – delighted and happy and all warm and fuzzy to read this. You reach out to us (GamerGate-supporters) and thus you give us more credit than most people outside our own realm has given us for the past months.
Most of my sentiment towards you are overly positive! Just by asking these questions you are proving yourself to be someone worthy. I feel this is important to say, because the rest of this post will focus mostly on some very few gripes I have with what you are writing.
Because I am very much against the notion that the majority of GamerGate supporters have been harassing; or have been doxing; or sending death threats. The math just does not add up. KotakuInAction(A subreddit mostly dedicated to ethics in gaming and GamerGate discussion, stop by for a chat with us someday! :)) has up towards 35 000 subscribers. While all of those are probably not supporters, I guess we can assume that about 30 000 are – in some way – positive or curious about GamerGate.
If most (say 70-80%) of these were harassing, sending death threats and threatening people, do you not think that something would have been done by now? Arrests? Shutdowns? Bans? More people fleeing from their homes?
I sincerely believe that the vast vast majority of GamerGate-supporters are stand-up chaps such as yourself. Many of us are angry – and for good reasons – because despite us being pretty adamant that we are not for any such behaviour, that’s how we have been described in the mainstream media. All our good deeds have been willfully ignored, and all bad deeds done in our name have been blown out of proportion.
When you see angry GamerGate being snarky, mad or sarcastic (Because we do. Ooooh we do. And that’s probably GamerGate’s biggest problem) keep that in mind and ask yourself how you would feel if SPJ were toted out as a group of harassers because they dared to publicly condemn shoddy journalism. If someone wrote a harassing letter and signed it “SPJ” and you watched as coworkers – all good and nice people – were getting shit slung at them for something they didn’t do, banned from forums for even bringing “SPJ” up, and being described as “conspiracy nuts” when they proved that journalists had been in relationships with politicans when the politicans were going into office.
Ask yourself if that would not enrage you a little?
Enough to harass? Of course not.
Enough to threaten? Definitely not.
But enough that you felt like snapping back at someone who drew your comment out of context and had the gall to suggest that you were “abling” harassment for replying to a defaming description of your character with a “Prove it. Prove this now, you sniveling little weasel!”
This is what most of GamerGate supporters go through when we try to reach out or try to engage people who don’t agree with us. To journalists like you. To stakeholders in the business. Because they listen to this notion that we are all bastards that is permiated by the very same media that we are criticizing, they close their eyes and ears and anything worthwhile we have to say gets ignored.
Showing how we’re a diverse community : “Weaponizing minorities”
Giving to charity? “Weaponized charity”
Criticizing Anita? “Misogynists”
Do I say that all GamerGate people are squeaky clean? No! Like I said, there are probably some who do all the things you say, and more. Is that the norm? Definitely not. Go to any forum that surrounds GamerGate discussion. See how many people talk and encourage threats. And if it’s done, see how long it stays there. See what rules are enforced, and ask yourself how we can possibly be a hate group given how strictly we enforce these things.
Yes, we are angry. But any sane person would be. It happens that the rhetoric goes to far, and insults are slung. When that happens, it is shitty, but it far from amounts to threats.
So I invite you! Come talk to us at KotakuInAction. Scan the boards and see what intrigues us. You seem to be a neutral soul, and that’s what we need. We need neutral people like you to research us properly. Go in and see what we have to say, and then make your own opinion.
You’re a journalist! I am going to be very interested (should you choose to do this) to see what you come up with.
Feel free to have a chat with me whenever you want to. I’ll be happy to answer questions if you can’t find anyone better to inquire with. I’m no big player, but I feel I have a lot on my mind (evidently, given the wall of text).
Best wishes
AntithesisD
This is what worries me. We can show gross ethical violations all day. Their ignorance and unwillingness to engage us makes me suspect they didn’t read their own ethical standards. By virtue of this article here the spj have shown themselves to be by their standard unethical. At this point does that mean we are the biggest institution for investigating ethical violations? We don’t violate our own ethical ethical standards because we aren’t journalists.
The SPJ are journalists and clearly don’t want to investigate the real violations of ethics at this point. We have significant journalists on our side, how did the spj not even contact actual journalists who have taken a different position to the narrative.
Is Cathy Young and Erik Kain not significant enough to contact?
There are lots of other journalists who agree we aren’t a hate group and have not written articles as well. This article here shows me that SPJ is irrelevant at this point. Its a self governing body over a 100 years old and by now should of made the effort to understand where most journalism is consumed, the internet. There is political discussion happening on tiwtter (its awful because twitter) but significant things happen there sometimes. How can the SPJ not understand how that works?
There have been false narratives that permieated the media before. The satanic ritual abuse in the 80s and 90s. Many are still happening to this day. False information repeated by the media and given credibility. How could this possibility of it being a false narrative be ignored by such “experienced professionals”?
The possibility was always there. There are thousands of us saying its bullshit and no one thought it was possible? There is video evidence and journalists saying its not true. https://reason.com/archives/2015/05/04/bomb-threat-targets-gamergate-meetup-hea Yet here again the mere possibility itself was not entertained. From my standpoint the SPJ look as corrupt and incompetent as the games journalists.
Anon here. I’d just like to say while I find after reading this post that you at SPJ may have been taken in by the narrative GG’s opposition has portrayed GamerGaters as, I do appreciate you giving them a chance. I say ‘them’ because while I do support Gamergate, I don’t identify as being a part of the group because I am actually afraid of receiving the kind of harassment from anti-GamerGate that GamerGate is often accused of. That being said, I have followed the movement silently and could point you to a few more people that could give a much clearer (and probably much better) picture of the movement. There are plenty more besides the ones I’ve listed below that you could get to know, but because this list would drag on forever, I’ll list the ones I feel would be most influential, to which more active GGers might disagree
Milo Yiannapolous- Journalist for Brietbart who disclosed the GameJournoPros google mailing list that shows collaboration between competing games journalist companies
Twitter @Nero
Prof Christina Hoff Sommers- Professor for American Enterprise Institute and advocate of ‘equity feminism’. Often called “based mom” for giving some of the earliest unbiased coverage of GamerGate
Twitter @CHSommers
SargonofAkkad
Mundane Matt
TheRalphRetort
The Honey Badger Brigade- while they don’t claim to be part of GG, they do support it.
Anyone that uses the @NotYourShield tag.
And plenty, plenty of others. I do realize that many people say that going to KotakuInAction would probably be a more productive choice of websites, which I would agree with. I just feel that if you do decide to check out twitter again, these are just a small decimal of the people that can tell you and prove to you that #GamerGate is indeed about Ethics, and does not and never has condoned any of the atrocious actions they’ve been accused of.
Thanks once again for giving GG a chance, and I do hope that after talking to us you’ll have changed your mind about us.
Also, I think that after just talking to GGers, you might find that there’s 10 bad apples for 1000 good ones, but that’s just my guess.
Come join us at 8chan.co/gamergatehq or reddits’ KotakuInAction, just look at the thread titles. Read the stickies, harassment, trolling, doxxing, etc, has been decried from the beginning. What did harassing these certain females get GamerGate? Nothing, but if you look at google analytics and their sales reports, the people that were “harassed” always got mountains of attention and expanded their bank account significantly. Ask yourself how that helps us out.
We dont want to give these people any attention because they are irrelevant. They’ve always been irrelevant. Every single time they are harassed they win internet points from their supporters. GG has turned into a meme of generic internet harassment. People that know nothing about GG have claimed to be harassed by GG. And these claims are almost always made without evidence. Pretty frustrating if you ask me.
Great that you’re reaching out, unfortunately everyone has trolls, and when you’re on a medium like Twitter, that gets even worse. I’ve won several awards from the Quill and Scroll Society myself and one of my biggest pet peeves about the news media in general was it’s overall corruption. (I’m also noticing some of your proofs of gamergaters attacking people are known trolls btw.) Liberals like to rail against Fox News for it’s lies and conservatives rail against liberal media for their lies, but both don’t wish to tell the truth, just their own brand of propaganda and sensationalism.
I’ve seen liberal media such as TYT and Secular Talk talk about some “Study” that proves their points, but fail to report on how the report/study isn’t credible and how it’s flawed. (Like an 86 person sample size, with students taking the survey for extra credit and knowing what the “researcher” is expecting and giving it to them for the sake of scoring that sweet, sweet extra credit.)
I was neutral when it came to GG at first and took me several months to dig into the meat of it. Even before I jumped towards the GG supporting side of the fence, I was getting detractors telling me I was in supporting of them anyway because my talking points are the same. My whole ordeal is that if my talking points from when I was advocating for ethics in all of journalism and to end corruption and restore journalistic integrity and ethics was a GG talking point, then I’m happy to be called such.
I was waiting for the #SPJEthicsWeek to be pretty much finished while I watched as much as I could like a vulture throughout the entire thing, seeing several known trolls and even seeing some feminists that have threatened me with death and telling me how I have to get raped so I’d understand where they’re coming from. Then again I get so many death and rape threats a day, most notably from the detractor’s side of GG and so many others (including Islamists, Christians, a few Hindu’s, some of the LGBT community, tons of feminists, so these kinds of threats are nothing new to me) it just becomes a slight shrug and carry on sort of deal with me, business as usual.
One could even say easily that the anti-GamerGate side are terrorists even, considering the death threats. Unfortunately, though, there’s a lot of mix up with what is and isn’t GG necessarily. There’s Ayyteam and Baphomet, both of which are hornets nests of trolls, hackers and overall people whom it’s just typically best to not piss off due to their constant search for the “Lulcow”. You can find more information about that kind of thing on Encyclopedia Dramatica and on Baphomet itself, I just advise against kicking the hornets nest.
It’s also very worth noting that regarding the area of doxing, sending threats, hacking, etc, the GamerGate side has received much more so far than the other side. When GG see’s someone dropping dox, sending threats, etc, they’ve so far done mass reporting to get that individual taken away as fast as possible while the detractors have openly endorsed use of dox dropping, death threats, rape threats, bomb threats and even hacking.
Example of hacking would be the author of a comics series called Pleb Comics. That particular comic blog was hacked, had all it’s assets deleted including the blog itself and the detractors of GamerGate merely chime in with cheerful glee, and it’s definitely not the first time.
Journalists like to talk about how feminists were ran out of their home (surprising how they stay in said home while being run out of it, but I digress), however, they also fail to mention the small fry like myself that’s been doxed twice now. I’ve lost my previous job, had constant pizzas and phone calls with threats and crap coming at me daily. I moved, changed my phone number and updated my information with everything (Including Amazon which was a mistake). After updating with Amazon, I get doxed once again coincidentally and it all started all over again, this time with threats that I’m going to have someone come to my door and murder me and my boyfriend. We moved the hell out one last time and flipped the bird at Amazon and haven’t gotten doxed again thankfully.
Wu getting run out (while staying at her home the entire time, don’t ask me how that works, I haven’t figured that out yet) everyone and their dog knows of it. When I get run out of my home because the detractors hate the fact that I look past all their bullshit and see it all for what it is (regardless of who it is, and yes I’ve seen bs with GG too). Since I refused to shut up and buy their narrative and talking points, they will do anything and everything to silence me, however, I have journalistic integrity and my refusing to shut up and remain silent and refusing to allow someone else to speak for my gay ass when I’m perfectly capable of speaking, that’s a huge middle finger raised there.
Funny thing is, I wasn’t exactly secret about having to move from my home to never return, changing my phone number, etc both of the times I had to do so, I was vocal about it. So the real question is, why do you guys know more about Wu who lied about being run out of her home based on a proven and admitted troll, compared to me that seemingly nobody knows of regardless of me talking about it?
It’s because nobody gave a shit when it happens to a gay dude and further fueled with the notion that the people who ran me out of my home not once but TWICE with intent to silence me as much as possible, and the fact that the ones intent on silencing me/running me out of my home were also the one’s in which the media wants the narrative for (Victim cards pay huge bucks).
I would urge you and any other journalists that wish to have integrity to gain more insight into what GamerGate is and is not. There’s been numerous examples of GamerGaters getting rid of and weeding out trolls, but it doesn’t help when the aggros actively even troll themselves for the sake of screenshots, and yes there’s examples of that too including one that was sending herself death threats repeatedly.
Additional information is that the CIA did an investigation on GamerGate and found no evidence that GamerGate was involved in online stalking, harassment, threats, etc.
Kinda funny to think about when you realize that those who are against GG sent in a bomb threat in an attempt to disperse a GG meetup in DC with the GG Detractors saying that GamerGaters deserved it.
Kudos for being willing to ditch and find out more about GG. But from one journalist to another, your article written here is rather sloppy for journalistic integrity, though admitted better than most I’ve seen these days regardless of medium. It needs updated with information about the known trolls and people from Ayyteam and Baph which are NOT GG regardless of what the SJW’s would like for you to believe. They’ve gotten to a point where they say that anyone they dislike is with GG, even going as far as some past mass shooters being involved with GG including even Eliot Rodger. Eliot Rodger, as you’re aware, did as mass shooting on May 23, 2014, before GamerGate was even a thing until Aug. 2014.
This is an old topic, and therefore lots of content has been generated since it’s initial hashtag creation. Unfortunately, since journalism media in general is extremely corrupt, you’re going to need to dig away from news media outlets for more accurate information about GamerGate. Some of the trolls “From” GG are also people who troll GG itself. Consider TheRalphRetort for example. Baph goes after him and the SJW’s, however, they are not GG. I’ve had to dig into Baph myself a few good times and overall, it’s just like being face to face with the final boss of the internet, a place you don’t want to be mentioned. A hornets nest that shouldn’t be kicked. And what have the anti-GG side done? They too have kicked the hornets nest. Not my fault, not my problem.
If you’d like to discuss this topic more with someone who’s been watching this unfold a lot longer than the #SPJEthicsWeek hashtag attempt at an echo chamber, you have my email address.
I have no doubt that you have “anti-semitic, misogynistic, and homophobic.” readers. But it doesn’t mean that you are one.
Just look through the accounts you’ve posted.
“homophobic” guy – “A King in Yellow” (@NotApathy) is trolling #ColorCabal tag.
Look at the tag they are all #gamerGate people.
“anti-semitic” “卐 A Demon in Red 卐” making fun of #NotYourShield people.
…
Then look at my account, or just look through the tag: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23GamerGate
I guarantee, you wont find the “anti-semitic, misogynistic, and homophobic.” there.
What can I say in conclusion – most people, including criminals do support laws and ethics.
I support GamerGate, and I don’t support doxing. But you know who does? Two video game journalists: Adam Sessler and Jim Sterling
Yup. Journalists promoting doxing people. Listen to what he says: “Don’t give me that first amendment nonsense…I have every right … to try find your address and put it out there.” And this occurred during SGC 2013, well before GamerGate even started.
If you and your colleagues are willing to dig into this, you will find some of the most appalling behavior committed by journalists such as Sessler, Sterling, Alexander, and Kuchera to name a few for years before GamerGate happened. Pretty much everything GamerGate is accused of – from doxing, to smearing, to blacklists – was standard operating procedure for these people for years.
I encourage you, no, implore you to look into the past behavior of these journalists, and I think it will become pretty clear that this was building for years and finally reached a tipping point. And, no, I don’t think the journalists poor behavior excuses the poor behavior of a vast minority using the #gamergate hash tag. I do, however, want to point out this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, and in many cases, journalists using their positions as journalists to engage in attacks on those they don’t like, nepotism, and agenda pushing.
Thanks for your blog post, thanks for paying attention to us at least long enough to ask questions, and thanks for reading my comment.
Gamergate is just a hashtag that people use to discuss their views about gaming, ethics, and culture wars.
If Gamergate was an actual movement, then it would have an organization that would have a decent shot at filing a defamation suit. There are no leaders. There is not a registry for membership, nor are there documents that list agreed upon coherent goals.
It basically just fed up consumers that got pulled into a culture war instigated by activists who are employed by media organizations. The consumers aren’t interested in politics, they just want to want to use games for fun or as an escape mechanism. It’s a hobby they’ve sunk plenty of money into to get away from the daily lives of drama, politics, and depressing news.
The activists, in good faith I’m going to assume they just want to change the world for the better, but are going about it in the wrong way. The gaming press are pushing extreme feminism and social justice into the gaming culture through articles and the review process without offering alternatives.
Here is an Oped. http://motherboard.vice.com/read/nathan-drakes-superpower-white-privilege.
There is no disclosure about the author and his/her point-of-views. There isn’t a clear label on the home page that this is an opinion piece. Its tagged as opinion at the very bottom of the actual article. The developers should be contacted and given a chance to at least comment on the opinion and it directly affects their brand and reputation. At the very least, offer an Oped with a counter view.
Gamergate is being reported as a hategroup, but who actually gets to define that? Is that verifiable fact? Is it ethical to print that without multiple sources to back up that assertion? http://jezebel.com/gamergate-trolls-arent-ethics-crusaders-theyre-a-hate-1644984010
Jezebel’s only source is from a person who is “a narrative designer” and “social researcher” that didn’t publish a paper on this matter. It wasn’t subject to peer review. The article itself is supposed to be a paper… It doesn’t mention which organizations passed around the links or the actual survey that was taken. The credentials of the author aren’t really discussed or disclosed. Its hard to tell if the author is qualified enough to make such assertions especially without a peer reviewed paper.
She went to a chan board to collect data… There is nothing in the paper that notes that the author had any understanding of chan boards or culture.
Also, is it normal to host a show like Joy Reid to talk about the video game world and then only bring on proponents of a specific viewpoint without offering other viewpoints.
http://www.msnbc.com/the-reid-report/watch/sexism-and-the-battle-of-the-gamers-341581379929
Brianna Wu refers to Eric Johnson as “my friend”. I don’t know if they are actual friends or not, but it should have been disclosed either way as a member of the press should not have too close of a relationship to the subject of a story to be commenting on it or writing about it without at least some form for disclosure.
Also Eric Johnson is an employee of Re/Code to which NBC Universal holds an investment in which wasn’t disclosed during the show.
All that aside, the biggest reason a national conversation on ethics needs to be discussed is the decline of credibility for most news organizations.
http://www.people-press.org/2012/08/16/further-decline-in-credibility-ratings-for-most-news-organizations/
When you have people considered to be members of the press posting tweets like:
And other members of the press who consider themselves activists… how do you know what they value most. activism or the truth?
An excellent read. I’m sorry that you feel that your hashtag was hijacked. Twitter isn’t exactly the best place to hold any type of conversation due to the character limit. And Unfortunately a lot of what goes on surrounding GG tends to take place on twitter.
When I was younger, at around 2000, I read pretty much all the Print game magazines. My friend and I read each one often enough that we believed we had worked out a system to tell which company or which console each company tended to favor. While I’m sure we were off, we did of course notice the bias. 15yrs later the bias’ are still there. And from the mouths of some games journalists, the response has been “Its games journalism, who cares!?”
We aren’t the inhuman monsters we often get portrayed as in the media. At the end of the day, we’re people… men and women. And just like people some of us are assholes, and some are extremely articulate and well spoken and kind. Yet we have been portrayed as Nazis, terrorists, racists, etc etc all simply for the crime of demanding that the people giving us recommendations on how we spend our money stop treating us terribly, and clean up their acts.
We caught several Games Journalists with their hands in the cookie jar, and rather than apologizing they chose to accuse us of something worse to deflect, then got all their friends to echo it. The last 8-9 months haven’t been terrific, but we have made some progress despite that. But the truth is we’re still in a place where the Games media calls me a terrible person because of the types of games I like.
Many of us would love to have a dialogue with you, to tell our stories, and exchange some ideas. Ideally through reddit on r/KotakuInaction. I’d recommend an AMA or something of the sort.
Thank you for your time, and I apologize if I rambled at all. Its not often that I make long replies to individuals.
You see, the problem here is you treat GG as some sort of community that has the power to self-moderate. What GG is in reality is a hashtag. A serial killer kill tweet with that hashtag and “legit” GG supporters can’t stop him from doing it. The next day the gaming press (and you!) will call GG the community of serial killers and there’s nothing we can do about it, it’s a hashtag. You can’t treat a hashtag the same way you treat journalists. Journalists like Kotaku have the power to stop their harassment of game developrs and they choose not to. And they do harass developers, they have called the creator of Mafia racist, they have called the director of Stardock a rapist, they have called numerous developers sexist, the most prominent case being their fabricated outrage over the protagonist of Assassin’s Creed Unity who was not a woman (apparently that’s enough to make you sexist these days). I remember Jason Schreier saying in an article that one of the greatest japanese game artists draws like a 14 year old boy just because he happened to draw pictures of attractive females. That’s not how journalists should act. A GG supporter and the creator of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (a game that won BAFTA 2015 for Best Game Innovation) was repeatedly attacked by a variety of current and ex-journalists from Kotaku, some strongly implying that he’s a talentless hack. Not to mention the ammount of negativity thew threw on the gamers themselves. The gamers were proclaimed “dead” and some journalists said they want to bring back bullying because the “nerds” need to be taught a lesson. And unlike GG, they have the power to stop it and they don’t. We’re just a hastag, an angry internet mob. We can’t control what the mob does.
And I’ve worked as a game journalist for 5 years (not in US and not in English, but still) and yes, game journalists are unprofessional to say the least. I’ve seen scores go up because of a relationship with a developer/publisher, I’ve seen and recieved “presents” from game publishers. That’s not okay. The game industry has grown up. Look at the artists and the writers and the musicians working on games now, they’re on the same level as the people working in cinema. The journalists are the weakest link in the industry and they refuse to get better at their job. They wage war every time someone tells them to get better.
The problem with trying to define #gamergate and those that ‘belong’ to the group is that it’s a hashtag. Anybody can create an account and post whatever they want on it. If you look at some of the most prominent people that have been involved in the conversation (@Totalbiscuit, @jenniebaraj, and @boogie2988 for starters) or check out the great neutral coverage done by David Pakman on youtube you will find that harassment is almost universally condemned by everybody except the anons doing the harassing.
There are more good people in the conversation than it gets credit for, and that’s mostly because instead of engaging in a conversation with the best of #gamergate, the games journalists and ideologues under fire, would rather publicize the harassment, which keeps them from ever having to make an argument. They win automatically because the other side looks mean.
I for one have followed the conversation more than I’ve participated in it because it’s too exhausting to cut through all the propaganda from both sides and have a real conversation at this point. The best to see what the hashtag is really about is to look at the content created for youtube and such.
Had to comment
“But their war crimes have included hijacking, flaming, hacking, doxing, and rape and death threats so severe, women have fled their homes in fear”
You have proof that ANY gamergate supporter has been involved in this? That is great news because IF that is the case (and I guess you making this pronouncement as a matter of fact means it is, right?) that we can get the police onto this individual or these individuals.
Oh, you don’t. It is speculation? Not perhaps an unidentified person or people that may or may not be associated with Gamergate?
So….why are you being dishonest? Isn’t THAT unethical? But this is early on, let’s see how you improve.
“According to Keyhole, more than 700 posts flooded #SPJEthicsWeek. Almost all were pure crap: anti-semitic, misogynistic, and homophobic. Click those links at your own peril, because they’re disgusting.
Thankfully, the sickest shit came from just a dozen anonymous accounts, and other GamerGaters noticed…”
This is not true either, is it? No, I am not saying that the Ayyyteam (who are not supporters of Gamergate and are trolls trying their hardest to termite Gamergate – and that very dozen or so that you mention) did not post dumb, offensive shit. Why would they not try to do this on a tag that the gamergate supporters were trying to give legitimate examples to.
Yes there was probably at least 700 examples and MOST of them were fine examples of ethical breaches. In the last day or so Ayyteam did find the hashtag and set about shitting it up.
However it is not saying that most of the 700 examples were from 12 people or horrible examples and it is dishonest to say so.
“I don’t pretend to know the distribution inside that barrel, but if SPJ has to wade through 1,000 bad apples to reach 10 good ones, I’ll take those odds.”
Tens of Thousands of Gamergate Supporters and you quote a dozen bad ones, and now it is 1000:10 (100:1). Do not insult us.
“SPJ should comment because so much of GamerGate is unethical. ”
Bullshit. Straight up
“GamerGate has seriously hurt people”
Both supporters and people against Gamergate have been doxed, death threats and swatted. Who has done it? Stop blaming supporters for all of it.
It is the height of lazy thinking or stupidity.
BIG issue spread over many social mediums, strong engagement, high passions, polarised opinions, high level of activity and quick response….what type of person may be drawn to this? What type of person with no investment but wanting attention and people upset whilst remaining anonymous?
The one person who risks the least and gains the most?
Gamergate supporters get NOTHING out of someone getting death threats.
An anonymous troll or even troll groups like Something Awful, GNAA, Baphomet and Ayyteam certainly stand to gain. They have been active in playing both sides and the amount of actual harassment on both sides is pretty even.
Only someone Ignorant, stupid or dishonest would blame “gamergate” and the tens of thousands that support it collectively for the harassment.
But again, you are making the claim that WE are responsible, so prove your case. Name names. Show gamergate supporters are behind this. Or better still show that the evidence is better than YOU personally were not behind the harassment. What? You can’t? Why ought you not be accused on the same level of evidence you accuse us with?
“If it can cast aside the anonymous atrocities made in its name”
I hear a lot about this. For instance, I was one of the people online when the Death to Brianna tweets hit. Both pro-gamergate and anti-gamergate rallied to getting the troll reported. The majority of us on at the time were pro-gamergate. There was no applauding or supporting the troll. The tweets mentioned nothing about gamergate nor were most of us aware who Brianna was. HOWEVER over the next month or so (again with no evidence) we were screamed at for being responsible and not only on twitter but Brianna herself trotted this narrative to news media.
Yeah, “anonymous atrocities made in its name” – pretty unethical narrative, right?
“I pray they don’t do to me or SPJ what they did to #SPJEthicsWeek.”
What WE did is to provide honest example of unethical conduct. Do NOT associate 12 account or whatever as being supporters of Gamergate NOR minimise our genuine and decent efforts.
“It got the attention of the world’s largest journalism organization through unethical means,”
Nope, what we did was NOT unethical.
“GamerGate has an opportunity to go legit.”
We are legit. You do not have legitimacy granting powers.
“Your move, GamerGaters”
Your move.
We will be what and who we are, with or without your approval. If you think that tens of thousands of people of every diversity, can live on racist/sexist/misogyny in gaming for 9 months and maintain this activity? It doesn’t make sense
What makes less sense is that we would willingly put up with the harassment, faux narrative against us and the hate and lies. Would dee do this because we hated women? Really? (and does this make our women gamergate supporters self-hating), would we do this because we want when out of gaming (when many of the women in our ranks are in the industry)? Would we do this because we are racists (when we have people of all different races, cultures and ethnicities)?
Perhaps…..the narratives are wrong and have always been wrong?
Perhaps….the people blaming any threats against opponents of Gamergate blame a convenient and disliked target and it is a case of guilt until proven innocent?
Perhaps…..people support gamergate for reasons that have NOTHING to do with harassment and everything to do with preserving the very heart and soul of the industry (with or without your support)?
Thank you for writing this piece, it really means a lot to receive anything more than “Look I found one bad sounding tweet in the #GamerGate hashtag, therefore everyone who tweets in the hashtag is also evil incarnate!” Like we’ve been getting from every gaming and mainstream news site since August 28th of last year.
However, there are several things I’m critical of in your write-up. First, you assume those normally referred to as “Pro-GG” can police a hashtag on twitter. As this is something the SPJ couldn’t do, I don’t see how you have the authority to demand that from us, notwithstanding how slow Twitter support can be when responding to even legitimate forms of targeted harassment, as experienced by several Pro-GG individuals.
Second, and this is bigger in my eyes, you claim “GamerGate has an opportunity to go legit”. Well, have you noticed that every games media site is now disclosing who their friends are, and who they financially contribute to, when they weren’t before GamerGate? Have you noticed the complete and utter lack of advertisers of the Gawker media websites? Have you noticed the FTC updating their guidelines on hidden affiliate links during the GamerGate #OperationUV? Have you noticed The Escapist’s and IGN’s new ethics policies? GamerGate has been legit without your support, believe it or not. You might not like how we look on twitter, but that’s the long and short of it.
Now, that doesn’t mean Pro-GG individuals such as myself are any less thankful for this attempt at reaching out and talking to us. The media blitz we endured early on made it nigh impossible for many to do so, as you alluded to in your article. It just means that, as of your writing of this article, there is a lot you don’t know about us. Many of my comrades have already posted advice for who to talk to to get a good sense of who supports GamerGate and what we’re about, but I will leave a few links here myself.
https://gitgud.net/gamergate/gamergateop
https://gamergate.me/
P.S. Why did I only focus on what I was critical about? Because I’m a snarky bastard, and I thought it would only seem worse if I tried to hide it. Also, I’ve seen others post more positive comments, so I didn’t want to just repeat what was already said 50+ times.
I was curious as to one part of your post that mentioned most of the hijacking posts on the #SPJEthicsweek tag from Pro Gamergate “Almost all were pure crap: anti-semitic, misogynistic, and homophobic.” so I decided to do a search through the tag and, quite simply, I don’t see it.
Pulling it up on tweetdeck the large majority of the posts I saw were on point. At worst some of them were a little blunt, to say the least, but they mostly referenced specifics incidents or leaked to things they considered serious issues. It just seems like serious hyperbole to say “almost all” when it doesn’t even seem to match up to “most” or even “a significant amount”.
I rarely post things or involve myself with gamergate because I don’t agree with everything they do but they are one of the only places that will talk about these issues that are important to me.
The first big story about journalism ethics in gaming was the Kane and Lynch gamespot scandal where someone was fired over a critical review of a game heavily advertised on the website followed by several other people leaving as well.
Gamergate is the only place talking about issues like this while I search for good moral reviewers who has the customer at their heart. Many people I liked the works of have proven themselves toxic to others because of this movement. I am sad to see the industry like this but glad it has a chance to change.
One of the things that pisses me off the most is when people tell us “just have the conversation somewhere else away from all the trolls”
This entire movement grew around people not being allowed to talk about it anywhere they didn’t control. I didn’t care about gamergate specifically untill mass comment graveyards on reddit’s gaming and games subreddits.
Mostly I just wanted to thank you for wanting to give us a chance to prove what we mean.
I would LOVE to be optimistic as all get out over this. I want to. The reality, however, is that I don’t have any faith – any trust – in professional journalists. That opinion is a result of long erosion, not a land slide.
Recognizing my own general opinion for what it is, I also understand that no profession is a monolith, nor any group of individual people for that matter. I look forward to seeing the conduct and outcome of the event you propose. I will wait.
P.S. GG doesn’t have to shake hands with the SPJ in order to “go legit”. No one, however, should pass on an opportunity to be heard in a widely recognized forum.
So… after 8 months of talking about how unethical journos are lying shitweasels… one brave little indian from the Society of Professional Journalism is finally taking a look into it.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice and all… but fucking come on. It shouldn’t have taken most a of a year to get the attention of the people basically in charge journalistic standards (which only occurred after their hashtag during Journalistic Ethic Week was trolled by trolls pretending to be #GG).
Sigh. I’m about fucking down with you humans.
When’s the big reset meteor coming again?
You wrote much about the dangers of journalists engaging with GamerGate. I for one believe your fears are misplaced. It is not individuals who associate with GamerGate that you should fear, it is those who align with and sympathise with proponents of radical gender politics who you should fear most. Indeed, if you are truly so bold as to be willing to conduct an in depth investigation into the practices of your media colleagues and not be afraid of the likely repercussions of your “heresy,” I would call you a fool.
To break ranks without the shield of anonymity is to face a barrage of unjustified ridicule, slander and probable shunning. Given the current media and social climate, I doubt very much that many in the trade will be willing or even able to conceive of questioning the conventional wisdom of the enduring narrative.
The victim narrative that tells the story of good triumphing over evil is so much more potent than journalists analysing the ideas being espoused by certain pop culture critics, or for that matter, journalists posing questions about the conduct of other journalists.
“In GamerGate, the battle is also between neighbors: videogame enthusiasts and videogame journalists.”
This isn’t completely true. The battle is between one group of video game enthusiasts (including some journalists) and another group of video game enthusiasts (including some journalists). It isn’t even about whether there are ethical problems with video games journalism, most people who dislike GamerGate are fully aware that games journalists, as fans of the genre they are covering, will have problems being objective when they write (indeed objectivity in things like games reviews may be neither possible nor desirable). They’re also aware of the problems that come from being almost entirely reliant on an industry that sees them as an extended form of PR; especially as games developers and games journalists are typically games fans and are likely to be on good terms with each other.
The problem myself and other people labelled as “anti-GamerGate” (or laughably just “anti-Gamer”) have with the movement is its origins with the Zoe post and subsequent harassment campaign (there were calls to separate the ethical concerns from GamerGate as there were conversations worth having but no-one wanted to legitimise the attacks on Zoe Quinn), it’s tactics with “Operations” like “Disrespectful Nod” that target advertisers to cut the revenue of sites GamerGate disagrees with, and GamerGate’s definition of “ethics” which often labels opinion pieces and criticisms of games from a progressive (or “Social Justice”) perspective as “unethical journalism”. It’s worth noting that sites that support GamerGate such as Breitbart and Reaxxion frequently look at games from the opposite side of the political spectrum but I seldom see them criticised for it.
The biggest problem with GamerGate though is it’s nebulous, leaderless nature. By design there is no single source you can turn to as to what GamerGate is about. A person adding their voice to the masses because they hold some form of bigoted view is just as legitimate a member as a person who supports GamerGate because they feel indie game developers socialising with journalists is a threat to the industry. It means that much of what I see of GamerGate is more concerned with opposing “SJWs” (Social Justice Warriors – a supposedly derogatory term for people who express concerns over the treatment or representation of marginalised groups) than they are with looking for ways to improve games journalism.
Hi
I’d like to know why my comment is “in moderation”. If it’s because of rude language, sorry. I’m not a native English speaker.
If it’s the link to the Gamejournopros email dump, it is the first result in Google Search.
Anyway, if you choose not publish it, no problem. Everybody that follows #gamergate already know the content of those links. My objective is for You to be aware of what’s motivating people in the last 9 months.
“The problem myself and other people labelled as “anti-GamerGate” (or laughably just “anti-Gamer”) have with the movement is its origins with the Zoe post and subsequent harassment campaign (there were calls to separate the ethical concerns from GamerGate as there were conversations worth having but no-one wanted to legitimise the attacks on Zoe Quinn), it’s tactics with “Operations” like “Disrespectful Nod” that target advertisers to cut the revenue of sites GamerGate disagrees with, and GamerGate’s definition of “ethics” which often labels opinion pieces and criticisms of games from a progressive (or “Social Justice”) perspective as “unethical journalism”. It’s worth noting that sites that support GamerGate such as Breitbart and Reaxxion frequently look at games from the opposite side of the political spectrum but I seldom see them criticised for it.”
That’s not a very accurate portrayal of the events leading up to the start of the GamerGate hashtag. The zoe post did not start a “harassment campaign” but confirmed the practice that many had suspected over the years, that games journalist were in very close relationships with indi developers and never disclosed those relationships when discussing their games. When a “game” as bad as depression quest gets rave reviews and talked in about in articles that had very little connection to it, many felt upset at the blatant favoritism. The zoe post was merely confirmation. After that, years of pent up frustration from things like Dorito Gate and Mass Effect 3 scandal boiled over into a call to reform the industry that no longer acted as a representative of its consumers. When 12 articles calling for the death of gamers came out in a 24hr period (from supposedly competing publications) all saying the same thing, it turned from the small group who were initially upset and poked the giant bear that was gamers.
Dear Society of Professional Journalism,
First of all, thank you for the concerns that you have brought up.
Labels are often a cop-out for properly understanding individuals. You might blame tagging, hashtags, social media, but it is human nature to easily sum up a person within a few words. However, some degree of labeling is still necessary for quick identification. A world without labels would be inconvenient and messy, a world with only labels is devoid of idiosyncrasies and quirks that make us individuals.
So what happens when a group of various individuals that are disgusted with the way the media has used the easy label of “misogyny” to dismiss any talk about corruption? #GamerGate. The hashtag that became synonymous with harassment.
You might think I am being unfair in blaming the media for this. While I have seen a few sites that have been even-handed on this issue, there are a majority of tabloid rags that jumped on the controversy with both feet for their dollars of the day. The same sites were used as sources in Wikipedia and mainstream media outlets in their reporting of this revolt.
By now, you should also know that the trend for the media is to ride on the outrage wave and sell half truths for revenue. The UVA scandal is one of the recent examples I would draw on for shoddy journalism that quite possibly ruined a few lives, to say nothing of the Rolling Stone Magazine credibility.
It would be fair to say that the Society of Professional Journalism principles of ethics is a guideline for journalists to report fairly and to reduce yellow journalism in the industry. Similarly, it is the truth that drives GamerGate and to keep ideologues from censoring content in video game development.
Thank you once again for organizing the panel. Maybe the gamers involved in this revolt will live up to what you thought of them, maybe not. But what matters is the chance for them to speak out exists.
I don’t think we have to ‘go legit’. Gamergate has never been declared illegal.
But I will not repeat, what so many others already stated.
What I see in your article – with all due respect – is arrogance based on ignorance. For reasons also amply stated.
One would assume that a journalist ideally should be interested in finding out the truth. And you seem to be willing to give Gamergate a podium to do just that and for that I am grateful.
You also want to get some of us – though we do not have “leaders” or “best representatives” at a table with our opponents. That idea I cherish even more. Thanks again.
But if in the end – and that is my great fear in all this – you go into a discussion with an attitude that Gamergate has to prove itself, behave nice, blah blah.
That will lead to tons of third party trolling before any round table discussion. And it will put Gamergaters where we have been since day 1: On the defensive.
I have not been a great believer in mainstream media anywhere, my whole life. And I saw a lot of countries. But GG was another example of where I really shook my head and thought: “Those corrupt crooks!”
So to end this, my plea to you is: Surprise me. A true discussion can only be held on a basis of equality. So if the Gamergaters sole purpose to be at such a discussion would be to prove what any journalist could find out easily by just looking at facts: Namely that we are not monsters. Then I think whoever would represent us would waste his time.
So, it must be a round table. Not a courtroom. That wouldn’t make sense.
In the meanwhile you could start doing some actual research. Lots of people here have already given you good pointers. And I’m sure you’ll get the same from those opposed to Gamergate.
For research purposes personally I’d suggest @EricKain as a neutral source, who covered the early days of Gamergate. He is writing for Forbes.
For the point of view of a woman supporting GG I’d suggest @Lizzyf620 (If she is willing to, she would have good reasons NOT to get involved. She received threats directed at her and her family as mentioned in an earlier comment.)
@Grummz (Mark Kern) as someone who tried to find middle ground for GG&aGG and got dragged into the mud by aGG and now often seeks solace in navels.
@adrianchm (Adrian Chmielarz) a pro-Gamergate developer.
@OliverbCampbell (Oliver Campbell) as a GGer of the first hour. Much like myself he has seen and lived most of it. Unlike me he documented it thoroughly and was more vocal on GG hashtag itself.
My own main goal from the first day that I chose to be pro-GG was to get us out of the defense, have our concerns taken serious and start getting pro-active.
From that idea a German podcast came to life, I made many friends – and quite some people that don’t like me. I wouldn’t call them enemies.
Thanks for reaching out for us, but please keep in mind: Gamergate does not have to prove anything. The journalists have to prove that they are still interested in what their name and ethics code suggests.
You can also tweet me, if you have any questions as to what I wrote. (@Suriel08)
Dear SPJ,
Gamergate is a nebulous entity that can’t be simply defined, but at it’s heart is a pure rage for one thing: ethics in game journalism.
Ignore the shills and the trolls. From the get-go we have been besieged by the sundries of 4chan and 8chan who wanted to embarrass us, make us seem foolish, make us seem horrible and cruel. Those problems are long since vanquished and #gamergate has been singular in it’s pursuit of ethics for months now.
We are revolutionizing the industry, purging out those of foul ethics, and their roots in SJW collusion.
Our boycotts and letter-writing campaign have brought sites that were critical of us to their knees.
We appreciate you addressing the slander that has been written about us, and I can’t stress enough how important it is for you to read the writings of Milo Yiannopoulos, a gamer and journalist who has stood tall and documented our victories with fairness, integrity, and ethics.
If Breitbart is now the shining star of journalistic ethics, it casts the rest of your members in a shameful light.
Our move? We’ve always been, have been moving for the last 9 months. Of course you and your colleagues may not have noticed or cared while you sit in your ivory towers yapping about ethics in journalism. Meanwhile, GamerGate supporters have been on the ground zero actually doing something about unethical journalism. GG has been rooting out those “journalists” who fail basic ethics. Even FCC took their suggestions to make onilne journalism more ethical.
I ask you about ethics, about evidence in reporting. Does the onus fall on the accuser or the accused to prove one’s innocence? For instance, in the court of law, it is up to the prosecutor to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the defendant is guilty. So have you and fellow SPJs provided the same objective treatment to those accused of being involved in a hateful movement? When even federal agencies like CIA & FBI find no credible threats coming from GamerGate supporters. So why would so-called ethical journalists such as SPJ continue to ignore credible sources like CIA, but continue to believe in lying journalists with personal agendas and interests? Is it not your duty as journalists, your integrity to research and investigate for solid evidence, rather than shove that responsiblity onto the consumers and readers?
Furthermore, as truthseekers, have you never wondered why prominent members of society risk their livelihood to join in a so-called “hate” movement? Not just gamers, but people in unrelated careers and interests, journalists, feminists, professors, game designers, youtube personalities, artists, sci-fi writers, etc. all participate in the #GamerGate hashtag. Why would they risk being called racists, homophobes, misogynists, using their personal twitter accounts and, according to mass media and fearmongers, to harrass and spread hate openly on the internet? What could they gain from being associated with GamerGate if it were truly a hate movement? (Not to mention that those ad hominems buzzwords have been thrown around so carelessly and freely without any real reason or proof, that they already lost all meaning and no longer bear any burden for experienced internet users and those falsely accused as such.)
We have made our moves and are still moving after 9 months and still going. As a matter of fact, some of us have been waiting for some ethical journalism organization, perhaps SPJ, to make their moves, to ensure and nurture a more ethical, credible state of journalism. You would not find another more passionate group than GamerGate to push for more ethical journalism.
So it’s really your move, SPJ. Show us that you believe and stand staunchly behind that very standards of ethics you endorse.
[…] A SPJ advocate wrote this blog entry at http://journoterrorist.com/2015/05/04/gamergate/#comment-18941 […]
So much has already been said, and I don’t want to add too much to the pile so I will just re-iterate one point that has already been made:
Now you know how hard it is to police a Hashtag. You can’t. It’s literally impossible.
I’m sorry it got hijacked nonetheless. I hope you can also take a look into the GamerGate Harassment Patrol that does its best to perform that Sisysphesean task of policing a hashtag, despite the difficulties.
I love gaming. I want my hobby to grow, and to be shared with all different kinds of people. You’d think that after a while it would hurt less, but it still does hurt to be told that I’m an evil misogynist neck beard terrorist who wants to reassertion the traditional you boundaries and demographics of gaming as a Boy’s Club.
Also, please please please actually take a look at the named people who are accused of being bigots. Sargon of Akkad was linked to in that Medium piece, and while he’s certainly anti-feminist, I have never heard him say anything disparaging about women as a whole. People who call him anti-woman have a very broad view of what that means.
As for King Of Pol, he’s a a nutter with a disgraced exit from GG participation, but you must understand that the Nazi/Jew talk is simply part of chan culture. They use it to drive away “normalfags” who are put off by such language. It’s a way of masking interesting discussion in language that keeps people who get easily “butthurt” away. On a chan board, no one cares who who are, or what identity politic boxes you can check off. You are an Anon, and the only thing upon which you are judged are your ideas.
This all comes from someone who is not a channer, but has spent time observing them, like some wild animal. I can say for certain that King of Pol is NOT an actual anti-Semite. All that crazy talk is just to drive people away who might want to divert interesting and lively debates with tone-policing or cries of oppression.
First, you need to stop with anything nentioning Zoe Quinn. This is NOT about her, despite how much she wants it to be.
Her sleeping for good reviews was just the straw that broke the metaphorical camel’s back.
And all of these claims of harassment are just bunk. The FBI has verified that only gamergate has received CREDIBLE threats. The complaints against GG are all just in regards to DISAGREEMENTS. Disagreement is not harassment.
It’s been proven that Zoe has lied. It’s been proven that Brianna Wu faked threats for publicity. And it was even shown that Randi Harper doesn’t actually know how to code, and is just an addict funded by a patreon.
Just google them, do your own investigation, it is all out there!
If all of these people actually cared about ethics they’d be supporting gamergate.
Who are you going to believe? The thousands upon thousands of gamers whose minds have been sharpened by years of training at videogames, or a few women who have been exposed as lying social justice damsels who only care about themselves?
Gamejournopros. GJP. THAT is all you really need to know if you want to talk about ethics. our move? No SPJ, it is your move. You need to expose these violations. These are people that should be in jail.
We have been waving around this smoking gun for MONTHS but every time it is suppressed by journalists who don’t have what it takes to expose true corruption in the world.
Zoe didn’t sleep with people for reviews. What happened was that after positive coverage Zoe slept with the reporter who gave that positive coverage. They said that means nothing happened and they didn’t know each other before hand. Thing is nathan grayson was credited on her game as a beta tester. We found tweets between them long before this happened that weren’t an obvious proffesional relationship. You could say that nathan gave her positive coverage then in return zoe slept with him. What revealed to us about how bad corruption is that the journalists response was to insult bully and demonize Eron.
Eron himself is not perfect I think to a lot of people publishing the Zoe post is not the perfect thing to do. When you read it and you understand where he is coming from you realize he was an abuse victim speaking out against an abuser and the media labeled him the worst thing imaginable as a response. That again is a big ethics violation. The small beginning was really just showing how quid pro quo the whole games journalist industry seems. The response from the media confirmed every accusation that games journalism is horrible, insular and suffers from a massive case of groupthink. Then gamers are over hit.
It was a small thing at first and the journalists ignored every single thing that made them look bad. If you see the original discussions on the zoe post is there obnoxious shit about zoe said? Sure she isn’t a nice person there is plenty of evidence for that. The issue about ethics in journalism was also discussed even early on and the journalists have done everything they can to silence that discussion.
They talk about removing the gender hate speech and harassment but we found out what the reddit moderators who have direct links to zoe and games journalists were using to find discussions about gamergate. It wasn’t gender slurs it wasn’t racist taunts it was words like corruption and ethics. From the beginning the defining trait that identifies us is our discussions about ethics.
Speaking of ethics, way to completely misrepresent the reality of the situation.
Gaters are not a representative group of concerned gamers looking for better ethical practices in games journalism. They are a handful of whiny man-children who want the girl-cooties out of their clubhouse and a double-handful of misguided sycophants. “Ethics” is an excuse and always has been.
Gaters don’t have ethics or even know what ethics are. Gaters have no substantive ethical complaints. Gaters have nothing useful or interesting to say.
/hugs needs more insults to really make your point compelling, thanks for trying though.
By the way, in the interest of promoting investigative journalism, I would be happy to provide copies of my correspondences with the CBC for review. Just contact me on Twitter: @lunararchivist
By the way, I find this blog entry by an SPJ member, no less, violates many points of their own Code of Ethics:
http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp
For instance:
Take responsibility for the accuracy of their work. Verify information before releasing it. Use original sources whenever possible. (So much of this blog is from hearsay and biased sources, headlines and gossip.)
Provide context. Take special care not to misrepresent or oversimplify in promoting, previewing or summarizing a story. (SPJ have no interest in hearing both sides of the story, but only headlines and gossip.)
Identify sources clearly. The public is entitled to as much information as possible to judge the reliability and motivations of sources. (SPJ have no interest in hearing both sides of the story or even neutral 3rd-party testimony that favor GamerGate.)
Support the open and civil exchange of views, even views they find repugnant. (SPJ leaders warning this blogger not to talk to GamerGaters. SPJ have no interest in hearing both sides of the story. Although I wonder how surprised they must be to read all these responses that support GamerGate have been nothing but civil.)
Diligently seek subjects of news coverage to allow them to respond to criticism or allegations of wrongdoing. (SPJ have no interest in hearing both sides of the story or allow defendants to defend themselves.)
Gather, update and correct information throughout the life of a news story. (SPJ have no interest in hearing both sides of the story or the current status of the GamerGate scandal in its ninth month and running.)
Avoid stereotyping. Journalists should examine the ways their values and experiences may shape their reporting. (Name-calling and uncalled for labeling and prejudice abound in this blog post.)
Boldly tell the story of the diversity and magnitude of the human experience. Seek sources whose voices we seldom hear. (SPJ ignores the voices of the thousands of diverse GamerGate supporters who have been censored and ignored by mass media.)
Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable. Give voice to the voiceless. (SPJ ignores the voices of the thousands of diverse GamerGate supporters who have been censored and ignored by mass media. Ignores the ethics violations by journalists and media.)
you seem like an okay guy.
[…] national board member of the Society for Professional Journalism Michael Koretzky blogged about his first experience hearing about GamerGate and experiencing the influence that the […]
І think tɦat what youu posted made a bunch οf sense.
But, wɦaat about this? suppose yоu were to write a awesome title?
I ain’t sɑying үour content isn’t good, however suppose ƴou added a title to maybe ɡraab folk’sattention? I mean МEDIA ETHICS ISNT A GАME |
joսrnoterroirist iѕ kinda plain. You cօuld
peek at YaҺoo’s front page and note how thеy create aгtіcle Һeadlines to grab ρеople to click.
You might try adding a video or a picture or two to grab readers excіted about what you’ve got tto say.
Just my opinion, it would make your posts a little liѵelier.
Regarding the Bad Apples of GamerGate: my name was included on there, and my positions were utterly misrepresented. To quote from Bojack Horseman: “He voiced an unpopular opinion that he truly believes – that’s the most cowardly thing anyone can do!” Specifically, s/he said that I hated women and “POC” (though I do dislike people who call themselves people of colour – they’re profoundly annoying – so there’s some truth to that).
My actual positions are as follows:
1. Modern people – men and women – are utterly feckless and irresponsible. Given that I’m a man, the feckless men really don’t bother me; I simply don’t enter into business with them. But with the entitlement complex amongst women, it makes it hard to sift through the chaff to find the wheat, the women of character and integrity who are worth speaking to. The fact that the legal system is deeply biased against men only exacerbates that; I call for better standards between the sexes.
2. Any two groups are going to have statistical differences en aggregate, and race is not a ‘social construct’, at least not according to the mountains of scientific evidence that SJWs conveniently ignore. Realism means understanding that different groups of people will have disparate results; when it comes to individuals, however, you should treat them as individuals. I choose my friends by content of character rather than by colour of skin, and from what I’ve seen my friends are far more diverse than all of these white, upper-middle-class critics who love to call me racist.
I’m just one example; please feel free to check out my body of work to see if I’m the hateful monster they painted me as. You’ll disagree with many of my positions, of course (and you should; I value independent thought), but I think you’ll find that my core values involve honesty and treating others decently.
If they were so willing to utterly misrepresent who I am, what does that say about the rest of their list?
Your example of a personal experience with ethical breaches in video game journalism is exactly the kind of thing that Gamergate is specifically not interested in. They’ve stated that publisher influence is not their problem. They’re only interested in people’s sex lives.
Leigh Alexander writes about many of the ethical problems in the industry:
http://leighalexander.net/list-of-ethical-concerns-in-video-games-partial/
Hi there! Quick question that’s completely off topic.
Do you know how to mmake your site mobile friendly? My site looks weird whsn browsing from my iphone.
I’m trying to find a template or plugin that might be able to correct this problem.
If you have any recommendations, please share.
Many thanks!
I beg to differ. Your opinion must come from Offworld. You do not speak for us, and nor do I.
[…] кроме Корецкого. Тот написал в личном блоге пост, собрал кучу […]
[…] his fellow SPJ leaders that told him not to talk to or engage GamerGate in any way. He wrote up a blog post detailing numerous reasons why the SPJ should engage GamerGate and discuss the issue. As he pointed […]
Hi @koretzky
Just listened to the podcast, but had problems using the comment section there, so here it is. Again, forgive me for the bad English.
The first rule of the Internet: Don’t feed the trolls
If you want to understand how to cover “social media” you need to know that there is always be idiots trying to derail the conversation. The key is to identify the signal and ignore noise.
In twitter this is quite easy. Just click in the avatar and look what the person posted before, number of followers, etc. Also, you can judge the credibility by number of retweets and favorites (this can also be manipulated, but you need an organized group (try to investigate a group known as “weird twitter”).
Same thing on Reddit. Look at the profile, karma and previous posts.
In anon sites this is a bit more difficult, because nobody has a past and you have only what’s written in the post to judge
No race + no gender + no past = ideas have to stand on their own merit… Btw, this was the original Internet utopia and the reason anons hate things like Facebook, Tumblr and Reddit. According to the anons point of view these sites create the hugboxes, circlejerking and confirmation bias that disconnect insecure, immature and/or ignorant people from the common sense.
Also, AFAIK you are confusing trolls with shills.
Trolls by definition do it for the lulz. Their main objective is getting reaction that’s why you don’t react to them. So… Competent Trolls are subtle and know various tricks to bait their victims.
Shills have an agenda and some are professional (“social media consultants” paid to manipulate public opinion). They use troll techniques but are not doing for fun.
I didn’t look deeper into the “nasty posts” in the #SPJEthicsWeek and this may sound like a “no true scotsman” fallacy, but there is no way to stop anyone from flooding porn and gore in a hashtag in the short term.
At the #gamergate things are a little better because there is a system in place called #gamergate Harassment Patrol. When someone identifies trolls and shills they tell everybody and the account is reported and banned. So there is less incentive to “shitpost” there.
If you want to know more about trolling and the history one source is the Encyclopedia Dramatica (really not safe for work… and everything is written in the most offensive way possible… but is quite well documented and there are plenty of links direct to the original sources).
You will have to Google “encyclopedia dramatica” because the site have to change the address somewhat frequently for reasons that will become obvious when you read it (remember that the “real” trolls are doing for the lulz and will be delighted if you get “offended”).
Another piece of information: #GamerGate is not popular in the underbelly of the Internet because we are “moralfags” (we are not doing for the lulz) so there are groups like the ayyy team (ayyy => reads like the catchphrase of the Fonz from the TV series happy days).
Besides the Dramatica, you can look at the work of Gabrielle Coleman, her book about the Chanology can shed some light in the way things happen in #gamergate (it is free in PDF format in her site, maybe Amazon too)
If you want more homework for Extra Credits: research the relation of the following words “Something Awful” “goon” “helldump” “FYAD” and some of the people involved in the massive censorship that made #gamergate explode.
Could you please explain to me how a anti-GamerGaters accusing GamerGate of anti-Semitism and misogyny equals actual anti-Semitism and misogyny… and done by GamerGate?
“GamerGate has seriously hurt people.”
*citation needed*
I’ve silently observed Gamergate since before it even started, ready to pounce at any moment if they fucked up. They haven’t yet. Some third-party trolls? Tons. And gamergate HAS spoken against those, which everyone against gamergate has ignored (just like they ignored when gamergate reported twitter accounts that were harassing Anita Sarkeesian).
The only possibility I’m really finding is pre-gamergate with the Zoe Quinn stuff with trolls sending fake death threats (none from people currently in Gamergate, that I can find… also said threats were decried by people who previously encouraged sending death threats to Jack Thompson… just saying), and clearly she wasn’t hurt by it (unless you count “taking an extended vacation in Europe for fun” as being hurt…). That’s it.
Many people in Gamergate have lost their jobs (people outside of gamergate harassing those peoples’ bosses with claims of misoginy), got doxxed and swatted, and got actual hate speech lobbed at them, and I’ve seen attempts of anti-gamergate trying to shut down female game devs (and then blaming gamergate for it) and received legit bomb threats (which the FBI said was a legitimate threat, unlike threats that people against gamergate claims to have received). I keep seeing gamergate being negatively compared to actual hate groups like ISIS and the KKK, yet I never see even a thimbleful of evidence to support those claims. Problems for people outside of gamergate? Well, Joystiq got closed because people stopped visiting their site due to the “gamers are dead” BS. That’s about it, the site closed because their visitation dropped like a rock and they stopped making ad revenue, by their own fault. Gawker also lost millions for the same reason.
Are there some bad apples? Maybe. I’ve yet to see any myself and I’ve been deep into it for as long as I could (the closest I can think of is the shitposters, which are doing just that, shitposting… so they’re inoffensive). And I’ve been talking about ethics in game journalism for YEARS, because game journalists have been REALLY bad at this for the longest time. Gamergate is just a symptom of a media designed to lie to what should be their customers (and then treating those customers like criminals because… apparently reasons, I dunno).
For reference:
http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/355300/The-Dirty-History-of-Games-Journalism/
And that’s nowhere near every ethical issue, I’m sure the 90s shouldn’t be empty (just that they’re a bit harder to find at this point, I assume), and I guess it’s not updated anymore since there’s nothing in 2015.
For me all this is just frustration. I simply don’t trust game journalists any more. They seem…tainted. Everything sites like Kotaku or Gamasutra say comes off as smarmy and condescending. There are “journalists” working at Gamasutra that actually fucking brags about getting people fire just because she didn’t like them very much. But they still claim the moral high ground.
Frustration!
The really shrill sites like Gawker and Polygon never waste a milisecond writing endless fucking harangues about the horrors of gamergate when a 30 minute old twitter account (usually named something like ImAGamerGater) tweets “oooga booga, I’m gunna run over Brianna Wu with mah laz0r roller skates!” and then scurries away giggling like an idiot. Things like that will invariably result in us being told that we’ve once again run a poor little victim from her house for fear of her safety. I mean – really? You’re seriously going to be this fucking infantile?
Again — frustration.
Endless opinion hoses like Feminist Frequency are totally oblivious to any kind of dialogue. Anything said in their direction is met with a (metaphorical) glassy stare off to the horizon. Nothing registers and nothing is considered. You’re simply not even in their field of vision. Their word is THE TRUTH and if you don’t abide by the scripture you’re fucked. Just ask Joss Whedon.
And none of these bozos above have anything to say when people like Milo Yanopopopowhatever gets a syringe in the mail loaded with god knows what. It’s like that shit never happens. Or when people are forced to leave their jobs because some over zealous “SJW” thought it would be a good idea to call their boss and let them know their emplyee is a misogynyst and probably a rapist.
No… I’d rather spend my time with people like SuperBunnyHop on YouTube and sites like Tech Raptor.
It’s hard to keep GG looking squeaky clean. I saw a message board where someone posted a list of people that took part in a troll group, at least one of which had ties to Ben Kuchera (or so the assertion went), and people came out of the woodwork to flood it with anime porn, similar to what happened with #SPJEthicsWeek. Things are hard enough without groups trying to impersonate other groups to make them look bad.
Oh well. As long as we can stay focused on what’s important. That’s what matters.
Hi Michael,
I’m a person about your age supporting #GamerGate. I want to express gratitude on behalf of everyone in that community who has been maligned in the press for almost a year now. Noting your background in music journalism, I’d like to offer the following paradigm for understanding the current controversy: #GamerGate is for the current cultural climate what Punk Rock was for the climate of the 1980’s. It is a chaotic and complex cultural push back against perceived Authoritarianism and corruption that attracts both the idealistic and the disturbed. I am sure you will recall the characterization that movement received in the press at the time, and how distant from reality it often became.
When I began to examine the current controversy last fall, I was immediately struck by the association of what I would call “red flag” narratives to the #GamerGate phenomenon. Specifically:
(1) Vilification of a subculture as dangerously anti-social; dehumanization of those participating.
(2) Sensational tales of anonymous “hacker” types and their power to overpower mainstream institutions with impunity.
(3) Over-the-top descriptions of misogynistic mobs run amok, especially if these mobs are associated with the political enemies of the progressive Left.
The first is extremely familiar to me from older reporting on Punk Rock, Dungeons & Dragons, Metal, etc.
The latter two are among the themes Stephen Glass found a more than ready audience for among the editorial staff of TNR (See May 18, 1998. “Washington Scene: Hack Heaven”. ‘The New Republic and “Spring Breakdown” at http://wp.lps.org/akabour/files/2013/12/Spring-Breakdown-Stephen-Glass.pdf
for example)
Beyond the understandable broad brushing of “spot reporting”, the media narrative on #GamerGate is precisely as far from reality as the spot reporting on Punk Rockers was in the 80’s… that is to say, complete inaccurate and unhelpful.
Many thanks and much respect for being among the only professional journalists to take a closer look.
-Matt P
P.S. Please consider inclusion of Liana Kerzner (now with The Escapist) in your event. She is one of the only people covering this at the “beat” level.
i enjoyed the article, in regards to “how many bad apples” according to Women Action Media! the company twitter hired to find and deal with harassment, only 0.66% of gamer gate related accounts harassed people. so it does seem like a case of one a few bad apples spoiling the bunch.
Reblogged this on Black Trident TV.
A question I hope you’ll consider at the end of this whole thing, when you’ve come to the conclusion that the mainstream media has en masse furthered lies and propaganda without checking any of it, is: how many people were trying to talk me out of this for honest reasons? And how many were because they know there’s an ideological groupthink in the media and were scared of what’d happen if you exposed it?
[…] the hashtag, but it did raise questions, and one member decided to start asking them. In his post, Michael Koretzky (@koretzky) put himself into the perceived ‘line of fire’, against […]
I would really suggest you read the following piece:
http://blogs.spjnetwork.org/ethics/2015/04/29/ethics-week-2015-reporting-from-the-internet/
The author makes several valuable points which are absolutely critical to understanding exactly what happened with what you describe as the hashtag being hijacked:
1. “Self-verification. Just because someone claims to be Mary Sue online, doesn’t mean they are. Just because someone claims to be associated with a particular organization or individual online doesn’t make it true.
We have a responsibility as journalists to do our due diligence to verify the identity of the online profile and what is said on it.”
Performing due diligence on Twitter may not be the easiest task in the world, and it may not be wholly effective in identifying whether any given account is or is not representative of #Gamergate, but making an attempt is better than making an assumption. At the very least, one should examine the poster’s account, taking note of number of tweets, follower/following count, account creation date, and general tone of all other tweets.
2. “Each social media site had its own lingo and culture. This can be important when telling your users John Doe did or said something. It also provides more insight for your audience into where and how you gathered the information.”
Understanding a wide variety of social media lingo can help one to parse the language employed on Twitter and specifically in the #Gamergate hashtag. Particularly, gamer lingo can tends toward a sort of playful antagonism (i.e., trash-talking), while chan lingo has its own unique irreverence. Knowing the ins-and-outs of such language use may help one to understand when/whether someone is being wholly serious, cleverly satirical, or merely ironic.
3. “Context. If you are pulling information from social media you really have to give it complete context.”
Keep in mind, #Gamergate has been ongoing for nearly an entire year. This translates in two ways. The first (A, below) is in the qualification of whether or not the hashtag #SPJEthicsWeek was actually hijacked. The second (B, below) translates in that there may be many ongoing conversations in which participants have arrived at the use of certain memes and iconic images which represent a history which is not readily apparent to the casual observer.
A. ~700 instances of #SPJEthicsWeek being used in conjunction with #Gamergate over the course of a single week is a pittance compared to the hundreds of thousands of times #Gamergate has been used in conjunction with other tags and causes, and the use of the word “hijack” is, in this author’s opinion, an undue exaggeration. If #Gamergate had truly hijacked the tag, there would be well over 10,000 instances, and it would more than likely still be trickling down.
B. For example, the image which you hyperlink with the word “misogynistic” does not in any way depict misogyny. What the image actually does is poke fun (in an admittedly gory way) at the ridiculous, absurd, and damning charges that #Gamergate is a terrorist group “worse than ISIS [aka IS/ISIL/DAESH]” which strives to “keep women out of gaming.”
__
Finally, (and this isn’t mentioned in the above-linked article) I would suggest you take screenshots of posts which you find to be supportive of any contentions you deign to make. Linking is certainly helpful, but having a backup of evidence is important in the event that the original post is deleted, blocked, or moved. To wit, the links above which you describe as “anti-semitic” and “homophobic” both link to accounts which have been suspended or deleted. To the reader late to the party, it renders your criticism as a hollow accusation.
Cheers and peace be with you.
[…] hard enough to get journalists to talk about journalism ethics,” Koretzky, who blogs as journoterrorist, told BuzzFeed News. “If civilians want to talk about journalism ethics, it’s an […]
[…] hard enough to get journalists to talk about journalism ethics,” Koretzky, who blogs as journoterrorist, told BuzzFeed News. “If civilians want to talk about journalism ethics, it’s an […]
[…] los periodistas párr Hablar de la ética periodística”, Koretzky, Que bloguea Como journoterrorist , DIJO un BuzzFeed Noticias. “Si los civiles Quieren Hablar de la ética periodística, Que es […]
[…] hard enough to get journalists to talk about journalism ethics,” Koretzky, who blogs as journoterrorist, told BuzzFeed News. “If civilians want to talk about journalism ethics, it’s an […]
[…] hard enough to get journalists to talk about journalism ethics,” Koretzky, who blogs as journoterrorist, told BuzzFeed News. “If civilians want to talk about journalism ethics, it's an […]
I realize this is a late response. I apologize. Ive’ been a relatively silent witness of the this ‘big drama’ that calls it’self gamergate. I’ll be the first to admit that mainstream gaming journalism is at least partially funded by the big gaming companies. But, as I’m sure you’re aware, gamergate was not created to deal with that issue, nor are GG’s current goals centered around that issue.
I don’t think you should have given them a platform. Obviously SPJ has the standing to lend legitimacy to their cause, but it’s is a pretty painful slap in the face to those who have been victim to their highly ‘unethical’ social-media methods. I’m not talking about doxxing or swatting, or worse. I’ve read time and again the claims that these attacks are not their doing. But dog-piling, demanding voice in personal and private places, discrediting people rather than ideas….GG has perfected social media mayhem. I don’t find these techniques or methods ethical, not in the least. They’re hypocritical, unjust, and just plain immature. They’re also highly effective in silencing the voices and opinions of those whose ideas + personal attributes they find intrusive on their virtual world.
I’ll watch and listen to SPJ airplay if I can with hopes that this event and this venue being hosted by this organization will finally be a beginning to the end of gamergate. Then maybe the gaming industry will actually have the stomach to deal with ‘ethics in gaming journalism’.
The fact that you’re repeating these false-narrative talking points Mr Anon, just goes to show how badly this kind of thing is needed.
Yes, GG has also attacked PR and distro companies for bribery and other issues and exposed some of them.
No it’s not just limited to that, but activist and other corruption is also an issue.
You’re clearly tarring GG with the actions of trolls, which is disingenuous and dishonest and why this is needed.
‘Dogpiling’ is just people individually responding.
Demanding to be allowed to counter lies and slander is only fair, and anti-censorship.
‘Ridicule is the only weapon which may be employed against unintelligable propositions’. The ideas and sometimes the people come under attack, it depends on the person, how bad the things they have done are etc.
These aren’t hypocritical, though they can underline the problems from the opposition when one of them complains about it.
What will end Gamergate is an end to corruption and censorship and the overreach of the people responsible.
Don’t pretend this isn’t about ethics, all of this is tangled in ethical issues.
[…] | Georgia | South Carolina). Following the flood of GamerGate tweets in #SPJEthicsWeek, Koretzky wrote about the movement and decided to host a journalistic debate on the topic; SPJ Airplay was born. The […]
[…] MEDIA ETHICS ISN’T A GAME | journoterrorist – All last week, I tried to talk to “professional” journalists about GamerGate. Most didn’t want to or muttered lame excuses. So I’ll talk to myself. […]
[…] than a thin-skinned journalist.” Koretzky took to his personal blog, JournoTerrorist.com, responding, “Is it ethical to refuse to talk about ethics?…Lost in the noise were some legitimate posts […]