[Archive]: I have rewritten this piece in light of constructive criticism I have received from both sides of the controversy. Thanks to everyone who read my work and sent me feedback, it has been a great help.
“It’s actually about ethics in…” a look into #GamerGate and #NotYourShield
I am an aspiring journalist at the University of Aberdeen studying Politics and International Relations. As an avid gamer I have been following the events of #GamerGate and #NotYourShield closely since August. This article aims to provide an accessible account of the events for newcomers and a concise reference for those familiar.
Update 1 (12/04/15 14:23): Correction. Milo Yiannopoulos is a contributor and an associate Editor at Breitbart London, not editor-in-chief. Typographical errors addressed and formatting changes introduced to video titles.
Update 2 (27/04/15 13:35): Correction: Ben Kuchera is at Polygon, not Kotaku. Section on #ExpoGate and the Calgary Expo controversy added. The author would also like to reaffirm that this is intended to be concise, links to more in depth accounts are hyperlinked. More edits and updates will follow, I rely on my audience to keep me right, so please comment on twitter.
Update 3 (29/04/15 21:52): Added David Pakman’s interview with Honey Badger Radio founder Alison Tieman without further comment. Title format changed on NotYourShield video title.
As a supporter of the GamerGate hashtag I am tired of the poor quality of journalism displayed in articles on the topic. Poorly researched and often biased, they show little to no integrity. As a gamer, as a modern liberal, as an egalitarian, and as an admittedly fair-weather feminist I am sick to death of being labelled a misogynist harasser by hacks in games media. That said, I feel it is necessary to give credit where it is due to writers and commentators such as Erik Kain (@erikkain) (Forbes), Chris Von Csefalvay (@chrisvcsefalvay), David Pakman (@dpakman) (David Pakman Show) and Christina Hoff Sommers (@CHSommers) (Factual Feminist) for their attempts to provide the public with an objective account of the movement, its attributes and its goals.
Below I will attempt to provide as-objective-as-possible a narrative of GamerGate as I can. I have necessarily abridged this section so it’s not an information overload. If you want more details #GamerGate Wiki has a great timeline of the events that I would recommend. While this post aims to inform, it will inevitably contain opinion as many of the points I will make are contentious.
GamerGate is a twitter hashtag, consumer revolt and leaderless online community of gamers geared at improving the ethical practices in games media and journalism. The past seven months have been turbulent, with each day producing new controversy. Allegations of misogyny, doxing (leaking a person’s personal details online), and other forms of harassment have been levelled at the hashtag, though it is broadly understood that this is the work of online-trolls on Twitter, Reddit and 8Chan.
The ‘movement’ originated in a tweet by actor Adam Baldwin — best known for his roles in Chuck, Full Metal Jacket and Firefly — on 27th of August 2014, where he linked two videos on the ‘Quinnspiracy’.
The Quinnspiracy was the controversial reaction to “The Zoe Post”, a scathing account of independent gamer developer (indie-dev) Zoe Quinn’s infidelity to her then boyfriend, the post’s author Eron Gjoni. Initial interest surrounding the blog revolved around allegations that Quinn had been in a sexual relation with Nathan Grayson (Rock Paper Shotgun, Kotaku). Some inferred that this relationship led to Grayson providing Quinn’s game Depression Quest with favourable coverage, implying a conflict of interest.
Stephen Totilo, editor-in-chief at Kotaku, refuted these allegations, citing Grayson’s article as not involving Quinn’s game and claiming no favourable coverage was given. Whether a conflict of interest occurred or not, ethically this closeness was questionable and had provided the proto-#GamerGate community with a reason to further explore suspected collusion and breaches of ethics in video-games journalism.
Following Baldwin’s tweet of the hashtag, articles with titles such as “The End of Gamers” “’Gamers’ don’t have to be your audience. ‘Gamers’ are over” and “We Might Be Witnessing The ‘Death of An Identity’” began to appear on 28th August from sites such as Gamasutra, Kotaku and Ars Technica.
#GamerGate in 60 Seconds
#GamerGate — If It’s Not About Ethics…
#GamerGate: TotalBiscuit on Ethics, Was Offered Free Stuff for Reviews
Fast-forward a couple of weeks to 17th September 2014 with Breitbart London contributor Milo Yiannopoulos’(@nero) leaking of the GameJournoPros email list. Arguably one of the defining moments of early GamerGate, this in-part confirmed suspicions of collusion long held by the gaming community. Key insights from the list include Ben Kuchera’s (@BenKuchera) (Polygon) calls for the silencing of discussion in forums about GamerGate.
On the 20th September 2014 the GamerGate forums of The Escapist Magazine were taken down by a DDoS (denial of service) attack with co-founder Alexander Macris tweeting “A DDOS attack is currently underway against @TheEscapistMag. The attackers are specifically targeting the GamerGate forum thread.” Erik Kain at the time speculated that the timing of the attack following the GameJournoPros revelations was suspicious.
The 30th September brought discussion by Jack Conte (@jackconte), the CEO of Patreon, of taking down the Sarkeesian Effect’s funding page due to people being upset by its content. The documentary, by Jordan Owen (@jordanowen42) and Davis Aurini (@Aurini), aims to cover the turbulent gaming and tech community, culminating in a look at GamerGate from a neutral standpoint. While popular among GamerGate supporters the film has garnered criticism and received suggestions such as the creators finding a third party commentator to narrate the film so as to distance themselves due to their reputations and political leanings (C.H. Sommers was suggested).
Early October 2014 saw Intel drop its advertisements from Gamasutra, due to email complaints by gamers about the site — more specifically an article by Leigh Alexander (@leighalexander). Intel would later back pedal from this and start a heavily criticised partnership with Anita Sarkeesian’s Feminist Frequency and other groups to promote unspecified ‘diversity’ in the technology industry.
Around this time early reports of Randi Harper’s (@freebsdgirl) ggautoblocker began to surface. The blocker and other similar tools like the Atheism+ Block Bot have been arguably the main focus of GamerGate’s criticism in recent months. Notable figures such as; Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) — author of The Selfish Gene, The God Delusion, and fellow at the University of Oxford — and Mark Kern (@Grummz), former lead developer on World of Warcraft, have fallen foul of these blocking lists. Key criticisms of the tools include; breaking UK data protection laws, censoring differing political ideologies, blacklisting industry professionals for their private views, and squashing dissent and discussion. The hashtag #AreYouBlocked of the last few days (April 2015) has been trending heavily on twitter, with many commentators levelling harsh contempt and criticism on the tools.
On the 17th of April members of the Honey Badger Brigade, a group of mostly female podcast creators who discuss ‘geek culture’ and gender issues, were ejected from the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo on hearsay. The given reason was harrassment, though no clear evidence of this has been made public. This coupled with the poor quality of journalism on the events and heavily conflicting accounts lead me to believe there was foul play on the part of the expo’s management. Allum Bokhari at Breitbart London produced a good piece on the events (Disclosure: Bokhari is a vocal proponent of GamerGate).
The Honey Badgers quickly released a statement and have since began legal proceedings. In the statement a “precedent” for this sort of behaviour by convention organizers was discussed, leaving many like myself unsurpirsed when Denver Comic Con began ‘grumbling’ about GamerGate.
#GamerGate: Alison Tieman Claims Political Persecution for Expo Expulsion, Rejects Hate Group Status
The situation with Denver is as of now (27th April) too early to comment on with surety, so I ask that readers wait for my updated coverage on this.
#NotYourShield is Gamergate’s primary sister-hashtag and arguably a community unto itself. It is composed of female, minority and marginalised (physically & mentally disabled and LGBT+) gamers. The hashtag’s origins are in a tweet by user Ninouh-210 (@Ninouh90) on the 2nd September 2014.
Gaining almost instant popularity and infamy, the hashtag aims to break down the narrative that those opposed to GamerGate and other groups represent the minority or oppressed people in the community. The community has been attacked with derision, vitriol and claims of being ‘Sock Puppets’ (a term given to someone who has no agency/original thought or an account on social media controlled by another user).
Giving Voice to the Voiceless: The #NotYourShield Project
With GamerGate and NotYourShield gaining traction the stage had been set for what some are calling a ‘culture war’. What had initially started as a consumer boycott of poor journalism and a push for agency by downtrodden gamers was now something much more.
The idea that GamerGate is the climax of a culture war is not new, but is a contentious topic. Prior to the hashtag and the end of gamers articles a conflict of smaller scale occurred within the Atheism community. A group calling themselves Atheism+ had aligned feminist theories of intersectionality and socialist theories of equality with atheism and religious scepticism. The group garnered a lot of criticism for its exclusionary policies, us-versus-them mentality and lack of true scepticism. Around the same time a sub-culture of YouTube vloggers began to address concerns that radical elements of feminism and other left-wing movements were unfairly condemning ‘fan-doms’ (franchises, genres or mediums in pop-culture that have distinct fan-bases) and making fallacious or unfounded claims about them.
Targets of criticism were Tumblr, Anita Sarkeesian’s (Feminist Frequency) Tropes vs. Women series (especially controversy surrounding its funding) and Atheism+. Often ranting and vitriolic, a select few commentators attempted to address their concerns through refutation videos, fact checking and cross-analysis, in a similar way to the current crop of GamerGate YouTube vloggers. I remember stumbling upon Thunderf00t and Internet Aristocrat’s videos around this time.
Sometimes distasteful and fallacious, these kinds videos did begin to address what Bill Maher (@billmaher) is calling “Liberals vs. Liberals”, where the left is tearing itself apart over political correctness and arguments of privilege. Considering the savagely partisan political climate we live in today, these sorts of online conflicts of ideology should not be surprising.
Comments are welcome. Please be polite. ☺
This article will be updated with further research and developments periodically. Please contact the author on twitter @alasdairfraser8 with comment or if you feel that something is incorrect, with correction. Request for reproduction should be directed to twitter also where email details will be provided through direct message due to the controversial nature of the subject matter.
