What Gamergate should have taught us about the 'alt-right'

[morningstar2651]

Twitter is not, or should not be serious business. It's not required social media. People taking the mickey out of you on it is not harassment, for goodness sake.

Now this is an interesting belief.

What is different between doing this in person or on twitter?

 

[Skavau]

So now whe have two possible scenarios -

Either several people that identify as supporters of GamerGate target the targets of GamerGate for harassment because they are supporters of GamerGate that are participating in GamerGate's organized campaigns.

"Organized Campaigns"

You keep using this word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Several people that identify as supporters of GamerGate coincidentally target the targets of GamerGate for harassment independent of GamerGate's organized operations.

The only 'organised operations' of GG have been writing campaigns to advertising companies, and that's mostly stopped now.

Either way, you haven't found an adequate explanation for what makes targeting journalists for stalking, harassment, or death threats an acceptable behavior and you haven't found a defense of GamerGate's organized harassment campaigns

I never, at any point said it ever was justified. I said that it was primarily being conducted by anonymous trolls. Their affiliation is assumed. Even their numbers are assumed. A dedicated troll could easily be responsible for hundreds of different accounts across multiple platforms.

 

[Skavau]

Now this is an interesting belief.

What is different between doing this in person or on twitter?

You can self-censor your Twitter. You can block people on Twitter. You can report people on Twitter. You can protect your account. You can close Twitter. There's no implied threat of escalation through violence.

The whole purpose of Twitter is an open platform. You tweet, you scream to the world, and if you're somewhat known, somewhat followed, guess what, you'll get tweeted at.

 

[super animator]

Ethan Ralph

Did a quick look up, turns out that guy has been arrested and jailed for assaulting a police officer, it turns out he gloated over a girl(From I can tell GG supporter) suicide death and attack her love ones, and creating an article attacking Liana K(Well known GG supporter). Lurking in Kia one of the members mention that they kicked him out.

You know, a self declare leader don't mean xe actually a leader you know.

 

[morningstar2651]

Did a quick look up, turns out that guy has been arrested and jailed for assaulting a police officer, it turns out he gloated over a girl(From I can tell GG supporter) suicide death and attack her love ones, and creating an article attacking Liana K(Well known GG supporter). Lurking in Kia one of the members mention that they kicked him out.

A prominent leader of Gamergate was just arrested on charges of assaulting a police officer
One of Gamergate's most prominent voices, Ethan Ralph, was arrested recently on two counts of assault on law enforcement and one count of obstruction of justice.

He allegedly "assaulted a deputy," according to the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office report.

Ralph is well-known within the online Gamergate community for a website he runs, The Ralph Retort. It's a Rush Limbaugh-esque take on the world of video games.

 

[Skavau]

A prominent leader of Gamergate was just arrested on charges of assaulting a police officer
One of Gamergate's most prominent voices, Ethan Ralph, was arrested recently on two counts of assault on law enforcement and one count of obstruction of justice.

He allegedly "assaulted a deputy," according to the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office report.

Ralph is well-known within the online Gamergate community for a website he runs, The Ralph Retort. It's a Rush Limbaugh-esque take on the world of video games.

But his arrest has nothing to do with GG, or even harassment or making threats.

And I'm sorry, but he was NEVER a "prominent leader" of GG.

 

[super animator]

A prominent leader of Gamergate

Ok that just plan bull. Who, besides himself consider him to be their leader? I bet tiny to nonexistent.

 

[morningstar2651]

You can self-censor your Twitter. You can block people on Twitter. You can report people on Twitter. You can protect your account. You can close Twitter. There's no implied threat of escalation through violence.

The whole purpose of Twitter is an open platform. You tweet, you scream to the world, and if you're somewhat known, somewhat followed, guess what, you'll get tweeted at.

Does that mean you can legally harass people or threaten to murder them on Twitter and not have to fear any consequences?

If someone were to do such things to you in person, you could self-censor by putting on head phones or locking your doors. I see no reason that harassment or death threats in person should be any less legal than over email or twitter.

 

[super animator]

Does that mean you can legally harass people or threaten to murder them on Twitter and not have to fear any consequences?

If someone were to do such things to you in person, you could self-censor by putting on head phones or locking your doors.

THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING!!!!

 

[morningstar2651]

In this thread we now have arguments about how it's less wrong to harass people on Twitter or threaten to murder them online than if you were to commit those acts in person or over the phone.

This thread is the gift that keeps on giving. I look forward to more elaborate justifications and excuses for harassment.

 

[Skavau]

Does that mean you can legally harass people or threaten to murder them on Twitter and not have to fear any consequences?

No?

We're not talking about threats. We're talking about general behaviour. Twitter is a place of parody accounts, satire, criticism, mockery, even contemptuous indignation towards others. The kind of argumentative back and forth comments that float around on Twitter (and on this forum) could never be in real life, between two people. Interactions between anonymous or pseudonymous strangers online will have a lack of restraint and honesty that is implicit in our daily interactions. Just like how interactions at work or at home are distinct.

You can also always excuse yourself from, or filter out your Twitter. There are plenty of things you can do on there if you don't like being the recipient of negative comments.

If someone were to do such things to you in person, you could self-censor by putting on head phones or locking your doors. I see no reason that harassment or death threats in person should be any less legal than over email or twitter.

Sometimes you can. If someone I don't want to talk to comes to my door, I close it. I don't let them in. If they try force themselves in, it escalates.

I have never said that death threats should be legal over Twitter. Stop bringing it back to that. It's dishonest. I've objected to your unstated premise that insults, mockery, parody and bulk mentions constitute harassment on Twitter.

 

[morningstar2651]

THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING!!!!

Really? How are they different? Let's say you threatened to murder someone. Do you think law enforcement is going to be cool with it if you do it online instead of in a letter or over the phone?

 

[morningstar2651]

No?

We're not talking about threats. We're talking about general behaviour. Twitter is a place of parody accounts, satire, criticism, mockery, even contemptuous indignation towards others. The kind of argumentative back and forth comments that float around on Twitter (and on this forum) could never be in real life, between two people. Interactions between anonymous or pseudonymous strangers online will have a lack of restraint and honesty that is implicit in our daily interactions. Just like how interactions at work or at home are distinct.

You can also always excuse yourself from, or filter out your Twitter. There are plenty of things you can do on there if you don't like being the recipient of negative comments.


Sometimes you can. If someone I don't want to talk to comes to my door, I close it. I don't let them in. If they try force themselves in, it escalates.

I have never said that death threats should be legal over Twitter. Stop bringing it back to that. It's dishonest. I've objected to your unstated premise that insults, mockery, parody and bulk mentions constitute harassment on Twitter.

How do you think harassment is defined...legally? Would you consider sending nude pictures of someone to their family a form of harassment?

 

[Skavau]

In this thread we now have arguments about how it's less wrong to harass people on Twitter or threaten to murder them online than if you were to commit those acts in person or over the phone.

I have never, at any point, said that threats to murder are less wrong online than in real life. Since you're so insistent to beat this dead topic and to force some kind of confession from me, I'll indulge you.

Online threats are almost always toothless and impotent, produced by anonymous non-entities with no motive or ability to ever carry them out. You may view them as a blight, I view their presence as mere graffiti. That is a cultural difference. A death threat from a 1 day old Twitter Egg account from someone half a world away from you is hardly likely to strike fear in the same way as someone threatening you in person, in real life. For obvious reasons.

That said, if you feel someone has the capacity to act out their threat, by all means, report them to the services. I just, in 99.9% of cases, seriously doubt it.

This thread is the gift that keeps on giving. I look forward to more elaborate justifications and excuses for harassment.

At no point have I ever made any excuse or justification for harassment. You have not even defined what you regard as harassment.

You see us objecting to points you made and assert our objection in itself is somehow proof of our support of harassment. This is dishonest debating 101.

 

[Skavau]

How do you think harassment is defined...legally? Would you consider sending nude pictures of someone to their family a form of harassment?

Yes.

Being mentioned rudely on Twitter is not that.

 

[Skavau]

Really? How are they different? Let's say you threatened to murder someone. Do you think law enforcement is going to be cool with it if you do it online instead of in a letter or over the phone?

Probably not, but if law enforcement spent their time dealing with all text threats, that would be all they'd do, and there'd be an awful lot of 13 year olds incarcerated.

 

[Cearbhall]

The 2014 online hate-storm presaged the tactics of the Trump-loving far right movement. Prominent critics of the president elect should take note.

I hadn't thought about that. But indeed, these two online brigades were very much the same and quite obviously had a lot of overlap.

 

[morningstar2651]

The only 'organised operations' of GG have been writing campaigns to advertising companies, and that's mostly stopped now.

There is currently an ongoing operation targeting Crash Override, which is the organization Zoe Quinn founded to help targets of online harassment campaigns

 

[super animator]

Really? How are they different?

Well for starters if that guy did it "in person" then that guy is a total idiot, as anyone can quickly identify him and have the police arrest him.

On twitter, it just a bunch on nameless dudes blowing hot air. There is no reason why they can hurt you when compare to the idiot in real life. (Unless they show evidence that they are completely serious about this, then it's entirely a different story.)

 

[MoonlessNight]

Honestly the election taught us more about online discourse than the OP article ever will.

And the biggest lesson for this thread is this:

You will influence more people by posting dumb image macros online than you will by trying to convince someone who has called you a nazi that he might be judging you unfairly.