Briefly: Festival South By Southwest has reinstated the two cancelled gaming panels, and announced an all-day seminar. One panel was about harassment; the other, GamerGate-leaning panel focused on ethics and politics. Both return, though SXSW will work with them to “to develop the most productive focus for their appearances.”
South By Southwest Reinstates GamerGate Panels
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36 responses to “South By Southwest Reinstates GamerGate Panels”
Excellent news.
It’s good to see they realised bowing to harassment wasn’t going to help anything. Hopefully they’ll install some security guards around the panels so when nothing happens they’ll be there.
This topics still going? Great noone bowed to bullying in the end of course but it really feels like a dead horse is being beaten, shot, dragged through a street then tarred and feathered…
Maybe they’ll actually get around to dealing with ethics in gaming journalism, and start targeting the major publishers and gaming websites. Maybe they’ll ask why CoD:MW2 won Gametrailer’s GOTY while the game’s publisher (Activision) was spending big on advertising on the GT website. Or maybe they’ll ask why a big publisher can get a reviewer fired, such as Gamespot’s Jeff Gerstmann. Maybe they’ll ask themselves why they pressure gaming websites and their advertisers in an attempt to silence them (such as Kotaku and Gamasutra) for having opinions they don’t agree with, and then claim to be for “free and open discourse”. Maybe they’ll talk about why they targeted independent feminists developers such as Brianna Wu (still not sure what she did wrong, no GG supporter has yet been able to explain what her crime was) or Zoe Quinn (who was alleged to have had positive articles written about her game “Depression Quest” by romantic interest Luke Plunkett, despite the fact no articles even exist, and have never been put forward by GG supporters). Or Anita Sarkeesian, who’s crime was to make a video series she promised to make, and having an opinion they didn’t agree with. Or Phil Fish, who was accused of winning a rigged awards ceremony after he won an award that was actually voted for by the audience.
I personally think that GG have a lot to talk about…… But they’ll probably just talk about how them big bad feminists and their wicked ways are ruining gaming with games like “Gone Home”.
Brianna Wu was a case of a small group of people harassing her while under the name of GamerGate.
Anita Sarkeesian is an easy target as most of the things she says are extremely biased or taken out of context. She talked about a part in one of the Hitman games where you had the ability to kill a woman. This lady was behind some curtains and the player can pass straight by her. But, because you CAN kill her, she was obviously put there just so that player can have some male power fantasy about killing a beautiful woman. I mean, it’s ridiculous.
“Brianna Wu was a case of a small group of people harassing her while under the name of GamerGate.”
That’s the “No true Scotsman” fallacy.
And no-one says you have to actually agree with Anita, but EVERYONE deserves the basic right of being able to express their own opinion without harassment or death threats. You won’t always agree with the opinions of others, but trying to silence them is not freedom of speech; it’s censorship.
No Gamergater threatened Anita, she made it all up herself, I know this because some guy posted a pastebin link on 4chan that showed he’d hacked through her seven proxies and taken over her home security camera and there’s photos of a grey blob with hair LIKE ANITA HAS with what looks like a computer in front of it so that’s clearly her doxxing herself in a false flag operation
You do realise that a downvote from an MRA is an upvote in life?
If you creeps really wanted to have a go, you ought to be upvoting me.
Do you seriously believe everything you read on the Internet? And from 4chan, of all places? “A grey blob with hair” isn’t actually what Anita, or ANYBODY on planet Earth looks like. And I’m pretty sure Anita’s hairstyle isn’t exactly unique, or difficult to imitate. When the TV show “Friends” was popular, a lot of people were asking for the “Rachel” haircut from their hairdresser.
As for “With what looks like a computer” If you can’t definitively tell that it actually is a computer, how exactly would you be able to tell what she was supposedly doing on it?
uh
I hope you’re trying to double down on my ironic commentary on GamerGate conspiracy theorism and not actually responding seriously
Do you think using irony in a written format that provides no opportunity for inflection (much like sarcasm) is a good idea? Or are you simply claiming to be using irony to deflect criticism? Because if you were being ironic, why wait until days after you wrote the comment to state that?
I sincerely hope you’re not suggesting irony should never be used in a written format without HASHTAG IRONY after it.
In answer to your vaguely insulting suggestion I might be claiming to use irony to deflect criticism, I’d suggest you take the roughly 30 seconds it would require to work out that no, I am not a right-leaning mouthbreather GamerGate MRA hurriedly backpedalling.
Why wait? Because I have considerably more important things in my busy and fulfilling life to respond to Kotaku comments outside of offhand replies on a tea break.
Dude, I rated you highly based on your earlier comments but lift your game man. Hard enough dealing with the GamerGate creeps here without worrying about progressives not pulling their weight.
HASHTAG IRONY
It was a question. If you choose to be offended by it, that’s your choice.
And by the way, I’m not a progressive. Nor am I a conservative. I don’t believe in being left wing or right wing, because birds with one wing don’t tend to fly very well. I believe in being centralist, in being fair and balanced. And GamerGate has NOT been fair and balanced; attacking tiny independent developers (who actually haven’t done anything worthy of the hate they’ve received) while letting the big guys (who actually have acted unethically) get away with what ever they want.
You’re REALLY not very good at this subtlety thing, are you?
Anita must be a master of censorship then. She states her opinions in her videos, I don’t mind that even though I extremely disagree with her. But, to do that and then not allow people to pose a counter-argument is terrible practice and is, by your definition, censorship.
How exactly has she stopped anyone making a counter-argument?
She disables comments on her videos. Can’t make a counter-argument if you can’t say anything at all.
So make your own video disproving her point. Or write your own article. She hasn’t stopped anyone doing that. Besides, can you blame her for disabling the comments? Have you SEEN the crap people say in the YouTube comment section? Hell, even Dorkly had to disable the comments on an article about sexism in the Metal Gear Solid series. Butt hurt fan boys CANNOT take any criticism of their favourite games without exploding into a temper tantrum.
That’s not a No True Scotsman fallacy. No True Scotsman is the act of defending a universal claim by modifying it to exclude contrary proof. There are no universal claims being made here, the fallacy doesn’t apply.
You made a fallacy in your earlier statement though, called hasty generalisation. You refer to GamerGate as though it’s a monolithic entity with a unified purpose. The problem with that should be obvious; GamerGate isn’t an organisation, it has no leadership, authority structure or membership rules. Asking why ‘GamerGate’ harassed Brianna Wu is like asking why ‘feminists’ want to eliminate the male sex. In both cases it’s individuals, not their respective movements, that are responsible. The fact those individuals also identify with a cause is circumstantial, you can’t generalise the actions of a non-authoritative member of a group to be representative of the group itself.
No, it’s definitely a “No true Scotsman” fallacy.
“No GamerGate supporters are harassing people!”
“These GamerGate supporters are”
“No TRUE GamerGate supporters are harassing people!”
And it’s funny that GamerGaters always claim that they shouldn’t be subject to criticism (despite being incredibly willing to criticise those they dislike) because they “have no authoritive members, and we can’t be held responsible for what other members do.” That’s a massive cop-out. Take some responsibility and show some leadership, or you’ll never be taken seriously as a movement.
And by the way, If GamerGate is not about attacking people they don’t agree with, and is really about “ethical gaming journalism”, then what action have they taken to achieve this goal, exactly?
Nobody said “no GamerGate supporters are harassing people”, that’s a straw man. Hasbrogamer said “Brianna Wu was a case of a small group of people harassing her while under the name of GamerGate”. There’s a huge difference – your straw man is a universal claim, what Hasbrogamer said isn’t. There is no No True Scotsman fallacy here.
It’s meaningless to ask what actions ‘GamerGate’ has taken, GamerGate is a loose movement at best, not an organisation. If you want to know what actions people who identify with GamerGate have taken to achieve their goals, you’re best off asking them, not me. I’m not one of them.
Not a Straw man at all. Gamergaters attacked Brianna, people claimed they weren’t GamerGaters because real GamerGaters who truly believed in the cause would never ever do such a thing and oh look here’s a female character we created by the way see we totally support women in gaming, see?
It’s meaningless to ask what actions GamerGate has taken BECAUSE THEY HAVEN’T TAKEN ANY. NONE. Other than fight the big bad threat of nasty indepedant female developers and those terrible feminist types who are trying to take away their games /sarcasm.
Seriously, they want to fight for ethical journalism? Do it. Go after the big guys who actually engage in unethical behaviour.
And for someone who doesn’t support GamerGaters, you sure spend a lot of time defending them. How do you justify defending a movement that is so obviously based on a lie?
@scruffy
Others have made that argument and it’s faulty, I agree. But you weren’t replying to others, you were replying to Thehasbrogamer, and you called his comment a fallacy when it wasn’t. You then said you were replying to a claim nobody in this conversation has made. That’s a textbook straw man.
I understand that it seems to you like I’m defending GamerGate because I agree with the movement, but I don’t. I call out attacks made on false pretences. Here I’m calling out your accusations that Thehasbrogamer was making fallacies he never made. I call out faulty claims against GamerGate the same way I call out faulty claims against feminism (eg. feminists want men to die), racial minorities (eg. black people are criminals), political propaganda (eg. China is evil and wants to take over the world) or anyone else. I also defend people’s right to speak their mind, whether I agree with their words or not.
I don’t care if you like GamerGate or not, and I’m not trying to convince you to take one side or another. I think our views on the actual events aren’t that dissimilar and I’d be happy to tell you where I stand on things if you want, I just want to keep this reply simple. All I’m asking here is that you please use precision when you target your anger, not a scattershot. Blame the people responsible and I’ll be right alongside you condemning them too. When you resort to just blaming an entire group, you end up attacking innocent people in the process and that’s where I draw a line.
@zombiejesus
If you call out attacks made on false pretences, then you should know that’s exactly what GamerGate has revolved around. Here’s a list.
https://srhongamergate.wordpress.com/2014/10/20/collection-of-gamergate-misconceptions-lies/
You SAY you aren’t defending GamerGate, but your actions speak louder than words.
And Thehasbrogamer’s comment was definitely a “No true Sctosman” fallacy. I provided an example of such a fallacy; not a straw man argument at all.
Seriously, you’re smarter than this. You know this movement is based on nothing more than a hatred for “SJWs”, and has done nothing to even try to achieve ethical gaming journalism.
@scruffy Okay, we can do this the long way.
A No True Scotsman fallacy is when a universal claim is stated and then modified when contradicting evidence is provided. It goes like this:
“No Scotsman would ever do such a thing.”
“That’s not true, here is an example of a Scotsman who did do such a thing.”
“No true Scotsman would ever do such a thing.”
See the steps involved? A universal claim is made, evidence is shown that disproves it, and rather than acknowledge the evidence, the claim is modified to exclude it. That is the definition of the No True Scotsman fallacy. Contrast with this:
“Brianna Wu was a case of a small group of people harassing her while under the name of GamerGate.”
“That’s the “No true Scotsman” fallacy.”
It fails the criteria for the NTS fallacy at every step. First, the original claim isn’t universal. Second, you didn’t disprove the claim. Third, the original claim wasn’t modified. I’m sorry, but you’re mistaken. This is not a No True Scotsman fallacy.
When I asked you to demonstrate why, you produced a quote that Thehasbrogamer never said:
Nobody has made this claim in this conversation. You are the only one who introduced it, and you attacked that claim rather than the original claim. That is the definition of a straw man fallacy. I’m sorry but in this case you’re mistaken.
It seems you’re not understanding what I’m telling you so I’ll restate this: I call out attacks made on false pretences and faulty logic. Who the faulty logic is directed against is irrelevant. If you try to claim ISIS was responsible for World War II, I’ll call you out on it. It doesn’t mean I support ISIS, it means I oppose faulty logic.
And yes, I’ve called out GamerGate supporters for faulty reasoning before as well. You obviously haven’t seen some of the extensive discussions I’ve had with GamerGate supporters like keiranj (several of which have been deleted since he’s been sitebanned). I have a strong disdain for the type of GameGate supporter that he represents, but I do my best to treat everyone I reply to with respect, regardless of which side of an argument they might be on.
Your last paragraph underlines the problem I have with the way you make blanket statements. There are people who identify with GamerGate who are perfectly reasonable, who don’t attack people and who genuinely are interested in the issue of ethics. When you scattershot like that you don’t just hit the douchebags, you hit everyone. Please, stop doing that and focus your fire where it belongs.
People claim that GamerGate is NOT about harassing people. But when it’s shown that they are, people claim “They’re not TRUE GamerGate supporters, they must just be troublemakers hitching a ride on the bandwagon!” You couldn’t get a better example of a “No true Scotsman” fallacy, and trying to convince yourself otherwise won’t change that.
You claim that there are people who support GamerGate who are perfectly reasonable. That’s like saying there are people who support the KKK who are perfectly reasonable. And maybe they are reasonable, you know, expect for being a part of a cause that’s fuelled by unreasonable and unjustified hate. GamerGate has NEVER BEEN ABOUT ETHICAL JOURNALISM. They have done absolutely nothing that would achieve this. They have targeted Anita Sarkessian, Brianna Wu, Zoe Quinn. None of them are gaming journalists! They are however, by way of amazing coincidence, feminists. If you want to achieve ethical gaming journalism, GamerGate is not the way to do it. It’s a chance for people who are bigoted to get together and kick people they don’t like out of the gaming treehouse. Funny thing about that though, is that although there are obviously plenty of people who are bigots, racist, sexist, etc. no one ever actually admits to being one. Everyone likes to think their cause is just, and they are fighting on the side of good. Just like the people who protest against equal rights, whether it was to allow women to vote, or for marriage equality, there are always people who think they’re doing the right thing at the time, and supporting their beliefs. But hindsight is 20/20, and one day a lot of GamerGate supporters are going to (hopefully) wake up and feel ashamed of what they’ve done. Not just in terms of harassing innocent people, but in making the rest of the gaming community look like backwards, socially inept troglodytes.
@scruffy You’re being intentionally obtuse. You can’t dismiss what Thehasbrogamer said by pointing at things other people have said in unrelated discussions. If that’s how logic worked then I could dismiss everything you’ve said here as wrong because there are people out there today who think the Earth is flat. What Thehasbrogamer said is not a No True Scotsman fallacy, you created a straw man and attacked that instead.
I can’t explain this for you any more simply than I have. You’re either unwilling or incapable of understanding that you’re wrong. I’m sorry that we won’t be able to have a normal conversation on this topic but you’re clearly irrational. Let’s leave it here. Please don’t attack other people on the basis of faulty reasoning again or I will call you out on it again. Think before you act.
You know what’s interesting? How hard you’re trying to convince me about what is or isn’t a “No true Scotsman” or a “Strawman”, as if that would completely invalidate my argument about GamerGate. But maybe it’s not me you’re really trying to convince. Maybe it’s yourself. You’ve actually believed that GamerGate was about ethical gaming journalism, so when I’ve repeatedly proven that it quite obviously isn’t, you start clutching at straws to defend not only GamerGate, but yourself. You didn’t want to believe you’d fallen for the GamerGate propaganda, and that you were fighting the good fight. But when you realised you could no longer argue over GamerGate’s actions (you haven’t been able to counter ANY of my points), you instead start attacking the method of the argument (which, in itself, could be classified as a Strawman argument).
I don’t hate you, Zombie Jesus. And I have nothing personal against you either. But, if you want to call people out on what they do, expect other people to do the exact same to you.
@scruffy I’m happy for you to call me out on things I’ve done. What you posted there, however, is fiction. I have no need to defend myself against fiction. Frankly, if you feel like you’d rather invent stories that paint me in a negative light to justify why I could possibly disagree with you on something, then I feel sorry for you.
I haven’t tried to counter any of your points because I’m not interested in discussing that topic with you. I don’t care what you think about GamerGate. I neither agree nor disagree with your arguments. I replied to you to address your faulty logic, and that’s all I’ve been interested in.
If your goal is to make valid points or convince readers of your views, you’ve sabotaged your own efforts by trying to play circular games and steadfastly refusing to admit that you made a mistake. For the sake of everyone you interact with, I hope you learn how to hold a normal conversation soon.
You are wrong, but you seem to be unwilling, or unable, to accept it. The GamerGate movement you supported was a lie. Deal with it. You keep on saying that you call people out who use faulty reasoning and fiction. If that were actually true, there’s no way you would have defended GamerGate as you did, as the ENTIRE movement was based on faulty reasoning and fiction, as I’ve proven over and over again.
And resorting to telling someone they need professional help just because they don’t agree with your opinion? That’s really low, dude. I’ve afforded you respect, debated like a gentleman and have not called you names or made outrageous and unsubstantiated claims to your mental health (as you have slanderously done to me), yet you resort to petty, childish behaviour (such as constantly trying to get the last word) and insults. You say I need help? You should take a good, long look at your own behaviour.
I’ve made no mistake. And it’s interesting that you say “For the sake of everyone you interact with, I hope you learn how to hold a normal conversation soon”. Not only does my job entail dealing face to face with numerous people from all over the world (who I get along with just nicely by the way), I’ve also literally just been nominated as employee of the month! No-one else has a problem with me, Zombie Jesus. Just you. Because I’ve proven you wrong again and AGAIN, and you can’t stand it it. If you want to think you’re always right, and everyone else is wrong, then don’t complain when someone like me calls you out on it. It’s really time to grow up, mate.
The strength of your delusion is saddening. I’ll say this as clearly as possible for you to understand, and then I’m not replying to you in this thread any more.
1. You were wrong. It happens. Deal with it and move on.
2. Don’t attack other people on the basis of faulty reasoning or fictions created in your own mind. If you do, I’ll call you out on it.
3. Seek professional psychological help. I’m not being sarcastic, I’m not joking and I’m not insulting you. You have serious problems and you need help.
I’m sure you’ll feel compelled to reply and try yet again to convince anyone listening that your delusions are real. Be my guest, shake your fist at the sky and insist that it’s green and not blue. I won’t be reading it or replying to it.
If they can all talk about this reasonably? Sure. If it de-evolves into both sides sitting around circlejerking over how evil the other side is? Fuck them both. Fuck them all. I know that’s harsh, and there’s the reasonable majority, but the vocal minority ruins it for everyone on both sides who seem to actually *want* to talk.
HUSH YOUR MOUTH
Ain’t got no time for that kind of brain-usin’ round here.
I think it was Nathan Grayson, not Luke (although I might be wrong!)
A lot of GG and anti-GG is boxing at shadows. In an era of instant communication, few people make the effort to do research before succumbing to the temptation to vent their outrage on the internet. Even people doing the research get it wrong sometimes!
I think a lot of GG these days is talking about how people who have ridden the anti-GG bandwagon to success are exploiting GG for their own profit. They cite people such as Randi Harper, Sarah Nyberg and Zoe Quinn as doing nothing apart from stirring the pot and reaping the rewards that flow (Patreon etc).
There is still an interest in ethics in journalism, but I think a lot of the people who have such an interest feel no need to identify themselves as GG. I guess some people can’t or won’t acknowledge that you don’t have to swear allegiance to a group in order to usefully discuss the ideals espoused by that group.
You are right; it was Nathan Grayson. I stand corrected. Luke Plunkett was the one who wrote an article about two similar “Death of the gamer identity” articles, which also upset the GG crowd.
The thing about “stirring the pot” though, is interesting. Because if they were doing it for attention, then continually attacking them, as GG does, would mean that they’ve thoroughly outsmarted the GamerGaters.
Yeah, I think that it is very easy to troll people into attacking you, particularly online. You just need to know which buttons to press 🙂