Inside Gamergate

by James Desborough

  Over several months they built up a fake dossier called 'Zachary Miller', complete with an embarrassing social media presence. They fed this to the anti-Gamergate people they considered to be the nastiest and most over-eager to go on the offensive. Those targets fell for it hook, line and sinker.

  In the wake of the CON leaks things were rather heated, and since Mombot had been amongst the first to publicise those leaks, she came in for rather concerted and vicious attack. It was in this context that the final step of the ZachAttack was triggered.

  The anti-Gamergate group, including noteworthys such as Izzy Galvez (Internet abuse specialist at Amazon) and Palle Hoffstein (creative director at Ubisoft), went in for the kill. Mombot faked 'Twittercide' and deleted the fake accounts to make things seem more real.

  The anti-Gamergate people celebrated their 'victory', but it was short lived as the truth came out and they were revealed as harassers and doxxers by a second set of leaks. In both of these instances there is direct, absolute proof of collusion, harassment and doxxing yet nobody appears to have lost their jobs or to have been disciplined for what they did. More double standards.

  Meanwhile, there remains no evidence directly linking Gamergate to any genuine harassment. Something rather remarkable for what was an open hashtag that anyone could use.

  Cashing In: From Milo to Sarkeesian

  Depending who you ask, and when you ask them, Gamergate was either a tremendously important sociopolitical moment with implications reaching as high as US elections[166] or a meaningless Internet slap fight. Whichever way you look at it, it was ripe for exploitation while it was at its height, and it continues to pull people's attention. Gamergate has been amorphous and indistinct enough (at least in the mass media view) to fuel pre-existing narratives, to push ideology, to draw clicks and to be blamed (or lionised) for anything and everything. It's a great source of sympathy, outrage, virtue signalling and pandering – on all sides.

  Gamergate's desperation for the faintest inkling of fair treatment, or to get its – genuine – message out there, also made it extremely vulnerable to exploitation. Despite warning about that, I was one of any number of people who let it slide for the sake of expediency. Even now, looking back, I'm not sure whether that was a mistake or not.

  Milo & the New-Right

  One of the main reasons Gamergate became – erroneously – connected with the right wing is down to the support and intervention of controversial, right-wing (and flamingly homosexual) journalist Milo Yiannpoulos. At the time Milo was working for right-wing mouthpiece Breitbart, a tiresome online Tabloid which, despite it's Turbo-Hitler rightward slant does, still, occasionally produce some useful journalism and commentary[167].

  Whatever else you might think of Milo, he certainly has a nose for controversy and appears to have seen multiple opportunities for himself, Breitbart and the right wing in Gamergate. As a result, Breitbart was the first, and practically the only, site to give Gamergate a fair shake[168] and to provide it with consistent support, right up to the present day, in stark contrast to other outlets.

  Now, this was very strange, especially given Gamergate's leftward slant in its membership and politics, but both Breitbart's wingnuts and Gamergate's activists both had issues with 'political correctness gone mad' and the anti-intellectual, anti-debate attitudes of Social Justice activists. There was a common cause in anti-censorship and free expression. Gamergate's objections might not necessarily have been towards the goals, but rather the methods. The right-wing's objections might have been both, but Gamergate and the populist right had a common enemy in the censorious, authoritarian left, and a common cause in more libertarian cultural attitudes. It's important to reiterate that this did not make Gamergate right wing and that's true of much of the online counter-culture, a mistake repeatedly made in the book 'Kill All Normies' by Angela Nagle.

  Many of us in Gamergate were wary of this development – with good reason – but this was, ultimately, a beneficial circumstance for Gamergate, even though it got it tarred as right wing and reactionary. Gamergate was never going to win the hearts and minds of the Social Justice Warriors and their camp followers anyway. There was no real point courting them. The movement's willingness to align on a handful of issues, regardless of other politics, stood it in good stead and allowed it to accept support from the right without compromising its ideals. This also helped to expose its enemies.

  However, Breitbart – and Milo – weren't doing this out of the goodness of their hearts or through a devotion to objective journalism. Milo could afford to be objective about Gamergate because it was arrayed against people that he regarded as the enemies of the right. He didn't need to agree with Gamergate to land a blow against their mutual enemies. Involvement with Gamergate was also a way to demonstrate to the outdated, old fashioned and ageing right-wing the importance of the online world. It also showed the appeal of a more libertarian (especially social) stance and the power of a more youthful, irreverent group.

  It was utterly cringeworthy to see so many right-wing podcasters and talk-radio hosts suddenly bringing up games and trying to be 'down with the kids' though. Hideous pandering.

  Milo, expertly, before his downfall[169], rode and exploited the Gamergate issue, amongst others, to boost his profile and to garner himself an engaged and supportive online audience. It appears to have been as much about self-promotion for him as any right-wing agenda. As he ascended he began to drop Gamergate, his book on the conflict seems like it will never appear, but he is now launching his independent career off the backs of Gamergate and his college tour. Including his book 'Dangerous'.

  The right-wing, meantime, has indeed managed to engage much more successfully with the youth by presenting a more irreverent, culturally and economically libertarian viewpoint (that tends to resonate more with young people than classical conservatism). Embarrassingly, Paul Joseph Watson (Infowars) is probably right when he describes Conservatism as the new counter-culture[170]. While he's probably wrong when he describes it as the new punk rock, it does at least 'rhyme' with some punk sensibilities. With Johnny Rotten selling out to pimp butter to his ageing peer group, it's not such a stretch.

  Populist conservatism may be enjoying something of a renaissance politically, but culturally, academically, educationally the field is almost entirely in the control of progressive – sometimes extremely progressive – viewpoints. Worse, these people still think of themselves as the rebels, and not as the establishment, while conservatives seem themselves – mostly – as the establishment, and not the rebels.

  Internet culture's irony, fakery and 'fronting' makes it hard to work out what is serious and what isn't. Only those on the inside can decode what is truly meant. This can, unfortunately, provide cover for genuine bigots. Even if 90% of 4Chan's /pol/ board (politically incorrect, far-right seeming views) is ironic or for shock value, some of it is serious. An outsider, an uninitiated observer, has little or no chance of telling what is sincere or not. Further, those steeped in Internet culture who are not on the right have no compunction using and re-purposing right-wing memes or anti-semitic cartoons (such as the Happy Merchant) for other uses, without the baggage[171].

  When people misunderstand this use of memes, it only makes them seem stupid and hopelessly outdated to anyone who is remotely in the know. To the extent 'meme magic' had any pull on the US election it was only this; making Hilary Clinton look hopelessly out of touch[172]. This same cluelessness, in other arenas, has helped feed the rise of the Alt-Right. This started out as – perhaps – something more of a libertarian alternative to the 'cucked' centre right and slid even more rightward as, ironically, it was accused of virtual (or literal) Nazism. At least that's how it occurred in the public eye. It is, perhaps, more accurate to say that there was a fight over the meaning of the term between the populist right and the far-right. The far-right won in the end, ironically with the help of the liberal media.

  Gamergate may not have been right-wing as a whole, but parts of
it were, and many people were pulled to the right by the sheer disingenuous nature of the media and Social Justice activists towards it. Meanwhile, the right certainly learned to tap into the online and youth spaces in a way that put their opposition to shame, and they acquired the skills of meme-making and 'shitposting'.

  All of this was avoidable if only regular media outlets had given Gamergate a fair shake in the first place. So much of this was a monster of their making through their bias, their censorship and through the 'Gamers Are Dead' articles.

  Brianna Wu

  Brianna Wu is an absurd, and frankly tragic, figure who successfully managed to self-insert themselves into Gamergate as a form of self-promotion. They are now (at the time of writing) trying to parley their self-inflicted victim status into a political career[173]. Wu would probably have passed beneath Gamergate's notice if she hadn't tried to draw their attention, but she deliberately drew a big target on her behind and hung it over the parapet while screaming 'Shoot me!' With so many people involved in Gamergate, someone was bound to take the bait, 'gater or troll.

  Wu's first attempt to get Gamergate's attention was to create a secondary Twitter account 'Brololz'[174] claiming it as some protest against 4Chan's 'sockpuppet' supporters of Gamergate. It was desperately unfunny and barely noticed, as well as being based on a mostly false premise about the opposition.

  Wu then tried again to garner Gamergate's attention by posting a series of mocking memes, using an image – unfortunately – taken from an autism charity. This, again, went about as well as expected[175] ending only in more mocking of Wu and far funnier subversions of her attempts to create a 'forced meme'.

  Following this, she was doxxed on 8Chan's Gamergate board. This was condemned by Gamergate members, many of whom stayed up late into the night spamming the dox off the board so they couldn't be seen or used. She was also hit on Twitter with spammed abuse and spurious threats which – apparently – prompted her to call the police. These were also mass reported and countered by members of Gamergate, but this was again conveniently ignored. Whoever this abuser was, they were not – seemingly – connected with Gamergate in any meaningful way.

  Wu finally managed to get attention both from the media and from Gamergate through a series of unhinged interviews on Huffington Post, David Pakman and others. There she repeatedly blamed anyone and everyone Gamergate-related for the threats on her life, which nobody but her took seriously. Apparently for a good reason since the FBI and other law enforcement agencies found nothing credible about them. Something Wu, again, took issue with, making law enforcement rather than Gamergate the subject of her ire for a time and leading to bewildered emails by law enforcement officials being made public.

  Since then, to anyone in the know, Wu has been something of a 'lolcow'. She can be relied upon to say inane and silly things for attention (such as claiming the Nintendo character Samus is transgender) and to take nonsense far too seriously. Wu has also been somewhat discredited by former employees[177] and has even clashed with others who have also attempted to exploit Gamergate to raise their profiles[178].

  Claiming victim status doesn't appear to have helped Wu's career, her terrible game – Revolution 60 – bombed, even without Gamergate's help to do so. Mass ranks of feminist support for the 'embattled developer' never manifested themselves, probably down to Wu's obnoxious and exploitative personality. Wu does, however, seemed to have managed to wangle themselves something of a career as a professional victim, telling sob stories about herself. That seems to be the basis upon which she is making this run on her State Congress. It's an Internet safety/harassment ticket, but rooted in inaccurate data about those issues and threatening privacy and freedom. Wu's ideas surrounding these issues appear to be dangerous and resource consuming, demanding that law enforcement take non-credible online threats seriously, treat spurious online threats the same way as in person threats and jailing people for heat-of-the-moment comments. The threats to Wu may have been meaningless and harmless, but the threat Wu poses to a free internet – in the unlikely event of her being elected – is very real.

  It's a struggle not to be horrible to Wu. Their transgender status makes it very easy for them to cry 'bigot' when you object to anything they do. Their appearance is wild, unkempt and more than a little crazy. Unfortunately, the person is so tied up and entangled in their crazy ideas that to criticise the one is taken to be abuse to the other. They're also married to Frank Wu, an artist caught up and involved in the whole set of 'Sad Puppies' issues around the Hugo Awards. I gave up trying to communicate meaningfully with Wu quite early on, just as well since they quickly began using the block bot.

  Randi Harper

  Randi Harper is a sort of 'third tier' exploiter of the Gamergate controversy, below even Brianna Wu, but she is notable for a number of reasons. Those are primarily her creation of the 'Good Game Autoblocker' (part of the disturbing tendency of people to deliberately place themselves in online echo chambers) and her founding of the 'Online Abuse Prevention Initiative'. This is a group that has apparently done nothing, but is allied with the equally dubious, do-nothing money-sink the 'Crash Override Network'.

  For an anti-harassment campaigner, Harper has engaged in a tremendous amount of online abuse and harassment, running multiple people off Twitter with ill-treatment and nastiness from herself and her follower base[179]. She was even, essentially, forced out of the FreeBSD community, to which she had been contributing for some time, for self-aggrandising claims and nasty behaviour[180].

  Despite all this hypocrisy Harper seems to have tagged along to various events and talks, been to Google, been involved in CON's doxxing and other bad actions and still seems rather untouched by her terrible behaviour. The contention that she is an exploiter of controversy seems supported – even more so – by the fact that in 2010 she was reporting that she had never experienced harassment. Further, she said that women claiming so were seeking attention and publicity. Perhaps this was a self-fulfilling prophecy[181].

  Harper's listing of people as 'harassers' and the accessible nature of the blocker database led me to send legal letters to both her and 'Oolon' of the Atheism Plus block bot regarding libel which, thankfully, resulted in some changes. I should rather see such politically based block lists removed altogether as I think they create echo chambers, but there's only so much you can do. I also – briefly – fell for one of Harper's 'clogbots' that posted nonsense to the Gamergate hashtag, something that many commentators have made a great deal of. What kind of person does that kind of thing though, and does it breach Twitter's terms of service?

  Katherine Clark & Other Politicians

  Katherine Clark is a Democrat representative in Massachusetts and one of a number of overtly 'Social Justice Warrior', post-third-wave, authoritarian feminists found in modern politics. In the UK her equivalent would, perhaps, be the MP Jess Phillips who has made similar calls for increased censorship and control of the Internet under the banner of 'safety'.

  As with many politicians, Clark is hilariously (but dangerously) clueless when it comes to technology and online culture, especially about the issues surrounding anonymity. This is a little less surprising when you see that Clark had been 'listening and believing' to Brianna Wu[182].

  Clark has made something of a mini-career out of intervening in various online controversies, such as the (quickly forgotten) fuss around the 'game' Stolen[183] and a pulled panel at SXSW[184]. She is an example of a trend of authoritarians and censors within governments of latching onto the 'online safety' narrative as a way to try and introduce extended regulation and control of the Internet[185].

  At best the attempts of people like Clark and Phillips are clueless[186], at worst they're a cynical exploitation of other people's ignorance and desire to protect women, to push an agenda of control. We have seen the model at work already with the increasing censorship of Internet pornography in the UK, via disingenuous manufacture of a link between pornography and trafficking[187]. The result has lit
tle or nothing to do with what they claim to be fighting, and everything to do with censorship, control and the enforcement of a (small 'c') conservative moral viewpoints.

  The irony of all of this is that the people being exploited to push these political agendas are often the kinds of people who get caught up in the resulting censorship. As people of unconventional sexuality or who have been involved in pornography – as many of Gamergate's opponents have been – they're likely to end up harmed by the very restrictions and political agendas they are enabling. This has been especially notable as tightened restrictions have hit the LGBT community, making their content less searchable, less monetizable and less visible.

  Women in Tech

  There's a long-standing issue with women in STEM careers (science, technology, engineering and mathematics)[188]. The blame for this is placed on various causes. Whether it constitutes a problem or not is also a subject of debate – especially thanks to the Gender Equality Paradox. This paradox can be summed up in this way, people in the most egalitarian countries tend to make the most gendered career choices.

  Lots of money and effort has been spent trying to push women towards STEM careers, intervening in the school system and getting women who do work in tech to act as role models to younger women. This does not, however, appear to have had any significant effect, in fact, the number of women in STEM roles is declining (at least in the USA) and fewer men, too, are going for these careers.

  In one camp there are essentialists – to one degree or another - who argue that this is down to hard-wired gender differences in behaviour and desire. That men are simply more inherently interested in mechanics and linear problem solving, while women are more interested in relationship-oriented issues. In the other camp are constructivists, of varying levels, who argue that these roles and proclivities are entirely socially constructed.