
Feminist video-games talk pulled after massacre threat - InternetGiant
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-29626809
======
idlewords
Before this was cancelled, Utah State University police announced "enhanced
security measures will now be in place, which include prohibiting backpacks
and any large bags." But anyone who had a permit to carry a concealed firearm
would be allowed to bring it to the venue.

I guess the theory is that anyone targeting Ms. Sarkeesian would have gone
down in a hail of patriot bullets, but she wisely decided not to test this.

From
[http://www.usu.edu/ust/index.cfm?article=54178](http://www.usu.edu/ust/index.cfm?article=54178)

~~~
kmfrk
Yep; it was not the massacre threat but the refusal to deny concealed carry
that prompted Anita to cancel her event. The title implies a wrong causality
like that.

I can't imagine attending an event where people could carry concealed weapon,
even as completely average dude.

~~~
Crito
> I can't imagine attending an event where people could carry concealed weapon

Have you ever been to America? If so, you have almost certainly already
attended countless events where somebody in the audience had a gun. The
staggering majority of the time there are no incidents, so it is easy to
overlook this.

~~~
drivingmenuts
"Gun Owner Openly Carries Gun To Little League Game Without Incident" doesn't
make for nearly as sensational a headline as "Thirty-Seven Massacred At Redbox
Dropoff" and newspapers exist to tell us about sensational events.

I won't deny that there are responsible gun owners, but they're not a problem.
The problem is that any nutjob can carry a gun and by the time he or she has
demonstrated working knowledge of a safety and trigger, it's too late.

Even the nutjobs we _know_ are nutjobs are allowed to carry.

And yes, there are people who carry as a condition of their job, even when
they're not on the job. But they are somewhat answerable to some authority
other than their own recognizance.

If someone can figure out how to spot the difference between an armed,
responsible individual and an armed, irresponsible nutjob, that person will
make a fortune.

~~~
pessimizer
>"Gun Owner Openly Carries Gun To Little League Game Without Incident" doesn't
make for nearly as sensational a headline as "Thirty-Seven Massacred At Redbox
Dropoff" and newspapers exist to tell us about sensational events.

I wish that 'Seemingly Responsible Gun-Owning Ex-Policeman/Soldier
Accidentally Leaves Gun in Movie Theater Seat' informed the debate a little
more. Happened twice to me while working as a movie theater usher in Arkansas.

~~~
hga
And this a great danger because ... what?

It is of course a danger, but so is crossing the street.

What did you do when you found those weapons?

~~~
pessimizer
>And this a great danger because ... what?

It's a great danger because a 10 year old could have picked them up and shot
someone.

>It is of course a danger, but so is crossing the street.

And so is kissing an ebola patient. What's your point?

>What did you do when you found those weapons?

The boring, responsible thing, and the occasions passed without incident.

------
anon3d3c928
using a throwaway account because ppl could easily find my twitter, my
company, and harass me all day about this (and probably would).

GamerGate is very probably a hate group, with no other legitimate purpose.
they're known to send people into forums like this to argue politely and
coherently that the "movement" is 100% legitimate. typically the person who
comes onto a site like this, to argue in that manner, also makes virtiolic
sexist and racist claims elsewhere, typically 8chan (previously 4chan - yes,
these people are so fucked up that even 4chan banned them).

the specifics of the GamerGate swindle are very, very interesting for
understanding how social media works, and can be misused.

[http://jezebel.com/gamergate-trolls-arent-ethics-
crusaders-t...](http://jezebel.com/gamergate-trolls-arent-ethics-crusaders-
theyre-a-hate-1644984010)

TLDR: Rick Falkvinge's book SwarmWise, plus a great deal of sophisticated and
very malicious social engineering.

~~~
sb057
I think it should be noted that the article you linked to is published by
Gawker Media, one of the companies at the center of this.

~~~
ijk
Would you prefer the New York Times?[1] Or maybe The Washington Post?[2] And
let's not pretend that anyone has any evidence of actual problems at Gawker,
only disproven accusations.

[1] [http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/intel-pulls-ads-
fro...](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/intel-pulls-ads-from-site-
after-gamergate-boycott/) [2] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
intersect/wp/2014/10/...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
intersect/wp/2014/10/14/the-only-guide-to-gamergate-you-will-ever-need-to-
read/)

~~~
sb057
Considering that those sites both have much more objective coverage, yes.

That being said, there is considerable evidence of corruption at Gawker.

[http://www.historyofgamergate.com/kotaku-in-
action.html](http://www.historyofgamergate.com/kotaku-in-action.html)

~~~
ijk
There's no corruption on the part of Kotaku described at that link. None.

It's also excellent evidence that this is all about harassing Zoe Quinn and
has nothing to do with ethics or journalism.

~~~
applewut
No corruption at all, none, not for years:

[http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/343871/Corruption-
co...](http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/343871/Corruption-consumer-
hate-and-bad-journalism-in-games-journalism/)

------
vlunkr
I don't understand these people that hate her so much, even if you disagree
with her. All she has done is create a series of videos pointing out what she
thinks is wrong with the gaming industry and she gets death threats. Why is no
one allowed to be critical of video games? If anything, they are just proving
her point by responding with violence.

~~~
le_hackour
Perhaps the reason for your confusion is because there has never actually been
a response with violence against her?

~~~
ceejayoz
Per Wikipedia, the WHO defines violence as:

"the intentional use of physical force or power, _threatened or actual_ ,
against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either
results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death,
psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation..."

Death threats would certainly qualify under that.

------
mturmon
Her video series, which you can see on YouTube, is actually quite good and
well-researched. You might disagree with her conclusions (I agree with them)
but even if you disagree, you have to admit she's done a lot of legwork.

~~~
caligulatte
The 'Women as Background Part 2' video was very well-made, and utterly
disturbing. I've seen terrible videos and images - it is the Internet
afterall- but it was painful to watch. There's a number of games on there that
I no longer care to revisit, or even play for the first time.

(Also, what were the makers of God of War 3 thinking? Staggers the mind.)

~~~
sebular
Your comment provoked me to go and watch that video, and watching it clarified
this whole issue for me. As someone who's done a reasonable amount of
undergraduate-level film and literature analysis, I felt that the video fell
quite nicely in line with that style of presentation, and it's clear that Ms.
Sarkeesian has a strong background in that area. If this were for an
assignment, she would've gotten a perfect score.

However, watching the video as a gamer, not as a student, there is one thing
about her video which stands out to me as the reason why she inspires rage in
a subset of gamers.

Ms. Sarkeesian doesn't highlight anything positive about gender roles in the
games that she critiques. While she is under no obligation to do so, the
indignant gamer might accuse her of cherry-picking her facts, forgetting that
her video series is about "Tropes vs Women", not "when games do justice and
injustice to women".

Her series really is like a homework assignment for a college class, where the
professor has asked for a list of tropes. If she'd included a "full
assessment" of each game, her paper would've been ten times as long, and the
professor would've given her a lower grade for including a bunch of irrelevant
information.

In other words, her series is so single-minded in its purpose (to identify
tropes) that it bothers gamers who feel that it's unfair that she only talks
about "Tropes vs Women in Video Games". They misinterpret this as a video
series on "games that fail women and are therefore terrible", when she's just
doing a series on "games that have these tropes."

They're enraged not by what she says, but rather by what she omits.

And as far as games journalism goes, the fully-fledged "feminist game ratings"
YouTube series/website is a void still waiting to be filled.

~~~
DanBC
You make calm, reasonable, critiques of that video.

You claim other "gamers" will not like her video for the reason you give.

Can you explain how someone moves from "I disagree strongly with some aspects
of the video you made" to [insert death threat here]?

~~~
dfxm12
Because it is easier. It's easier to be heard by making grandiose threats.
It's easier to scare your target with such threats. FWIW, I've been getting
death (and other) threats in my PSN inbox for as long as I've had my PS3 (just
for winning games of Street Fighter). Threats are kind of a social norm for
"gamers". I know that doesn't make it OK though, and I'm glad this behavior is
finally getting exposed & chastised.

It's how immature people act. They feel threatened & don't really know why, so
they threaten back. I wish it was just children engaging in that type of
behavior, but I know that's not the case.

------
grecy
So where are the police in all of this?

Are you telling me I can send an email threatening mass murder to whomever I
want and there are no consequences.

We've seen kids thrown in jail for indirect comments on Facebook, surely this
is more tangible.

~~~
ijk
"between 2009 and 2012, only 10 cyberstalking cases were prosecuted in [The
United States]" [1]

So the answer seems to be: pretty much. Threatening someone online is highly
illegal [18 U.S. Code § 875 (c)], but prosecution is rare.

[1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
intersect/wp/2014/10/...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
intersect/wp/2014/10/01/a-british-troll-was-just-jailed-for-his-tweets-heres-
why-that-will-probably-never-happen-in-the-u-s/)

~~~
chippy
Number of convictions would be even lower!

Do you think the police are being ignored and not trusted in cases of online
violence? Perhaps this is why some victims don't follow what I would imagine
to be the police advice to not publicise the threats against them.

------
cognivore
"But on Tuesday, the director of the centre and others received an email
threatening a "massacre style attack" if the talk proceeded."

There is an inherit sexism even in the response to this. If this was an email
threat targeting say, a kindergarden, or a presidential visit, there would be
federal law inforcement coming down hard looking for the source of the email.
The specter of "terrorism" would be most certainly be invoked.

Instead we have "enhanced security measures." Because apparently it's not
terrorism if the target is women.

~~~
hnha
Aren't most kindergarden workers female? Would there be no law enforcement if
the president was female? I do not see any hint of the sexism you describe
here.

~~~
cognivore
>> I do not see any hint of the sexism you describe here. <<

Okay, more simply, in other cases of mass murder/"terrorist" threats,
regardless of targets, the federal government gets involved at the drop of a
hat. Not so in this case.

~~~
tzs
The FBI is involved.

------
dominotw
Never heard of her before. Why is she so famous to elicit such an extreme
reaction ?

~~~
JayOtter
She runs a show called 'Feminist Frequency', dedicated to calling out sexist
tropes in video games (amongst other things). She appears to have become one
of the enemies of the movement known as "#GamerGate". Proponents of the
movement will tell you it's about ethics in game journalism, but in reality it
seems to have largely become corrupted by misogyny and the like. Several
female game developers and journalists have received death threats; it's all
rather ugly.

This is the first time I've seen the movement appear on the front page of HN.
I hope the discussion can be kept as civil as things normally are on here.

~~~
Karunamon
_but in reality it seems to have largely become corrupted by misogyny and the
like_

Not any more than you'll find idiots in any movement - I would liken them more
to the vandals that presented themselves during Occupy Wall Street.

I hang around the organizing points for the GamerGate stuff - people are
remarkably level headed and respectful (and absolutely _NOT_ driven by
misogyny). There is no organized harassment happening, there is no corruption.
Anybody attempting to agitate along those lines finds themselves _massively_
downvoted/flagged/reported/etc.

Sarkeesian et. al. are quite intolerant of any kind of criticism or
disagreement - the trolls are, frankly, being made out to be a bigger issue
than they actually are (not that people making death threats is even
_remotely_ okay, I'm pointing out that those people do not represent the
movement).

If you doubt this, I invite you to do the same. It really opened my eyes.
Calling GG about misogyny or even about feminism has never been anything more
than a form of well poisoning.

 _edit_ I'm getting the "submitted too fast" thing now, so I can't respond to
comments directly. I will do so below.

\--

I ask anyone that points out "harassment" to provide _direct examples_ of
organized harassment, preferably links so the rest of us can see them. Someone
downthread brought up the git repo containing the markdown file - how is this
harassment, again?

* Regarding the #burgersandfries IRC - absolutely bullshit and absolutely disgusting. The name is even a reference to Quinn's personal life. That channel is on Rizon, is still up, and can be looked at on your own, but you'll note that this is not the organizing channel for gamergate (which is #gamergate).

Perhaps GG started out of disgust for Quinn (and her professional behavior is
hardly beyond reproach), but tying them together for the purposes of
discrediting GG is a genetic fallacy.

I'm not denying that organized harassment campaigns exist - but I am saying
that #GG ain't it.

* Regarding how the GG movement can only be defined by what is done under it's banner

This line of thought allows _any_ movement to be trivially discredited. Quite
literally any movement involving strong emotions will lead to people doing
stupid things. If you simply discard the entire thing based on that _minority_
of people, you have been manipulated.

This would allow people who disagree with such a movement to expend the
slightest amount of effort to do something (or even fabricate doing something)
distasteful in its name as a form of attack. Please recognize that this
possibility exists. Your answer to "drop the movement" is not feasible as that
is an untenable sequence of events. 10 Movement starts, 20 idiot does
something, 30 movment discredited, 40 goto 10.

* Regarding how GG isn't going after the big publishers

GG is about _games journalism_ , specifically the journalists themselves and
their lack of integrity, not what the publishers do. We can't exert enough
pressure to convince, say, EA to stop doing underhanded things - there are
simply too many people who will buy their content on a schedule (like the
yearly Madden rehash) for any kind of boycott to succeed. Seriously, gamers
have been trying for _years_ on outrages that are about marketplace behavior
rather than social issues. It does not work.

In other words, it's a matter of picking one's battles.

Exerting pressure on the journalists is another matter entirely. A journalist
is only as good as their credibility - and showing a pattern of anomalous
reviews or undisclosed connections is a great (and tremendously effective) way
of exerting negative pressure on that kind of behavior.

~~~
retrocombine
Why are people promoting harassment and calling people cunts in your
movement's name, then? That comes off as the opposite of level-headed and
respectful.

One rotten apple spoils the whole barrel.

~~~
Karunamon
This might surprise you to know but there is no way to _control_ who
participates in a movement. GG has made clear from _square one_ that this kind
of behavior is totally unacceptable. If someone goes ahead and acts like a
fool anyways, what exactly do you want everyone else to do?

The best that can be done is banning such people from participating in the
discussion forums, but this doesn't control whatever they decide to do on
their own.

Again - this is analogous to the vandals at OWS.

~~~
kibwen
You're mistaken if you think that decentralized movements cannot be trivially
co-opted. By their very nature, they are controlled by those who speak the
loudest and command the largest audience.

So I must ask, who on your side of the #GamerGate hashtag speaks louder and
and commands more followers than Adam Baldwin?

If you do not possess the social capital to overpower the voices of unabashed
harassers, then your continued association with the hashtag only damages your
cause.

(Note that I speak as someone who once worked in games "journalism" and is
completely fed up with how shitty it is (not that the games industry at large
is really giving me much to hope for).)

------
marknutter
These days isn't receiving death threats on the internet kind of par for the
course? How many internet death threats have actually resulted in deaths? I
think the answer is zero. Why even pay them any attention?

~~~
archagon
Not only do these women receive orders of magnitude more death threats than
your typical online celebrity, but people do in fact come to their homes,
contact their relatives, harass them at work, mail them stuff, etc. Consider
also that some studies have shown that more than a third of all women have
been sexually harassed or assaulted at some point in their lives, which is
mostly invisible to guys like me[1].

That must be a pretty terrifying place to be. If that was me in Anita's shoes,
I doubt I'd be able to just wave off these death threats, especially if
friends and family were being targeted as well.

[1]: You can start reading at this comment —
[http://www.metafilter.com/85667/Hi-Whatcha-
reading#2777344](http://www.metafilter.com/85667/Hi-Whatcha-reading#2777344) —
and keep going for a good long while. This thread changed my outlook a few
years ago.

~~~
meowface
The comment you linked was quite excellent and changed my perspective a bit. I
read the whole thing.

However, I'm not sure I'm convinced that someone like Anita necessarily has
gotten more death threats than someone like Jack Thompson, and I also don't
know if her being a woman plays a significant factor. I'm willing to accept
that's true with evidence, but there isn't really evidence (and no easy way to
find or gather such evidence). Death threats are unacceptable but the kind
that have been sent to Anita seem to be more of the Internet troll variety
than anything else.

------
metaphorm
there's a lot of really bad downvoting going on in this thread. how about you
try to have a conversation with each other instead of trying to blanket censor
people who you think have a different point of view?

------
teamhappy
The wording of the title sums up the current state of the debate quite good. I
(and I'm sure many other as well) stopped reading and writing about it some
time ago.

There seem to be endemic problems in all activist movements (you can call it
something else if you like) such as the glorification/condemnation of certain
individuals, participants being more interested in having it their way than
finding compromises, and hype.

Effectively what that means is that people pick a thing, fight over it util
the debate eventually reaches unforeseen (well, ...) levels of bigotry and
hatred and then it stops. Nothing was accomplished* and everybody moves on to
the next thing.

There were multiple debates about gender roles in movies that all went down a
similar path.

* That's not entirely true.

\---

I forgot something. Please stop (ab)using the word feminism. She talks about
the representation of women in video games - and she actually calls it that.
Feminism is about gender equality. If you'd like to have a debate about the
role of men _and_ women in video games, by all means, use the word feminism.

\---

Also, how can you not see the irony in down-voting my post? Delicious.

~~~
ben0x539
You're really reaching if you're trying to paint the representation of women
as not a feminist topic.

~~~
teamhappy
I didn't.

------
seany
Why do we care about this? She's been proven to be full of crap, so who cares
if she isn't speaking? (I'm not saying that threats are acceptable in any
fashion)

~~~
ceejayoz
Your post may be full of crap, but I'd care if someone threatened you with
death for it.

------
imaginenore
Oh, the same Anita that previously got caught with making fake death threat
against herself, the standard feminist tactic these days.

Anita is a talentless hack who is trying to ride on the backs of the gullible
male developers by whining about non-issues and nonsensical "violence-games-
games-causes-real-violence" type of arguments.

~~~
vec
I'm going to regret this, but here goes.

> Oh, the same Anita that previously got caught with making fake death threat
> against herself

Being accused of something does not equate to "getting caught" doing
something.

> the standard feminist tactic these days.

[citation needed]

> Anita is a talentless hack

She's consistently putting out a large volume of well-sourced content with a
relatively high production value. You can argue that she cherry picks her
sources (she doesn't) or that her conclusions are wrong (they aren't), or even
that she's an ideologue (she is, but that's fine). It's a pretty hard lift,
though, to argue that she's not competent and unerringly professional.

> who is trying to ride on the backs of the gullible male developers

Who is successfully riding on the back of an enormously successful Kickstarter
campaign. Kickstarter doesn't publish demographic information on the gender or
profession of its donors, but a lot of people showed a clear interest in
exactly the

> by whining about non-issues and nonsensical "violence-games-games-causes-
> real-violence" type of arguments.

As far as I can remember, none of her videos argue that "violence-games-games-
causes-real-violence". Instead, they seem to be arguing that certain types of
violence are problematic in and of themselves. You don't have to agree with
this assertion, but at least have the decency to engage with the argument
she's actually making.

~~~
imaginenore
[http://www.reddit.com/r/TumblrInAction/comments/2eub5g/anita...](http://www.reddit.com/r/TumblrInAction/comments/2eub5g/anita_sarkeesians_threating_tweets_as_screen_shot/)

------
kelvin0
I probably watch too many shows, but wouldn't that kind of threat (real or
manufactured) actually push the speaker further into the limelight? So if this
an actual threat (most likely) the 'bully' is really playing into her hands,
so to speak. If this threat is manufactured, well this would indeed be quite a
Machiavellian PR stunt ...

~~~
ceejayoz
> If this threat is manufactured, well this would indeed be quite a
> Machiavellian PR stunt ...

That's a common accusation by the GamerGate folks, but given the number of
other women in the gaming arena receiving similar harassment it's pretty
believable that these are real.

~~~
kelvin0
Notice I did not accuse her of anything, simply stating two facts. Why the
down votes? All I am saying is that whoever made the threats clearly doesn't
want the issue to go away ... Come on guys!

~~~
retrocombine
Don't simply say "why the downvotes". Back up your argument with facts and
reasoning, and if you're right, it should stand on its own. If you're getting
downvotes...you aren't right.

~~~
kelvin0
I know this subject is emotionally charged for most people. If you read my
statements objectively I hope to help you perceive a different perspective, no
need to embrace it. I wish you well.

~~~
CocaKoala
I read your statement objectively. You said that if she had manufactured this
crisis, it would be a machiavellian stunt.

Can you present even a single shred of evidence that she's manufacturing the
crisis? Because until you present that evidence, you're not actually
presenting facts that are relevant to the discussion. You might as well say
"If she were an alien, this might be part of her plan to take over the world".
It's impossible to respond to that, because while it might be true (if she
were an alien, maybe you've discovered her plan!) but to the best of our
knowledge, she's not an alien and hypothesizing about her motives _if she
were_ is a waste of everybody's time.

What's even worse is that you're presenting hypotheticals as facts and then
pretending not to understand what you're doing and claiming that people are
disagreeing with you on emotional reasons, when the only emotion they're
feeling is rage that you're wasting their time. This could be an opportunity
for an actual discussion and you're just chucking garbage at the wall and then
asking "jeeze you guys why don't you like my garbage?"

~~~
kelvin0
I do not know of any evidence, nor do I wish to investigate if there is any
with regards to the 'manufactured' hypothesis. Reading the article, I had a
flash of an interesting twist of events (as improbable as it is). This whole
debate is not even about her, but how some people could use this scenario to
manipulate the public's attention and polarize the discussion. I like
considering things from different angles, which I thought was what Hacker News
was about in some measure.

~~~
CocaKoala
Considering things from different angles is a useful thing to do, and may well
be what Hacker News is about. Considering things from useless angles that have
no bearing on the discussion doesn't contribute to anything and only serves to
confuse the issue at hand. What is the benefit of discussing an arbitrary
hypothetical that's so radical and unsupportable that even the individual who
proposes it immediately backs off of the position instead of putting an ounce
of effort into providing evidence?

Maybe the whole thing is manufactured by Putin. Maybe the entire chain of
events is related to the Kennedy assassination. Maybe Anita Sarkeesian is
actually the Lindburgh Baby. Maybe Zoe Quinn's ex-boyfriend is the son of the
gunsmith who made the Magic Bullet. There are millions of hypotheticals out
there, and no benefit to discussing all of them.

You're a literal conspiracy theorist; do you understand that you're equivalent
to somebody posting that picture of the UFO and saying, "I believe!"?

~~~
kelvin0
Yes, I have that poster with Che Guevara as a Reptlian Illuminati from another
dimension. :-)

------
hnha
What would be a way to solve these harassment issues?

