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April 16, 2015 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
22:48
The Victory of #GamerGate
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I would like to introduce our next panelist, who is Zillow Plan.
She is an independent game developer and activist, originally targeted by an online hate group that came to be known as Gamer Hate, which was started by an ex-boyfriend to ruin her life.
She had just gone on to co-found the Crash of a Right Network, a support group for people dealing with online harassment, an online abuse prevention initiative, a non-profit dedicated to creating technical solutions to a social problem.
Thank you for having me.
As everybody has mentioned, I've been targeted by panel like this.
In August of last year, I finally walked away from the dysfunctional abuse relationship.
And unfortunately, when you get out of a relationship, like it's, I'm sorry, to really get out of a relationship, things have ended at that point.
But in my case, using similar techniques as viral marketing, my intimate engineering manifesto fit directly into the hands of the people most likely to act on it in dangerous ways.
With the result, Look all made headlines across the globe due to how virulent and explosive it was.
But even then, it's difficult to wrap your head around the moment to moment of what this actually looks like for somebody going through it.
When thousands of faceless strangers have set their sights on you, every single aspect of your life is bombarded and prodded until who you were before is gone and your life becomes almost unrecognizable.
The girl I used to be used to sit down and check her email at work.
You'd get the occasional fan letter, business correspondence, and spam email.
These days, they're driven by death threats and graphic fantasies about raping me, often accompanied with my home address, and proof that the senator has everything that they would need to carry through on it.
The girl I used to be would call my father, talk about his health troubles, my work stress, and how I never called him enough.
Now, after the mob found his home address and phone number along with mine, I asked how often he gets calls from them, shouting horror into the receiver, and afraid that the stress building this isn't affecting his health worse.
The girl I used to be referring to that meeting her boyfriend's parents would involve small town and potentially awkward conversation if politics came up.
When I met my partner Alex's family, who had been targeted for being associated with me, his supportive family jokes about the anti-Semitic slur-filled hate mail that they've been sent constantly as a result of the ongoing hate situation.
The girl I used to be lived in Boston, but since all of these threats have not continued unabated and actually escalated to the point that there's actually a cottage industry of people who contribute nothing but hatred of marginalized people that make these livings off of being these figureheads telling the mob where to go next, one of them decided it was wise to hire a PI to stalk my physical location and report back to them the best making it so I could never go home again.
Now I live in Seattle.
The girl I used to be would get contacted by the press for information on exciting projects that I was working on and information on my design company.
Now I have to respond and request one to look through the documentation of my almost year-long campaign of abuse and I have to one ask myself, do I show them everything?
Do I shield them from the realities that a lot of these can include Photoshop, pictures, my genitals, of dead children, or do I actually let them see?
And this is sort of, this comes after the 40th or 50th time going through cataloging my abuse for lawyers, cops, and judges that I see more often from my family these days.
And it's very, it's nothing like what it was before.
The girl I used to be, used to think that if I got into a bad situation with an ad excitement, I'd get a restraining order to help out and have legal help.
The girl I am now sat before a magistrate at a show cause hearing and was told that no charges were being issued in case of stopping and harassment, despite this blowing up to the point that it became a long-over SBU episode and I was treated to seeing a similar laugh room with me raped by getting the same things that they had said to me for months on national television.
I was told that if I didn't want to be treated like this online, I should simply stop posting.
When I explained that the girl I used to be would conduct all of her business, met the love of her life, and reach out to her support network using the internet, I was told in my new career.
The fact is that I'm just one person, and we have a mob of thousands of people poking at every single aspect of your life, trying to constantly find everything that they can use against you, which is how these things work.
I am by no means special there.
You've run into every failing in the system that you can possibly find, whether it's tech companies, whether it's law enforcement.
You've run into all of these things because it's crowdsourced harassment.
Advertising online and cat videos are not the only thing that go viral.
It's also domestic abuse.
And as such, I'm now living a career where I can't go into my workplace without having to live with the lingering effects of a domestic abuse campaign that lobbied on me for the last year.
Since it's been so difficult to try and live with this new reality, and since I've found it that I'm by no means special, there are thousands of individuals just like me that have been in this situation.
We have started Russia Learning Network, which provides assistance to people that are currently being targeted by mob abuse.
However, all we can do for the most part is self-defense.
We teach them how to secure their online identities, how to increase their information security techniques, and the other someone to talk to who's not going to tell them is just the internet.
However, we need more people.
Every single one of us in the network, all of our agents have been people that have been exactly where I am, and they understand what the current situations are.
But we're just a small group of people.
We're just single people that have been targeted by moms.
And the conversation around offline abuse is just getting started.
We need more people to fight back against this sort of crowdsourced mob mentality of thousands of faces strangers who have nothing better to do.
So there's so much that still needs to be done just in terms of basic education, of talking with law enforcement officials so that they can sort of gain this literacy with tech companies.
Like we're trying to open API, since they are our first line of defense and we need people to come up with humane terms of services and the technologies to effectively implement them so that we can avoid things like over-brought legislation that will take away the anonymity of the internet, which while it protects people who want to harass, it also protects people who are weird speaking up for the first time.
It protects whistleblowers.
It protects people with mental health issues that are afraid of discussing things publicly.
We stand and lose so much by not starting to police ourselves and by taking online harassment and anonymity seriously.
And all of this work is geared towards hoping that we can create an internet where we don't have to worry about the threats to our civil liberties just because they're happening online.
Thank you very much, Zoe, and thank you for your word of real inspiration in addressing this issue.
Who the hell was that?
Wait a minute.
That's Zoe Quinn.
Literally who?
A person who hasn't been relevant for quite some time.
And she gave this lovely speech to Congress about stalking and harassment she's been getting online.
Great.
That's great.
Maybe we can finally get the FBI involved because I'm honestly genuinely sick about hearing about people harassed online.
I know it's callous, but it happens to everyone and I'm just sick of hearing about it.
And you know what?
I actually have to apologize to my subscribers.
I know I go on about all this stuff.
I know I do.
I know that you're all probably thinking, why don't you just fucking make a different kind of video?
A video that's actually interesting to watch.
I swear to God I am.
But this sort of thing just keeps happening and there are just so many double standards.
I feel I would be remiss if I didn't document them in some way.
So I bring up that it's on both sides of the aisle that Twitter harassment happens.
And yes, I do understand that this is conceding to the feminists that we can include in an actual definition of harassment nasty words said on the Twitter.
Even by that standard, women still don't have it worse.
And I wouldn't even want to really be bringing this up.
It's just that they always say, oh, it's harassment against women.
No, it's just harassment.
Everyone fucking gets it.
Anyway, they found that 2.54% of the tweets containing the at-user name of male public figures contained abuse, compared to only 0.95% of the tweets received by prominent women.
Interestingly, journalism is the only category where women received more abuse than men.
I look forward to the feminists then going, well, there we go.
We should investigate that more than any of the other categories.
And then listen to them say how other people are entitled.
Apparently, men were more likely to troll public figures via social media.
Three quarters of the abuse received by prominent men was from men, whereas 60% of the abuse received by women was by men.
And I know what you're thinking.
Fucking Sargon, would you shut up?
You're turning into Anit Sarkeesian's personal documentary channel.
And I know, I fucking know.
But that's because she's fucking everywhere.
Somehow, telling people that you got nasty words sent to you on the Twitter means that you get to be in Times 100 most influential people.
That you get to go on the Colbert report.
That you get to go before Congress and tell people about whatever your latest bullshit is.
I guess I just don't care.
You know, I don't send her threats.
I don't want other people to send her threats.
I want the FBI to arrest these people because I'm sick of fucking hearing about it.
It's shit like this, really.
Reminder, I've been bombarded with messages like this, one, on a daily basis since GameGate began.
Okay, go on.
From Vox.
Fuck yourself with a dull knife, you fat ugly Jew.
Gaming belongs to men, it's going to stay that way.
Hashtag GameGate.
Brilliant.
What fucking use to anyone in Gamergate is that tweet?
What good is that?
Why would someone do it?
So if you look at the guy's account, it's the one Gamergate tweet he has made.
It is, of course, a tiny troll account with hardly any tweets that just spends its time trolling people.
Fucking brilliant.
I'm guessing this is the only stuff that's getting through the blockbot now.
So this is the only thing that they think Gamergate does.
And there is, of course, no mention of the actual Gamergate supporters who reported the person to Twitter.
But the thing is, I say all this because it's almost impossible to separate the idea of harassment from the careers of Anit Sarkeesian or Zoe Quinn.
Because without harassment, they probably wouldn't be nearly as well known as they are.
And the thing is, I noticed this because it was in the sort of elevator pitch of Anit Sarkeesian's, would you like to see her in the Time 100?
I mean, it's literally the second thing they say about her.
She makes videos and she is harassed on the internet.
Oh, okay.
That is her profession.
And the thing is, she's about as popular as Kanye West.
And the thing is, this must be all related to misogyny in some way, I'm sure.
But the thing is, I guess it would kind of mean the patriarchy hates women so much, it's not even going to let them be the most unpopular thing on this poll.
She can't even win this.
There are men with worse ratings than her.
I swear to God, it's the fucking patriarchy.
I mean, there are women with better ratings than her.
That is bound to be the patriarchy in some way.
But anyway, despite being so unpopular, she made the cut and had a nice little propaganda piece written for her by Will Wheaton that begins with the words, Anita Sarkeesian has played video games her whole life.
Yeah, sure she has, Will.
Sure, she's a big fan.
That's not weird, is it?
Naturally, the harassment narrative needs to loom large in the very first paragraph.
But she's also become the target of vicious, misogynist harassment.
Yes, she has had unpleasant tweets tweeted at her.
We can completely agree on this.
And the thing is, it's always been this way for Anita.
It's always been, oh, I'm having nasty tweets sent to me.
Quick, I must tell everyone.
Even back when she was doing her Kickstarts, she only had a thousand backers.
Out of the 7,000 odds she'd end up getting.
Boom, harassment front and center.
Okay, well, you know, if this is the conversation that we have to have, what about when Margaret Pless and Zoe Quinn doxed and attempted to get spotted Mike Serdovich?
I'm preparing an article about Cernovich for my own site.
I'll link to it here once it's published.
I'm holding it because Zoe Quinn says she wants to talk to me.
In this article, there is actually a link to Mike's home address.
But you know what?
I can't imagine anyone cares about this.
Let's go back to talking about Anit Sarkeesian.
Because we just haven't talked about Anita Sarkeesian's harassment enough.
I like how the rhetoric's changed though.
It's now gaming's feminist advocate.
With a lovely, lovely picture of her looking like evil Anita Sarkeesian.
You know, the sort of evil Anita Sarkeesian who you'd think would actually be playing the gaming industry's greatest adversary.
I noticed you must have changed the rhetoric from November given how gaming industry's greatest adversary doesn't doesn't make you sound like you're someone who wants to be in the gaming industry.
And don't get me wrong, it's not just Anita's threats I'm tired of hearing about.
It's everyone's threats.
I take it to the authorities.
Just let's stop giving it attention.
You know, maybe all this attention the trolls are getting are feeding them.
So you know what?
When Zoe Quinn appears before a congressional briefing to talk about cyber stalking, I'm actually all in favour of it.
I want those people who sent Zoe Quinn mean tweets to be identified, apprehended and charged with whatever laws they have broken.
So apparently at this congressional briefing, cyberstalking and online threats are serious issues in our digital age.
According to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, nearly 1 in 5, 18% of all internet users have experienced severe forms of online abuse, including physical threats, stalking, sustained harassment and or sexual harassment.
Young female users 18 to 24 experience the most severe online violence.
Well, I'd like to see how they know that, but that's fine.
I'm happy to believe it.
That's fine.
I'm happy for this all to be done.
This completely benefits both sides.
This will catch the third-party trolls.
Because at this point, we know that they are third-party trolls.
So why the fuck are Quinn and Sarkeesian shitting the bed all over social media?
Because of these three paragraphs.
Why?
Because the article didn't explicitly call Gamergate a misogynist hate group.
And to his credit, Brian Crescente handled it like a fucking champ.
In fact, Brian's reporting was actually really accurate.
He says, Quinn's harassment has been associated with the Gamergate movement, a Twitter hashtag and social campaign defined by most supporters as a call to effect change in video game journalism and to defend the gamer identity.
There is nothing about that that's not true.
It absolutely has been associated with harassment by Zoe Quinn, Brianna Wu and Anita Sarkeesian.
But that's not really that surprising given that these individuals appear to have harassment on the brain.
The movement is difficult to define because what it has come to represent has no central leadership or agreed upon manifesto.
The hashtag was first used by actor Adam Baldwin in August after intimate details of a personal relationship between Quinn and a video game journalist were posted online, leading to widespread allegations of cronyism between press and developers.
That's completely true.
And finally, Gamergate has also been accused of harassment of women in video games, including Quinn, Anit Sarkeesian, and Giant Space Cat head Bianna Wu, though many Gamergate supporters deny the campaign should be blamed.
Everything there is true.
It has been accused of these things.
And as a Gamergate supporter, I am in the process of denying that the campaign should be blamed.
So again, all of this is completely true.
He didn't deny that harassment had occurred, but he also didn't deny that people within Gamergate are talking about ethics in journalism.
And there are even commentators on Polygon who are going like, look, I think we need to be a bit more rational here.
I mean, you've got someone saying, oh, I've been involved with Gamergate since it started, and its primary purpose is harassment and trying to silence people.
And this person responds with, I'm not denying there are people harassing people on both sides using the Gamergate tag.
And that is true.
It's trolls doing it.
We know that it's trolls doing it.
But the volume of stuff tagged with it, harassment doesn't appear to be the overwhelming percentage that it's always made out to be, because it's not.
Most people are trying to have a productive discussion.
And the thing is, we know that threats are coming from the anti-Gamergate site, the social justice warriors.
Because there is a website called Gamer's Gate, which is very similar to Steam.
This game store has been literally receiving threats and harsh words from social justice warriors.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess.
Because it has a name similar to Gamergate.
If they were fucking gamers, they might know that this isn't anything to do with the Gamergate hashtag.
This website is in fact almost 10 years old.
And they say that they have received threats and harsh words from around the world and want to make it clear that they are not part of the Gamergate controversy.
Those poor bastards.
Those poor fucking people must have just woken up on like August the 29th or something with an inbox full of hate mail and death threats from social justice warriors.
I mean, are we just going to ignore this?
Are we just going to pretend like these things aren't happening?
Seriously, random trolls sending tweets to Anit Sarkeesian or Zoe Quinn is not the be-all and end-all of this issue.
I mean, let's take, for example, Emily Guerra of Polygon, or at least formerly of Polygon.
And speaking of Polygon, Ben Kachera is just taking a break from gaming all of a sudden.
That's interesting.
But what's even more interesting is that this is Ben Kachera's page on Polygon on August the 25th.
And this is that same page today.
What's different on this page, Ben?
what's the difference here what would you what's on this page that wasn't there before And wouldn't need to be there if Gamergate wasn't about ethics.
But you know what?
It's not about ethics.
It's not about the fact that you were on the Game Journal Pros list pressuring Greg Tito.
It's nothing to do with that.
You're just posting your ethics disclosure on your page.
Coincidence.
Just like it's a coincidence that you're not writing about video games anymore.
I mean, it's another big coincidence that Le Alexander has left Gama Sutra, resigned from Gama Sutra to start Offworld.
Who's Leia Alexander?
Well, Leia Alexander is a lesson to future generations of the dangers of hubris.
Leia Alexander was the editor-in-chief of Gamasutra.com, one of the most popular game-related websites in the world.
She now is the editor-in-chief of Offworld.com, one of the least popular game websites in the world.
Great job, Lei.
It really looks like you're doing brilliantly for yourself, just so you know.
And I like that you felt the need to take to Twitter to tell everyone what your ethics policy was.
An ethics policy that sounds suspiciously like the Mafia's ethics policy, according to the co-developer of Necromancer.
But it's really interesting how Lei decides, you know what, maybe I should start disclosing my personal conflicts of interest in my reporting.
I mean, she does it like a petulant child, but at least she's doing it.
In fact, everyone's doing it.
Even Nathan Grayson, the man from whom all of this sprung.
I mean, it is the bare minimum, but it will do.
What about this logically impaired chappie from Destructoid who thinks Gamergate is a crock of shit?
Which surely would mean updating one's ethical policies in line with Gamergate demands would be a crock of shit.
Oh, he's gone too.
Was he gone because of Gamergate?
I have no idea.
But I do know that Destructoid updated their ethics policies due to Gamergate.
So did The Escapist.
So did even Polygon and Kotaku.
With journalists giving disclosure, with all of these sites having updated their ethics policies, I don't know what fucking planets people are on when they're talking about Gamergate being a hate group based on harassment.
That is just counter to what has happened in reality.
These people sound like they're fucking insane.
Running around to every fucking media outlet until they have painted a narrative that makes gamers, your average fucking gamer, look like a terrorist.
And I'm getting really sick of hearing people pretending like these people don't have a direct vested financial interest in playing the victim.
They absolutely do.
These people are not journalists.
I am not interested in having them involved in any Gamergate discussions.
I don't know why the media is allowing these people to take advantage of this situation.
They've already capitulated to Gamergate's demands.
You've all got fucking ethics policies and you're all disclosing conflicts of interest.
This has got nothing to do with Gamergate.
This is to do with the fact that people online hate Quinn.
And they hate Anita Sarkeesian.
They hate Randy Harper.
They hate Brianna Wu because these are just unpleasant individuals.
Yes, even women can be unpleasant.
Even women can be manipulative.
Even women can take advantage of a situation when they see it.
Because women are people.
I know a lot of the social justice press is having a hard time with that, but this is a fact.
It is possible.
Anyway, these are my thoughts on Gamergate and the current situation.
I honestly, I can't see how Gamergate hasn't won.
Even Leigh Alexander has bent the knee and made ethical disclosures.
So I guess, really, I just have one question left to ask.
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