Gawker's model was entirely devoted to clicks, and they were willing to ignore laws, accuracy and even common decency in pursuit of clicks and the advertising revenue that would follow. This would ultimately lead to the downfall of Gawker and the selling off of its assets after losing its legal fight with Hulk Hogan[122].
The click-bait model favours outrage, antagonism, catastrophizing, overstatement and setting people at each other's throats. It's easier to create a click-bait article that angers people than one that delights them. If you can get two sides fighting – especially in the comments – or linking to your article (whether to support or condemn) your hits, and your money, are going to go up.
In the climate leading up to Gamergate this attitude, prevalent across Internet media and news, was favouring the 'critics' and their spurious claims of sexism, racism and so forth. Such a story was bound to attract annoyed and incensed gamers, but also militant ideologues to defend the accusations. That was a recipe for flame-war after flame-war and increased partisanship between the two sides. It may also have driven the willingness of individual sites to indulge ideological criticism and attacks on their hobby. There was money in it and, up until Gamergate, the mobbing only came from one side.
The Gawker-owned (at the time) site Kotaku was very much at the centre of a lot of the early Gamergate issues. At the time it was playing host to Nathan Grayson, the initial source of the conflict of interest in the 'Quinnspiracy' precursor to Gamergate. Kotaku had a long history of click-bait and deliberately controversial articles had multiple journalists as part of Gamejournopros and repeatedly attacked Gamergate.
Even before Gamergate Kotaku was hated by many gamers, not only for its seeming ideological bias but for other actions it had taken. One example was the treatment of Brad Wardell, printing stories about a spurious sexual harassment suit that he was found innocent of, leaving an online trail that continues to cause him issues[123].
Its involvement in the initial controversies, Gamejournopros and continuous and ongoing attacks on Gamergate made Kotaku, Gawker, a prime target for Gamergate and the main site to be targeted and harmed by Operation Disrespectful Nod.
Gamergate's detractors have cited the attacks on Gawker and Kotaku, via their advertisers, as a case of hypocrisy by Gamergate regarding its anti-censorship position. While I had concerns about boycotts and going after advertisers in this way, for that reason, that doesn't seem quite so applicable when it comes to Gawker and Kotaku. While there were ethical issues on other sites that were targeted, some of them were relatively minor. Unlike those, Kotaku tended to make excuses for behaviour such as Grayson's and had to be forced harder to introduce ethical standards. As a part of Gawker, they were also tied up into illegal activity, as well as ethical breaches. In these cases, it's not really what is being said – and not so much a free speech issue – but moral, ethical and legal failings against which sanction would seem to be more justified.
Media Stupidity
Another huge problem with the media, and one that became ever more apparent through Gamergate was that they simply didn't know what they were doing or saying. There was no real understanding of Internet culture; there was a reliance upon the word of the games media. There was virtually no effort to reach out to Gamergate, and they repeatedly took everything that they were told at face value by Gamergate's supposed victims. Not only that but they were repeatedly and successfully, spectacularly, trolled. Something that goes on to this very day and even happens on gaming related sites which, if anyone at all, should know better.
Gamergate may have been the beginning of awareness about this, but it has since reached absurd heights. The apex, so far, of 'not getting it' was the furore over Pepe during the 2017 US election. A simple cartoon frog, turned into many, many memes, was transformed into a hate symbol by nothing more than the paranoia and stupidity of the American 'left', turning them into figures of fun. Trolls further managed to confuse news outlets into believing that the 'OK' hand gesture was, somehow, a white supremacist symbol[124] and this trend has only continued.
Perhaps one of the best examples of this, related to Gamergate, was the case of Veerender Jubbal.
Veerender was a game critic, vocal against Gamergate and also noteworthy for a high volume of racist, anti-white tweets. When Paris was attacked trolls photoshopped a picture of him and circulated it, including some Gamergate supporters, claiming the image was of one of the attackers[125]. Bad taste, perhaps, but the media picked up on and circulated the image uncritically, despite it being a rather obvious Photoshop, despite him being a Sikh and despite a great big dildo having been inserted into the background.
This not only 'punished' Veerender for slandering gamers and racism, but it also exposed the media's amateurishness and – as this prank was accused of being racist – laid bare the hypocrisy of many Social Justice activists.
I remember trying to engage with Jubbal, in my usual fairly reasonable but uncompromising way, trying to call him on his inaccuracies and racism. I was blocked in short order, a pattern we see throughout these discussions.
Gamergate Vs Revolt Vs Baphomet Vs Trolls
When it suits them, the media can discern between extremists, breakaway groups and the main body of any particular movement. Also, when it suits them, they are completely unable to do this self-same thing. This largely depends on their political slant – as we run into it in the regular media. If your group seems acceptable, you'll get more leeway than otherwise.
For example, right wing media and talk radio will leap on any opportunity to connect Black Lives Matter with threats to and attacks on police. They will also look for any excuse to dismiss such accusations made against 'lone wolf' far right shooters.
In reverse, the left wing media will look for any excuse to dismiss Islam as a cause for terrorism and will blow up the smallest far-right incident far beyond the relative scale of its seriousness. Both sides will use individuals to tar wholes when it suits them, and excuse the whole from actions of minority subgroups when they prefer.
As an amorphous, leaderless movement – a hashtag and set of fora in which just about anyone could post – it was easy for bad actors to masquerade as Gamergate. That isn't to say that there weren't bad actors in Gamergate. Just regarding sheer scale, it's almost certain there were, but this is true of just about any large scale group. Most of the time people understand that these fringes do not represent the whole – unless they have an agenda to push. The fact that trolls, that anyone, could use the tag did give Gamergate's enemies plenty of ammunition, even if it wasn't truly Gamergate.
That, at least, would take a modicum of skill or effort to decipher (a couple of clicks to look at someone's profile perhaps) but there were other instances that underlined the media's lack of understanding. Just as, previously, groups like Anonymous were referred to as '4chan', in the case of Gamergate whole boards – 8chan in this instance, were accused of 'being Gamergate'.
It became rapidly apparent that the media couldn't understand the nature of image boards or that different sections were, essentially, different communities (albeit with some crossover). Accusing a whole board because of one bad actor in one subset is like arresting everyone on a street because one guy – at number 12 – turned out to be a terrorist.
There was a dedicated 'attack board' on 8chan called Baphomet which was devoted to genuine harassment and doxxing. This was not, in any way, the same as the Gamergate boards on that site, yet was repeatedly cited as evidence of Gamergate-based harassment. Evidence was that they – and other trolling and attack groups – were going after both sides, fairly indiscriminately, though targets guaranteed to freak out were more frequent on the anti-Gamergate side.
Similarly, when outcast by the rest of Gamergate for their actions and craziness, 'Gamergate Revolt' was set up. It was a tiny splinter of far right and conspiracy theory nuts that were no longer part of the movement. Still, their insanity and bad actions were used to smear Gamergate as a whole. These were the people
who referred to the majority of Gamergate fixed on the real concerns of censorship and ethics as 'ethics cucks'. You can find the sad remnants of their group on endchan.
The mix of activism, ignorance and laziness was extremely harmful to the mainstream image of Gamergate and, more broadly, should make us all concerned about the quality of our news. If media outlets are relying on Wikipedia, getting one-sided points of view and making assumptions without investigation, how can we rely on their information about anything?
It has become something of a game, now, to lure the media in to believing something nonsensical and taking it seriously. During Gamergate's battles with its opponents, both the media and those opponents grasped at every straw to try and discredit Gamergate as a hate movement. One of the more egregious examples of this was Jace Connors[126]. Connors, a rather unfunny Internet comedian of the cringe variety, posted an unhinged Youtube rant directed against anti-Gamergate personality Brianna Wu. Wu, of course, took this seriously – or pretended to – and parts of the media followed her cue. It was such an obvious troll it beggared belief that anyone would take it seriously, but it was far from the only one. Other figures had taken – and continue to take – the Navy Seal Copypasta[127] as a serious threat against their life.
These mistakes are a source of hilarity to those who know and understand the Internet – like Gamergate – but with so many people being unfamiliar with Internet and Gamer culture, many take these things at face value. The Internet may be part of broader culture now, but it is still its space, with its own rules, memes and ways of expressing itself and it is vulnerable to being misunderstood by those not steeped in that culture. There's also a big difference between people who use the Internet and people who live there.
Chapter Six: Harassment, Violence & Censorship
Perhaps the biggest swirl of controversy around Gamergate was centred on the question of whether it was a harassment campaign and whether that harassment campaign was racist, sexist, misogynist and so forth. Many seemed to think that it was some outpouring of grief by 'cishetwhitemale' gamers at being intruded upon and losing a position of power.
Needless to say, I do not believe that it was and I think it can be shown that it was not. Still, despite that, people on all sides did suffer some genuine harassment, and it is all but impossible to tell, in many cases, where that harassment came from.
That this was allowed, and used to derail the possibility of debate and détente was one of the greatest tragedies of the whole affair for me. It was wrong that Gamergate had to constantly swat down these accusations and demonstrate their bona-fides while their opposition did not, despite much more visibly doing harm. There are – and remain – genuine discussions and debates to be had about corruption, ethics, censorship, diversity and 'safety' on the Internet.
Perhaps one day we can have those conversations. Recently there have been some signs that the two sides – in a more general sense – are becoming willing to talk. I hope it succeeds.
Was Gamergate a Harassment Campaign?
So much of the anti-Gamergate narrative hinges on the idea that was a harassment campaign, that it was, somehow, conceived of entirely to harass female and minority developers. This beggars belief from the get-go, the idea that tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people, just got up one day and decided to attack women in gaming because reasons. Under closer examination, it would seem to fail as well.
The reasons for the reactions to Quinn, and others were not based – once we got into Gamergate – on their gender, but their bad actions and their irrational activism. As things progressed, the continued exploitation of Gamergate for pity and publicity furthered soured gamers towards people like Quinn and Sarkeesian, and it was constantly and consistently their actions and ideology that caused the reactions. It was never anyone's gender, race or other minority status.
Definitions
Regarding semantics, harassment is 'aggressive pressure and intimidation', it is also implied that it has to be ongoing. Legally speaking, in the UK, it is taken to mean 'repeated, unwanted, imposed communications and contact'. It must be both sent and received as harassment and must be oppressive and – perhaps most importantly – unreasonable. Both individuals and groups can be harassed under this definition, but there are examples – such as a doctor being subjected to repeated negative assertions – that were not considered harassment as they could be easily dismissed.
It also does not seem to be harassment when you are drawing attention to someone's wrongdoing or arguing with them. It is not harassment to disagree with someone or to say that they 'suck'. It would be libel (or slander, depending on context) to accuse someone of something if it were untrue, but not if it were true – or seemed to be true to a reasonable person.
Harassment, then, is something rather particular. Argument, disagreement – even en masse – cannot reasonably be construed to be harassment. When you have engaged in bad actions, when you are or have become a public figure, and you participate in controversial topics and ideological posturing, opposition cannot – usually – be considered harassment. To accuse an entire group of such a particular crime by the supposed and unproven actions of a minority of that group also does not seem reasonable.
Evidence
So what evidence is there for or against harassment by Gamergate?
It is entirely true that Gamergate has argued with journalists, 'critics' and others involved in nepotism, corruption and spreading falsehoods. It is also true that the group as a whole made significant efforts to spread knowledge of its purpose and to challenge people involved in poor actions.
It is understandable, from some points of view, why those challenges might be taken – or at least characterised as harassment. When you are one person being challenged by thousands of people, this can also be overwhelming. All of this was merely down to Gamergate's nature as an emergent, disorganised protest, not deliberate acts of harassment or dog-piling. This was no more mob harassment than a hundred letters sent to a TV station after a brief flash of nipple is.
Others point to the beginning of Gamergate as some evidence of harassment. They claim Gamergate to be all about harassing Quinn, at the behest of her 'harassing ex-boyfriend'. This is, of course, a 'poisoning the well' fallacy and, as we have already covered in this book does not reflect either the origin nor the ongoing nature of Gamergate. That assessment also doesn't relate what happened. Indeed so irrelevant did Quinn become to Gamergate, despite the insistence of its opposition, that a nickname 'Literally Who?' was coined to underline her virtual irrelevance.
Despite this, the claims of harassment persisted and are still repeated to this day, even though the statistical evidence doesn't support this narrative. The Women Action Media report into Gamergate harassment demonstrated that less than 0.66% of supposedly Gamergate related accounts (on a list that was meant to be the worst of the worst) were engaged in harassment. Most likely less than this amount, given the loose criteria for being a 'Gamergate account'[128].
Newsweek did their investigation into alleged Gamergate harassment which, on the surface, appeared slightly more damning. A statistician associated with Gamergate dug into it, examined its methodology and results and found that it painted quite a different picture to the one being claimed[129]. It showed that for all Gamergate – understandably – engaged with its critics and cultural enemies; it was twice as engaged with exactly the topics it said it was. Ethics and censorship. A lot of other posts were communications, 'shitposting' (just posting memes and nonsense) and internal communication.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the FBI exonerated Gamergate in their report into harassment and threats supposedly made against some of the chief figures in anti-Gamergate[130]. None of these threats were found to be credible, and none were linked to Gamergate – while threats made against Gamergate were found to be credible, separate to this report.
Given the size and openness of Gamergate, there's little doubt that some genuine harassment occurred on the p
art of 'true' members. I've run into bad actors within Gamergate myself (or at least formerly in Gamergate and then in breakaway groups like Gamergate Revolt and others). Nonetheless, on the weight of the evidence, it is simply not credible to call Gamergate harassers or to damn the whole thing as some misogynistic hate group. The evidence simply isn't there, quite the contrary.
Gamergate Harassment Patrol
Gamergate made a huge amount of effort to counter the harassment narrative being spun about it. They shouldn't have had to, as there was no evidence, but the accusations were effective and did create problems for the movement as a whole. None of these counter-efforts made that much difference to the narrative. In the same way that NotYourShield were dismissed as sock puppets, internalised misogynists and Uncle Toms (by white, male, middle-class hipster SJWs) so the Gamergate Harassment Patrol was similarly dismissed or ignored, even blamed.
The point of the GGHP, started by Allsailhatan, was to collectivise reporting of genuinely abusive behaviour and trolling on Twitter. Attention would be brought to such conduct, and the AHP would then mass report it, 'gaming' the Twitter report system at the time to help ensure that action was taken.
This was incredibly successful in dealing with a great many trolls and abusers who were trying to latch onto or exploit the tag but, as mentioned before, it did no good. As a result, the effort began to fall away as their efforts weren't being recognised and they were being blamed for harassment as well as being undermined from within Gamergate by the free speech extremists. Why labour so much on behalf of your enemies when they won't acknowledge your effort or apologise for implicating you in mass harassment?
Inside Gamergate Page 12