Who had unfettered and unchallenged access to the media?
Who had governmental support? [108]
Who continues to make thousands of dollars every month from 'sympathy' donations? [109]
Who was invited to meet Google and spread their insane ideas? [110]
Who was invited to participate on Twitter's 'Trust and Safety Council?' [111]
Lastly, who, absurdly, was invited to speak to the United, fucking, Nations? [112].
These are not powerless, defenceless damsels in distress with no voices and no power, but they trade on that pseudo-scientific, sociological analysis and it simply may not be contradicted, lest you be excommunicated. These are – whether they mean to be or not – useful idiots for those who want to control the digital frontier.
'Fake News'
'Fake News' has become a sort of joke now, a meaningless phrase used by all sides to dismiss news stories they just don't happen to like. Nonetheless, when the term first emerged it had some genuinely useful meanings. Firstly it referred to the genuine cases of actual fake news[113], constructed stories designed explicitly as click-bait with little or no relation to anything in the real world. Secondly, it refers to the loss of 'The News', being replaced, increasingly, by slanted, profit-oriented news that panders to existing bias.
Claire Wardle has identified a full seven types of fake news, historical and current:
Satire or parody (no intention to cause harm but has potential to fool)
False connection (when headlines, visuals of captions don't support the content)
Misleading content (misleading use of information to frame an issue or an individual)
False content (when genuine content is shared with false contextual information)
Imposter content (when legitimate sources are impersonated with false, made-up sources)
Manipulated content (when genuine information or imagery is manipulated to deceive, as with a doctored photo)
Fabricated content (new content is 100% false, designed to deceive and do harm)
Gamergate was very much a victim of 'Fake News' in the forms 2, 3, 4 and 6. The laziness and bias of the media led to massive and widespread misrepresentation and a shattering of, already shaky, trust from millennials and grizzled, veteran Generation Xers in the news media. That's unfortunate, but it's justified, and that distrust has since spread.
Gamers are Dead
Gamergate probably would have been a flash in the pan, a mere, small skirmish, if it hadn't been for the 'Gamers, are Dead' articles. The mass attack by their media on their hobby and identity was an unprecedented betrayal of gamers, by the very people who should have been defending them. It got people's dander up and, ultimately, helped expose just how rotten, nepotistic and biased the whole edifice of games media was.
'Gamers are dead' was a cluster of articles of similar content that exploded across multiple sites swiftly following the advent of the Gamergate hashtag, but apparently put together before that change. They argued – broadly – that the 'gamer' identity was dead, in part due to the increasing popularity of games out of the hobbyist niche but mostly because of the 'misogyny', 'racism' etc. allegedly present in the gaming community.
This was, of course, absurd. Akin to declaring that the advent of the summer blockbuster and the chick flick meant that the identity of 'film buff' was dead. The groundless accusations made towards the gaming community were an attack, there was nothing meaningful there. That this came from the same media that – not so many years ago – had united with the gaming community against similar attacks gave it the outrage-energy of treachery. The combination of treachery and collusion – initially blamed on Silverstring Media but later discovered to be due to Gamejournopros – was too much to stand.
'Gamers are Dead' was a breakpoint in a slow-burning tension between the demands of the consumer for decent, impartial games reviews and the frustrated desires of games journalists to make their work more 'intellectual' and relevant. Gamers were tired of being constantly attacked by the likes of Sarkeesian, while games media lauded her and appeared to agree with her wacky analyses and failed to call her out for her failings. Sarkeesian was only the most visible symptom. Postmodern 'critical analysis' was infecting commentary and even reviews with increasing regularity and gamers were growing impatient with it interfering with their access to information.
You play games to escape; you read reviews and comments to learn about the games, not to be harangued with first-year gender studies analysis or to be proselytised to. Games are a fun pastime that's meant to make you feel good, fiction, an escape. They're not supposed to be a guilt trip.
The 'ringleader' of these articles appears to have been writer Leigh Alexander, writing for Gamasutra – at least she was the 'patient zero' for these attacks[114].
It's a nasty, squalid little article. It is full of nerd-shaming, which activates a 'race memory' of being bullied and marginalised that helped it incense gamers who thought we were past that shit, that 'nerd chic' was now a thing.
It dismisses online culture – that has proven itself to be so powerful since - as a crass, mercantile worship of Mammon, rather than fannish enthusiasm.
It fails – terrible in a supposed enthusiast press outlet – to understand that games are art, culture and that they genuinely matter. At the same time, the article paradoxically damns them for their deleterious effect in those same arenas.
It victim blames gamers for triggering the moral panics against them while furthering the new 'sexist' moral panic.
It unquestioningly and without investigation repeats the narrative of harassment and threats against women in the games industry, ignoring the similar attacks on men and not stopping to ask if it's true (listen and believe).
It doesn't acknowledge how open gaming always has been and particularly how it is now – as NotYourShield proved.
It even bemoans the complaints about poor journalistic ethics, while being an exemplar of those poor ethics, both as an article and in the shape of its writer! This was one of a set of articles conceived in private collusion, across outlets, presenting a united, attacking narrative. It is a genuine case of fake news, propaganda, a constructed spin on events.
Leigh Alexander is number 2 on Deepfreeze.it's list of shame with 23 ethical strikes against her. She double-booked her journalistic career with her work as a games consultant – a clear conflict of interest. She failed to disclose personal and financial relationships with numerous people that she promoted and wrote articles about. She was a member of Gamejournopros, despite lying about not being on the list. She viciously attacked writer Anne Rice, Youtuber Totalbiscuit and others. She threatened to blacklist people and end their careers. She engaged in and encouraged doxxing. She admitted deliberate bias and contempt for journalistic ethics and has made arguably racist statements while claiming to be progressive and anti-racist. A pattern repeated consistently amongst Social Justice Warriors.
This was the person leading the charge against Gamergate? Dismissing their concerns about journalistic ethics in games media? You could scarcely have chosen a worse person to defend games media against the charges being made.
I remember reading these articles as they came out. I didn't get angry, at least not so much as many people did. Rather I got sad. An enthusiast press should be making informed criticisms of its art form, not attacking it by agenda as these did. To have so many outlets working together to attack their audience – and by extension, their hobby – should have been unthinkable.
Gamejournopros Exposed
JournoList[115] was a private Google group for journalists, founded in 2007 and closed in 2010 after it was exposed and criticised. This was a list of some 400 journalists, academics and others with a left-wing slant. There is nothing inherently wrong with that of course, people with shared interests and shared careers talk all the time. The problem – as leaks from it exposed – was it being particularly nasty in its discussion and treatment of its ideological opponents. It wa
s also exposed as being involved in a cross-media collaboration to promote US Democratic Party talking points and perspectives. 'The News' still isn't supposed to be so brazenly partisan and the list was, quietly closed after this exposure.
Political commentator Tucker Carlson described what he saw in leaks from the group like this:
“That is not journalism, and those who engage in it are not journalists. They should stop pretending to be. The news organisations they work for should stop pretending, too.”
This was a pretty big scandal at the time. While there was an argument over what it meant and spirited attempts to defend it, it was ultimately shut down and the alleged practices, at least, were agreed not to be 'playing the game' in the manner that they should.
JournoList was the model for Gamejournopros, the existence of which was first exposed by Milo Yiannopoulos on Breitbart but confirmed by list member Kyle Orland. Gamejournopros wasn't as important, of course, being limited to games journalism, but about Gamergate's issues, it would prove to be incredibly important.
Discussion on the list included talk about using the controversy around Quinn and ethical issues to give her 'game' more exposure. It also contained pressure to censor discussion of the issue on site fora, to spread the ideas behind the 'Gamers are Dead' articles and to blacklist Allistair Pinsof, formerly of Destructoid. It also exposed close links with PR firms and numerous other ethically grey, if not necessarily 'black' actions.
This confirmed what many had suspected – and previously levelled at Silverstring Media – that there was collusion, that people were working to create a narrative and that it was a 'conspiracy'. It confirmed that there was blacklisting, and that pressure was being used to censor discussion. It showed that the ongoing story of Gamergate was being presented in an entirely one-sided way, on purpose.
Silverstring Media
Silverstring Media has come up a couple of times now, and it's worth making a quick diversion to explain who and what they are.
Silverstring Media is an intensely ideological PR company, heavily tied to a lot of the 'critics' and anti-gamergate journalists, as well as indie games designers who are broadly part of the same 'cabal'. While not necessarily propagated by them regarding the articles, the 'Gamers are Dead' concept was one they had pushed in the past. That, along with their games journalist links made them a leading suspect as a source of collusion until Gamejournopros was exposed.
Silverstring are, frankly, terrifying. Their ideological fanaticism is utterly fringe and very deep rooted. Leaks exposing them were anonymous, but seem to have been confirmed. They include spooky observations such as:
“This PR group Sarkeesian is tied to is fairly creepy. Heavily ideological, they hold retreat workshops for SJW concepts, with a sharply activist tone. Reminds us of Jesus Camp. They do workshops for game devs where they discuss 'dismantling hegemonic masculinity in the gaming industry', and do weird training activities like 'State Torture Jenga'. 'Hegemonic masculinity' - it's like they're quoting Gramsci's prison notebooks. Creepy.”
This is the ideologically biased and absolutist language one expects from a cult, not a PR firm.
They're attached to Sarkeesian and Feminist Frequency, amongst others.
Bring Back Bullying
A seemingly small thing, an example of the bad faith of journalists, blew up in Gawker's face and was the main contributor to Gamergate's part in its downfall. Gawker journalist Sam Biddle tweeted out the following in two posts, during the dust-up.
“Ultimately Gamergate is reaffirming what we've known to be true for decades; nerds should be constantly shamed and degraded into submission. Bring back bullying.”
Along with him, fellow Gawker journalist at feminist hate-site Jezebel offered a $10,000 reward for pictures of a Gamergate supporter they'd deign to fuck.
Others began to pile on.
This public display of bias and hatred was bad enough, but Biddle turned out to be advocating bullying and harassment during National Bully Prevention Awareness Month.
It was a spectacular own goal in a huge number of ways, even more so as more anti-gamergate journalists – and others – began to pile on, displaying the very (alleged) behaviour they had been criticising Gamergate for. In response, Gamergate donated over $16,000 to an anti-bullying charity and, not long after, instituted the Gamergate Harassment Patrol. This took an internal stand against trolling, doxxing and harassment, getting a huge number of such accounts banned - amongst other accomplishments.
These were journalists who should have been investigating the issues and getting to the truth. Instead, they participated in cheap point scoring and advocated for bullying and social shaming at the worst possible time to do so. Gamergate turned that into aid for a charity and increased its efforts to deal with genuine issues and to confound its false, negative image.
This was, of course, barely reported.
SPJ & Airplay
From almost the beginning of Gamergate, Gamers were citing the Society of Professional Journalists' standards for ethical journalism as a goal, and as examples of how those standards were being breached by games journalists. It was a common talking point, running right through Gamergate. When various outlets did concede to changing (or even just enforcing) their ethical standards, Gamergate cheered.
When the SPJ held a conference and used a hashtag on Twitter to coordinate people who were present there, Gamergate leapt onto the hashtag en masse. They dumped a huge amount of information about what was going on around Gamergate and tried to engage as many people as possible. Many involved with the conference were confused and had no idea what was going on, others were lied to and encouraged to sign up to block bots by anti-Gamergate
Some listened.
Maverick journalist Michael Koretzky became the most engaged person from the SPJ, excited and happy to see that so many people – many of them young – were so engaged with the idea of journalistic ethics. Koretzky engaged with the tag, asked questions, listened, then helped to organise a 'fair shake' for Gamergate at a second SPJ conference, a pair of panels – morning and afternoon – called AirPlay.
The panel participants could have been better chosen, and there was still a comprehension problem on the part of the SPJ, requiring a lot of explanation and background that ate up a lot of time. Still, there was, an eventual agreement that yes, the games journalists being pointed at by Gamergate were breaching the ethical standards of the profession by having – and not declaring – their incestuous friendships, romances, financial and other ties.
Perhaps more interesting is that despite precautions, forewarning and security awareness, the meeting received a bomb threat. This was not the only time threats, and misrepresentations would be used to try and deny Gamergate from meeting. Similar threats were claimed by anti-Gamergate groups. It is likely in both cases these were third party trolls and not dangerous, but what was interesting was that only the threats made against Gamergate were considered credible by law enforcement [117][118][119].
Despite these disruptions AirPlay went ahead, even continuing outside after the building had to be cleared. People's determination to continue their meeting and discuss the points related to it even drew praise from journalists at the broader SPJ conference, some of whom had been war correspondents[120].
Reforms
Some are dismissive of what Gamergate achieved, but it did accomplish a great deal in cleaning up Games media and in changing the environment around games reporting. This is not insignificant. It's worth pausing, today, in 2017, to consider – in retrospect – what changed.
Affiliate links on many sites were forced to be more visible.
Disclaimers and corrections were posted on existing attack articles against Gamergate, exposing links (such as those between Jenn Frank and Zoe Quinn in a Guardian article). Conflicts of interest and proper disclosures were also flagged up or edited in.
Ethics policies were enforced and updated.
Gamergate used their opposition's tactics
, successfully, to apply economic pressure to games sites acting in bad faith.
Games such as Hatred and Huniepop were protected from censorship.
It helped The Fine Young Capitalists complete their goal to help women in gaming.
Multiple resignations or 'retirements' of bad-faith games journalists, noted for ethical breaches occurred.
Over a hundred thousand dollars was raised for various charities.
Policies around Patreon and Crowdfunding were clarified or enacted.
Youtubers and other alternative outlets adopted public ethical policies.
Perhaps most importantly and of the most impact, the FTC in America revised its rules regarding affiliate links and sponsored articles. Something of importance to all Internet users, not just Gamergate people [121].
Beyond even that there was now an engaged and activated audience of gamers determined to protect the free expression of developers and the rights of consumers. There was now a massive 'all seeing' watchdog for the games industry that was constantly looking for any impropriety and putting it on blast.
Clickbait & Gawker
The ascent of click-bait seems to have stalled somewhat as people become more suspicious and more resentful of being lied to. During the main years of Gamergate, however, it was very much still a thing. Few sites were more notorious for pursuing click bait than Gawker and its collection of subsites (Jezebel, io9 and Kotaku in particular, when it came to games).
Inside Gamergate Page 11