Inside Gamergate

by James Desborough

  “It's OK when we do it.”

  People even went back through my old work, going back ten years or more, looking for anything and everything that could be interpreted – however uncharitably – as being questionable through a 'social justice' lens. Humour (however crude) was taken seriously, so long as it suited the narrative and they read all sorts of things into my writing that simply weren't there.

  Ever since then everything I have ever done or said has been held under a microscope, and these spurious accusations have flared up time and time again. Whenever I have made satirical games or offered free material, it has been down-voted, given one-star ratings and ranted about. There are hate posts everywhere, and I have had material censored from sales outlets by outrage-merchants and pressure from other games companies. Possibly antitrust, but on a small publishing scale there's not a lot you can do about it.

  All of this for merely defending the right of artists to have access to the full gamut of free expression. It's absurd, like insisting a painter isn't allowed to use 'burnt umber' in their paintings. It primed me to be sympathetic to Gamergate as they fought similar battles in similar arenas. I can tell you from personal experience that the things Gamergate was concerned about absolutely have merit, real harm is being done to many creative enterprises by the intrusion of politics and activism.

  The Battle for Wikipedia

  For all that the Internet is an incredible information resource, it has choke-points for information, commerce and news. These are places that a lot of people refer to and which are treated uncritically, or which have a disproportionate effect on opinion making. Amazon is such a choke point for commerce, Facebook and Twitter for social communication – which makes preventing censorship on those platforms very important. As a general purpose information source, there's Wikipedia.

  For a (somewhat) openly editable resource, Wikipedia is incredibly well trusted. This isn't entirely without justification. For all that there is a lot of academic snobbery about Wikipedia it has consistently been found to be as, or more, accurate than other encyclopaedias[150]. This is, generally right, particularly when it comes to mathematics and scientific entries, but it breaks down completely when it comes to contentious social and political issues.

  Needless to say, Gamergate was a contentious social issue.

  Almost immediately from when an entry for Gamergate was created it began to run into problems from activist editors who deleted the initial stub. This kind of problem would continue with deletions of information related to the Gamejournopros list – supposedly related to 'notability'. Particularly dogged in biasing and attacking the article was the editor 'Ryulong' who wreaked havoc upon the article until finally being banned. He now appears to be the main admin for related articles over on the misnamed 'Rationalwiki' where his full bias is on show, without moderation or oversight.

  In the aftermath of all the conflicts and editing wars over the 'Gamergate Controversy' page, it has been tied down and protected from open edits. It remains horrendously biased and given – sadly – that Wikipedia is the first stop for so many people, including journalists, it's bias and misrepresentation has a huge reach and impact.

  The Wikipedia article erroneously describes Gamergate as a harassment campaign.

  It claims that it specifically targeted women, which it did not.

  It conflates the anonymous trolling and abuse with Gamergate's objections and investigations.

  It offers none of the evidence or support links for Gamergate's issues, only for its enemies.

  It characterises Gjoni's 'Zoe Post' as a 'disparaging blog post' rather than a warning from a man escaping from an abusive relationship.

  It characterises Gamergate as right wing and reactionary, which does not fit the studies into Gamergate's politics.

  The entire article is grotesquely slanted and even on the talk page criticism of its stance and bias has been deleted. It is a prime example of bias and activist editing – something that isn't uncommon[151]. The treatment of the Gamergate community in trying to correct the record on Wikipedia, the state of the article itself, it's moderation, and the ignoring of complaints has been in direct contravention of Wikipedia's stated principles[152].

  The problems with this, the harm it has done to an innocent community, the knock-on effect of bad reporting and the damage it has done to Wikipedia's reputation across a vast swathe of the online community cannot be overstated.

  Calgary Expo

  Gamergate supporters have had all manner of issues relating to conventions and shows, largely down to the misapprehension that they are a 'hate group' or a 'harassment campaign'. Convention spaces have increasingly been bringing in 'anti-harassment policies' that have very little to do with harassment and a lot more to do with censorship and controlling content. Many of these policies are derived from the rather partisan and ideological example, found on the 'Geek Feminism Wiki'[153].

  These policies are often extremely vague, intervene in matters best left to the police, and if enforced would ruin many events. The advent of these policies has been of concern to many attendees and exhibitors since they amount to carte-blanche ability of any convention attendee to make a spurious complaint and have you ejected without any investigation or oversight.

  Speaking for myself, attending and displaying at a convention in London, I examined the new anti-harassment policy they had brought in and surveyed the show. If the policy had been enforced, many cosplayers would have been ejected, and about half of the stalls would have to have been closed due to the content of their products.

  These problems go back further still, with tech conferences. In 2013 sex/security blogger Violet Blue had a talk cancelled at a conference due, simply, to the talk discussing sex, drugs, dangers, consent and surrounding issues. All it took was one attendee – who could have skipped the talk – complaining that they would be triggered, and it got pulled[154].

  This brings us to the Calgary Expo.

  The Honey Badger Brigade, a (mostly) female Men's Human Rights group had booked a stall at the show, seemingly without any problems. They had become associated with Gamergate through helping to publicise it and sharing some issues with Gamergate around bad publicity and being unable to get a fair shake in the media. They had merchandise combining their own 'badger' imagery with that of Gamergate mascot Vivian James and intended to attend panels on feminism and representation in geek media, to give an alternative point of view. They were also there to promote and sell the comic work of Honey Badger member Alison Tieman.

  To start with it appeared there were no problems, though apparently there was some whispering and questioning when it came to their presence there. Nobody directly confronted them. Then they attended a panel and had the temerity to speak up – quite respectfully – and question the assumptions of a panel during the Q&A[155].

  Despite the recording of the panel, despite not having done anything, they were then challenged the following day and told they had to leave. This was also, in part, due to an inaccurate, and frankly, libellous article in The Mary Sue[156].

  While a convention has the right to throw people out for 'any reason' (as you'll find in most such small print) that 'any reason' is held to the legal standard that a 'reasonable person' would agree. Things are further complicated by the fact that the Calgary Expo was partially funded by public money. Publicly funded events being subject to different regulations about free speech and your right to attend. In any event, the Honey Badgers are now embroiled in a legal case against both the Calgary Expo and The Mary Sue, which is yet to finish working its way through the Canadian courts, at the time of publication[157].

  The abuse of anti-harassment policies can, ironically, be considered harassment in and of itself. The fact that the Honey Badgers were expelled from a convention, simply for participating in (if disagreeing) with a panel is deeply concerning. Similarly many attempts to have panels and discussions about Gamergate have been disallowed or cancelled due to lobbying and spurious 'saf
ety' concerns. The lack of debate, the lack of opportunity to present alternative points of view is a problem far bigger than just Gamergate.

  While this book was being written a new convention controversy erupted after Youtube personality Sargon of Akkad (Carl Benjamin) and many other anti-Social Justice Warrior critics attended a panel at Vidcon, the Youtube convention, that included Anita Sarkeesian. They were only there to listen and to, perhaps, ask questions during the Q&A but Sargon was subjected to abuse from Sarkeesian and those who tried to ask questions were ignored and even ejected. That Sarkeesian suffered no punishment or sanction for her breaking of the convention harassment policy indicates a double standard, which is another problem with these kinds of ad hoc regulations.

  RedditRevolt & Youtube Censorship

  The atmosphere around Gamergate has contributed to a much broader problem online and in social media around 'safety', 'harassment' and the seeming incompatibility between ideological, commercial and user desires. A skirmish that occurred alongside Gamergate that exemplified this clash was The Reddit Revolt[158].

  The Reddit Revolt was a bucking against an unpopular firing and creeping censorship on the Reddit platform, a platform that had been set up and established on a free expression basis. When well-liked Reddit employee and force behind its popular 'Ask Me Anything' section, Victoria Taylor, was fired – for opaque reasons that immediately fell under suspicion.

  As a protest at least 300 different subreddits 'went dark', reducing traffic and registering their disapproval of this being done. Victoria had been a face at Reddit that was visible and available to moderators, helping to prevent it from being a faceless company and making people feel cared for and valued.

  In what many considered to be retaliation for this act of defiance, interim CEO Ellen Pao (perhaps more well known for starting a failed harassment suit[159]) began a crackdown on subreddits. This included many of those that had protested the firing. Many of these subreddits were what might be termed 'problematic', some genuinely vile, but Reddit had, until now, been as hands off as possible. Reddit had always been founded and rooted in the Internet culture of free expression, and a change to that was never going to go well. Pao, now being humorously referred to as 'Chairman Pao' by those arrayed against her, was trying to make Reddit more commercially viable, family friendly and 'safer' by cleaning house.

  Needless to say, this was not what most Redditors wanted, and they rose up against her en masse, in a manner not dissimilar to Gamergate. Much as happened with Gamergate, Pao was defended with accusations of misogyny and 'tech-bro' directed at her critics. Strangely, when it came to Reddit, this didn't stick, and Pao left under a cloud, resigning (or possibly 'resigning') as the revolt amongst Reddit's userbase grew stronger and stronger, and it became apparent it wasn't going to work.

  Similar issues around censorship and the balance between ideology, user base and commerciality have plagued Facebook and Twitter as well, with both tending to shift away from pleasing their userbase to trying to please commercial interests. Nowhere has this been more apparent, contemporary to the publication of this book, than on Youtube.

  Youtube has become hugely important as video content has become more viable and ubiquitous with the spread of higher speed Internet on a larger scale basis. It has become a major platform, particularly for citizen journalists, commentators and alternative media. There are many commentators and alternative news sources on Youtube that have far higher subscriber counts and levels of engagement than professional, traditional news sources. It's not just make-up tutorials, narcissistic Instagram models and sneezing pandas. To many, this has been incredibly liberating, and for successful Youtube personalities, the ability to make money through advertising on Youtube allowed them to make it their full-time career.

  While Youtube was always somewhat more constricted (disallowing adult content for example), it was, also, from its founding steeped in the same, anti-censorship Internet culture as Reddit and Twitter. It was an open platform for people to share, with the minimum of disruption and oversight. Over time that has changed, with the 'game' shifting and making old models of successful behaviour on Youtube fail and others rise. Nothing has been so devastating as the 'adpocalypse'[160] however.

  According to somewhat irresponsible reports, advertising on Youtube was appearing next to 'extremist content' – though quite what amounts to 'extremist content' seems to be slightly contentious. The definition has varied from far-right channels and content to ironic racism and even men's rights proponents[161]. This is a hugely broad area of space to be labelled 'extreme'. Individual Youtube personalities have also come under attack. Most notably Youtube star Pewdiepie[162] for his edgy humour and use – in particular – of Fiverr to expose just how willing people were to do terrible, silly things for as little as five dollars.

  Some of this appears to be jealously from the legacy media, unable to compete with or understand the rise of new media. Some of it seems to be a lack of understanding – failing to recognise that advertising is placed by an algorithm and does not imply endorsement. Some of it appears to be the same old pursuit of click-bait headlines.

  Whatever the causes, the effect of these faux-concerns about safety, extremism and 'un-PC views' ha been devastating. The meaningless scandal sucked advertising money out of Youtube, dropping some channel's income from a respectable living to virtually nothing in the space of a handful of days [163].

  This crisis has massively hit, in particular, current affairs channels, commentary and criticism channels, horror channels and many others. Youtube has gone from being an open platform to a massively over-curated platform that shies away from monetizing things on an absolute hair trigger. Hopefully, this will shake down over time, but it does illustrate exactly how harmful to a platform, and its user base, such panic-led censorship can be and how Gamergate's concerns are valid in a broader context.

  CON Leaks & ZachAttack

  So far we've mostly talked about the accusations made towards Gamergate, and the lack of evidence that Gamergate as a whole was involved in any genuine harassment, doxxing or threats. We haven't examined the threats and actions from the other side so much, save the history of Zoe Quinn.

  As with the accusations made towards Gamergate, it's impossible to tell – a lot of the time – where the abuse coming the other way genuinely comes from due to Internet anonymity. Certainly, a lot of nastiness is attributable to various anti-Gamergate figures, because they were less shy of using their names and faces, secure in the power their position and ideology gave them. A lot of this back and forth, swearing, etc. is harmless and it would be as hypocritical to upbraid them for 'banter' as it was for them to uphold a double standard over it.

  There are two cases, however, in which we have unimpeachable evidence of bad faith action on the part of people in the anti-Gamergate grouping.

  The CON leaks are, perhaps, the biggest deal about Gamergate as a whole. CON – a little on the nose for an acronym – stands for 'Crash Override Network'. This was the supposed anti-harassment scheme and group set up by Zoe Quinn and friends to aid victims of online harassment. She likes to think she's the victim of harassment, rather than someone being called out for bad behaviour, so this sort of makes sense. Several people from Gamergate, being attacked by various groups, had tried contacting them for help and had been rebuffed. Other people – neutral – had gone to them for help and later complained about being given the cold shoulder because they weren't high profile enough. In the end, though, it was these leaks from a Skype group – confirmed as accurate by a member – that were most damning[164].

  There's a lot to it and a lot to dig through. Some of the highlights from it do include, however:

  Admission of sabotage regarding the Polaris Game Jam.

  Attempts to frame the owner of 8chan as a paedophile.

  Discussion of blacklisting and job sabotage.

  Lying about the involvement of sexual harassers within their group.

  Racism towards
the Japanese.

  Randi Harper engaging in doxxing of Gamergate members, supported by Katherine Cross.

  Targeting of feminist game critic and presenter Liana Kerzner for being the wrong kind of feminist.

  Threats of violence, harassment and more.

  In short, everything they ever accused Gamergate of doing, they were engaged in themselves, and even under the auspices of a supposed 'anti-harassment group' while they were doing it. I got off relatively lightly personally, with nothing more than a dismissal of my depression and my suicide attempt, this from people who exhort everyone to 'listen and believe' to victims.

  The ZachAttack[165] was something much more personal, but just as revealing. This was an elaborate sting operation set up by a Gamergate member called 'Mombot'. Mombot claims to be a Japanese woman, a medical translator and a mother. As a member of Gamergate, she has been something of a thorn in the side of anti-Gamergate for some time. As a woman and a racial minority (at least in the USA), her mere existence challenges the false narratives about Gamergate that they have spread. Whether Mombot genuinely is any of these things I couldn't tell you, but – perhaps emboldened by the exposure of Allison Prime as a catfish, anti-Gamergate decided to try and go after Mombot.

  Multiple times Mombot came under attack and was told she was fake, some of her attackers claimed to know her 'real' identity. This struck her as hypocritical coming from supposed feminists and from people who claimed to be against harassment and doxxing. As a result, Mombot and another user named Rudderhouse set out to create a trap. One would ally themselves with anti-Gamergate and feed them false information, while Mombot would archive this information and release it once they tried to blackmail or dox her.