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>Gamergate was largely an attack on women in gaming. That's completely wrong. While there are always trolls and bigots lurking everywhere, the vast majority o
by StanislavPetrov 8y ago
>Gamergate was largely an attack on women in gaming.
That's completely wrong. While there are always trolls and bigots lurking everywhere, the vast majority of people were protesting the forced censorship of games by those who found them "offensive" or "not inclusive enough". The whole brouhaha was a microcosm of the ongoing debate that many are having in this country about free speech. There are many who want to eliminate free speech and pass "hate speech" laws that ban and/or criminalize speech that some find offensive. Some of us believe that in a free society people have the right to be offensive, bigoted, racist, or despicable in a wide variety of ways that we don't agree with. By extension we also believe that people should be able to make any games they choose to make, whether we find them offensive or not.
- vertex-four 8y agoTo suggest that the targeted harassment of women (and the complete avoidance of significantly targeting anybody else) was the result of “a small minority of trolls” who didn’t have the support of everybody using that banner is laughable, especially given that GamerGate had an explicit start with the harassment of a woman.
- StanislavPetrov 8y agoTo suggest that Gamergate was about the "targeted harassment of women" and not censorship in gaming is a complete mischaracterization of the issue - one that has been repeatedly pushed by those on the pro-censorship side.
- lindydonna 8y agoIf that is true, you should be able to point to articles or statements where game developers advocated censorship. I've talked to Brianna Wu. I've followed her work. She has never advocated censorship.
- ng12 8y agoWhat does Brianna Wu have to do with GamerGate? AFAIK she was a target because of her being a controversial character, not anything GamerGate-related.
- lindydonna 8y agoWell, she was targeted by GamerGate. Lots of people who were not involved in the original drama were targeted later.
- vertex-four 8y agoSo... exactly why did women come under significantly more harassment than men during the GamerGate debacle, as evidenced by various newspapers during the event? Nathan Grayson, the person who was meant to have committed the ethical violation of writing about someone he had slept with, received a fraction of the harassment that the woman he had slept with did. And of course none of that has anything to do with free speech issues - but it’s verifiably the start of when the #GamerGate hashtag was used. So somehow the movement supposedly entirely swivelled from ethics in video game journalism to being pro free speech at some undefined point, while its targets shared a common characteristic?
- lindydonna 8y ago> the forced censorship of games by those who found them "offensive" or "not inclusive enough". This is false. No one proposed censorship. They proposed and created new games that were more inclusive. In doing this, they also criticized mainstream games. The narrative of censorship was invented by GamerGate. And clearly, their version of events was so compelling that others repeat it as fact.